Everything You Want, Right Now! puts Anti-Advertising Agency CEO Steve Lambert in the limelight for his first solo show.
Lambert takes on the vernacular of commercial signage with a regional emphasis unique to Los Angeles. Visually, he is interested in what makes certain styles of signage feel so innately familiar, and in the methods that signage employs to grab our attention.
In his other work, Lambert investigates the allure of commercial advertising, through a variety of media, from net art to culture jamming street art, he probes the “promises that may excite or reassure us, while remaining ultimately undelivered. ”
Under his direction, the Charlie James Gallery will be transformed into something reminiscent of an over-eager appliance store during the 6 week run of his show. The gallery will be festooned with pennants inside and out, the windows painted over with garish promises of “Slashed Prices!” while the interior pulses away with lighted signage, all promising wild levels of deliverance to the viewer.
Join Steve for an artist’s reception on April 25th, 6:00-9:00PM, and catch the show on view until June 6, 2009.
ESCAPE THE OVERCODE: Activist Art in the Control Society is a landmark achievement in the open-ended research project conducted by Brian Holmes. Groundswell readers will be familiar with aspects of the work, as well as the fundamental questions it addresses:
How does art become subversive of the social order? How does it undermine normal, legitimate, accepted patterns of behavior, and how does it open up possibilities for the transformation of everyday life? What can subversive art accomplish in the political arena? And what are its limits, how can it exceed them in the future?
ESCAPE THE OVERCODE unpacks the theoretical problems facing autonomist thought, specifically the abstract notions of overcoding and the apparatus of capture, which form the lens Holmes uses to focus the text.
Four major sections comprise the book, and articles range from the underlying technoscientific principles of cybernetics, to cognitive psychology and complexity theory. It is a necessary toolkit for understanding 21st-century critical cultural production, and in the words of the author, worthwhile for understanding “a complex world and to change it.”
A new puppet, object, and music spectacle about the politics of global healthcare in Haiti premiered last week at MIT’s Kresge Little Theater, and opens tonight for a second run through April 17.
This and other photos by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research
Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees: A Living Newspaper on Haiti looks at the past, present, and future of Haiti in terms of the politics of global healthcare, as refracted through the work of Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health organization and its fight against AIDS.
Directed by MIT guest artist and puppeteer John Bell and produced by MIT’s Dramashop, the parable employs the style of the 1930s Living Newspapers, an innovative American theater technique that allowed performers and audiences to consider the serious challenges of the Depression in a thoughtful and highly entertaining manner.
Antiretrovirals owes its stunning visuals to puppeteer Sara Peattie of the acclaimed Puppeteers Cooperative, and a talented support team who designed a multimedia experience, including bunraku puppets, shadow theater, toy theater, video and live music.
MIT’s Kresge Little Theater, 48 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, at 8 p.m. April 9 to 11 and April 15 to 17. Tickets $8, students $ 6. Post-show discussions April 9, 10, 15, and 16. For advance tickets visit here.
Update: Read our brief interview with Geoff Hargadon, creator of Cash For Your Warhol.
Boston-based Hargo responds to the post-crash impulse to capitalize on art, and highlights the Rose Art Museum debacle.
No one can help you sell your Warhol fast like Cash For Your Warhol™!
Boston-based artist Hargo (a.k.a. Geoff Hargadon) riffs on the street-level advertising signs that have proliferated recently, as lenders prey upon those most hurt by the crisis, offering cash for just about everything from your home to your car. Hargadon tells Groundswell that his intention was to point out that even the richest among us were taken for a ride, and his parody of those predatory signs was an effort to highlight how far-reaching was the impact of the crash and subsequent downturn, and, of course, to pull a street art prank that would ensnare some well-to-do art collectors.
Beginning tomorrow, the streets, cafes, & pubs of of Seattle will be overflowing with the lively sound of horn players and drummers from more than a dozen street bands converging for the second HONK! Fest West!
In venues across the city, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights will see performances by:
Weekend passes are available in advance, online only. target
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