Roscoe Mitchell at REDCAT 10/2/2011

with James Fei, a fellow Mills College faculty member, on more wind instruments and William Winant on a variety of ordinary and extraordinary percussion instruments performed at REDCAT in LA on October 2, 2011.

During this incredible evening of circular breathing and sonic poetry, my 2 non-musician friends were out of their element and confusedly unconnected, but I was enthralled and basking in continued enlightenment.



These are the beats, the poets, the legends of this time, this age we are in and their message is right

Trio of Roscoe Mitchell on woodwinds (wooden keyless flute, bass sax, bass flute, etc)
Roscoe's bio on the Mills College Music Dept. website states: "His instrumental expertise includes the saxophone family, from the sopranino to the bass saxophone; the recorder family, from sopranino to great bass recorder; flute, piccolo, clarinet, and the transverse flute." and he brought and played a lot of those instruments at REDCAT.

 

NYC Installation in Poor Taste

Isn't this installation in NYC in poor taste?

Paola Pivi, an Italian born artist who lives in Alaska, made this installation of a rotating Piper Seneca plane which was installed under the auspices of Public Art Fund in NYC at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue debuting on June 20, 2012 and removed July 18, 2012 due to a technical problem with the rotation.

Considering the lives lost in 9/11 and to a lesser extent the narrowly averted disaster of the "Miracle on the Hudson", it seems insensitive to turn a seemingly out of control plane into a silly kitschy arty thingamajig in the middle of Manhattan.

On top of the inappropriateness of the imagery, the artist titled the piece "How I Roll". Which calls to mind the words "Let's Roll" said on 9/11 by the heroic passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 as they took on their hijackers giving up their lives to prevent the plane from being used for destructive purposes by the terrorists.

Is this a photo op for tourists - so they can align the plane with the tall building in the background and take their shot making it look like the plane is crashing into the NY skyscraper?

I am surprised that there doesn't seem to be any commentary that this installation was thoughtlessly inappropriate. It is in such poor taste. Quotes from the artist I've read state that it has nothing to do with anything - she simply had a vision; so there is no relation to its context.  What a stupid piece. And what an ugly structure: it is connected to an I-beam; and situated next to a cyclone fence. Bad visual execution and very badly planned in terms of concept. So glad it is gone.

Helen Levitt photo

Above photo put to good use:

CAI GUO-QIANG GUNPOWDER PAINTINGS

Art.sy Films | Cai Guo-Qiang | Sky Ladder

Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder at MOCA Geffen 2012.
Ignition drawings of gunpowder made in March
Crop Circle Fireworks explosion in April.

Cai Guo-Qiang's new work ("Sky Ladder") at MOCA.

I volunteered to assist with Cai's Sky Ladder piece at MOCA .... and that's my exacto work in the image below - the stencil of the flying dragon and the little passenger people - which will be used on Friday's piece.

That work consisted of a number of stencil images placed on a very long roll of paper covered with gunpowder

and exploded to create a new work by Cai Guo-Qiang at MOCA Geffen.

The 3 works created at MOCA along with another piece about crop circles were displayed to the public from April 8 thru July 30, 2012. The gunpowder was provided by and overseen by Pyro Spectaculars by Souza of LA.

Cai’s Desire for Zero Gravity

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

Last night, the work of dozens of volunteers culminated in an exciting finale. Cai lit the fuse of his first gunpowder drawing for MOCA, Chaos in Nature, filling the museum with a blast of eruptions followed by huge clouds of smoke.

When the air cleared and the protective layers were lifted from the canvas, an immense drawing depicting trees, lightning, volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes in earthy shades of brown and yellow, was revealed.

 

Today, volunteers began work on Desire for Zero Gravity, Cai’s second gunpowder drawing. We cut stencils based on images of humans attempting flight and diagrams of flying machines and feng shui that Cai has collected over the years. Check out these source images which demonstrate Cai’s fascination with the universal human desire to fly and the stories of so many failed attempts.

    Cai with the Russian Rocketeer I worked on.

Day 3, we worked on small stencils that related to Cai's life, from his first childhood drawing of a Dragon ships that headed into outer space to cave men to the unique design of the human ear; all personal icons to him.  They were lit on a very long sheet of paper and then hung on the gallery walls at CAM Geffen.

 

The work took over the entire length of the South wall.

It was interesting to see how he worked, how he "wore" the role of the artist, and how he rallied volunteers to help him make his work.

MOCA was going broke, so it did not purchase the entire piece, but I understand it ended up purchasing some of the work when a benefector was eventually located.  China Airlines had a private night during one of the explosions, so they may have been the patron.

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