Nico Daswani's Blog – March 2011 Archive (9)

Faces of New York: A Minute With... Aaron Friedman, Founder & President, Make Music New York

In "A Minute With..." we catch up for a New York minute with artists and cultural workers in New York City to see what they are up to and what they love about the city. In the first of the series, I caught up with Aaron Friedman, Founder and President of the wildly successful…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 31, 2011 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Los Angeles, CA: A new art walk to regenerate the "black Greenwich Village"

For anyone who has lived in or visited LA, the idea of a neighborhood art walk is a little bizzare-- (unless you can valet-park your car on the way there!). The historic neighborhood of Leimert Park, which John Singleton (Boys n the Hood) once called the "black Greenwich Village", has nevertheless succeeded in getting huge amounts of people to its new art walks, meant as a way to preserve and revitalize this historic neighborhood. In this video, the organizers asked the art walkers…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 28, 2011 at 11:30pm — No Comments

NYC: In Jackson Heights, electronic cinderellas and theater that binds

You Are Now The Owner of This Suitcase is the second installment in a trilogy of plays produced by Theatre 167, currently playing at PS 69 in Jackson Heights, Queens until April 3, 2011. I had chanced upon the first production, 167 Tongues, last year (which I blogged about here) and had been looking forward to the next chapter with…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 23, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments

Berlin, Germany: An Artist's Paradise?

The Guardian's Charlotte Higgins looks into the reasons why so many British artists move to Berlin. One artist is quotes as saying: "London seems to get more and more like Manhattan in terms of its inequality. As an artist, one can sometimes feel that one exists to provide entertainment to the wealthy: you are simply a skilled servant. In Berlin, as someone making art,…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 22, 2011 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Abu Dhabi, UAE: Artists boycott Guggenheim over migrant workers' rights

WNYC's Julia Furlan reports on a story that has been gathering pace and that the Guggenheim would like to see go away: "There may be a few key art works missing from the Guggenheim's collection in Abu Dhabi. More than 130 artists have signed onto a petition boycotting the Guggenheim's new Saadiyat Island museum over alleged unfair working conditions for migrant workers building the project."…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 20, 2011 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Shanghai, China: artists loosing studio space

Chris Gill tells the story in The Art Newspaper of 30 artists in Shanghai who are being evicted of the building that houses their art studio (is Shanghai the new Manhattan?!). They are not leaving without a fight though.…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 18, 2011 at 6:00pm — No Comments

NYC: Japanese performers converge on New York during time of national tragedy

The JapanNYC Festival currently hosted by Carnegie Hall will go on despite the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. So far none of the artists have needed to pull out. Daniel Wakin in the New York Times writes: "The hall’s programmers and managers face challenges on two fronts: the practical problem of bringing in performers from a devastated…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 16, 2011 at 12:23pm — No Comments

Myanmar: secret exhibitions and the rise of the artist/activist

Joshua Hammer of Smithsonian Magazine offers a behind the scenes portrait of several artists, including visual artists and rappers, who are at the forefront of the arts in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and are using their work to educate citizens and protest the government. Artists like J-Me…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 14, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments

NYC: Five Pointz, mecca of graffiti culture, to disappear

I've just seen the news on WNYC's web site that the much beloved Five Pointz building in Long Island City, Queens, a global mecca for graffiti culture, is up for demolition, and will be replaced by luxury apartments. From what I know this used to be home to several artist studios until it became unsafe a few years back, but street…

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Added by Nico Daswani on March 11, 2011 at 6:30pm — No Comments