Queens Guide

While reading one of my favorite blogs, DesignSponge, I came across a “design guide” to the borough of Queens. Written by a guest blogger of sorts, the guide breaks down the neighborhoods and lets you know what to do, where to eat, and places to shop and find great deals. Many of the recommended “things to do” are free or cheap – and there are tons of art venues in Queens. Also, Queens is known for its wildly diverse cultures, which makes it an ideal place to live, as well as visit.

So buy a $2 metro card (the prices are going up soon) and head over to Queens and make a day of it. Or if you already live there, maybe you can discover some new gems from the guide.

Queens!

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

5 pointz - grafitti mecca

X - No Soul for Sale

Starting tonight, and lasting through June 28, X in Chelsea will be hosting an event entitled No Soul for Sale - A Festival Of Independents. Over 30 international art spaces will be given a small space and encouraged to share information, work, etc. Admission is free.

Neither a fair nor an exhibition, NO SOUL FOR SALE is a convention of individuals and groups who have devoted their energies to keeping art alive. The Festival will be an exercise in coexistence: organizations will exhibit alongside each other without partitions or walls. As on the set of the legendary Lars Von Trier’s

movie Dogville, participants will be assigned spaces that are only marked on the floor, creating a map of an imaginary city of art, where distances and hierarchies are abolished.

With associations and groups coming from Berlin, Milan, Dublin, Barcelona, Paris, Reykjavík, Hong Kong, Rabat, Trinidad, New York, Los Angeles, and many other locations, NO SOUL FOR SALE provides a unique occasion to foster creative exchange and to connect with international organizations that aren’t usually accessible in New York City. With free entrance and a rich program of daily activities, NO SOUL FOR SALE will be a celebration of the independent forces that animate contemporary art.

Participants: ARTIS CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI ART FUND (NEW YORK AND TEL AVIV), BALLROOM (MARFA), BIZART/ARTHUB (SHANGHAI/HONG KONG), DISPATCH (NEW YORK), EMPTY PURSE PUBLICATIONS (NEW YORK), FILIPA OLIVEIRA + MIGUEL AMADO (LISBON), FLUXSPACE (PHILADELPHIA), GALERIE IM REGIERUNGSVIERTEL/FORGOTTEN BAR PROJECT (BERLIN), HERMES UND DER PFAU (STUTTGART), K 48 (NEW YORK), KADIST ART FOUNDATION (PARIS), KLING&BANG (REYKJAVÍK), L’APPARTEMENT 22 (RABAT), LATITUDES (BARCELONA), LAXART (LOS ANGELES), LIGHT INDUSTRY (BROOKLYN), LUCIE FONTAINE (MILAN), MIGRATING FORMS (NEW YORK), MONO.KULTUR (BERLIN), MOUSSE MAGAZINE (MILAN), NEXT VISIT (BERLIN), NOT AN ALTERNATIVE (BROOKLYN), PARTICIPANT INC. (NEW YORK), ROB PRUITT (NEW YORK), RHIZOME (NEW YORK), STARSHIP (BERLIN), STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE (NEW YORK), STUDIO FILM CLUB (TRINIDAD), SUPPORTICO LOPEZ (BERLIN), SURASI KUSOLWONG (THAILAND), SWISS INSTITUTE (NEW YORK), THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL OF ARTS (LOS ANGELES), THISISNOTASHOP (DUBLIN), TRANSFORMER (WASHINGTON, D.C.), VIAFARINI (MILAN), VOX POPULI (PHILADELPHIA), WAGE ARTISTS (NEW YORK), WHITE COLUMNS (NEW YORK), YOKOLAND supported by the OFFICE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART NORWAY, (OSLO).

let there be sun!

How much longer can we take it with the rain!? It's been nasty weather for the past few weeks, and my weather.com outlook for NYC is seriously all thunderstorm icons for the next 10 days. I may go crazy.

Anyway, this weekend there are a couple of really cool things happening for cheap 'round the city...

The Bicycle Film Festival

Date: Saturday, June 20th


Time: 12:30pm (meet at noon)


Location: Anthology Film Archives (2nd St and 2nd Ave)


Cost: Free

Calling all bikes, tall bikes, ugly bikes, crazy bikes and bikes in every shape and color… The Bicycle Film Festival is in town this weekend and that means it's time for a crazy Bike Parade. Dress up your bike and join the fun ride this afternoon followed by the Bike Beauty Pageant and Street Party.

click here for tickets to see the films at the BFF - not free, but cheap for sure

------------------------

• “Lincoln Center at Time Warner Center”

  
  

  Time Warner Center

  10 Columbus Circle
  Upper West Side

  Subway: A, B, C, D, 1 to 59th St–Columbus Circle

  Prices
  

  Tickets: Free

  Description
  To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lincoln Center, its neighbor to the south hosts an exhibit of photos and artwork that depict the performance venue in all its glory. Featured artists include Jim Dine, Andy Warhol and Guillermo Kuitca, who created pieces specifically for the new Lincoln Center’s unveiling this past February.
  When
  

  Today–Tomorrow 10am–9pm , Sun 11am–7pm

  
  

FIGMENT

I'm not sure why, but part of me gets really annoyed at the name of this festival, but hey - it's free and artsy, so I may just have to go check it out. This weekend Governor's Island will play host to this summer's FIGMENT Festival. FIGMENT is an arts festival which aims to break down the traditional ideas of art (no white cube galleries here), and has lots of different mini-events associated with it, like performances, music, games, etc.

From the festival:

"As a free, public, non-profit event, we aim to advance social and personal transformation through creativity. FIGMENT is uninterrupted by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. Selling or advertising goods or services is not permitted. Neither our artists nor our planners and staff are paid – everything that you see at FIGMENT is born from a simple desire to share imagination with each other and the public.

In these challenging economic times, it is important that artists devise new ways to create, share, think, and dream about what is possible. FIGMENT is an alternative to many of the shortcomings of the commercial art world— exclusive, expensive, impersonal, untouchable and often simply boring."

The festival runs from June 12-14 - get there by taking the Governor's Island Ferry, located next to the Staten Island Ferry.

Museum Mile

I know it may seem like a silly thing to suggest a walking tour of New York's finest museums on a thunderstorm-filled day, but just strap on those galoshes and get out there for a night of FREE MUSEUMS!

Annually, the Museum Mile Festival takes place on the 2nd Tuesday in June. From 6-9pm cultural institutions from 82nd to 104th street offer free admission, and some have art activities for children.

These are the museums along Museum Mile :

El Museo del Barrio at 104th Street
Museum of the City of New York at 103rd Street
International Center of Photography at 94th Street
Jewish Museum at 92nd Street
Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design at 91st Street
National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts at 89th Street
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at 88th Street
Metropolitan Museum of Art from 82-86 Street
Goethe House German Cultural Center at 82nd Street

Renegade Craft Fair

This weekend in Brooklyn, both Saturday and Sunday from 11 am - 7 pm, Greenpoint/Williamsburg's McCarren Park will be home to the 5th Annual Renegade Craft Fair. The fair is FREE to enter and it should be really nice weather (at least on Saturday). So if you're looking for something lovely to do, head over there - the fair features handmade jewelry, posters, crafty items, clothing, paper, stationery, and other cute items. Plus, it would be really nice of you to support small business owners and buy handmade objects in this current time of woe.

Complete list of Renegade Art Fair Brooklyn vendors/artists

Kaleidoscope at the American Folk Art Museum

Tomorrow, June 5, The American Folk Art Museum will be hosting a special free evening. In conjunction with the beautiful show entitled KALEIDOSCOPE QUILTS: THE ART OF PAULA NADELSTERN, the museum will have a night featuring live music with Will Knox and Ayo Awosika.

Friday, June 5, 2009
5:30-8:30 pm
Free admission, live music, and drink specials

If you haven’t ever been to the Folk Art Museum, you should definitely go – the exhibitions tend blow my mind with the level of craft in the work, and are always really beautiful. Plus, it’s really close to MoMA.

45 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Since space is limited, it may be a good idea to call ahead for reservations at folk53@folkartmuseum.org or call 212.977.7170, etc. 329.

KALEIDOSCOPIC XXX: TREE GRATE, 53RD AND 7TH

Paula Nadelstern, 2004, Machine-pieced and hand-quilted cotton and silk, 51 1/2 x 58 1/2 in.

Bushwick Open Studios

This weekend many, many studios will be open to the public (yes, for free) in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, just east of Williamsburg. Events, like a parade, parties and panel discussions will coincide with the festivities.

click here to see a list and map of participating artists and studios

BOS ‘09

BUSHWICK OPEN STUDIOS and ARTS FESTIVAL

Friday, June 5th - Sunday, June 7th

Bushwick Open Studios is a self-organized art festival where anyone and everyone in the community is welcome to participate by presenting art work, organizing activities or helping to produce the event. The purpose is to create an open and inclusive event that benefits the entire community through the sharing of artistic projects and the encouragement of community interaction and dialogue.