WINKLEMAN CONCERT HALL HAS A NEW HOME!
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PLEASE GO TO:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Upcoming Shows
Friday, November 13th
Big Game 7:00 PM
Big Game formed in the fall of 2008 when keyboardist/vocalist Erik den Breejen and drummer/vocalist Colin “Baby Rue” Ocon from Acid Canyon joined forces with bassist Mathias “Uncle T” Sias. The trio found common ground in their love of heavy psychedelic improvisation and catchy rock songcraft and the startling juxtapositions these two forces could create. “Humble Pie” and a reworking of The Who’s “The Dirty Jobs” best capture the early stages of Big Game, as these tunes provided ample opportunity for extensive jamming that was later honed and refined. Though their songs are structured and arranged, they allow room for spontaneity and improvisation. Most solos are never played the same way twice. Vocally, the band has a flair for the dramatic, singing sweetly one moment and screaming the next in service of creating an emotional urgency that runs throughout the music.
Friday, November 20th
Perfect Wieners and Butts 7:00 PM
It’s lucky for you that I’m in love with you [I’d] probably never speak to you again. –Terry Griffith
Continuing their musical examination of the hermaphroditic, Perfect Wieners and Butts address life’s most perplexing dilemmas with minimal resources: “you got a problem, you get in drag.” Pop cultures role in the changing attitudes towards transvestites and drag royalty can be attributed in part to the “mistaken identity” and “role reversal” genres within 20th century TV and cinema. PWB have been studying films like Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire and shows like Bosom Buddies.
PWB’s latest show at Winkleman Gallery, THRILLS, is an adaptation of 1985’s gender mutable high school classic Just One Of The Guys, directed by Lisa Gottlieb. In the film, budding reporter Terry Griffith is a high school student who writes an article competing for an internship at a local newspaper, but her work is overlooked by her chauvinistic journalism teacher and boys are chosen for the job instead. She enters the competition at a nearby high school, disguised as a boy to investigate if she will succeed. She does finally write about her experience as a man, and wins the internship. PWB have taken their own dog-eared and de-magnetized-by-the-viewing VHS copy of the flick, removed the sex, illusionism, and sentimentality, and reordered the remains; leaving a scant stud frame and unmade bed.
These are the posts and props where the Wieners and Butts drape their undergarments, raise their fag-flags, and tuck-in their prosthetic totems and tumors. The, ahem, Perfected site of THRILLS is where our surrogate heroine, Perfect Wieners and Butts, sets out, with Just One Of The Guys’ newly renovated landscape as her starting point, on a saga of self-obsessed, self-discovery, set to a Perfectly dismembered song cycle.
Tunes from the film are pulled apart, freed of their tacky synthetic conceits, then reassembled; minimally held together with bubblegum and scotch tape. Recorded in one take, these songs will be a vacuum-sealed sonic environment where the members will interact with the soundtrack – in playback – for a house-of-cards performance piece. Otherwise clichéd theatrical signifiers – lights, fog, sets, and costuming – act as a box-spring loaded bed-frame setting where fictive, pre-recorded, cinematic time is grafted onto natural time, allowing impossible interactions to happen real-time.
The strange and varied approach of previous PWB performances has provoked accusations of charlantry or lack of serious intent. SKEPTICS TAKE NOTE! There are active taste buds on that tongue and they are mining that cheek for new flavors.
Big Game 7:00 PM
Big Game formed in the fall of 2008 when keyboardist/vocalist Erik den Breejen and drummer/vocalist Colin “Baby Rue” Ocon from Acid Canyon joined forces with bassist Mathias “Uncle T” Sias. The trio found common ground in their love of heavy psychedelic improvisation and catchy rock songcraft and the startling juxtapositions these two forces could create. “Humble Pie” and a reworking of The Who’s “The Dirty Jobs” best capture the early stages of Big Game, as these tunes provided ample opportunity for extensive jamming that was later honed and refined. Though their songs are structured and arranged, they allow room for spontaneity and improvisation. Most solos are never played the same way twice. Vocally, the band has a flair for the dramatic, singing sweetly one moment and screaming the next in service of creating an emotional urgency that runs throughout the music.
Friday, November 20th
Perfect Wieners and Butts 7:00 PM
It’s lucky for you that I’m in love with you [I’d] probably never speak to you again. –Terry Griffith
Continuing their musical examination of the hermaphroditic, Perfect Wieners and Butts address life’s most perplexing dilemmas with minimal resources: “you got a problem, you get in drag.” Pop cultures role in the changing attitudes towards transvestites and drag royalty can be attributed in part to the “mistaken identity” and “role reversal” genres within 20th century TV and cinema. PWB have been studying films like Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire and shows like Bosom Buddies.
PWB’s latest show at Winkleman Gallery, THRILLS, is an adaptation of 1985’s gender mutable high school classic Just One Of The Guys, directed by Lisa Gottlieb. In the film, budding reporter Terry Griffith is a high school student who writes an article competing for an internship at a local newspaper, but her work is overlooked by her chauvinistic journalism teacher and boys are chosen for the job instead. She enters the competition at a nearby high school, disguised as a boy to investigate if she will succeed. She does finally write about her experience as a man, and wins the internship. PWB have taken their own dog-eared and de-magnetized-by-the-viewing VHS copy of the flick, removed the sex, illusionism, and sentimentality, and reordered the remains; leaving a scant stud frame and unmade bed.
These are the posts and props where the Wieners and Butts drape their undergarments, raise their fag-flags, and tuck-in their prosthetic totems and tumors. The, ahem, Perfected site of THRILLS is where our surrogate heroine, Perfect Wieners and Butts, sets out, with Just One Of The Guys’ newly renovated landscape as her starting point, on a saga of self-obsessed, self-discovery, set to a Perfectly dismembered song cycle.
Tunes from the film are pulled apart, freed of their tacky synthetic conceits, then reassembled; minimally held together with bubblegum and scotch tape. Recorded in one take, these songs will be a vacuum-sealed sonic environment where the members will interact with the soundtrack – in playback – for a house-of-cards performance piece. Otherwise clichéd theatrical signifiers – lights, fog, sets, and costuming – act as a box-spring loaded bed-frame setting where fictive, pre-recorded, cinematic time is grafted onto natural time, allowing impossible interactions to happen real-time.
The strange and varied approach of previous PWB performances has provoked accusations of charlantry or lack of serious intent. SKEPTICS TAKE NOTE! There are active taste buds on that tongue and they are mining that cheek for new flavors.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Openers
Thanks to everyone who came out Friday night! It was a huge success. Many special thanks to Max Cooper (aka DJ SLAPPY) Honne Well, Juan Comas, Saunders Jurrians, Dustin Bowlin, Danny Bensi, Max Tucker, Patricia Iglesias, Chris O'Connell, Jono Pandolfi, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan. All of your performances were incredible.
Notice the t-shirts in the background! These are limited editions designed by myself and are for sale - all of the proceeds go the bands who are generously donating their skills. To purchase a shirt please contact me at ivinballen (at) gmail.com --- only 20$$!!!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Opening Night: DJ SLAPPY, Honne Wells and Juan Comas, and Storms
Friday, October 30th
6:00 PM -- DJ SLAPPY
7:00 PM -- Honne Wells and Juan Comas
8:00 PM -- Storms
Winkleman Gallery
637 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
T: 212.643.3152
F: 212.643.2040
Winkleman Gallery
637 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
T: 212.643.3152
F: 212.643.2040
Press Release
For Immediate Release October 5, 2009Ivin Ballen
Sleepless in Seattle at Winkleman Concert Hall
Oct 30 – Dec 29, 2009
Opening: Thurs., Oct 30, 6-8
Gallery Hours: Tues. - Sat. 11-6 PM
Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present Sleepless in Seattle at Winkleman Concert Hall, our second solo exhibition by New York artist Ivin Ballen. Featuring new paintings and sculpture, including “Stage” (which will double as an actual performance platform and sound system for a series of weekly performances by a line-up of emerging New York area bands), Sleepless in Seattle at Winkleman Concert Hall embodies nostalgia, performance of the moment, and illusion of material to create an effect that anticipates the inevitable change to come.
Elaborating on the decision to invite musicians to participate in his exhibition, and its title, Ballen wrote
Sam Baldwin is mourning the loss of his wife and coming to terms with the fact that his happiness is dependent on companionship. It is not an uncommon story. Through tender circumstance, Sam finds his true second love in Annie Reed. Sleepless in Seattle (1993), with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, focuses on the trials of renewed life.
Although the film’s focus is one of an inevitable romance, a strong feeling of bereavement hovers over the plot. It is the loss of life that is spurring the adaptation in Sam’s life. Death leads Annie Reed to Sam Baldwin through the radio, which is followed by a fairy-tale chain of events deliberately referencing all but the tragic ending in An Affair to Remember (1957). It gives heartening prospect to see a hopeful outcome in Sleepless in Seattle.
Sleepless in Seattle at Winkleman Concert Hall explores inward feelings and draws on how we cope and adapt to chance in life. The stage is introduced into this show literally as a place for performance. Winkleman Gallery is transformed into a makeshift concert hall and a place of rejuvenation for both art watchers and music goers.
Life brings unexpected turns and we can be happy to roll with them, taking old objects and reconfiguring them to continue their use cycle. I am advocating a lifestyle of adaptation and am bringing that conversation to the composition of sound and performance.
Musical performances are scheduled throughout the duration of the show. Opening night Honne Wells will perform at 6:30 PM, followed by Storms. Other musical artists including, but not limited to: Big Game, Perfect Wieners and Butts, Pete and J, Scandinavian Half-Breeds, and Chris Pandolfi (of the Stringdusters) will be performing on dates to be announced.
For more information, please contact Edward Winkleman at 212.643.3152 or info@winkleman.com,
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