Thursday (today!)

• Mechanisms for Validation (Please, please just love me, or at least tell me I’m pretty, but I’ll settle for confirmation that I’m smart)

April 9th, 7pm

threewalls
119 n. peoria #2d
Chicago, IL  60607

Moderated by our very own Duncan Mackenzie

“Join us for this threewallsSALON to discuss the means by which artists and practices are validated in the contemporary art world, where that validation comes from and how it is bestowed.” via their website

• The Generational: Younger Than Jesus

4/8/09 – 7/5/09

New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

“For “Younger Than Jesus,” the first edition of “The Generational,” the New Museum’s new signature triennial, fifty artists from twenty-five countries will be presented. The only exhibition of its kind in the United States, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” will offer a rich, intricate, multidisciplinary exploration of the work being produced by a new generation of artists born after 1976.” Via the New Museum website

[Tim says] This show opened earlier this week, but I did not get a chance to see it.  Billed as the “signature triennial,” the New Museum still seems to be in heavy competition for attention amongst the heavy hitters at Whitney and P.S.1.

Friday

• Five Dollar Store

• Intervals: Julieta Aranda

April 10 – July 19, 2009
The Guggenheim
1071 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY USA 10128

In Aranda’s presentation, four conceptually related works propose an alternative notion of temporal experience as a shifting and unquantifiable state, liberated from rigid conventions of measurement.

[Tim says]
In case you can’t tell yet, my event calendar is usually determined by the artists that surround me.  Julieta Aranda is one of the artists behind e-flux and an editor for their journal, although I have not seen much of her given that she has been installing this show, finally opening on Friday.  Tyler Coburn mentioned Julieta Aranda as an artist to watch in the March issue of Art Review.

• You are Young: New Sculptures by Ali Bailey

7-10pm
GOLDEN
816 W Newport
Chicago, IL 60657



“Ali Bailey’s most recent work describes fictional scenarios that hint to a collective memory or experience while addressing multiple themes of chance, failure, melancholy and loss. Bailey’s body of work utilizes a wide range of materials from industrial plastics and polyurethanes, to plaster, oil paint, and found materials. In a similar vein as Chicago artist Tony Tasset, Bailey forces one to consider the history of sculpture: carving, forming, molding, and the ready-made. Bailey uses his own symbols of adolescence and transience to reveal a tension between a unique experience and a shared consciousness.” via the gallery’s press release

Saturday

• Unbuilt Roads Presented by Hans Ulrich Obrist

OPENING Sat. April 11, 2009
6-8PM

e-flux
41 Essex Street
NYC NY 10002

Based on the book Unbuilt Roads:107 Unrealised Projects, Hatje Cantz (1997)
edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Guy Tortosa

From the e-flux announcement:
From April 10 to July 19, 2009, the Guggenheim Museum will inaugurate Intervals, a new contemporary art series, with a multipart installation by Julieta Aranda (b. 1975, Mexico City).

[Tim says] This is the first official exhibition opening in E-flux‘s new project space at 41 Essex street.  This is also the first time in a few years Hans Ulrich Obrist has done a project in New York.

We’ve been on twitter for a while but yesterday we “relaunched” our twitter site. You can either get updates from the text bubble on our main page or follow us. Let us know what shows are worth checking out.

View our twitter page here

Well that’s not true, in the end both of the new Millennium Park pavilions will be deconstructed and recycled. The Burnham Plan in Chicago has announced two new pavilions that are going to be installed June 19 through October 31, 2009 in Millennium Park.

The First is by Zaha Hadid and described as:

“A tent-like structure made of light weight aluminum and dressed in a tensile fabric. The exterior skin rises and falls along its aluminum ribs—the lines for which were derived from the diagonal lines and avenues in Burnham and Bennett’s 1909 Plan. Louvers in the pavilion’s ceiling will bring an interplay of light and shadow into the space as the sun changes position during the day. Exterior lighting will highlight the pavilion at night.

The interior of the Hadid Pavilion will serve as a screen for an immersive video installation created by UIC-trained and London-based artist Thomas Gray for The Gray Circle. This film will tell the story of Chicago’s transformation, including visions for Chicago’s future by local architects.”

It then goes on to mention the sinuous discourse and usual puffery.

The Second pavilion is by UNStudio and is listed as:

“Highly accessible and functions as an urban activator. Framed by Lake Michigan on one side and Michigan Avenue on the other, it relates to diverse city-contexts and scales. The edges of the roof are parallel, but toward the center there is more complexity in the form.

At night, UNStudio’s pavilion becomes a responsive architecture with LED lights that change color and pattern. These lights will be in constant flux as the number of visitors to the pavilion changes. Programmatically the pavilion invites people to gather, walk around and through the space—to explore and observe. It’s sculptural form and reactive lights will spark curiosity and wonder in its visitors.

The UNStudio pavilion is made of steel, clad in plywood, and is covered in high-gloss white paint to reflect the city and pavilion visitors.”

Now we ask you in both comment form and poll, who will survive? The winner will go one on one in a death match with a pavilion built to look like Tony Fitzpatrick.

The Tate Modern after 5 years of looking like Pre-War Factory from the outside (after research it should since it was a retrofit power Station) will thanks to the architectural design firm Herzog & de Meuron actually have a look that resembles the inside.

The £100 million-plus expansion is designed to increase the space by up to 60 per cent for more displays and to help relieve overcrowding. The wing is scheduled to be completed by 2011

It’s not very often that I actually pick up the postcards and flyers I see on the counter of the local coffee shop.  This one, however, caught my eye as it sat there and mocked the New York Times sitting next to it.  Apparently the artist Seth Kinmont knows how to grab the attention of his audience: give them lots of text and images in a clever package.  I expect the same from his electric car.

The car is powered by four twelve volt batteries and sports a set of other familiar amenities, you know, the usual disc brakes, rack and pinion stirring, headlights, air conditioning(!).  And just to throw in a little bit of a challenge, he’s built the whole thing out of wood.  From the invite:

Tuesday, April 7th 7-9 pm 138 Division Street (Orchard/Ludlow)

On April 7th, the first in a series of three wooden electric cars will be on view and will be giving rides around the block during the opening hours. Space is limited, so if you are interested a ride, please arrive early to place yourself on the ride list.

On a related note, I objectively love the Project No. 8 website.