2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Sunday April 25

* Anita Baker * Allman Brothers Band * Darius Rucker * Jonny Lang * The Levon Helm Band * Juan Luis Guerra y 440 * Imagination Movers * Keely Smith * King Sunny Ade & His African Beats * Blind Boys of Alabama * Susan Cowsill Band * Marcia Ball * Shawn Colvin * Donald Harrison * Voice of the Wetlands All Stars * Theresa Andersson * Louisiana LeRoux feat. Tab Benoit * The Radiators – Pre-War Blues * Wayne Toups & Zydecajun * The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong feat. Wycliffe Gordon, James Andrews, and Victor Goines * Irvin Mayfield & the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra * Big Chief Kevin Goodman & the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indians * Free Agents Brass Band * Golden Blade and Ninth Ward Navajo Mardi Gras Indians * Golden Star Hunters and Carrollton Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Jeremy Davenport * Big Chief Monk Boudreaux & the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians * Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience * Preservation Hall Jazz Band * James Andrews & the Crescent City Allstars * New Orleans Klezmer Allstars * Susan Cowsill * Grayson Capps * Mark Braud’s New Orleans Jazz Giants * Guitar Slim, Jr. * Tribute to Juanita Brooks feat. Germaine Bazzle, Leah Chase, and Betty Shirley * Storyville Stompers Brass Band * Lionel Ferbos & the Palm Court Jazz Band * The Electrifying Crown Seekers * Watson Memorial Music Ministries * Honey Island Swamp Band * Seguenon Kone & L’Ivoire Spectacle * Marc Stone * BateauKracBook Stiltwalkers * Kim Carson * Michael Ward * Original Dixieland Jazz Band * Miss Sophie Lee * Sammy Rimington’s Jubilee Band * Goldman Thibodeaux & the Lawtell Playboys * Sonny Bourg & the Bayou Blues Band * Nineveh Mass Choir * Gospel Soul Children * Rumba Buena * Minister Jai Reed * Robert ‘One String’ Gibson * Julio y Cesar * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Untouchables * Furious Five, and Big Steppers Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs * Young Pinstripe Brass Band * Gospel Stars * Voices of Distinction * University of New Orleans Jazz Ensemble * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Olympia Aid * New Look, and the First Division Social Aid & Pleasure Club * Young Audiences presents Gal Holiday & the Honky Tonk Revue * Angela the Yarnspinner * New Orleans Traditional Brass Band with the Heel to Toe Steppers * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Red Hot Brass Band * Kai Knight’s Dance Academy * Guardians of the Flame

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream. Information from Jazz Fest website. Graphic from Google image search for 'Marcia Ball 'Photo by Mike Perry.]

2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Saturday April 24

* Simon & Garfunkel * My Morning Jacket * Drake * Better Than Ezra * Ledisi * Sam Bush * the funky Meters * Campbell Brothers * Smokie Norful * COWBOY MOUTH * Red Stick Ramblers * Big Sam’s Funky Nation * Walter ‘Wolfman’ Wahington & the Roadmasters * Papa Grows Funk * Tab Benoit * Sax For Stax Featuring Gerald Albright, Jeff Lorber, Kirk Whalum * Kirk Whalum * Jeff Lorber * Preservation Hall with special guests Jim James and Terence Blanchard * Davell Crawford and One Foot in the Blues with special guests Dr. John and Jon Cleary * Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indians * Golden Comanche and Seminoles Mardi Gras Indians * New Orleans Bingo! Show * Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. & the Zydeco Twisters * Terence Blanchard * Wild Mohicans, and Red, White & Blue Mardi Gras Indians * Savoy Center of Eunice Saturday Cajun Jam * Bonerama * Bounce Extravanganza feat. Big Freedia Sissy Nobby, Katey Red, and Magnolia Shorty with DJ Poppa * The Wiseguys * Jewel Brown with the Heritage Hall Band * Dr. Michael White & the Original Liberty Jazz Band feat. Thais Clark * The New Orleans Bingo! Show * Treme Brass Band * Bill Summers & Jazalsa * George French & the Original Storyville Jazz Band * Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes * Lil’ Buck Sinegal Blues Band * Guitar Woodshed feat. Steve Masakowski, Todd Duke, and Jake Eckert * Roddie Romero & the Hub City Allstars * Midnite Disturbers * Kirk Joseph & the Sousaphone Symphony Parade honoring Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen * Tin Men * Judy Spellman * Mahogany Brass Band * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * D.L. Menard & the Louisiana Aces * Rockie Charles & the Staxx of Love * Kirk Joseph & Tuba Tuba * Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble * Andrew Duhon & the Lonesome Crows * Panorama Jazz Band * The Red Stick Ramblers * Blessed * Patrice Fisher & Arpa and the Honduran Connection * Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble * Chris Clifton * Bleu Orleans * Tonia Scott & the Anointed Voices * Leo Jackson & the Melody Clouds * N.O.C.C.A. Jazz Ensemble * Black Feathers * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Da Souljas Brass Band * Culu Children’s Traditional African Dance Ensemble * Loyola University Jazz Ensemble * Resurrection Mass Choir * Greater Antioch Full Baptist Church Mass Choir * Betsy McGovern & Patrick O’Flaherty * Lindsay Mendez * Ladies of Unity * Dumaine Gang, and Divine Ladies Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Johnette Downing * Archdiocese of New Orleans Mass Gospel Choir * Golden Voices Community Choir * Curtis Pierre & Samba Kids * RRAAMS Drum and Dance * Single Men and Nine Times Men Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream.. Information from Jazz Fest website. Graphic from Google image search for 'Rockin' Dopsie, Jr. 'Photo by NealyBob.]

2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Friday April 23

* Lionel Richie * Dr. John * Steel Pulse * George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic * Baaba Maal * Elvin Bishop * Chocolate Milk * Jon Cleary * Frankie Ford * Deacon John * Joe Lovano * Bob French & the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band’s 100 Year Celebration * Irma Thomas’ Tribute to Mahalia Jackson * The Joe Krown Trio with Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington and Russell Batiste Jr. * Lena Prima * Anders Osborne * Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone with Anders Osborne and John Fohl * Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers’ Tribute to Rockin’ Dopsie Sr. * Black Crowes * Maurice Brown Effect * Black Mohawk Mardi Gras Indians * Kenny Neal * Glen David Andrews * Mia X with Ms Tee and Cheeky Blakk * OTRA * Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas * Leah Chase * Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band * Little Freddie King Blues Band * The Revivalists * Semolian Warriors and Comanche Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Leroy Jones & New Orleans Finest * Tommy Sancton New Orleans Quintet * Lost Bayou Ramblers * New Orleans Night Crawlers * The Revealers * Rotary Downs * James Rivers Movement * Spencer Bohren * Jesse McBride presents the Next Generation * Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowboys * David Egan * Kipori Woods * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Mas Mamones * Shades of Praise * Franklin Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir * Clive Wilson’s New Orleans Serenaders feat. Butch Thompson * Jambalaya Cajun Band with special guest Merlin Fontenot * Real Untouchables Brass Band * Beth Patterson * June Gardner & the Fellas * Kevin Thompson & the Sensational Six * Native Nations Intertribal * Chip & Polly Radke with the God’s House Choir * Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Ensemble * Mount Hermon Mass Choir * Smitty Dee’s Brass Band * Alexis Marceaux Band * White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians * Kat Walker Jazz Combo * Natasha Richard of Canada * Delgado Community College Jazz Ensemble * John Lee & the Heralds of Christ * The Bester Singers with the Dynamic Smooth Family Gospel Singers * Keep N It Real and Single Ladies Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs * Grey Hawk * Brass Band Throwdown with the Behrman Charter & O. Perry Walker School Bands * Family Ties and Big Nine Social Aid & Pleasure Club * McDonogh #42 Elementary School Performers

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream. Information from Jazz Fest website. Graphic from Google image search for 'Irma Thomas.']

Performing Public Space

La Casa del Tunél
Calle Chapo Márquez 133
Colonia Federal, Tijuana BC Mexico

Saturday, March 20
Closing Party

2:00 pm: Fallen Fruit: Acción Fruta Urbana
4:30 pm: Lauren Bon: Tia Juana Day
7:00 pm: Portable City Projects: People’s Café Dance Party
7:30 pm: John Geary: A Touch of Evil

“As towns and cities are increasingly overwritten by the needs and desires of globalized capital, so public spaces and the behaviors they support are becoming evermore shrunken and controlled. At the same time however, everyday examples of common usage – a skate boarder curving past a crowd, a girl chopping and bagging melon on the sidewalk, a child dancing up a mountain of steps – counterpoint homogenization and regulation.

Curated by Owen Driggs, Performing Public Space (PPS) is both a celebration of artists who consciously adopt such tactics and instrumentalize their bodies in an effort to bend, expand, or puncture dominant spatial narratives, and an inquiry into the ways in which public space is articulated through real use.

Like tumbleweed, the inquiry is designed to pick up more material as it roams. Understanding that, despite the strategies of corporate commerce, local spatial conditions vary, at each place it visits PPS will work with local citizens to create a city-specific archive. Documenting both quotidian uses of public space and witting artist interventions the archives will be included in the exhibition and become part of a growing website that considers local, national, and international interpretations of ‘public space’ and approaches to its preservation, generation, and augmentation.”

Lauren BON
FALLEN FRUIT
FINISHING SCHOOL
John GEARY
Anne HARS & Bill
WHEELOCK
Ari KLETZKY
Paul PESCADOR
Nancy POPP
PORTABLE CITY PROJECTS
Jane TSONG
L.A. URBAN RANGERS

[Text and graphic from organization. Caption: "'Ryan, Freerunner, 2009.' Owen Driggs." Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Root Division Gallery
3175 17th Street (at S. Van Ness)
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.863.766

Security

Marisa Aragona | Andrea Chung | Gary Duehr | Oasa duVerney | Benjamin Echeverria | Stephanie Ellis | Pete Hickok | Glenn Hirsch | Yu-Hang Huang | iiiahh Collective | Jeremiah Jenkins | Suzanne Kehr | JP Kelly | Lee Lee | Alma Leiva | Paula Levine | Lesley Louden | Lisa Martin | Masako Miki | Randall Miller | Robert Minervini | Nancy Popp | Renée Rhodes | Paulina Velazquez | Serena Wellen | Doug Williams | Kathryn Williamson

Guest Curators: Stephanie Ellis & Serena Wellen

“Security means simply, the provision of safety. Security is related to the oldest meaning of curate: to care for souls. Today, the business of security is a global and corporate phenomenon. Its primary agenda is the production of fear; its ideal consumer is immobilized by dread.

Security (the exhibition) seeks to address this pivot between asylum and alarm. We are painfully aware of the brutality that so-called professional security may engender. Unspeakable ugliness appears when protector and protected warp into perpetrator and victim, but the curators of the exhibition seek to upturn rather than reproduce the fear, uncertainty, and mistrust already so pervasive in our everyday. To that end, they looked for humor, gentleness, and a light touch as well as acuity, provocation, and gravity in the works selected.

The artists chosen for the exhibition touch on the care or solicitude necessary for collective wellbeing as well as artists who tackle the charms or fetishes necessary for security’s sell. How we define security for our communities and our world will determine how we get there and where we arrive.”

Reception: Saturday, March 13, 7 to 10 pm

Through March 27

[Text and graphic courtesy of the gallery and curators. Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

March 13 – April 17, 2010

apexart

Sinudom Silk Screen Factory
35/21 Moo 1, Sakaegnam Road
Samaedam, Bang Khun Thian
Thailand

Franchise Two: “free size” **
Curated by Logan Bay

Participating artists: Alvaro Ilizarbe, Jen Stark, Juan Angel Chavez, and P7

“In a mass produced world of global goods, the act of creation is often lost or forgotten. Hidden machinery cranks and sweats out elements of our everyday life, yet we rarely glimpse the environment where ideas are physically forged. To produce the exhibition free size artists Alvaro Ilizarbe, Jen Stark, Juan Angel Chavez, and P7 will work directly in the Sinudom Silk Screen factory along side employees creating works of art. By bringing these contemporary artists into a global manufacturing hub the realms of production and creation will exist in a simultaneous space, transforming this modest factory into an active generator of creative capital. The Sinudom Silk Screen factory is located on the edge of Samut Sakhon a province that houses many factories. Over the past few decades Thailand has worked to become a producer of exportable goods and inexpensive items for domestic use. While the manufacturing machinery is abundant, many of the products are designed elsewhere. free size will encourage viewers to see that industrial spaces can also be incubators for creative thought and social evolution.

** For Franchise Two we excluded submissions for exhibitions to take place in large cities like New York, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, to focus on locations with less than 500,000 people — places such as Moshupa or Priboj, Baton Rouge or Lübeck, Cadiz or Az-Zawiyah, Heidelberg or Zinder. In response we received 243 exhibition proposals from 63 countries, and jurors submitted over 5,000 votes to identify a winner.”

Opening reception: March 13, 2-6 pm

[Text and graphic from apexart. Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Washington D.C. is both living illusion and allusion. Being the center of U.S. bureaucracy, power, and wealth, D.C is also the epicenter of American poverty. The very most powerful and wealthy live next door (well not exactly) to some of those most greatly exploited, oppressed, and neglected.

A fitting representation of the functions of the system therein, D.C. is the home to the nation’s highest infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS infection rates. Sixteen percent of local children live far below the poverty line, while our governmental leaders tangle with one another for greater power and money, while millions of tourists per year grace the marble steps and golden pillars on which our nation was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of those most deprived of the bounties of American “capital.”

Kike Arnal has provided a powerful photo essay expressing the contradictions of our nation as represented by Washington, D.C.

“In the Shadow of Power” exposes the “sobering statistics” that “suggest mental images not normally associated with the seat of American democracy…most people, even most residents of Washington, hardly notice the harsh reality that underlies these statistics. Tourists enjoy the stately architecture, many museums and stunning monuments and the professional class circulates largely between upscale or newly gentrified neighborhoods and their workplaces. Elements indicative of failure or hardship and those of apparent success seldom intersect in Washington. The images in this booklet reflect…ongoing explorations of the city, and…all of Washington in purposeful swings across its social and cultural landscape.”

To see these images visit Kike Arnal’s website, click on Features, then scroll to find “In the Shadow of Power: Life in the World’s Most Powerful Capital.”

Charta has published the photos in book form with a forward by Fred Ritchin and an introduction by Ralph Nader. You can purchase the book at Artbook.

Better yet, if you live in the D.C. area, come to Busboys and Poets at 2021 14 St. N.W.  tonight at 6 p.m. and see Kike Arnal and Ralph Nader speak about the project, sign books, etc. The event is free and open to the public.

One of my favorite artistic movements is Czech New Wave cinema.  The movement was deeply embedded in Czechoslovak politics of the period, particularly De-Stalinization which permitted political and cultural reforms such as state support for the film industry and increased artistic freedom generally.  The filmmakers objective was “to make the Czech people collectively aware that they were participants in a system of oppression and incompetence which had brutalized them all.”

Perhaps the international success of such films was due to Cold War curiosity about Central and Eastern Europe and these films offered the outer world a rare look at art from a communist country with relatively little censorship.  Two New Wave films received Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, The Shop on Main Street in 1965 and Closely Watched Trains in 1967.

New Wave films are characterized by dark humor, unscripted dialogue and often center around misguided youth.  My favorite is Vera Chytilová’s Sedmikrásky (Daisies, 1966), perhaps the movement’s most radical and surreal film.  The two main characters, both named Marie, realize that the world they live in is corrupt and decide to go corrupt themselves.  The narrative follows Marie I and Marie II as they justify their ‘bad’ behavior because ‘the world has gone bad.’  While Marie I and Marie II destroy social norms, Chytilová’s approach to cinematic form destroys conventions, reinforcing the audience’s shock.

Some argued Daisies is apolitical and void of substance (Jean-Luc Godard did), but I believe that any film from this era defying socialist realist aesthetics is inherently political.  Chytilová is clearly working in response to the political reality of Czechoslovakia; exploring morality, anarchy, gender roles and automatism.  I could go on and on, but I hope you’ll judge for yourself.

One of my favorite songs (aptly titled “Haiti”) by one of my favorite bands (Arcade Fire) has been on my mind as of late.  The song is from the band’s 2004 debut album, Funeral, and pays tribute to band front woman Regine Chassagne’s Haitian roots.  Although Regine is a dual Canadian-American citizen, her parents emigrated to Canada from Haiti in the 1960s.  Set to an eerily whimsical tune, she sings a blend of English and Haitian Creole, mourning the country and people she will never know because of the Duvalier regime.

Arcade Fire has been dedicated to promoting understanding of Haiti’s history since the band’s inception and is one of the biggest supporters of Partners in Health’s program in Haiti through donating proceeds from ticket sales, raising awareness among fans, even playing “Let it Be” in a St. Marc hospital ward at the request of a dying patient.  Music can have an amazing ability to lift one’s spirits, as evidenced by PIH’s Naomi Rosenberg, who was with Regine and her husband/band-mate Win Butler during their 2008 trip to Haiti.  She writes, “During a visit to the hospital in Cange, Win and Regine played for kids in the pediatric inpatient ward.  Anthony, a small boy sick with both a serious case of malnutrition and HIV, had been completely inconsolable, lethargic and unresponsive, according to his nurses.  But upon hearing Win and Regine’s music, Anthony propped himself up to sit and started clapping along.”

Regine and Win in Haiti in 2008.

I never get tired of seeing Arcade Fire live; the concert experience is like going to the circus, theatre, and orchestra all at once.  For their performance on Saturday Night Live in 2007, Win duct taped a message on his guitar, “sak vide pa kanpe,” a Haitian proverb meaning “an empty sack cannot stand up” as a reminder of the devastating poverty afflicting Haiti.  In true rock-star form, he smashed the guitar at the end of the performance of their anti-war anthem “Intervention.”

Regine wrote a heartfelt editorial for The Observer about her very personal reaction to the earthquake and pleads for continued aid of Haiti which you can read here.  She muses, “What we are seeing on the news right now is more than a natural disaster. This earthquake has torn away the veil and revealed the crushing poverty that has been allowed by the West’s centuries of disregard.”

Here’s a performance of “Haiti” which gives you a taste of the band’s stage antics and Regine’s emotion while singing her elegy.

Are you sick of being bombarded by countless advertisements in your daily life?

Do you want to check your email or look up the definition of epistemology without being lured into a dating site or convinced of some obscure disease that you don’t actually have (and obviously don’t need insufficiently tested prescription drugs for)?

Well fret no more.

Add-Art has saved the day.

Add-Art is a FireFox add-on which not only blocks internet ads, but replaces those ads with thoughtfully curated art exhibitions, commonly with social change themes.

Add-Art is an open source project and is run on a day-to-day basis by Hana Newman and Steve Lambert.

Go to http://add-art.org/ to add it to your FireFox or just to check out the very fitting current exhibit:

Merchandise (you are not what you own):

“The artists in this show appropriate and subvert the language of marketing, using its tools of photography, costuming and set dressing, digital manipulation, and data tagging. By copying these strategies, they create transparency where obfuscation is usually found. By bringing the sublimated messages of consumer culture into question, these artists offer the possibility of a more critical engagement with the image.”

Curated by Anuradha Vikram

Enjoy detournement, not marketing, and make better use of your space, time, and eyes.