August 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 8/24

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This weekend’s picks for free and cheap cultural things to do in New York. From art exhibits, to films, music, theater, food festivals and more, free or affordable August 24, 25, and 26, 2012.)

1. Art/Performance- Studio on the Street:Liz Magic Laser at Forever & Today, 141 Division St. Liz Magic Laser transforms the storefront into a newsroom and acts as anchorwoman. Reception: Friday, 8/24 6-8pm. Open Studio Weekend: Saturday 8/25 & Sunday 8/26, 12-6pm FREE

2. Film– Sleepwalk with Me, at the IFC with Mike Birbiglia and Ira Glass doing Q&A’s in person all showtimes on Friday 8/24 and Saturday 8/25. The monologue/play a few years back was excellent! $13

3. Theater – Summer Shorts the acclaimed series of new American one-act plays from some of the country’s top playwrights at 59E59. All weekend. Check website for varying times. $25.

4. Film – Clerks part of the Central Park Film Festival, just north of Sheep Meadow. Saturday 8/25. 8:30pm FREE.

5. Art – Detournement: Sign of the Times. Ends Saturday. Friday 8/24 and Saturday 8/25 at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Chelsea. FREE. (See related post)

6. Theater – TJ & Dave at the Barrow Street Theater. Late night improvisation from two second city veterans. All weekend at 10:30pm. Use Code TJDAUG for $15 tickets, otherwise: $20.

7. Music/Food – 13th Annual Blue BBQ Festival.Blues bands and food from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Brother Jimmy’s BBQ. Pier 84 on the Hudson. Saturday 8/25. 2pm to 9pm. FREE

Also in Performance with BBQ: Catch 52 at The Bushwick Starr. Super summer show with rooftop BBQ. Saturday 8/25, 7pm. $15.

8. Beach/Walk/Art – Long Walks on the Beach: a public project that randomly pairs people to take a long walk on the beach at Rockaway together. This is an experience-based artwork that uses walking as its medium. Saturday 8/25 and Sunday 8/26. First call, first served. Call (917) 300-9521 to make an appointment. FREE

9. Music/Food – Surfed Out Session; music, Roberta’s pizza and $3 beers, Saturday 8/25, 4pm to midnight. Beach 87 at Rockaway. FREE

10. Art/Design – America’s Most-Wanted Eco Posters on Governors Island. Moderator Edward Morris leads panelists that include Ellen Lupton, Diego Gutierrez and Debbie Millman in discussing the current state of the environmental movement and the efficacy of art and design as well as designing a related poster in real time. Saturday 8/25 , 2pm to 4pm. FREE. (this event is sold out online, but organizers suspect that not all who registered will show up…)

11. Food/Art – Family Dinner at Culturefix on the LES. Restaurant employees sit down to “family meal”. This meal is usually a one pot meal that is good. At CULTUREfix, they take family meal and offer it to everyone. “Always changing and always delicious” the meal will be served from 6pm to 7:30pm on Saturday 8/25. FREE

12. Art/Photography – ICP Occupies Governors Island: Exhibiting Powerful Images from the 99%. All weekend, through 9/30. On Governors Island. FREE

13. Music – 10 operas on the Lincoln Center Plaza projected in HD, starting Saturday 8/25 with The Enchanted Island, and Sunday 8/26 Don Giovanni. 7:30pm to 10:30pm. FREE

14. Theater/Music – Jason and the Argonauts an avant garde rock concert at the East River Amphitheater. Saturday 8/25 and Sunday 8/26 at 8pm. FREE.

15. Food – New Amsterdam Market Tomato Festival Uncook-off: 10 Chefs will compete head-to-head to transform heirloom tomatoes into tantalizing tomato dishes meant to be prepared simply and served “un-hot.” Sunday 8/26, 12pm to 4pm at the Old Fulton Fish Market. $20 Register here.

16. Music – Janelle Monae performs as part of the Afro-Punk Fest at Commodore Barry Park. Festival is both Saturday 8/25 and Sunday 8/26, from 12pm to 9pm. Janelle Monae performs on Sunday at 7:30pm. Check site for rest of schedule.FREE

17. Music/Dance – Found Rooftop Party, Dance and Hip Hop musicat The DL, 95 Delancey St. Sunday 8/26, 6pm on. FREE with RSVP before 9pm. $10 after 9pm with RSVP. 21+

18. Comedy/Performance/Music – Reggie Watts performs as part of the Afro-Punk Fest at Commodore Barry Park. Festival is both Saturday 8/25 and Sunday 8/26, from 12pm to 9pm. Watts performs Sunday at 5:45. FREE

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here, here, and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates.

August 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

MetroDeck

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This is just so smart! Brooklyn-based Norman Ibarra has collected used and discarded NYC MetroCards and repurposed them as playing cards by silkscreening them with classic English-style card illustrations that have a NY twist. MetroDecks (as they are called) include images inspired by landmarks throughout all boroughs of the city, individually screen printed in four colors of enamel ink. The letterpressed packaging is simply beautiful, as well.

More of a collector’s item than actually intended for play, these 54-card decks are definitely not inexpensive, but the amount of work that goes into each deck is impressive.

You can order them here.

via mug

August 22, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

David Byrne’s Typographic Bike Racks

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David Byrne is at it again. The well-known musician, who is often seen cycling around town, was invited by BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) to design new bike racks to replace their old utilitarian ones. Byrne, having designed a series of fun bike racks for NYC in 2008 with shapes ranging from dogs and cars to high heels and guitars, decided to go typographic this time around. Realizing that with a semi circle, line and ‘v’ shape he could create most of the letters of the alphabet, he designed racks that create different words. The racks installed yesterday spell out “Pink Crown” and “micro lip” both chosen by designer Byrne. The bike rack words will change periodically, and BAM may be soliciting suggestions from its audiences in the future for new words.

Top two photos by Dino Perrucci. Third photo by G.R. Christmas and bottom by Jason Accime.

via Brokelyn via BAM’s facebook

August 21, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Stiletto Studios: Shopping Cart Chair

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One of our favorite pieces at MoMA’s Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 exhibit was this small shopping cart chair. This child version is titled Short Rest Chair (1989) designed by Frank Schreiner for Stiletto Studio in Berlin. Apparently a few larger, uncoated metal versions exist as well, titled Consumer’s Rest.

Originally a metal locksmith in the German armed forces, Schreiner later became a video artist and eventually, in 1982, started designing furniture and founded Stiletto Studios. The inspiration for Consumer’s Rest Chair came from a comment from Schreiner’s mother about wire-mesh furniture reminding her of shopping carts.

Update: The bottom left cart chair is not by Stiletto Studio.

Photos: collabcubed; eye magazine; atomic design; and neatorama

August 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Dan Witz: Do Not Enter Project

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We went through the very quiet August streets of Chelsea last Thursday evening and stopped by the Jonathan LeVine Gallery to find a great show that included several works by Dan Witz from his Do Not Enter Project. The Brooklyn-based artist started the project in 2007, creating his own modifications – sometimes humorous, sometimes politically charged – of Do Not Enter signs and has since continued with the project in 2011 and 2012. The signs have been placed on the streets of Brooklyn, Vienna, Norway and Poland. The bald, white face that appears in many of the signs is Witz himself.

You can see some of Dan Witz’s signs at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in NYC as part of the Detournement: Signs of the Times exhibit through this Saturday, August 25, 2012.

August 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Sabine Ducasse: Melting Pot

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Perler beads—the small plastic beads that fuse together when ironed—were a favorite craft project material with Em and Dan for years, especially when they were younger. For a while we had stacks of the melted bead designs the size of coasters lying around, but attempts at more elaborate constructions proved difficult to execute without breakage. That’s why French designer Sabine Ducasse’s Melting Pot fashions are that much more impressive to us.

Ducasse used the beads to create East-meets-West armor style fashion; a melting pot of cultures with a literal take on “melting”. These amazingly well-crafted pixelated design pieces won the designer a scholarship at the International Fashion Academy. Nice!

via kerrysoup/the creator’s project

August 17, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 8/17

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Our picks for free and cheap art, music, performance, and food events this weekend (August 17 through 19, 2012) in New York City:

1. Music/Dance/Food– Lunch Break lunchtime dance party; DJ Michna at Le Poisson Rouge with free lunch and vodka. Friday 8/17 at 1 to 2pm. FREE 21+ RSVP

2. Food/Music/Sport – Jaguar Chill, Life-size snow globe at the High Line housing a skating rink including free skates, demos from professional skaters, and some Jaguars. Plus treats that (at least when we were there yesterday evening) included People’s Pops, Van Leeuwen ice cream, pulled pork sliders and more, as well as beverages, all free. 10th Ave and 17th St. Friday 8/17 12pm- 8pm, Saturday 8/18 12pm-5pm. FREE

3. Art/Beach – Rockaway Beach Sandcastle Competition Watch artists Ryan McNamara, Tom Sachs, Snarkitecture and more battle it out with their sand creations. Friday 8/17 at 3pm. 86th Street Beach. FREE.

4. Music/Art – Dumbo Summer Friday. An evening of music, art and technology underneath the DUMBO Archway with bands Bosco Delrey, Zambri, Prince Rama, and Javelin. Friday 8/17, 2pm-9pm. FREE.

5. Film/Party – Love Story by Florian Habicht. A funny meta-fictional romance. Rooftop films. 350 Grand Street. Friday 8/17, 8pm – 1am (film at 9pm).$12

6. Music – Though not exactly NYC, the Lackawaana Music Festival is just a Path ride away in Hoboken. Tokyo Police Club, Vacationer, and many more. Pier A, Hoboken. Saturday 8/18, 12pm to 1 am. FREE

7. Theater – Mormon in Chief. Unassuming Mormon, Connor Jorgensen, becomes the center of national media frenzy when his tweets about a Mormon presidential candidate go viral. Play by Matthew Greene. Saturday 8/18 at noon, Sunday 8/19 at 7pm. $15 in advance, $18 at door. Much more theater at FringeNYC.

8. Art/Photography – Lunch Hour NYC at the NY Public Library, Friday 8/17 and Saturday 8/18, 10am-6pm. Continues through February 17, 2013. FREE

9. Music – The Kills; Hudson River Park Pier 63, Saturday 8/18, 5pm. FREE

10. Music/Dance/Food – Jazz-Age Lawn Party on Governors Island. “One of the most memorable parties of 2009 and 2010” says the New York Times. Dress up in your best vintage clothing and head on over. Saturday 8/18 and Sunday 8/19, 11am to 5pm. $15.

Also, similar but totally different – Improv Everywhere’s zany Black Tie Beach. Saturday 8/18. Location to be disclosed Friday (today). FREE

11. Comedy/Performance – Upright Citizens Brigade All-Stars of Improv. East River Park Band Shell, Cherry St. and FDR. Sunday 8/19, 7pm to 8:30pm. FREE

12. Drink/Fun/Views – One of NYC’s best kept secrets: The WillyWall, Manhattan Sailing Club’s floating clubhouse sits in the Hudson River with a bar atop and beautiful views of Manhattan, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Reserve Admiral’s Launch boat service to WillyWall which departs every half hour from North Cove Dock in Battery Park City. Fridays 5:30pm to 10pm. Saturdays 3pm to 10pm. $10.

Also in Film: Cosmopolis, directed by David Cronenberg opens. The director will be speaking at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at two screenings. Friday 8/17, 6:30pm and 9:15pm.$13.

Also in Food/Music/Beach: Back to the Beach in Staten Island. Music, food and activities plus fireworks. Saturday 8/18 and Sunday 8/19. Noon to 9pm. FREE

Also in Art: Quay Brothers at MoMA. Great show. Through January 7th. FREE Fridays from 4pm to 8pm.

UPDATES…

Also in Comedy/Music: Heart of Darkness at Union Hall in Park Slope. Comedian Kate Berlant, music by The Bowery Riots and The Forgiveness. Saturday 8/18 at 8pm. $8 advance, $10 at the door.

Also in Film: Festival Express screening (documentary on Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead and The Band’s train ride together) at City Winery on Varick St. Sunday 8/19, doors opne 6pm. Film at 7:30. FREE

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here, here, here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates.

August 13, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Piracy: Musician Mosaics from CDs

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These are impressive. Italian artists/designers Mirco Pagano and Moreno De Turco created these cd mosaics of seven classic deceased musicians for an ad campaign by U.S. ad agency TBWA and also an exhibition. The idea behind the project, titled Piracy, is that musicians are being brought down by internet piracy. The cds used in each portrait are that of each individual musician’s music. The musical artists include: Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, Jimmy Hendrix, James Brown, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. The typographic sculptures of the title are also well done.

Here is an animated video clip as well:

via visual news

August 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Desiree de Baar: Knitted Sculptures

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Move over olek, here comes Desiree de Baar. The Rotterdam-based Dutch artist creates knitted sculptures of objects that range from domestic fixtures to chainsaws. De Baar knits monochrome rooms, and the unnoticed objects within them, focusing on the details and highlighting the poetic side of the ordinary. She not only works with knitting but uses wallpaper and embroidery in much of her other artwork.

Photos: top two photos by Ed Jansen; rest of photos courtesy of the artist.

via Ed Jansen

August 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Gary Deirmendjian: Do Not…

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Sydney-based artist Gary Deirmendjian created his, at once, humorous and critical sculpture Do Not… for last year’s Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi, Australia. An oversized version of the “do not touch” signs Deirmendjian had noticed beside all the sculptures in the previous year’s exhibit, the playful Do Not… most likely brought a smile to viewers’ faces. Here is what the artist has to say on the piece:

Superficially speaking the work takes its form and language directly from the actual warning signage developed and used extensively by Sculpture by the Sea. However to the artist it represents not only a site and event specific proposition, but more significantly a personal protest against what is quite simply a “sign of the times”. How is one able to do anything anymore?

The sculpture is currently being exhibited at Sculpture in the Vineyards in Wollombi, Australia, where Deirmendjian is one of four Australian artists selected to show their work in this year’s exhibit.

via Artereal Gallery

August 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 8/3

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Our picks for free and cheap art, music, performance, and food events this weekend (August 3 through 5, 2012) in New York City:

1. Architecture – The Grand Tour each and every Friday throughout the year at 12:30 pm in the sculpture court at 120 Park Avenue, located at the southwest corner of E. 42nd Street and Park Ave. directly across from Grand Central Terminal. No reservations are necessary. Friday 8/3 at 12:30 pm. FREE

2. Video/Music – John Cage, One¹¹ and 103,at the High Line, 14th St. Passage. Black and white video and sound, 94 min, in celebration of the John Cage Centennial. Part of the new High Line Channel 14, outdoor video program. 1pm – 11pm, Daily (all weekend) through September 13. FREE

3. Film – King Corn Screening at the Culture Project 45 Bleecker St. Friday 8/3 at 6pm FREE. Reserve seats here.

4. Interactive Performance/Music – Phil Kline’s DreamCityNine performed by Talujon. World premiere. To take part in this event, download the stories as one file from the Artist Links — upload them to your laptop, smartphone, tablet, or MP3 player, and bring them with you along with your battery powered speakers, or blast Q2 Music through WQXR’s mobile app. Friday 8/3; 6:30 pm at Lincoln Center’s Hearst Plaza. FREE.

5. Art Event/Walking Tour – Telettrofono by Justin Bennett and Matthea Harvey, part of Guggenheim’s Stillspotting NYC. An audio walking tour that braids history with fantasy along and around the Staten Island waterfront. Starts at the stillspotting kiosk at the Staten Island Ferry terminal in St. George. 1.5 hrs, Saturday 8/4 and Sunday 8/5, from 12 to 7 pm. $12 adults and $10 for members.

6. Fun! – Summer Streets nearly seven miles of NYC’s streets are opened for people to play, walk, bike, and zip(!) from 7am to 1pm on the next three Saturdays 8/4 (and 8/11, 8/18) from 7am to 1pm. Check site for route and activities. There will be a zip line in Foley Square as well as free bike rentals. FREE

7. Food – Parked! A Food Truck Festival at South Street Seaport. Saturday 8/4 from 10am to 9pm. FREE

Also in Food: Hester Street Fair Olympics. Corn-on-the-cob and BBQ Ribs eating contests plus burlap sack races. Lomography Photo Tour of Fair here as well. Saturday 8/4 and 8/11. FREE

8. Art– Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940 at the Jewish Museum, (saw this last weekend…lovely exhibit!) through September 23rd. Saturdays FREE all day.

Also in Art/Design: Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 at MoMA through November 5th, 2012. Fridays FREE from 4pm to 8pm.

9. Music – 54/10 Music Marathon; Alice Lee, The Henry Millers, Night Fevers play at Ars Nova Theater
511 West 54th St. Saturday 8/4, 8 pm. Tickets $10 online; $15 at the door.

Also in Music: Amadou & Mariam / Theophilus London / and Just a Band at Central Park’s Summer Stage. Saturday 8/4, 3pm to 7pm. FREE

10. Performance/Installation – The Murders of Crows at the Park Avenue Armory. The largest sound installation to date by artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, a compelling “sound play” that envelops the audience in an unexpected physical and aural environment. Through September 9th, but this Saturday, 8/4, from 12pm to 7pm, FREE

11. Talk/Film Presentation – Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell and David Frankel talk about their new film Hope Springs at the Soho Apple Store. Sunday 8/5, 4pm. FREE

12. Music – Mad Decent Block Party at Williamsburg Park, with Major Lazer, Erol Alkan, Bonde Do Role and more. Sunday 8/5, 12pm to 10pm. RSVP required. FREE.

Dance – The Wind of Colorful Guizhou, Guizhou, China, Ethnic Song and Dance Troupe at Skirball Center, Saturday 8/4, 7pm. FREE (Tickets distributed first-come-first-served basis – call 973-917-3005 or bethb.sunels@yahoo.com)

Also in Film: If Yes Men Fix the World, screening at the Culture Project, Saturday 8/4, 8pm. Reserve tickets here. FREE

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions (i.e. Rineke Dijkstra Retrospective at the Guggenheim [see post], PS1’s WarmUp and Street Art Walking Tours in Williamsburg) see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here, here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates.

August 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Elian: Street Art from Argentina

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Elian is an Argentinean street artist from Córdoba who creates colorful geometric street murals. I like the clean lines and color palettes on these murals, and the transparency effect on the top one is clever, but there’s lots more to see on his site and flickr as well.

via graffitimundo

August 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jim Lambie: Taped Surfaces

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I love it when random bits of information coincidentally relate to other random bits of information. There’s that ridiculously satisfying “Aha” moment, where you feel like Sherlock Holmes or Columbo, but without having done any real sleuthing. That’s how I feel with respect to my recent revelations about Jim Lambie, a Scottish visual artist. Last fall, I happened upon an exhibit of Lambie’s work at the Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea. My favorite pieces involved concave, colorful conical forms embedded within large photographs of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan. Later I spotted another similar piece at the NY Frieze Art Fair. Around the same time I did a post on an interesting townhouse renovation in our neighborhood, and creepily photographed the colorful staircase with its tape design from the window. Fast forward to today, when I came across photos of interesting taped floors created by none other than Jim Lambie. Among these images I found the same Greenwich Village staircase taken from inside and above. So, yes, you’ve probably made the mad leap yourself by now: Jim Lambie, who transforms spaces with his very cool taped geometric mazes of color, was the artist whose exhibit I saw in Chelsea and a few weeks later admired his impressive design work on the local staircase. Case closed.

Photos courtesy Anton Kern Gallery, Thyssen-Bornemisza, floorcrunch and collabcubed.

via balladora

August 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC MetroCard as Urban Game

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This is such a great, smart, and fun design solution in response to the recent news that the front of NYC’s MetroCard will be offered as advertising space. Wayne Congar and Brendan Bilko of the creative and brand consultancy firm Mayday Mayday Mayday on New York’s Lower East Side, propose embracing the inevitable by making it into a design-y game. MetroCard as enigma. MetroCard as puzzle piece. Much in the way that a Chuck Close portrait is made up of hundreds of individual abstract shapes and sizes, why not take a billboard or an ad and blow up small sections of it rather than trying to fit an entire ad on the small space, creating an appealing abstract pattern on the MetroCard that will have New Yorkers looking at their neighbors’ cards trying to piece together the whole. Reminds me a little of the popular guerilla marketing stunts that have been adorning the city streets in the past decade. Piquing people’s curiosity and instead of ignoring the ad, creating more of a buzz. Mayday offers four possible ad scenarios on their site, though they admit to not knowing if printing of individual cards will be possible. The way I see it, even if this concept doesn’t work as a puzzle piece, having a uniformly appealing abstract image on all the cards that can get people guessing and interacting is win-win for everyone: we the MTA passengers get an aesthetically pleasing object (always a plus in my book) and the advertisers get people talking about what they’re selling.

via fastco

July 30, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Tom Buchanan: Feature

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Though South African photographer Tom Buchanan shoots commercial work, his preferred personal work tends towards conceptual photographic portraits that usually incorporate people into landscape settings. This preference is evident in his series titled “Feature”, however the ‘people’ have been replaced with famous film stills of famous film stars as the portraits contained within television screens. There is a noir-ish humor in dropping these familiar images into the odd contexts.

Buchanan carried the TV around the country finding locations familiar to the viewer but alien to the characters in the beaming screens. Love it.

via one small seed

July 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 7/27

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Some free and cheap (affordable) cultural events that look interesting to us for this weekend in New York City:

1. Street Art – Williamsburg Street Art Walking Tour 2-hour tour, Saturdays at 2:30 pm. Meets at N7th Street but email hello@streetartwalk.com to reserve a spot and confirm details. $20 per person.

Alternatively: Historic Harlem Walking Tour, Saturday 7/28 at 11 am. $18.

2. Art – Joseph Albers in America at the Morgan Library, through 10/14. Admission:$12 Student/Senior $8. Fridays 7-9 pm FREE.

3. Music – The Metropolitan Opera Summer Recital Series. Friday 7/27 at Brooklyn Bridge Park; 7-9 pm; FREE.

4. Film – Ai Weiwei Never Sorryis the first feature-length film about the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. At IFC Center starting Friday 7/27; Adults $13; Seniors $9. Check link for showtimes and tickets.

5. Art/Food – Check out Big Kastenmann sculpture by Erwin Wurm at The Standard Hotel. Then head upstairs to Le Bain on the roof top from 2 pm on (21 and over) and have a crepe ($5 to $8) while sitting on a waterbed with a great view of the High Line and the Hudson. And of course there’s always a walk on the High Line post-crepe! All weekend.

6. Music – Antipop Consortium at the New Museum. Alternative hip hop ensemble described as fragmented rhythms of contemporary electronic music with the confrontational, interrogative stance of rap. Friday 7/27 at 7 pm. Members $10, General Admission $12

7. Music – Breakout Sessions Music Fest sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery at 1031 Grand St., Williamsburg. Saturday 7/28 from 3pm to 11pm. 10 bands, 9+ hours of music, 4 hours of open bar. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Tickets here.

8. Music – Mostly Mozart Festival Preview Concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. Saturday, 7/28, 7:30 pm. FREE

9. Theater – Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim Delacorte Theater, Central Park through 8/25, 8 pm. Tickets same day in the park (line up early) or same day virtual ticketing here. All weekend.

10. Leisure/Food – One of our favorite summer things to do is hop on the East River Ferry from Long Island City after WarmUp at PS1 or Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg and ride down under all three bridges with lovely views of Manhattan getting off at Pier 11 at Wall Street (approximately 1 hour from the LIC/Hunters Point; $4 per person.) From there Adrienne’s Pizza on Stone Street for a delicious old style pizza pie and a little feel of Europe in NYC. All weekend.

11. Music/Film –Muppet Movie Sing-a-long with the Loser’s Lounge in Prospect Park Bandshell. Saturday, 7/28, 7:30 pm (doors open 6:30) FREE

12. Theater – Oxygen presented by B-Floor Theatre Company (Bangkok) at Flamboyan Theater, CSV Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St. Oxygen is a visual, movement and multimedia exploration of Thailand’s tumultuous political situation from 2010 to the present. Friday, 7/27 through Sunday, 7/29. Check for showtimes and tickets here. $20. All weekend.

Also in Music: The Head And The Heart / Lost in the Trees, at Prospect Park Bandshell, Brooklyn. Friday 7/27, 7:30 (doors open 6:30)

Also in Film: NewFest 2012 at Lincoln Center. NY’s premier LGBT Film Festival. Check for showtimes and tickets. Tickets $12 for members; $14 General Admission. All weekend.

Olympics 2012: Okay, so it’s more of a sports event than a cultural one, but you can watch the opening ceremonies surrounded by others at Big Screen Plaza, at the Eventi Hotel, (851 Sixth Avenue at 30th St) tonight Friday 7/27, 7-11:30 pm. FREE.

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions (i.e. The Clock at Lincoln Center, Yayoi Kusama Retrospective at the Whitney and more) see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates. Also, also: feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

July 26, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Rob & Nick Carter: Neon Postcards

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London based artistic couple Rob and Nick Carter create art that revolves around light, color and form in mediums that range from painting and photography, to installations and film. Their series titled Postcards from Las Vegas originates from a mutual love and collecting of postcards throughout their childhoods. They have enlarged some of their favorites and interjected contrasting retro-style Las Vegas neon signs from motels, strip clubs and diners. I love the results!

Photos courtesy of the artists.

July 25, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Kendell Geers: Neon Type Play

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South African-born artist Kendell Geers, presently lives and works in Brussels. He gained international notoriety when he urinated in Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain in Venice, and previously had publicly refused to serve in the South African Defense Force, along with 142 others, and was consequently exiled. Clearly, a force to be reckoned with. Geers is known for work that takes aim at both the art establishment and society in general as well as for questioning our existing moral codes. Working in a wide variety of media, he uses and subverts familiar signs from art history and pop culture.

Above are some of his typographic neon sculptures.