Video night-organized by Lara Duren

Fantastic. We climbed up to the roof before hand, a perfect "1st spring day" in New York. We don't look for daffodills, the real signs of spring are bare legs and sundresses.


Crowd was mesmerized by the sometimes silly, sometimes dark, work. Artists included:

Barchael, Michael Berube, Amy Brener, Meredith Davenport, Rob Debbane, Lara Duren, McLean Fahnestock, Nathan Gwynne, David Kagan, Ellie Krakow, Yuliya Lanina, Jess Levey, Rebecca Loyche, Nathaniel Lieb, Lars Rasmussen, Sarada Rauch, Meg Vinson, Alex Golden, and Seldon Yuan.

There was fun with wheels, too, rearranging the space.



Resident Mary Mazzer also showed her work, material paintings using cardboard and chenille plus a panel of psycho-responsive watercolor drawings.

SoftBox-Short Video Screening Night + Meet the Resident!

Short video screening event curated by Lara Duren.
Humor. Dark. Light. Bizarro.

Artists include: Barchael, Michael Berube, Amy Brener, Meredith Davenport, Rob Debbane, Lara Duren, McLean Fahnestock, Nathan Gwynne, David Kagan, Ellie Krakow, Yuliya Lanina, Jess Levey, Rebecca Loyche, Nathaniel Lieb, Lars Rasmussen, and Sarada Rauch.

Also, Mary Mazzer will be showing work she's made in residence at Softbox since December.

They'll be some goodies, BYOB is appreciated.

Saturday, April 18th
Opens at 7pm, Screening starts at 8-ish

Mary Mazzer

Meet Mary Mazzer!

Mary moved in over thanksgiving and will stay and softbox until March. She just finished her MFA in Painting from Kent State University in Ohio.





It was a two-for-one...she brought Cool Papa Bell with her, a Lab/Great Dane mix that dismembers stuffed squirrels and leaves their body parts around the place.

Girls' weekend

Softbox was a full house, hosting Sarah Sutton and Mary Colan from Cleveland, along with another Ohio buddy and new softbox guest Mary Mazzer (post coming soon). They came to town for a Julie Langsam opening at Frederieke Taylor and a little birthday mayhem for Sarah. There were some heated and manic art convos (involving heavy YouTubage and flash drives) and a capacity test of the water heater.

Mary took these nice tricolor skyline shots:

Lidy's thoughts

Performance from Oracle, by Lidy Six. This was a gathering led by a shaman on the dutch island Terschelling.

Lidy was the first guest to Softbox (see post "New Guest: Lidy Six"). This is part of an email from her about her thoughts about the space and her own work.

"...First things that crossed my mind:
Your space relates a lot to my work of the last years, specifically my series ‘Oracles’ in seven parts. In several parts the whole space was white with the audience on white cushions. In part 3 I had a dream interpreter as guest. I was laying down in bed with her, in a large bed for two persons in the middle of the space, the audience around on cushions. For one and a half month every morning I wrote down my dreams of the night. During the performance I told her some of that dreams and she worked with me and the dreams, it was a journey into a dream world with the audience involved. Everything was white, also the bed and sheets and her and my nightclothes, white because of the dream world, it has something diffused, volatile, another dimension. The light had an important role too.And in part 7 we asked also the audience to come in white. That part was about the power of sound and color, I showed you some images on DVD. Here we traveled through seven colors via light and sound. With this part I was very busy during my stay in NY. Last Friday I had a meeting with a new lighting designer for developing further ‘Oracles#7’. I told her about my stay in NY and about your space too (I couldn’t show photo’s, will do that later). She said that she could imagine that it would be nice to work with light in your space for some days, to explore things, also with your rooms on wheels. She is a very good lighting designer, is also writing about light, for example a very good article about the work of James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson.

After leaving and thinking of your space for example the idea fell in that it could be nice to sit a whole day in your space, on white cushions, without talking, in silence and experience the light, all the transitions in light during the day. Starting in the dark in the morning up until the darkness in the evening, from before dawn till after sunset. Writing this now, I become consciousness that it has to do with the sky-scape of Turrell in PS1. I could imagine to do this on a clear winterday, I think that gives beautiful light. And invite people, ‘audience’ for this experience. I remember that you told me that during the day there are sometimes different colors in the space. I would love to experience that..."

Chen!

Chen Tamir from Flux factory (and curator of Living Room) is the most recent guest at Softbox. She's unfortunately a double refugee at the moment, coordinating the clean-sweep of Flux Factory (lost to eminent domain!) and from her own domicile. I think some fluxers are stuffing envelopes at Softbox this week for their benefit.

Apply to Softbox

Interested in coming to Softbox as a resident? See information below!

1: Description of Program

Short term subsidized residency, 1-3 months, live/work warehouse space with option for hosting an event.

2: What supports/services are provided as part of the program? i.e. housing, studio space, food, stipend, etc..

Subsidized live/work opportunity at below market rental price. Opportunity to stage a small-scale event or performance in the space, possibilities include music or theater performance, film/video screening, relational projects.

Basic sculpture tools available: table saw, chop saw, hand tools. Private studio plus option to build larger site-specific work in space.

Information about events and resources provided by host as needed, access to host’s contact list for promotion.

3: What disciplines is the residency for? Visual Arts, music, architecture...

Unlimited, but there are restrictions on the use of space in terms of lighting, audience size, harsh chemicals and noise levels.

4: Who is eligible to apply?

Emerging or established artist, international welcome. This opportunity is ideal for an artist who is coming to New York to work on a project/performance, to research project possibilities and network, or relocating to New York and needing a short term place to live, work, and present projects.

5: Application procedure and Materials

Email application in prose form describing yourself, statement of need, proposal for use, time frame, web link to previous work and/or attached images, and 1 professional references available by phone. Feel free to attach CV or press.

Email or phone interview to follow initial review.

Applications accepted on a rolling basis, length of stay dependent on needs and availability.

contact: Jo Q. Nelson, softbox "at" joqnelson.com

New guest! Lidy Six

Lidy is an acquaintance of an acquaintance staying with me for a couple of weeks. She is a theatre director from Holland in town to research for a potential project here. She had a production called Tower of Babel at PS 122 in 2006.

I had some fun Merle Ukeles moments getting the room ready, taking maintenance and into process and performance. Hostess with the mostest.

Guest Pod

Got the guest pod geared up for my first visitor, Lidy Six, from Holland.

Rusty!

Russ McClintock brought a little Miami flava to the joint last week. He's a good buddy from Chicago who fixed up a photo studio there and spent a week helping out while waiting for his visa to relocate to London. He's an incredible photographer, there are some images of the space on his blog .