All posts tagged: Zahra Sherzad

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.11.18

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.11.18

March 11, 2018 ,

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Art was popping up like crokuses and animated robots all week here in NYC with a plethora of art fairs gathered under Armory Week, a number of fresh green gallery openings, and the welcome sign of perturbed perennials appearing on the street.

Although it is not surprising in any way any more, Street Artists are represented across all three of those options today, like Pixote, Swoon, and Ian Strange (Kid Zoom) at Spring/Break. Also John Matos, aka Crash One, and Lady Aiko in conversation with cultural critic and curator Carlo McCormick moderated by Harrison Tenzer of Sotheby’s at Scope. And you can’t forget the gallery openings of Buff Monster with Dalek, and the first solo show of Brendan Fagen (the artist formerly known as Judith Supine).

You try to see as much as possible, and of course a number of non-Street Art installations caught our eye like the top image of Fernando Orellana‘s animated “Robot Protest”, which you can participate in HERE, and see a video of at the end of this post. For the actual street we’ll mention some new art in ad places from Abe Lincoln Jr and Swiss Miss as a dominatrix in pink latex and Trump as the submissive on bus shelters.

Socio-political themes continue to erupt wherever you look, including the street-side demonstrations against the Sackler family and their connections with the opiod crisis and institutional art patronage that took place in front of (with a “die-in” inside) the Metropolitan Museum yesterday. If these are the early signs of spring, what will it look like in full bloom?

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets (and elsewhere), this week featuring Anna Kustera, Annette Bragasuma, Danielle Mastrion, Demsky, DrscO, Eric Mistretta, Fernando Orellana, Ian Strange, Jonathatn Rosen, Laura O’Reilly, Abe Lincoln Jr. LMNOPI, Megzany, Pixote, Praxis VGZ, Sarah Walkco, Screw Tape, Stick N Twisted, Stylist of the Lambs, Swiss Miss NYC, and Turtle Caps.

Top Image: Fernando Orellana’s “You’ll Never Know We Were Here” at Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Sarah Walko. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ian Strange. Burn Series at Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Zahra Sherzad. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#DOMMINGDONALD Phone booth ad takeover in collaboration with Abe Lincoln Jr., Swiss Miss NYC, NYC Hookerand Annette Bragas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

#DOMMINGDONALD Phone booth ad takeover in collaboration with Abe Lincoln Jr., Swiss Miss NYC, NYC Hooker and Annette Bragas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lock Him Up: A custom made jacket worn by Stylist Of The Lambs. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meta messages collide in this new slap from Screw Tape. Andre the Giant wears a Shepard Fairey design in the style of Obey while Obey posters feature Fairey over “Defy”.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Danielle Mastrion (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jonathan Rosen. “Double Life” at Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Laura O’Reilly. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Turtle Caps and some classic cartoon characters (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixote. “Future Primitive”. Detail. Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Zahra Sherzad. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixote. “Future Primitive” Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Zahra Sherzad. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Praxis VGZ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Demsky (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stick N Twisted (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Eric Mistretta. “The Wrong Place” Spring/Break Art Show 2018. Curated by Anna Kustera. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Megzany (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Drsc0 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. The Paramount Building. Times Square, NYC. March 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

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Ann Lewis + StudioSpaceNYC Leave Things “Unspoken” in Manhattan

Ann Lewis + StudioSpaceNYC Leave Things “Unspoken” in Manhattan

February 5, 2018 ,

Some existential thoughts and questions are left UNSPOKEN in our lives. A new collaborative exhibit in a 14th Street pop-up space offers you the opportunity to engage with some of yours. Of course, you need not say anything.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist/conceptual artist Ann Lewis has been working with the design team of studioSPACEnyc to create and interactive an experiential installation incorporating linear digital rainstorms of light-mapped emotion and memory for you to lay beneath and look up into as it glitters and trickles and flickers across your mind. You may also just wish to walk around them as they flicker in geometric masses, easily punctuated by your hand or body.

Lewis invites you to contemplate weightier (or loftier) matters of impermanence and infinity with toe tags hanging at the end of these 115,000 feet of reflective strings. To further engage with the immersive installation, you can leave your mark on one of the toe tags by filling out short answers to some of life’s magnificient and somehow elusive questions.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We spoke with the artist and the curator, Zahra Sherzad, of Killer Media, who produced the exhibition that runs through February 15th.

Brooklyn Street Art: You have used toe tags previously in your work. What do they symbolize for you.
Ann Lewis: Toe tags carry the weight of our lives on them. As much as their 5 or 6 lines can define a person they’re so impersonal but infer this inevitability to the living. I have used them in the past to humanize the data surrounding those who have lost their lives to police brutality, or drug addiction. They have, up until this point, symbolized a finality.

Brooklyn Street Art: As an interactive exhibit, viewers are invited to contribute their answers to rather existential questions like “ Do we actually exist” and “What is the ultimate freedom?” How did you arrive at these questions?
Ann Lewis: While developing this project the curator Zahra Sherzad and I lost a mutual friend to drug addiction. I spent a lot of time considering her death and began to recognize for the first time that the only reason I’ve ever feared death is because of the loss I associate with it when others have passed. Then I began to consider what if death is an amazing adventure? Just because it’s an unknown doesn’t mean it has to be feared. I went down a meta wormhole wondering if we’re even alive right now! It’s so great not to have the answers

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Immersive exhibitions usually have to strike a balance between leaving you alone and engaging you to participate. How do you plan for the variety of responses?
Ann Lewis: In my opinion good installation art must really consider how a participant will flow through the space. It must offer space and time for reflection as well as opportunities to engage. I like to offer those opportunities at the beginning of the experience and if possible create a movement throughout the space that is nonlinear which lends itself to personalized, unique experiences that in turn become strong memories that stay with the participant long after she leaves the space.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: When you work on the street do you ever think of elements or people in public space as part of your exhibition?
Ann Lewis: That’s the first thing I think of even before I know what the work will be. A good percentage of the work I’ve put outside has been site specific. Scouting is such a fun part of the job. One must recognize the context in which the work will be viewed in order to really have the opportunity to create an impactful experience for the viewer.

Brooklyn Street Art: What would be a good outcome for you if you could chose a viewers experience at this show?
Ann Lewis: I think having a participant leave the space questioning her understanding of her own perception of our world would be very exciting.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How did you select Ann Lewis and studioSPACEart for this exhibition?
Zahra Sherzad: We wanted to create an interactive art installation, around the conversation of dying with dignity for the TV series “Kill Me”. We chose Ann as a multidisciplinary activist artist using painting, installation, and participatory performance. She has an ongoing work called “…and counting”, an interactive installation made with hung toe tags.  We brought the StudioSpaceNYC boys in with their projection mapping strings to add a cinematic experience and as a way to transport people into another world.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your projects have a social mission that runs parallel to your exhibits you curate. Are there particular symbols here that resonate with that mission?
Zahra Sherzad: “Unspoken” is a way to provoke thought around how we view death, which is what the series “Kill Me” is about.  We are not telling people what to think nor are we asking them to take a definitive position on the issues around mercy killing and dying with dignity. The viewers of the exhibition are asked to participate by filling out a questionnaire tailored to the shows script on the toe tags that asks questions about their relationship and experience with death.  As the days tick forward the installation grows as participants add new tags.

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc “Unspoken”. Manhattan, NYC. February 2018. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

UNSPOKEN

Ann Lewis + studioSPACEnyc

January 18 – February 15, 2018

Killer Impact, a Killer Content company, is pleased to present “Unspoken” – a collaborative exhibit between artists Ann Lewis and studioSPACEnyc, curated by Killer’s Director of Visual Art, Zahra Sherzad at
149 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011.

 

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Swoon: “Pearly’s Beauty Shop” in LA Helps You Be a Glamorous Philanthropist

Swoon: “Pearly’s Beauty Shop” in LA Helps You Be a Glamorous Philanthropist

May 19, 2016

SWOON and “Pearly’s Beauty Shop” are back!
Heliotrope Benefit!
Buy your TIX for Saturday 5/21 in Los Angeles HERE!

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BSA was an early and fervent supporter of the very first Pearly’s Beauty Shop nearly four years ago in Long Island City, New York: Swoon herself was there painting nails and the brand-new Braddock Tile architectural model was on display amongst all the lace-paper cut constructions, hair dressers, stylists, costumers, swirling lights and DJs.

This Saturday in downtown Los Angeles the 2016 Artist-Run Soiree named “Pearly’s” will dwarf that first one in star power, sponsors, co-hosts, DJs, guest curators, performance artists, hair dioramas, costumes, glitter, and rouge.brooklyn-street-art-swoon-pearlys-beauty-shop-superchief-gallery-web-1

Hosted by Superchief Gallery and benefitting Swoon’s Heliotrope Foundation, you are invited to re-imagine fantastically your personal aesthetics with a bevy of talented professionals at the ready to help make dreams come true – and to fund Heliotrope so it can help communities to heal after natural disasters, economic blight, and other urgent social crisis.

Juxtapoz’s Evan Pricco has curated a list of cool artists for an exclusive Pearly’s 2016 print release, Shepard Fairey will be at the wheels of steel, and Brooklyn babe now Hollywood bombshell Marsea Goldberg is curating a special exhibition called “Vanity”. Also, an auction curated by Raina Mehler and Andrew Lockhart.

Also, surprises. That’s all we can say.

West Coast Represent!!

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SWOON invites you to Pearly’s Beauty Shop
Saturday, May 21, 2016
7 pm to 1 am
Superchief Gallery
739 Kohler St, Los Angeles, California 90021

TICKETS: Tickets start at $50 and can be purchased at bit.ly/pearlys2016
DRESS CODE: Come as you are

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PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pearlys-beauty-shop-tickets-24667609484

  • HOST COMMITTEE: Swizz Beatz • Jane Golden • Sallyann Kluz • Andrew Lockhart • Karmimadeebora McMillan • Sandra Powell • Zahra Sherzad • Anthony Spiegel • Ryan Nuckel • KT Tierney • Natalie Kates • Bill Dunleavy • Edward Zipco • Marsea Goldberg • Als Kenny • Ryland Behrens • Tamara Goldstein • Lisa Shimamura • Andrew Edward Brown • Liat Cohen • JL Sirisuk • Raina Mehler • Alex Fanning • Afrodet Zuri • Andrea Fiona Pagliai Londoño • Siovan Hope Ross • Adam Lehrer • Kristin Sancken • Charlotte Reed • Kurt McVey

Pearly’s Beauty Shop 2016 thanks Jefferson Projects; Juxtapoz Magazine; Lagunitas Brewing Company; Stolen Rum; Gary Lichtenstein Editions at Mana; Art Report; ArtLeadHER; and Red Flower for their generous support. Pearly’s is pleased to partner with LAMP Community, a Skid Row-based organization seeking to end homelessness and foster self-sufficiency among those living with severe mental illness.

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