Category Archives: Reporting NYC

Not just a pretty facade, Highline illuminated “Blood Mirrors”

“Up Late,” a two-hour after-dark event from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., brought together music, immersive theater and installation art to the High Line located in Manhattan’s Far West side last Thursday. Arguably one of the most eye-catching exhibition was New York-based artist Jordan Eagles’ High Line projections.

The mechanics behind the display was simple, requiring only overhead projectors and transparencies. Operating on the principle of which a focusing lens projects light from an illuminated side onto the glass top, the rich hues from the transparencies were superimposed unto the High Line.The allure, however, was not in the sheer magnitude of the installation, but its constant fluidity. If someone happened to stand in front of a projector, a shadow was cast; if someone came across the path of a projected image, his or her face instantly changed into something alien, tribal even.

Indeed, High Line projections extended beyond static frameworks of traditional paintings, Instead, the artwork’s preexisting state of being continue to morph and transform in reaction to the passing onlookers. Attendees turned from passive lookers to active participants. Actions, whether standing still or moving, reconstructed the projected millisecond by millisecond.

chelsea-highline-art-jordan eagles

New York-based artist Jordan Eagles added another coat to The Highline, that of preserved and suspends blood.

Eagles’ work was pretty, interactive and selfie-worthy. But what if I were to tell you the transparencies were reprints from blood? Continue reading

A healthier lifestyle, starting, with plant eating (dirt included)

With new year, comes new year resolutions. Chinese New Year, which falls on a Thursday (February 19) this year, is no exception. Prepare to kick of the year with a more healthful, greener eating from Spot Dessert Bar.

The potted plant, aka “Harvest” from Spot Dessert Bar (image credit: Serious Eats)

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“Madame Cézanne,” the curious case of the looker and the looked-upon

Hortense Fiquet, stares impassively. She is not strikingly beautiful, hardly, and her oval face is pale and smooth like a hard-boiled egg. You wonder what the artist saw in her face that compelled him to paint her 29 times, excluding sketchbook after sketchbook of Hortense’s pencil drawings.

She is Madame Cézanne, Paul Cézanne’s lover, wife, the mother of his only son and his most painted model. The Metropolitan Museum of the Art has put together the “Madame Cézanne” Exhibit (Nov 19, 2014 ~ Mar 15, 2015), bringing together 24 of the artist’s painting of Hortense.

Madame Cezanne in the Orchard (image credit: MET Museum)

To understand the significance of the woman behind the great man, we must first find out about the man.

Cézanne, a Post-Impressionist painter, has inspired modernist painters like Picasso. Cézanne rejected Impressionism’s emphasis on light and color, and turned to structure, order. Jackie Wullschiager wrote in a review for the Financial Times:

Cézanne’s directness — the balance, pictorial logic, simplification of natural forms to geometric essentials — laid the foundations of modern art

That “directness,” is visible even when painting Hortense. Cézanne absorbed her face, exploring the sharp angles and planes of her face, painting it over and over, and reducing it to odd geometry. The artist was not concerned with replicating her face. Instead, he ventured into early abstract art, freeing the painting from the need to represent reality.

But I wonder, had Cézanne looked at Hortense beyond a paintable object, would they be happier as a couple?  Continue reading

Q&A with Five Star co-star John Diaz

John Diaz (21) walks into the café with his usual swagger. The 6-foot-2, 150 pounds actor looks like Ichabod Crane – a lanky beanstalk but way better-looking. In Five Star, Diaz plays a young man who struggles with his identity – should he, like his deceased father, go down the path of gang life? The movie, which will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, blends fiction and reality. It is a coming-of-age story where Diaz discovers the meaning of manhood.
Five Star: John Diaz

Born and raised in New York, Diaz lives with his mother and older sister in Lower East Side. He had not always wanted to be an actor. In middle school, his dream was to play for the Yankees. But after listening to Diana Ross’ daughter speaking about how fun it was to act, Diaz decided that he would become an actor. Because an actor gets to live a different life every time he walks on set. He took theater classes in high school and studied performance art at Nazareth College. He dropped out after eight credits. Six months after his return home, he was casted for Five Star.

Part Puerto Rican, part white and black, Diaz raps and models on the side. The young star shares what it was like working with Keith Miller for the past two years. Continue reading

Q&A with Five Star leading man ‘Primo’

James ‘Primo’ Grant (29), a general in the East New York Bloods, commands the room the moment he walks in the café. Wearing a leather-sleeved sweater with a red-eyed lion print, the burly, bearded man exudes solid strength. Speaking calmly, he points out the persons around us. See that guy? He’s into that girl. See how his knees turn toward her? A bouncer at Sugar Hill, a disco club in Brooklyn, Grant has predatory eyes like a hawk. He sees everything.

Primo shares a moment with his son, Sincere Grant. (Credit: Alex Mallis)

Grant is the star of Keith Miller’s newest feature film, Five Star. In it, he plays a leader of the Bloods. He is a father, husband, gang leader, friend and mentor. To John, a fatherless young man who is trying to decide if gang life is for him, Primo represents tough love. Mixing fiction and reality, the film is based closely on Grant’s real life. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he is the son of a Domnican mother and a Costa Rican father. He is the fourth of eight children, four sisters and three brothers. He joined the Bloods when he was 12 and is still active. The film touches upon issues like gang life, drugs and violence. However, it is more than your typical Hollywood gangster film. Instead, it highlights human struggle as both Primo and John wrestle with what it means – what choices one has to make – to be a man.

Grant lives in New Jersey with his fiancé and four children. Continue reading

In Five Star, Keith Miller says YOU should listen better

Keith Miller’s newest feature film, Five Star, is one of the 12 films selected for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. The story, which looks into what it means to be a man, blurs the distinction between on- and off-screen reality.  James ‘Primo‘ Grant (29), who joined the Bloods when he was 12, plays Primo, a five-star general in the East New York Bloods. His co-star John Diaz (21) plays John, a 15-year-old trying to decide if he should pursue gang life. After discovering how his father had died, John must make a choice – will he be his father, Primo or a man of his own? Based closely on elements of Grant’s life, the film is a coming-of-age story for both Primo and John. 

With a background in abstract art, Miller compares his method of directing to the act of seeing through art. To him, his film is like American modernist artist Jasper John’s Flag (1955). The artwork, which consists of a painted flag that looks exactly like the American flag, raises the question: Is this a painting or is this a flag? Is this a representation or is this a flag?

“It looks like an American flag,” Miller says. “But it is not a printed flag, it is painted. In a symbolic way, there’s context, history, depth and texture to America.”

Read more about the film, published via Bedford & Bowery In Five Star, Keith Miller’s Leading Man is a General in the East New York Bloods

Read Q&A with James ‘Primo’ Grant
Read Q&A with John Diaz

Primo (left) and John (right) talk business on the court; James 'Primo' Grant (left) and John Diaz (right) Image Credit: Nathan Fitch

Primo (left) and John (right) talk business on the court; James ‘Primo’ Grant (left) and John Diaz (right)
Image Credit: Nathan Fitch

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“Cross-eyed and Bow-legged”: Tom Clark, musician and archivist

Stepping into Tom Clark’s apartment is like entering into a museum of music memorabilia. An Exposicion de la Habana ’68 poster, printed in art nouveau style, hangs on the wall. A large bookshelf holds his impressive record (thousands) collection. Displayed on the bookshelf are four thumb-high Beatles figurines, a 1954 Roy Roger & Dale Evans Double R Bar Ranch lunchbox, Hank Williams record (Luke the Drifter), Pan Am toy airplane and a Remo drumhead autographed by the rock ‘n’ roll band, The Crickets. He owns over a hundred guitars (six on display in the living room, 30 in his bedroom closet and the rest in storage) and 67 vintage cowboy shirts.

  

That is a heap load of stuff. Clark (48), a musician with his own band Tom Clark and the High Action Boys, attributes this tendency to his father, who was an antique toy collector and salesman. To his friends, Tom is known as the Clark-ivist, like the archivistAn archivist is not a collector — someone who accumulates things. An archivist is someone who preserves, organizes and curates his collection. Continue reading

Archangel Antiques closes after 21 years: “Young people don’t understand vintage”

There was a time when people lived without smartphones. That was also the time that people would look around and gasp in surprise, “Oh, what a cool shop. I think I will check it out.”

Archangel Antiques, co-owned by Gail (75) and her partner, Richard[1], is one of those shops. Tucked in the corner of 9th Street and 1st/2nd Ave in East Village, the 2-in-1 store will be closing this June. The piece is picked up by Bedford&Bowery, but you can read the original here.

Richard helping a customer (Archangel Antique 2nd Ave/9th St)

Richard helping a customer

[1] Gail and Richard asked to be identified by their first names.

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