Patrick May: October 3 – november 2
Portrait Photo Considered Harmful
Saturday October 24th, 4-6pm: Autotune the Art Object
The Last Unicorn, 2009
Patrick May creates lush digital prints which investigate notions of identity and authorship. His current series, “Portrait Photo Considered Harmful”, remixes the familial portrait and vacation photography of social networking into mythical icons. He received a BS in Studio Art from New York University in 1999. His work has been exhibited in New York, Miami, and Berlin, including Maiden Brooklyn, ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts, and the Galerie Scherer 8. He currently works in Brooklyn, NY creating intimate portraits of his friends and family.
Church of Monika
Despite our trepidation about the influence of religion, and specifically the church, on politics, there is no doubt that the fostering of community is it’s strongest public contribution. At open source gallery, our main object is outreach. We seek proposals from artists and input from neighbors. Although we are primarily a local Brooklyn gallery we accept proposals and have exhibited international artists in keeping with the global village concept. As evidenced by the variety and reach of our shows, we are truly “open source.”
In addition to our monthly exhibitions, on Sundays, we will establish the “Church of Monika” with the intention of communicating and demonstrating the role art can and should have on community. Our experiences with the Soap Box Derby Camp and subsequent race, as well as our annual Soup Kitchen in December, have validated our desire to move forward in this direction. We are located in a Brooklyn neighborhood underserved by the arts and we hope to remedy the situation in whatever small way we can.
The “Church” will be a moderated town hall type of meeting rather than a sermon with topics varying each week. Snacks and coffee will be served, doubling the event’s function as it becomes an alternative to brunch with bloody marys. Without doubt, Park Slope has an abudance of writers, including our friends at the Brooklyn Writers Space. Readings will be included on a regular basis. On the September 17th Brain Lehrer Show on WNYC, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq were guests. Inspired by their Ramadan journey through NYC’s Muslim Community ( http://30mosques.tumblr.com ), we have contacted them with the hopes that they might want to join us one Sunday. A neighbor and fellow artist friend of ours sings weekly in her church choir and we have invited them to perform in our gallery. Of course, this is an art gallery and that will be the general focus, but we are open to performers and thinkers of any ilk. The schedule is yet to be completed but these are some initial ideas.
The origin of our concept stems from our mutual admiration of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. This profound monument to the freedom and pursuit of self-reflection is a model of art as a surrogate for religion. We take a non-denominational and tolerant attitude in our journey through life and our hope is to build an alliance with people of all faiths and world-views. We suffer no delusions of grandeur, we only seek to inspire and be inspired by the art of life and community.
Severin Hagen and Sebastian Koch
All Sundays in June, 11am
The Artists in residence Sebastian Koch and Severin Hagen will host all Sundays in June. You are welcome to stop by and see the progress of their work, have a coffee and enjoy a conversation with them.
above: Severin Hagen: Bergwetter, Alpenglühen, mixed media, ca. 70x20x35cm
right: Sebastian Koch: The Beatles, Acrylic on wood, 40x50cm
Miho Suzuki: Our Children Today
May 30th 11am
“If we were able to in a quick flight over the United States in 1950 to look carefully at our nation’s children- what would we see?” How would the picture be different from what it was fifty or even ten years ago? What can we expect in the future? These are questions that can, at least in part, be answered.”
–Leona Baumgartner, M.D.
From the short essay, A Look at Children in The U.S.A., this quote has served as inspiration for Miho Suzuki’s ongoing photographic exploration of the glorious diversity of children in New York City. The artist will be sharing some of her images and ideas, and hopefully inspiring young and old to join her in a discussion of what it means to be a child. Please feel free to bring toys or favorite objects from your childhood to this May 30th edition of the cHURCH OF MONIKA.
James Leonard: Seeing in 5 dimensions
May 23rd 11am
During a period of self-reinvention, artist James Leonard began a visual exploration of four and five dimensional cubes. Arcane maybe, though not unheard of. Mathematicians have worked in higher dimensions for generations. Computers have allowed the construction of pristine, yet often impenetrable, renderings of “cubes” in ten dimensions and more. Unique from these predecessors, Leonard conducts his daily drawings by hand without device. He seeks to gain direct sensorial knowledge of these shapes and the higher dimensions they represent. The result has been a cognitive gymnastics best described as a strange form of Pythagorean transcendental meditation. After one year of private devotion, Leonard will share his technique with congregates at the cHURCH OF MONIKA.
If you are mathematically challenged, do not fear! This presentation will be step-by-step, interactive, and provide you with all the tools you need to draw your own higher dimensional shapes.
http://www.jamesleonard.org/
on view now
Peter Feigenbaum “Trainset Ghetto: Streetsmart”09.04.-09.30.2010 Opening: Saturday 09.04.2010 7-10pm In September 2010, Peter will be showing a new series of large-scale photographs at Open Source Gallery based on a site-specific installation of his “Trainset Ghetto” sets on the street in front of the gallery storefront space. The images will feature increasingly bizarre and phantasmagorical juxtapositions of time, scale, and [...]
upcoming
ORFI NYC: LIVE GIG 2010
Nobuko: wa
Pirmin Hagen: First
past
Images NYC
make Soap Box Racers for the Soap Box Derby
ONE BIG WINDMILL
Open Source Residency w/Austrian Artists
Patricia Watwood: Portraits 20/10
Cornucopias: Paintings by Rachel Youens
Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau: Wang Bin Torture in Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality
Akiyuki Ina: Emitting Evanescent Beauty
John Coburn: Fairlane Marauder
Soup Kitchen 12.1 – 12.24