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Photo by Mara Catalan
Check out Dog Food Issue #3 for an article called “Vanishing Worlds” by Laura Demarco, a rumination on Brooklyn of the 90s, what has been done to it, and how it is changed today. Photographs by Williamsburg photographer Mara Catalan.
“You Have The Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. Good Luck With That. You Have the Right to Bear Arms ” -by John Lurie (21″x30″, ink jet print on archival rag paper. ©)
Strange & Beautiful will open on September 9 with a 6pm gallery opening at The Gallery at Le Poisson Rouge. The installation, titled “The Other Side of The Great Wall of Fuck”, will feature limited edition prints of Lurie’s paintings. Often surreal and kaleidoscopic, the work revels in the unexpected, the improvisatory, turning the cherished image in on itself toward an uncanny valley of objects and things, oddly juxtaposed and phrased in familiar terms.
Prior to focusing on painting, Lurie led the band The Lounge Lizards, which went on to make music for 20 years. During this time, Lurie recorded 22 albums and composed scores for over 20 movies, including Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Clay Pigeons, Animal Factory, and Get Shorty, which earned him a Grammy nomination. Lurie also starred in three films directed by Jim Jarmusch, as well as a host of other films. He wrote, directed and starred in the cult classic “Fishing with John,” a series that is now part of The Criterion Collection. Lurie is also responsible for the incredible music of Marvin Pontiac, “one of the most enigmatic geniuses of modern music.”
The House of Bushwig Photo by Maro Hagopian
Powder your nose and grab your buttons and bows, September is all about Bushwig. The Bushwick-based drag carnival and arts festival is returning for a 3rd year, and is extending the festival to run all weekend, and by all weekend, they mean ALL WEEKEND, honey!
Saturday kicks of at 1pm at Secret Project Robot, and sashays through 8 am at queer nightlife party and performance palace The Spectrum. Performers include Horrorchata, Elle Emenope, Rachel Ratchet, Sasha Velour, and many, many more superstars of drag, including a surprise guest from Rupaul’s Drag Race Season 6.
Every artist in the burg, point, ridge, and wick will be out tonight to join Pierogi in celebrating their 20 year anniversary with a sprawling group show that features over 120 artists. Among those artists are Mike Ballou, David Kramer, Mark Lombardi, Ken Butler, Luisa Caldwell, Ward Shelley, and The Freds – Tomaselli and Valentine.
Pierogi opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on North 9th Street in September 1994, where it remains today. Williamsburg doesn’t look the same as it did twenty or thirty years ago, but it was around that time that visual artists flooded in to Brooklyn and created multiple communities. Pierogi’s reputation for a unique, unconventional approach is grounded in this context. Over time Williamsburg’s example fostered numerous artist communities throughout Brooklyn and Queens which continue to expand to this day.
