Second Saturdays Staten Island: North Shore's alternative arts ...

STATEN ISLAND, NY ? Don't call it growing pains.

Yes, it looks a little different after getting sideswiped by Hurricane Sandy, but Second Saturdays Staten Island ? the North Shore's grassroots art walk founded by Brendan Coyle and Amanda Curtis ? isn't hurting.

Alas, gone are Second Saturday's original "house gallery/party" stops ? including Brendan's own Coyle Cavern (it's namesake is currently busy readying his upcoming showcase for the Art Lab gallery).

But fret not: Coyle's avant-garde brainchild lives on this weekend in venues big and small throughout Tompkinsville, St. George and Livingston (yes, a car, bus or sturdy walking shoes are now required for this expanding event).

The following are just a few of the diverse stops AWE is most excited about:

'FREEDOM' 2013
A belly dancer with a secret, a swarthy chanteuse with an accordion and a musician from the anti-folk movement, will launch the winter season Saturday with a late-night, cross-dressed variety show and exhibition at Deep Tanks Studio at 150 Bay St. in Tompkinsville (Note: This venue actually kept right on going through the aftermath of the Superstorm).

Performers won't be the only gender-anomalous attendees, organizers hope. The audience is encouraged to participate by cross-dressing, although it is not a requirement for admission.

AWE in print ... Photographs courtesy Kristopher Johnson, Stephen Barnett, Agnes Thor and Anne Marie Grillasca. ?Designed by Mary Garrison

The spirit of the program, "Neue Yahr Mit Neue Merzhalle" (rough translation: "New Year with Creative Freedom") is fluidity, according to director/facilitator Kristopher Johnson, co-founder of Deep Tanks.

AWE cover gal Lys Merlo, Obsidian the Absurd, will dance around 10 p.m., followed by drag queen Minnie van Driver and acoustic performer Charles Mansfield. Of the three, van Driver ? a redhead when she isn't blonde and a longtime North Shore resident ? is probably the best known.

Mansfield, a guitarist and composer, espouses anti-folk sentiments. This alternative movement, now nearly 25 years old, rejects the handmade, sentimental, rootsy priorities of folk music in favor of experimentation.

"Neue Yahr Mit Neue Merzhalle" may be a gloss on a idea developed by early modern artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) who called his collages "Merz pictures."

According to Schwitters, "Merz stands for freedom from all fetters, for the sake of artistic creation. Freedom is not lack of restraint, but the product of strict artistic discipline."

Deep Tanks, a photography studio that hosts performances and exhibitions, will use a recent grant from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI) to expand its performance series.

Saturday's free presentation is part of the ongoing Second Saturdays series in workspaces and artist studios in St. George/Tompkinsville/New Brighton.

Staten Island-based artists Arthur Williams, James Naughton, Cynthia Mailman, Michael Ruffo and Dennis Sheenan are represented among the 30 works of art, loaned specifically by Jonathan Leiter (one of Minnie van Driver's aliases).

Leitner has also collected art, often works on paper, by other notable contemporary artists, including Fred Cray, James Jaxxa, Jim Jeffers, Sarah Charlesworth and Susan Jennings.

? Visit DeepTanks.com for more info about "Neue Yahr Mit Neue Merzhalle."

LGBT PRIDE & 'PERMANENCE'

Stephen Barnett's "The Art of an Introverted Gay Man." ?Courtesy the artist ? Contrary to popular belief, homosexual creative expression is not limited to fierce fashion choices and droll drag queenery.

Proof: "The Art of an Introverted Gay Man," a collection of Stephen Barnett's self-described "photography sculptures," opens Saturday with a free reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Staten Island LGBT Community Center, third floor, 25 Victory Blvd. in Tompkinsville.

The artist's work spans 25-plus-years of what he calls "structural assemblages manifesting perceptions of empathy within the LGBT community."

Also on display: "Permanence," the small but substantial art collection recently acquired via Art Connects New York, a not-for-profit organization that places art, usually donated, in deserving not-for-profit settings.

Center director Ralph Vogel says the works compliment the venue's mission, which is to provide counseling, therapy, referrals and social options for clients.

"Permanence" adds more than eye appeal to the sprawling, comfortable space.

It documents history.

"We have a lot of young people, teenagers, here," Vogel says, who have never known a time when AIDS/HIV wasn't a manageable, albeit serious, condition.

One of the best-known pieces in "Permanence" predates successful AIDS antiviral therapy by nearly a decade: Donald Moffett's "He Kills Me," a defiant protest image from 1987.

Juxtaposing text ("He Kills Me") with a bulls-eye target and a photograph of then-president Ronald Reagan, the piece was a response to early years of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a time when the diagnosis was nearly always a death sentence. The piece condemns official ignorance in a stylish pop-art format.

In those days, the mainstream press avoiding reporting on the fast-spreading disease and the president had yet to mention it publicly.

Moffett was a member of the New York-based collective Gran Fury that regularly agitated for change under the aegis of Act Up, an old-style protest organization that confronted elected officials and the medical establishment, demanding attention, compassion, and funding for research.

"Permanence" curator Paul Moakley ? a longtime Islander and deputy photo editor at Time magazine ? installed a whole wall of the offset "He Kills Me" prints in the center's computer room. They're creased and a bubbled in places, as if they had been slapped up hurriedly (and illegally perhaps) on a city street. "He Kills Me" is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Vogel is certain that young visitors to the center will ask about the piece.

"It's an opportunity," he says, "to open up a dialogue."

? For more information about the center's diverse programming, call 718-808-1381 or visit SILGBTCenter.org.

THE ARE WOMEN, HEAR THEM ROAR ... BUT WITH CLASS

From "Jersey Shore" to "Mob Wives," the public image of Staten Island's Italian-American women takes a pop culture beating.

Perhaps that's why "L'arte al femminile" ? opening Saturday from 6-8 p.m. at Gallery 60, 60 Bay St. in St. George ? is so very refreshing.

The new exhibit features 14 contemporary Italian-American artists, most of them Staten Islanders, in a showcase sponsored by the National Organization of Italian Women, Staten Island Network. Note: Men are welcome; live music will even be supplied by Jim Indelicato (aka the artist better-known as Jim Indell).

"These women are acting as role models for younger Italian Americans and thereby fostering ethnic pride," says Betty Santangelo, NOIAW's National Chairwoman. "Their participation in this exhibit also serves to identify and encourage greater unity with other Italian American members and non-members, and other affinity organizations that represent culture and the arts."

In short, the loud-mouth stereotypes promulgated by reality TV are absent from "L'arte al femminile."

The NOIAW and Staten Island Creative Community's call for artists went national, inviting showing artists from other parts of New York, as well as Connecticut, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.

The final cut: Pamela Bianco, Anita Cimino, Joyce Coletti, Nancy Gialella, Anne Marie Grillasca, Gabriella Iacono, Joyce Malerba, Annette Marten, MaryRose Barranco Morris, Palma Mingozzi, Lorraine Pistilli, Fran Romano, Elizabeth Sollazzo, and Patrizia Vignola.

NOIAW is the "premier organization for women of Italian heritage that is committed to preserving Italian heritage, language and culture by promoting and supporting the advancement of women of Italian ancestry.

NOIAW serves its members through cultural programs and networking opportunities, and by supporting young women through scholarship, mentoring and international cultural exchange programs."

For more info about NOIAW, call 212-642-2003, email Clarissa Caprio at NOIAW@ NOIAW.com or check out NOIAW.org.

? Check out SICreative.org for additional details about "L'art al Femminile."

AUDIO-VISUAL MASHUP

Two of Snug Harbor Cultural Center's 2012 highlights come to a close and a new beginning this Saturday.

The sprawling multimedia exhibit "Island Sounds: A 500-Year Music Mash-Up" launched in May gives way to the inaugural "Island Sounds Music Mash-Up" concert from 7 to 8 p.m., when the Vincent Ruggieri Jazz Quartet performs in the Main Hall, Building C. (Note: For more about the ongoing exhibit that inspired the live music series, catch up with AWE's 5/3/12 cover story HERE.)

But first: An exhibition of the works by Agnes Thor and Sasha Wortzel, the final participants in the Snug Harbor Artist Residency Program (SHARP) for 2012, will launch the venue's 2013 event roster from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art."The positive public response we have experienced for these two programs over the past year underscores the appreciation Staten Islanders have for diverse cultural endeavors," says Lynn Kelly, CEO of Snug Harbor. "I urge everyone with an appreciation of good jazz or innovative, cutting-edge artistic endeavors to join us."

Thor's photographic exhibit, "La Mort La Vie (Life and Death)" seeks to capture symbolic representation of eternal life and loss or decay. Wortzel's aural and video installations tackle time, memory and place to tell stories of under-represented groups and individuals ? including the only female sailor admitted to Sailors' Snug Harbor in 1965.

SHARP offers emerging artists a supportive environment to explore their creative development for two months. Artists are provided a studio space on the ground floor of a two-story, nineteenth-century cottage, which has bedrooms on the second level. The goal: Transition from formal training to professional careers.

Admission to both events is free. The Snug Harbor campus is located at 1000 Richmond Terr. in Livingston.

? Download SHARP applications at Snug-Harbor.org. Submissions are due Feb. 18 for residencies April through November.

SALON SELECTIVES

In case you haven't heard, NYC's landmark Andon Phelps-Stokes estate is no longer just an historic residence at 11 Phelps Place.

Dubbed Galerie St. George, it is also salon of sorts ? think Gertude Stein's ex-pat crew mixed with Occupy Wall Street ? showcasing various forms of art and free-thinking on a recurring basis.

Opening Saturday: A two-person exhibit featuring Clara Turchi and Jamie Brant.

In the Gallery Annex: Milan-born photographer Turchi, now an S.I. resident and enrolled in the MFA program at New York's School of Visual Arts, shows her unique hand-etched photographs of both her own subjects and found images. Each image is hand-scraped with small surgical knives to create haunting patterns and iconic symbols of spiritual power.

In the Main Gallery: Island artist Brant's exhibition covers a broad range of materials and her functional, custom-designed art furniture and papier-mach? objects take her traditional oil and water color paintings into a three dimensional, organic space.

? Galerie St. George is open Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. or by appointment, via 718-873-2018. Visit GalerieStGeorge.com for more information.

Source: http://www.silive.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2013/01/second_saturdays_staten_island.html

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