Tag Archives: NYU

A Film Student Comes to Town

First of all please pardon me for a second while I sing my own praises… Gemini & Scorpio, the lovely event entrepreneurs who I have been working for these last few months (to the detriment of this blog I am afraid), have been featured in an article in the New York Times. My name is actually included! My grandmother is less excited about this than you might expect but I for one am pretty thrilled.

Setup for G&S Party; image from the NYTimes

Setup for G&S Party, image from the NYTimes

Ok, moving on… I have a friend coming to town this weekend who went to film school at NYU and is taking some sort of test to try to get into a film apprenticeship program in the city. As per usual when I have a visitor I have drafted a list of all sorts of wonderful events taking place and I thought I would share them with you!

Friday night the Mad Breaks Tea Party is sure to be a riotous good time, of the G&S/underground/alt-events variety. There will be aerialists, a tea garden (of course), sculptural installations, fire spinners, a hookah lounge and all sorts of other madness.

On Saturday at Galapagos Art Space, Floating Kabarette takes burlesque to the air in a gravity defying weekly show only to be found in the Big Apple.

Also on Saturday, for a much more G-rated (and more film centered) evening, you can head to 92Y Tribeca for a sing-along with Fieval and friends! An American Tail is one of those Spielberg movies that you associate much more with childhood than with Spielberg. If you remember the songs get ready to belt them with other fans! Here’s a clip to refresh your memory:

On Sunday, another film related event, my favorite comedians are making fun of one of the most ridiculous things to hit the cinema in recent years- Twilight! Head to the Knitting Factory to see the Raspberry Brothers make a comedy out of this mess.

Since this is a film-centric weekend I also advised my visiting friend to check out the offerings at

I advise you to do the same, anytime you want to check out new foreign/independent film or see classics on the big screen! Enjoy!

Follow me and Miss Scorpio on Twitter for the latest event listings and be sure to sign up for the G&S weekly event list- everything you need to know about alt-events in NYC!

We Call it ART!

There are so many marvelous exhibits on view at the moment (or about to be unveiled) that I’m devoting a post to art in The Big Red Apple!

A startling outdoor exhibit that explores the horrors of sex trafficking is on view in Washington Sq. Park until Sunday. The exhibit, titled Journey, is designed to take “viewers through a range of emotions that sex slaves feel throughout their journey, ranging from hope to desperation.”

Part of the Journey Exhibit

Part of the Journey Exhibit

The Journey exhibit includes the work of a variety of artists, one of whom has another show worth seeing at the moment; Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Memory is currently on view at the Guggenheim:

Utilizing Cor-Ten steel for the first time, the sculpture represents a milestone in Kapoor’s career. Memory’s thin steel skin, only eight millimeters thick, suggests a form that is ephemeral and unmonumental. The sculpture appears to defy gravity as it gently glances against the periphery of the gallery walls and ceiling. However, as a 24-ton volume, Memory is also raw, industrial, and foreboding. Positioned tightly within the gallery, Memory is never fully visible; instead the work fractures and divides the gallery into several distinct viewing areas. The division compels visitors to navigate the museum, searching for vantage points that offer only glimpses of the sculpture.

If monumental sculpture is your thing I highly recommend the Richard Serra show currently up at the Gagosian Gallery; no one does monumental quite like Serra and in the confined space of a gallery (as versus an outdoor installation) these two pieces, Blind Spot and Open Ended, are incredibly powerful.

Richard Serra "Open Ended"

Richard Serra "Open Ended"

Downtown Brooklyn is a bit more surreal than usual with The Public Art Fund’s installation of Double Take on the MetroTech campus.

Designed with the site’s specific conditions in mind, the artists have taken an element of the existing architecture or environment and subjected it to a process of modification or metamorphosis. Each work plays with fantasy and illusion to force a shift in perception, in turn creating a mirage of sorts.

I’m rather fond of this image and I plan to check out the piece, by Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio, sometime soon.

Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio "Lamppost"

Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio "Lamppost"

Finally, the big exhibit on the horizon is the first major retrospective of the works of Tim Burton, opening at the MOMA for member-only previews next week (I’m a member so shoot me an email if you want to tag along). The exhibit will include “artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, and highlights a number of unrealized projects and never-before-seen pieces, as well as student art, his earliest non-professional films, and examples of his work as a storyteller and graphic artist for non-film projects.”

That’s all for the moment; stay tuned for more upcoming events and belated reviews of some of my recent adventures! Also be sure to follow me on twitter for the very latest updates!