New York

Alien Armageddon, Empathy & The Vine of the Soul

A conversation with Melanie Bonajo

BY KATIE CERCONE

“In terms of plant meditation, I allow plants to be my teachers, they take me to a place of silence and I access portals that are usually only opening with an intensely deep, probably monastery meditation practice”
— Melanie Bonajo

Melanie Bonajo, Night Soil - Economy of Love, 2015, film still courtesy AKINCI

This article is now live over at Art 511 Magazine! This piece was commissioned by Alexandra Arts and first published in the special print edition of Art 511 Mag celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women’s suffrage [funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND] during the Pankhurst in the Park 2018 season. You can download the digital version of the full mag here

Spiraling Smoke

BY CLAIRE ZAKIEWICZ

Is now live over at Art 511 Magazine! This article was commissioned by Alexandra Arts  and first published in the special print edition of Art 511 Mag celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women’s suffrage [funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND] during the Pankhurst in the Park 2018 season. Plus, you can download the digital version of the full mag here

“I met SOL KJØK in May 2017 at her loft in Brooklyn when I became one of her artists in residence. Her studio is the size of two tennis courts, and you can see both the Empire State and Chrysler buildings through a pair of factory windows. Acrobatic swings, harnesses and platforms dangle from 20ft ceilings. A full-sized tipi sits off-centre in the space where a Shaman performs drum journeys. World-class physicists, artists, academics and eccentrics regularly pass through. Her world is an inspiring, cross-pollinating place of collaboration and interaction. From the roof you overlook one of the most polluted pockets of America’s post-industrial wasteland – a mad dystopian scene set against one of the most inspiring skylines in the world.”
— Claire Zakiewicz

Anna FC Smith in the news

Pankhurst in the Park 2018 commissioned artist Anna FC Smith has made it into the news today, read the full article in Wigan Today here,  about her NYC debut at EMINENT DOMAIN in West Chelsea. This exhibition featured over 90 feminist artist from around the world and was a collaboration between Alexandra Arts and NYC based Art 511 Magazine

EMINENT DOMAIN press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Scotto Mycklebust, 917 697-0844, scotto@scottomycklebust.com; Gia Portfolio, 201 248-6756, gia.portfolio@gmail.com

ART511MAG EMINENT DOMAIN EXHIBITION

OPEN CALL FOR INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST ART

(New York, NY, April 24, 2018) - ART511 Magazine is presenting EMINENT DOMAIN: a 3-day Flash Art Exhibition in the former Robert Miller space in West Chelsea. The exhibition is a curated selection of radical feminist art by female artists, eco-femmes, ghetto brujas, elders, queer/trans artists and other magical gender nomads reclaiming their rightful space in the Art World. The flash exhibition will occur July 12-14, 2018. 

Addressing the white male western canon’s discourse drawing from, exploiting, misrepresenting and objectifying female bodies and the racial/sexual Other, EMINENT DOMAIN occupies a major white box space in the heart of the commercial art world with a militantly utopic “flash flood” of new media, live performance and traditional visual art of every size and stripe, washing away old, derogative archetypes to tell another story about Art, ritual, community and the divine feminine mysteries.

EMINENT DOMAIN opens July 12th for 3 days in Chelsea, concluding with a Women In the Arts Panel comprised of a diverse cross-section of female thought leaders in the International Art World playing the fluid roles of curator, organizer/activist, gallerist, artist and arts administrator.

EMINENT DOMAIN was an impulse seeded by ART511 Magazine’s recent partnership with the Manchester, UK-based Alexandra Arts collective. This Spring, ART511 Magazine and Alexandra Arts teamed up to produce a limited edition 74-page, full-color print commission celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women's suffrage (funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND) for the 2018 Pankhurst in the Park season.

The edition is available as a free download online here

EMINENT DOMAIN flash exhibition will be presented Thursday, July 12, 2018: Opening Reception 6-8 p.m. & after Art party from 8-10 p.m. The exhibition will be open to the public Thursday, Friday & Saturday, July 12-14, from 10-6 p.m. ART511 Magazine will host a moderated panel discussion “Women in the Arts” in the afternoon on Saturday, July 14, 2018. 

Artists interested in being considered for this show can submit work or proposals for performance online at ART511MAG.com/submissions.  

We are seeking video, installation, new and mixed media as well as painting and sculptural objects, performance, music, spoken word and new genre time-based pieces. 

*Artists are required to provide all tech for video and multimedia works

See the open call here & SUBMIT work for the exhibition @ ART511MAG.com/submissions 

Deadline to Apply: May 24, 2018

For more info contact scotto@scottomycklebust.com

Happy International Womens Day

Happy International Women’s day and HELLO Pankhurst in the Park centenary magazine edition!

For Pankhurst in the Park 2018 we have teamed up with online publication and NYC based Art 511 Mag and commissioned a limited edition printed copy of the mag.

Curated between Alexandra Arts and Art 511 Mag, this special print edition features a host of inspirational contributors to whom we owe huge debt of thanks – Scotto Mycklebust, Katie Cerone, Gia Portfolio, Christopher Booth, Pablo Melchor, Marilyn Minter, Anna FC Smith, Melanie Bonajo, Go Push Pops, Laura Weyl , ULTRACULTURAL OTHERS, Samantha Conlon/ Bunny Collective, High Prieztezz or Nah, Sol Kjøk, Claire Zakiewicz, Ekua Bayunu, Elisa Garcia de la Huerta, Lauren Velvick, Hannah Leighton Boyce, Ruth Barker, Castlefield Gallery, Helen Wewoira, Naomi Kashiwagi, NARCISSISTER and Tasha Whittle.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are heading down to the exhibition launch for Hannah Leighton Boyce and Ruth Barker at the Castlefield Gallery. To find out more about the artists’ research, and their residencies with Glasgow Women’s Library and the University of Salford. For the Art 511 Mag centenary edition we commissioned local artist and writer Lauren Velvick to write about the exhibition. Inside you will also find an interview of Helen Wewoira, Director of Castlefield Gallery.

Download it here or flick through the online copy below.

Pankhurst in the Park 2018

Art 511 Mag

10 Organisations Helping Artists build Community

Alexandra Arts is named by Art 511 Mag as one of '10 Organisations helping Artists build community' with Ultracultural Others, Minnesota street projects, Beat Global, Culture Push + others. We are truly humbled, to be connected to so many forward thinking creatives who are smashing up the conventional mould of 'community arts'. We are also the only organisation outside the US on the list! Read the full article here

“In addition to their dynamic offerings in the park, Alexandra Arts is perhaps best know for its (international) artist residency program Pankhurst in the Park. Inspired largely by the legacy of the suffragette activism that took place in Alexandra Park and named for iconic movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst.”
— Art 511 Mag

'Sound of Silence' exhibition review 

Radical artist and feminist writer Katie Cercone did a shimmering review of Alexandra Arts lead Artist Lotte Karlsen's solo exhibition 'Sound of Silence' in New York, last September. It's now available to view at Art 511 Mag. 

“In a highly competitive and commercialized industry like art, where working together or calling yourself “feminist” isn’t always a safe or lucrative career move, Karlsen’s insistence on following through with her total vision for integration of self and community feels all encompassing in her radically interdisciplinary work. Her dexterity with the medium of glass and subtle meditation on the nature of life and death promises to shine through in this kinetic, effervescent installation for many moons”
— Katie Cercone, Art 511 Mag

Lasso of Truth NYC

Pop Amazon's Legacy Fatale Leads The March during NYC 21st Suffragette Festival

Pankhurst in the Park 2016 - Legacy Fatale commission ‘Lasso of Truth’ was performed at Grace Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn, 7th May 2016, the same day as our Alexandra Park Spring Showdown. Katie Cercone was there, writing for Whitehot Magazine, read the review here

“To kick off the event at Grace Space May 7th, modern-day Amazons Legacy Fatale and company will begin with a spirited march from Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick to Grace Exhibition Space. Recently back from Manchester, while in the UK the group performed a new work celebrating suffragette herstory for Alexandra Arts’s annual Wonder Woman festival. The Wonder Woman festival is part of the larger, comprehensive initiative of Manchester-based artist Lotte Karlsen to enact community art in Alexandra Park, turf upon which the suffragettes led some of their very first riots and rallies. Legacy Fatale will continue this thread in their work for the NYC-based sister project 21st Suffragettes.  ”
— Katie Cercone, WhiteHot Magazine