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Joy of Booking
Stories about events and the people who make them happen.
These were chats I conducted when COVID-19 hit and many of my talented event producer friends were suddenly out of work. We looked to the future by talking about all the amazing projects they've done in the past. A really, really great group here.
A short collection of game-generated texts from 2009
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In 2017, I worked with atmospheric scientist Campbell Watson (IBM Research) to install a small weather station on the roof of Ace Hotel New York. With a great unobstructed view of the Empire State Building, Helen recorded local conditions and took photos of the sky. Helen was named after Helen Hunt, who portrayed Jo in Twister.
In 2018, Watson invited new-media artist Lee Tusman up from Philly for a live event called Live Coding the Weather, in which the duo interpreted atmospheric readings, live data streams and other inputs, sculpting them into a sonic / visual landscape via live coding.
Above: A sample of data saved by Helen
A project with Luiza Dale for ‘BOOK FELL INTO OCEAN” by TXTbooks as part of their collaboration with Printed Matter and NADA (Miami) in 2021.
Read moreA survey of used books over time.
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A venue I used to run called Public Assembly was built at the site of a former mayonnaise factory on North 6th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Above the room’s main hall were two large metal tanks –once home to vinegar and egg whites, I believe. I want to say they were about 35’ long and 9’ in diameter. On the front of one tank was a small porthole just large enough for a person to crawl through. It did not feel particularly safe, but once inside you heard an amazing natural reverb we dubbed the “mayoverb”.
is Upstairs was a short-lived series where musicians performed live in the tanks, footage of which was projected live down in the main room. Super-short lived. Just twice … people felt really uneasy in there. I called it this because before someone would start their set I’d say something like “Ladies and gentleman, Jason Sanford is upstairs..”. If you looked up, you could see the curve of the tanks dimly lit through some metal grate flooring. In addition to the nights I organized, I worked with La Blogoteque to have Colin Stetson perform a work in there for video.
Night Two: Feb 19, 2013
(with Norther Spy Records)
Jason Sanford (Neptune)
Patrick Higgins (Zs)
Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul (duo)
Night One: November 12th, 2012
Tristan Perich
Lesley Flanigan
Pat Noecker (as RAFT)
Ben Sisto
Ranges from full sets to short clips. Apologies there’s not more of Tristan’s set –we had a lot of issues with the cameras and dust.
Bonus Material: Here’s La Blogoteque’s video of Colin Stetson in the tank:
Light Asylum’s video for Heart of Dust (Mexican Summer), directed by Grant Worth and David Riley, had scenes shot in the tanks:
2s and 4s (Julio Monterrey, Matt Parker, Mikkel Hess and David Mason) performed in the tank, too. This video was produced by m ss ng p cesL
Tinsel Teeth (RI) at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston
After college I started a DIY events project in Boston called Honeypump (2002). Named after Joseph Beuys’ work Honeypump at the Workplace, my goal was to bring the energy and fun I found at Mass Art to the wider Boston music and arts scene. This idea was also heavily informed by shows I saw (Thrones, Deerhoof, Lightningbolt) in my friend Pete’s basement on Ashford St. I tried a lot of different things –organizing flea markets, boat parties, issuing grants, NYE parties, making posters for other peoples’ events, starting a record label, co-operating a message board (with Matt Sisto) and more.
Most people likely remember Honeypump for “doing shows” … low ticket price concerts in nightclubs, basements, squash courts, YWCAs, church halls, etc. Some of this worked out great and in some cases, hard lessons were learned. I wrapped it up (2006) when I began a full time gig w/ The Milky Way, Jamaica Plain’s classic venue for concerts, queer parties, pizza and at the time, candlepin bowling. While not a perfect list, if you go over here … most of what I did between 2002-2006 fell under the Honeypump moniker.
In 2023, Honeypump was rebooted for a one-night only show at The Sinclair in Cambridge, MA. There Were Wires, who played many MassArt shows twenty years prior, had the idea to perform a reunion gig. I booked it out with Have a Nice Life, Sinaloa, and DJ Joan Donovan. The show sold out (525 tickets) in four hours! It was a great night—a bit of a high school reunion. That’s it. No more Honeypump!
Messageboard became a go-to resource for DIY music in Boston
Helped restart the venue Great Scott w/ Carl Lavin which ended up doing very well
Organized 10 flea markets, attended by huge crowds; kind of set up a new trend for Boston.
Produced Love During Wartime, a party where profits became local arts grants (2x)
Founded Dynasty, a semi-popular local DIY dance party that hosted bands from Noxagt to Chromeo
Co-produced N.E.S.T. twice, a week of 35+ events across the city
Donated $ to organizations like The Red Cross; scholarship funds at Mass Art
2023 “reunion” show with There Were Wires at The Sinclair sold out; 525 tickets in a few hours
Honeypump was mostly known for putting on local concerts, making posters, throwing parties and other live events. I can take partial credit for all that but it was really a super wide network of people in the city making music, graphics, decorations, etc. Posters and flyers below are a sampling of the general vibe. Audio below is from a mix of places; a basement show, some legit clubs and one sketchy restaurant/venue called All Asia Cafe. Quality varies but is nice for the archives.
On my YouTube channel there are a lot of videos similar to the two below. Shot with either an old Sony Handicam or a Flip camera, they are somewhat lo-res but document what I was up to with DIY show booking around the early 2000s. Videos of Xiu Xiu, Gang Gang Dance, American Nightmare, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Chromeo, etc.
Honeypump Records put out three releases: A split 12” from the bands Clickers and Night Rally, a LP for The Faux and the vinyl version of U.V. Protection’s self-released CD. The label barely got off the ground — I believe both Clickers and Night Rally broke up shortly after the 12” got pressed; U.V. got offered a national tour opening for The Gossip but had timing conflicts and The Faux LP was released only after co-founding member Kirsten Malone had sadly passed away. All this, and I’d made the decision to release all the MP3s online for free under a Creative Commons license. I thought this would help promote actual vinyl sales but all the shops in Boston —remember, this is 2004 or so— told me they wouldn’t carry the record since I’d already given the music away. The unsold LPs were given to Dan Shea of Bodies of Water / Brain Arts when I moved to NYC.
Left is a screen grab from the final night the board was up. Right is a scene seen at a lot of parties, shows, colleges etc - a bunch of kids grouped around a PC looking for into on shows, making fake accounts and having lolz.
Bye-bye, Ben (Boston.com, 2008)l Sisto Act 2 (Boston Phoenix, 2008); Bostonian of the Week (Bostonist, 2008); Guide to Boston (Nylon Magazine, 2006); R.I.P. Honeypump (Weekly Dig, 2006); Hanging with Ben Sisto (Boston Globe, 2006); Let's Stick Together (Boston Metro, 2006), ; Working for a Song (Boston Herald, 2006); It Came from the Basement (Boston Phoenix, 2004); Punk Presenter is Making a Splash (Boston Globe, 2003)
Free SVG 12” is a one-off record I pressed featuring music from James Corrigan and Adrian Michna. It was produced based on a prompt from Bait / Switch, a Boston-based arts publication with an exquisite-corpse style of offering prompts and assignments. The final work is the record’s listing page on discogs.com
Read moreI oversaw gallery exhibitions at Ace Hotel New York from June 2013—March 2019, and in that time produced at least 80 exhibitions. This involved curating, production, promotion, working with design and marking teams—the works. I spent a lot of time after-hours on a ladder, but getting to work with The John Cage Trust, Storm King, MoMA, Rhizome and other great organizations was really rewarding. The all-time best-show (per hotel staff review) was a robotic gamelan orchestra.
Click any listing below to expand the original copy.
Artist Shani Jamila’s collages, paintings and soundscapes explore family, lineage and identity. The collages utilize her archive of photo essays created over the course of her travels to nearly fifty countries as source material. They interrogate how the idea of home is constructed and the surrealist nature of our political reality. As Jamila encounters people and places through her camera lens, moments of recognition or solidarity emerge which are reorganized and re-purposed through collage, simultaneously revealing and obscuring identity and familiarity.
Her paintings, made solely with the artist’s fingerprints, began as a creative mapping of her personal family records. Jamila is in the seventh generation on both sides of her lineage. The content of the work, and its color palette, are drawn from enormous genealogical charts produced by her grandmother. While the materials vary, there is a constant refrain in Jamila's work of who she is, where she comes from and how she interacts with the world, whether via the camera, the photograph's transformation to collage or the meditative repetition of pressing her fingertips to paint and canvas. With Seven, she invites us into an immersive installation to experience how the work is woven together.
Curated by Atsuko Barouh, Beauty in Imperfection is an exhibition showcasing Japanese boro textiles, fabrics that have been mended or patched together — the term “boro” is from the Japanese “boroboro,” which defines something tattered or repaired. “Boro is my antidote to the fast-fashion world,” says Barouh. “The clothes can be viewed to embrace the concept of ‘Wabi Sabi,” an aesthetic philosophy rooted in Zen Buddhism and the art of finding beauty in the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.”
The technique was widely used for hemp fabrics among the working class during the 19th century Edo period. With silk and cotton fabrics reserved for select members of the upper class, boro signified a farming class with repaired garments being passed down over generations, layers of patchwork added from decades of mending. These fabrics were limited to a restricted color palette and were dyed in hues of indigo, brown, grey or black. With the rise of a middle class in the 20th century, many of the boro pieces were discarded in favor of unmended, new clothing to signal an elevation of economy. These pieces spotlight a deeply rooted tradition and a new appreciation for the beauty within.
On September 16th, in the year of our Lord 2000, a self-described Art Star and Elf called Reverend Jen opened the world's only Lower East Side Troll Museum in her tiny, rent-stabilized tenement apartment. Rev’s goal was simple: educate, enlighten and amuse others by showcasing her rad collection of Troll Dolls. People came from far and wide and the "tiny museum that could" gained international notoriety. It was the subject of a documentary on Japan's NHK TV, was featured on the WB's evening news, the Smithsonian Channel and in many magazines and newspapers. Asking a mere pittance of a $3,000 suggested donation, Reverend Jen was able to see her museum flourish and grow for almost 16 years, until the barely employable Elf was unable to pay the rent and thus evicted.
Many have recently asked, "Where is the Troll Museum when we need it most?" In these trying times, the doll that turned the world on with a smile, a talisman of hope and the embodiment of "groovy" is requisite. In partnership with the Outsider Art Fair and Ace Hotel New York, prayers are being temporarily answered, as the Troll Museum will be doing a brief installation in the hotel's lobby, where appropriately, there is a bar. Visitors can find the majority of the Trolls taking over the front desk and check-in area, with a few peppered across the Lobby for good measure.
Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts —Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders— held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth."
Taken aboard Apollo 8, the iconic picture AS08-14-2383, better known as Earthrise, depicts Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon. Nature photographer Galen Rowell declared it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken".
Earthrise Museum contains some 75 items —original press photos, newspapers, lithographs, NASA documents and commemorative ephemera— which allow us to reflect back not only on Apollo 8, but on how we collect, preserve, and share stories of hope and inspiration.
Ten years before most Americans had heard of the Internet, the French were chatting, playing, researching, buying, and flirting online. These early adventures in networked living were made possible by a little computer – distributed free of charge – from the phone company, Minitel. By the late 1980s, France was the most well-connected country in the world and almost instantly, Minitel had become a fertile ground for hackers, artists and radical activism, all thanks to the relatively open nature of its hardware and software. While the system was officially shut down by the French phone company in 2012, recent years have seen a renewed bloom of creativity using abandoned terminals – often found in piles of street side trash – to support new performances and creative inquiry.
For Minitel All, Ace Hotel New York partnered with Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll, co-authors of the first scholarly book in English on Minitel, Minitel: Welcome to the Internet (MIT Press). The duo has shared original ephemera including pins, postcards, stickers and prints from the heyday of the Minitel scene which will be on display in our Gallery Annex throughout November.
The work of New Orleans-born, Brooklyn-based artist Mason Saltarrelli navigates connections between spirits and mortality by utilizing various found and invented narrative symbols. Saltarrelli paints and draws expressively —his intuition producing open-ended, intersecting motifs that invite exploration from the viewer. Saltarrelli’s works on canvas, paper and wood transform inanimate, human and animal beings into playful subjects in an ever-evolving
examination of shape and color. Having previously worked with the Ace Hotel New Orleans, Saltarrelli’s triptych commemorating jazz trumpeters now hangs permanently in the hotel’s lobby.
Mason Saltarrelli is presented in partnership with TURN Gallery, located at 37 East 1st Street. TURN was founded by Annika Peterson in 2015, supporting a roster of celebrated emerging artists including Ariel Dill, who’s also crafted a mural for room 828 here at Ace Hotel New York.
Not a Fresco is an extension of a body of work assembled by Adriana Gallo “observing the implementation of coded materials and forms in the absence of language.” Inspired by Italian shrines, or santuari, Gallo’s compositions attempt to mirror the ways that we collect, assemble and compose the physical objects in our lives as methods of communication and reflection in an otherwise idiorrhythmic lifestyle. This collection of forms is specifically interested in the collision of inner and other-worldly aesthetics and arrangement as a spiritual exercise. Adriana Gallo lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with roots in Milan and New England. Her practice exists between painting, design and sculpture with an emphasis on notions of routine and ritual and the resulting artifacts. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015.
Brooklyn-based artist Garrett Morin is interested in this timeless, magical art of transforming the anxiety darkness brings into moments of contemplation and beauty. For Morin, paper and canvas offer a type of home field advantage in the neverending battle against mortality, loss and suffering.
Aesthetically, the works in You Have Been Expected and Are Welcome in My Castle make nods to artists like Austin Osman Spare and Davide Salle, to traditional still life painting, and perhaps a hint of Myst concept art thrown in for good measure. Conceptually, Morin is playing hide-the-ball; his interest in exploring drama and exploiting expectations make these the works of a Lynchian cartographer — the works in You Have Been Expected ... are intuition-driven maps which hint at, but never fully reveal a way out.
With Relics of the Old Skool, Almighty & Insane Books explores the subcultural history of late twentieth century Chicago through its first two books: Beyond Heaven: Chicago House Party Flyers, 1983-1989 and Thee Almighty & Insane: Chicago Gang Business Cards from the 1970s & 1980s. Each collection reflects a unique set of pre-digital aesthetic and practical values — business cards showcase design within the dark underworld of gang culture tied into the city's class, racial, and power structures; flyers document house music finding its post-disco origins in underground gay clubs and expanding out to become one of the city's greatest musical exports. The exhibition will feature select pages from deconstructed books along with original ephemera and will run for two weeks in conjunction with Printed Matter’s thirteenth annual NY Art Book Fair.
Curated by Opening Ceremony and Yang Li
Psychic TV, an experimental music group formed by Genesis P-Orridge, was one of the most influential bands to date in pioneering the acid house genre. The group has released over one hundred albums to date. Genesis fronted the group and is considered an icon within many circles, even earning herself the moniker of the "Godsperson of Industrial Music". Every item displayed has been hand-selected from Psychic TV's personal collections. One hundred percent of funds raised will be donated to support Genesis in her battle with Myelomonocytic Leukemia and towards assisting with the increasing medical expenses.
A reception was held on Friday September 7 from 6 – 8pm, with Genesis and special guests present.
Designed to be touched, held and lived with, Janis Stemmermann’s newest body of work consists of wheel-thrown cylinders, bowls and classic forms. Raw clay and glazes co-exist, reminding the viewer of their dual-nature as functional vessels and formal sculptures.
Stemmermann is a multidisciplinary artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn. Engaging in ongoing conversation with form, pattern, material and process, her pieces are part of a larger graphic narrative being told across decades, in conversation with the centuries. Along with her partner Russell Steinert, Stemmermann is co-owner of the Brooklyn-based project space Russell Janis, whose website launched In 2012 with a focus is making, collaborating on and exhibiting projects from an artist’s point-of-view.
Ace Hotel New York and John Chaich are proud to present Vivek Shraya: Trisha, a captivating photo series in which the artist occupies spaces and wears outfits to recreate photographs of her mother from the 1970s when she was a single woman recently immigrated to Canada. The concept was born from a desire to document striking physical similarities Shraya first began to notice while transitioning. Chaich notes that Vivek’s imperfect recreations remind viewers that “queer people create our gender presentations with what’s available to us, wherever we are.” The collection’s juxtaposition of new and source images creates a dialogue across time, genealogy and gender.
Ace Hotel New York and MoMA PS1 are kindred spirits, wholly committed to boundary-bending experimentation and emerging art. This summer, we continue our long-time support of MoMA PS1's Warm Up, a pioneering outdoor music series now celebrating its 21st season. To mark the occasion, we've asked the team at MoMA PS1 to empty their desks, clean out the closets and flip over some couch cushions in search of rarely seen media from the series' early days.
The videos on view in Warm Up: The Early Years are at once nostalgic and unexpectedly contemporary. They offer a candid glimpse into the program's humble beginnings and the tireless dedication of the people who were there to make it happen.
“The torn upper edge of each drawing by Scott Goodman in the lobby display case indicates each page’s previous life in a sketchbook. They’re like walking through the city, having formed the thumb and index fingers of one’s hands into 2 “L” shapes; holding up the resulting rectangular picture window and squinting through it at different things, inert objects and architectural details come into focus, taking on personalities in miniature tableaux vivants. The fallen hairclip in the subway becomes sexually suggestive. A soda spill creeps under a gate unctuously. Goodman’s drawings are witty character studies of Brooklyn”. - Joshua Caleb Weibley, May 2018
Scott Goodman (b. 1983) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. After receiving a BFA from Cooper Union in 2006, he founded Good Work Gallery and worked extensively with DADDY. He has exhibited work with Alt Esc, Gasser Grunert Gallery, Beverly’s, and 315 Gallery. Goodman's work explores the synthetic relationship of nature unto the domestic, and by extension, issues of perception and reality. Poetically, his is a world of unheard trees falling.
Louise Foo and Martha Skou are Danish-born, NYC-based artists collaborating under the eponymous practice ‘Foo/Skou’. Through interactive installations that empower individuals to compose unique experiences, Foo/Skou communicates the magic found at the intersection of sound, visual art and technology. Taking inspiration from the scores of Cage, Kandinsky and Russian futurism, their work blends physical computing with traditional, analog handicraft to create new forms of expression that simultaneously reference future, present and past creative practices.
On display in our gallery this May is Format 3, a collection of works that includes The Alphabet, Techno Tapestry and Sounding Symbols 1—9. An alphabet of 81 symbols was developed based on variations of three shapes— square, circle and triangle— which map to the elements earth, wind and fire respectively. These symbols were then used to create graphic scores to be interpreted through the Format 3 smartphone app, which translates them into sound. Viewers are encouraged to download the app free of charge and explore the works both visually and sonically.
Adams Puryear wants you to know that the apocalypse is here, and it’s not a bad idea to be prepared. With Tools for the Future, Puryear builds on his history of representing complex narratives though tactile materials and alternate media; his designs inspired by scavenger-creativity and makers surviving under oppression. With a special interest in mid-century Soviet Russia and American isolationist groups from the 1980s and 90s, Puryear’s materials range from precious objects to scraps, from readymades to hand-sculpted detritus. In all cases objects have been repurposed to form a new object rich with potential utility.
Adams Puryear (b. Dartmouth, MA) received a MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington and a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Founder of FPOAFM Nomadic Art/Craft Collective, he exhibits regularly throughout the US and maintains a studio in Brooklyn.
In the early to mid-21st century, the U.S. government passed sweeping legislation prohibiting the sale and use of contraceptives and reproductive health products in the United States. What seemed to many as a set of extreme, fringe attitudes slowly gained mainstream acceptance as limitations on contraceptives and reproductive health products began appearing in the form of state and municipal bans. Eventually “The Ban”—as it’s become collectively known—was ratified into federal law. Use of all contraceptive, prophylactic and reproductive health care products and services were criminalized.
One of the immediate consequences of people being denied access to regulated and sanctioned options was an increase in the use of homemade reproductive health products. Often, these products were ineffective—even potentially lethal—unlike previous products and practices that had been scientifically proven to be safe and effective.
In the years following The Ban, New York City artists Ellie Sachs and Matt Starr began archiving these prohibited objects and researching banned services as evidence of an era in which people in the U.S. had a broader set of sexual and reproductive health rights. Artifacts from their collection, which are on display in this exhibition, are some of the only known remaining examples.
Their research calls attention to how reproductive health care products served many functions beyond pregnancy prevention and protection from sexually transmitted diseases. Contraceptives were used to help manage medical conditions, and allowed people the opportunity to effectively plan when, or if, to have children. Both examples have been shown to have a positive impact on people’s access to education and employment, leading to a better quality of life overall.
Sachs and Starr would like to thank the Center for Pre-Ban Studies, who helped make this exhibition possible.
Presented in partnership with The City Reliquary
During the winter of 2015, an East Village fourth grader attending Children’s Workshop School peered into the dusty crevices beneath his classroom’s closet floorboards. He wondered what treasures might have fallen there in the 104 years since the building was constructed. His classmates took notice and joined in, poking and peeking under the boards.
Through this “closet archaeology,” an accidental time capsule —built over a century by generations of students— was excavated for the world to see. Led by their teacher, Miriam Sicherman, these junior archaeologists have unearthed love notes, spelling tests, caps from glass milk bottles, portraits of silent film stars, penny candy wrappers and more. They have even located the former students, now adults, who lost these items across the decades.
Presented by Chinatown Soup
Buy! Sell! "Pass GO" and "Collect $200 of Chinese Lucky Money!" or, "Go to Court!". All the fun and excitement of Parker Brothers’ classic real estate trading game is complicated by Gentrification: Chinatown Edition. Produced by Chinatown Soup—a creative community advancing art, justice, historic preservation and civic engagement in downtown New York—the game invites players to buy local businesses of all types, from the dollar dumping house to the art gallery that just moved in next door. Determine who gets to live in your neighborhood by adding affordable housing units, condominiums and hotels. Consider the many factors that create a community and decide if amassing a fortune through money and property makes you a winner?
Hard Feels is a collection featuring the work of three artists who manipulate materials and textures to examine the relationships between subculture, mass media and various modes of cultural indoctrination. On the works, HOUSING says, “The unsettling fact of today's human condition is that it is forever entranced by far-reaching recesses of information overload: an endless stream of post-truth politics and fleeting Internet assertions bring us to simplistic, reductive emotional reactions on the level of 'feels'. There is potential for artworks to rework material in order to both complicate and unveil the quiet efficiency of these dominant systems of power.” Working between painting, mixed media, and sculpture, artists Kevin Evans, Parker Bright, and Alina Perez look at durability as an ethos: durable symbols of conspicuous consumption, durable systems of oppression, and the durability to withstand a contemporary moment, and its likely futures.
HOUSING is also exhibiting two prints by American Artist (b. 1989 Altadena, CA), an interdisciplinary artist whose work extends dialectics formalized in Black radicalism and organized labor into a context of networked virtual life. Their practice makes use of video, installation, new media, and writing to reveal historical dynamics embedded within contemporary culture and technology.
Ike Morgan (b. 1958) is a self-taught artist from Austin, Texas who spends almost every waking moment creating. He began his artistic career while being treated for schizophrenia as a long-term patient at the Austin State Hospital, where he created thousands of haunting works using found materials, cardboard, and paper. As he often says, painting and drawing “ help to pass the time away.” Ike Morgan: History Lesson is co-presented by SHRINE (New York) and Webb Gallery (Texas) in conjunction with Ace Hotel New York and the 2018 Outsider Art Fair. The exhibition surveys works from all eras of Morgan’s production, with a special focus on historical subjects and individuals.
Scissors are among the most ancient human tools and just about every museum counts a pair or two among their treasures. Most everyone over the age of five owns a pair of these everyday artifacts, but collector Harley J. Spiller has taken things a step further, assembling a collection of close to a thousand different scissors representing a wide range of design, innovative function, and style. Collection highlights include a five-foot tall pair of hand-carved wooden scissors, four-bladed Korean kitchen shears (with cleaning brush), dozens of miniature and anthropomorphic scissors, and bronze seed-cracking scissors, the only pair that opens from the top. This month, our Gallery Annex hosts a sampling of items from the archive as part of our month-long partnership with Outsider Art Fair.
Over the past three decades, Jamaican film and television producer Maxine Walters has amassed a collection of nearly 4,000 original Jamaican dancehall street posters and signs. Presented here, Serious Things A Go Happen is an exhibition of select one-of-a-kind, hand-painted signs that serve to tell the cultural history of Jamaican dancehall music — a genre borne out of reggae in the late 1970s — through the bold graphic design and new visual style that emerged alongside it.
With Portraits, the Penumbra Foundation Tintype Studio’s Executive Director, photographer Geoffrey Berliner, offers a record of artists who have participate in the Penumbra Artist Series. Portraits is rooted in the idea of the analogy of representation (that which is apparent, visible) and the analogy of expression (that which is inside, invisible). Born in New York in 1962 and later receiving a Master's degree in religion from Harvard University, Berliner was introduced to photography at an early age. Today, he is especially interested in large format and alternative photographic processes. The images depict Berliner’s personal, unique and beauteous approach to subjects. The early photographic technique employed here is Tintype, —a unique image made on sheet of metal, coated with iodized collodion, dipped in silver nitrate and exposed in the camera— a variation of the Ambrotype, invented by Frederick Scott Archer in England in 1851.
A window into the life and work of seminal artists like Marina Abramović, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Ai Weiwei and Katharina Grosse, A More Creative World is an intimate series of short documentary films curated by Art21. Selected from their original digital series New York Close Up and Extended Play, these cinematic biographies take place in artists’ studios, allowing viewers to witness their creative process with personal anecdotes. The videos, grouped into five themed playlists — Take Action, The Anarchic Potential of Color, History Reimagined, Blockbusters and Out of the Studio— feature over 40 artists digging into complex themes to create work that provoke, question and reflect on the world at large and on the human condition.
Since 2010, Creative Growth —an Oakland-based nonprofit serving artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities— has hosted Beyond Trend, a one of kind, unscripted, couture fashion performance featuring artists from the studio and their designs. In celebration of New York Fashion Week 2017, Ace Hotel New York has curated Ying Ge & Juan, an exhibition of works on paper by two current Creative Growth artists. Despite being from vastly different backgrounds, Yng Ge Zhou and Juan Aguilera create works which appear in effortless conversation with one another, each artist being fluent in the languages of fashion and design.
Juan Aguilera emigrated to the United States from Mexico at the age of eight, though he returns to his birthplace often to visit his family. Aguilera fuses female imagery with flowering plants and other organic content, a gesture the artist describes as being a symbolic nod to the matriarch and the life cycle, specifically as it pertains to birth. Garments transcend their everyday utility and are re-imagined into beautifully rendered, emblematic feminine icons.
Born in Guangdong, China, Ying Ge Zhou arrived at Creative Growth with a strong aptitude for drawing and painting. Using fashion and entertainment magazines as source material, Ying Ge translates static ads into a dynamic portraits; her loose, punctuated style reminiscent of Warhol’s fashion drawings. Surrounded by a foreign culture, Ying Ge’s work serves as a means of translation, perhaps a searching for a complexity beneath the surface of high-gloss industry photography.
Creative Growth Art Center provides a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition and representation, and a social atmosphere among peers. Creative Growth’s studio serves over 150 adult artists in a variety of media, and Creative Growth’s gallery is the world’s oldest exhibition space dedicated to artwork made by people with disabilities.
Mapping Mespeatches, an exhibition of site-specific work by artist Sto Len, highlights the relationship between aesthetic beauty and ugly truth by investigating urban sprawl and the illegal dumping of toxic waste in natural habitats through a series of prints pulled from the surface of Newtown Creek and Corona Park in Queens. Working en plein air from a rowboat, Len uses an original process he calls Tsunaminagashi — a mix of traditional suminagashi and his own techniques — to print directly off of the water. These works are arresting, psychedelic experiments in marbleized texture and design that reveal a dark, tactile truth of urban pollution in our city’s water.
Sto Len exposes the physical consequences of this commodified urban landscape through land art, performance and printmaking as a site of discourse on environmentalism and gentrification. Sto Len is Brooklyn-based with familial roots in Vietnam and was the inaugural artist invited to participate in Ace Hotel New York’s Artists in Residence program.
Ace Hotel New York and 99u are proud to host All the Colors at Once. Mike Perry is an artist, animator, creative director, brand consultant, poet, and designer. His work encompasses paintings, drawings, sculptures, art installations, books, murals, all of which are made to conjure that feeling of soul-soaring you have when you stare into distant galaxies on a dark night, when you go on long journeys into the imagination, when you laugh and can’t stop laughing. Key to Mike’s working method is the recognition that art and objects, go through many iterations—discoveries, coverings, uncovering—until they’re finished; people do the same until they are fully revealed.
He likes to cultivate collectives of celebration, exhibition, and revelation. Through their Webby Award-winning website, popular events, and bestselling books, and by sharing pragmatic, action-oriented insights from leading researchers and visionary creatives, 99U doesn't just give you more ideas —they empower you to make good on the ones you've already got.
Move with Pride is an intimate photo and video series exploring connections between dance, movement, queerness, resistance and pride. Calling attention to the importance of queer spaces for social dance, the series features over 25 dancers and movers from diverse backgrounds. On display in our Gallery Annex this June is a site-specific installation crafted by Move With Pride founder Rebecca Hidalgo, which celebrates members of the community who have helped bring the project to life.
Rebecca Hidalgo is a multidisciplinary queer Latinx artist and performer based in New York City. Through solo and collaborative works performed locally and across Europe, Hidalgo draws from her own personal narrative and high-energy aesthetic to tell stories that spark controversy and conversation.
Curated by Rhys Roffey for Ace Hotel New York.
Who plants, harvests and prepares your meals? And afterwards, who does the dishes?
Since 2012, fast food workers across the United States have been demanding a living wage through the Fight for $15 campaign, echoing the struggles of the United Farm Workers of America who, since the 60s, have led efforts to organize agricultural workers. The Black Panthers, understanding that food is an essential prerequisite for liberation, started the Free Breakfast for School Children Program which remains visible today in free breakfast programs at public schools across the country. Similarly, liberation movements around the world — from Angola’s Movimento Popular de Libertação to the Chiapas-based Zapatistas — have mobilized citizens to take control of their food production systems.
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde.
In addition to his well known contributions to music including the infamous 4'33", Cage was deeply interested in food and cooking. He co-founded the New York Mycological Society, studied macrobiotic diets and kept a diary noting his many culinary encounters with friends. Items appear courtesy of the John Cage Trust, and are being displayed this month in celebration of Food Book Fair 2017. The Gallery Annex is located in our lobby, back to the right of the bar and across from the W/C.
To Serve the National Interest investigates the physical terrain of U.S. immigration and carceral policy by using publicly accessible satellite imagery of privately run, immigrant-only federal prisons and primary-source government documents. Exploring the often conspicuously absent human stories in aerial perspectives, this collaborative exhibition by artists Ingrid Burrington and Josh Begley, along with journalist Seth Freed Wessler, runs in conjunction with Rhizome’s annual Seven on Seven conference.
To Serve the National Interest seeks to collapse the fragmented narratives of U.S. immigration policy into a single landscape and timeline using the analogue technology of lenticular printing. The exhibition is a meditation on the trauma buried — yet still present — within the carceral landscape.
This April, our Gallery Anex hosts a display of photo-ephemera from our neighbors at Penumbra Foundation. No strangers to Ace, Penumbra also curated our Artists in Residence program last month, and will be back with more later in the year. A reception for their pop-up display will be held on Tuesday April 25th from 7-9pm.
Penumbra Foundation is a non profit organization that brings together the Art and Science of Photography through education, research, outreach, public?, ??residency programs? and a tintype studio?. The Penumbra Tintype Studio is a wet plate collodion portrait studio, open to the public for bookings, events and weddings. All proceeds from the studio go to support Penumbra's mission and programs.
Skaters have always expressed themselves as they see fit. They have an ineffable knack for practice and perhaps that drive — along with an irreverent attitude toward authority and a clear sense-of-self — allows them to move between the asphalt and the studio (or to even erase the distinction between skating and art) with such grace and aplomb.
NO TREND, curated by Anthony Pappalardo, looks to some exceptionally talented skaters whose fine-art practices define their real relationship to skateboarding, one where the work speaks for itself and noone else. Works by Cole Giordano, Pep Kim, Jonathan Mehring, Lou Sarowsky, Winston Tseng, Tyrrell Winston and Allen Ying.
Memorial —a site-specific installation by Ryan James MacFarland— combines Polaroid 600 cameras, unused film, film packaging and adhesive to create a personal, loving memory of Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) and The Polaroid Corporation (1932-2009). Memorial will be on display from Jan 5 - 31 in our Gallery Annex —a small space for big ideas. A friends & family reception, which the pulbic can drop by for as well, will take place on January 11 at 7pm.
Born in Tallahassee, FL in 1985, MacFarland is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in analog photography, who received his BFA from New York University in 2006. Working across environments both natural and found, MacFarland explores spatial and historical relationships informed by nonlinear science, cosmic intervention and conscious existence. His work has been featured globally by outlets such as Artinfo, Art F City, DuJour, Hyperallergic, Purple, OUT, The New York Times, Vogue, W and Whitewall.
Since 2012, New York-based group portrait artist Nick McManus has single-handedly captured over 3,000 Polaroids — a project documenting intimate constellations of some of our city’s most necessary cultural contributors. Allowing gatherings to guide his lens, McManus is there as parties wind down and venues close up — directing DJs, party-goers, promoters, hosts and cleaning staff alike out of the dark corners, and capturing vibrant communities of all kinds across New York’s impossibly broad spectrum; his personal best is 17 shooting locations in a single night.
Recording now-lost landmarks like Pearl River Mart, Puck Fair, The Acheron, Surma Books, Patricia Field, The Sock Man, Inutilious Retailer, Ludlow Guitars, Jeromes, Grand Victory and more, Where’s My Polaroid? Is comprised of 720 photos McManus shot in New York City over the complicated course of 2016 — a fleeting testament to the year that was, and a one-of-its-kind chronicle of the elusive group energies that fuel so much of this city.
With System Failure, NYC artist Faust calls attention to four artists whose practices are case studies in pressure, potential energy, and release. Influenced by the aesthetics and attitude of street art, each flip instances of breakdown and failure —deletion, explosion, political unrest, etc— into moments of celebration and beauty. Works by Victoria Siemer, Caroline Caldwell, Nelson Rivas and Sabekst.
Faust, one of the more influential graffiti artists in New York, was featured in Le Tag (Paris) and named in Juxtapoz's list of Top 20 Graffiti Artists. System Failure was paired with December's Artists in Residence program; artists represented in the exhibition each spent one night at the hotel, turning their room into a temporary studio.
DISCOUNT MINI MART, a micro discount store compiled by Adriana Gallo, took up residence at Ace Hotel New York for the month of November. Located in the Gallery Annex, the project celebrates the corner discount store's legendary status as a place where you might not find exactly what you're after, but are guaranteed to come across objects you never knew you needed. Adorned with their proprietors' signature sense of flair, these "everything" stores play an important role in our culture, showcasing the similarities and differences between neighboring towns (or blocks) along common routes of travel. Adriana Gallo is a NYC resident with roots in the Berkshires, Rhode Island, and Milan. A recent RISD grad, this artist, illustrator, and designer also works right here at Ace Hotel. The Gallery Annex is a small space for big ideas. It is located in the lobby by the restrooms and the bar.
In 1971, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro curated Womanhouse, an exhibition at CalArts in which 21 female performance and installation artists created thematic work based on stereotypical tropes of "women's work." 45 years later, McNally Jackson's Picture Room pays homage to this historic happening, inviting a select group of contemporary women artists to address these themes through a modern lens.
Featuring works from Kayla Ephros, Blanca Guerrero, Aidan Koch, Maia Ruth Lee, and Jen Shear, After Womanhouse'sparticipants make use of clip art, blogging, and web imagery paired with hand-crafted paper, textiles and traditional artistic practices.
As frontman of the wildly adventurous rock band The Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne’s psychedelic surrealism takes many forms: he's penned seminal songs, transformed concerts into visually stunning spectacles, created enduring album cover art, drawn comic books, released music on flash drives embedded in gummy skulls, directed a sci-fi Christmas movie and opened a funhouse-style arts venue in his hometown of Oklahoma City.
Last year at Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum, Coyne premiered his immersive King’s Mouth sculpture — an immense metallic head with synchronized lights and music — which proved to be one of the most popular attractions in AVAM’s history. Coyne also concocted a fantastical creation myth that he illustrated with a series of drawings and multi-media collages. Through October, The Gallery at Ace Hotel New York presented a selection of these 2D works from the King's Mouth exhibition, in partnership with Baltimore's Friends Records.
For New York Fashion Week, Ace Hotel New York welcomes Coeio into our Gallery during September for an Infinity Burial Suit exhibition, Natural Causes. On Thursday, September 8th we'll host an opening reception and ceremonious burial suit performance to a live ensemble performing select works by noted mushroom collector and composer John Cage. We're also giving away a suit to one lucky human, and one noble beast.
Introduced by Coeio, a green burial company, the burial suit spawned from the simple notion that mushrooms could be key to rethinking both death and our human relationship to the planet. Founder and CEO Jae Rhim Lee, an MIT-trained artist and designer, invented the eco-friendly jumpsuit embedded with mushrooms and other biological material to harmoniously digest the deceased while cleaning toxins in the body and the soil and helping plants in the burial area flourish — like a future-oriented mushroom dirge.
With Outlooks, Storm King Art Center invites emerging or mid-career artists to create temporary works of art specifically for Storm King’s site. This season, Josephine Halvorson presents Measures, three new site-specific works that respond to distinct environments in Storm King’s five-hundred-acre landscape, inspired by the natural and artistic landmarks that surround them. To prepare for the project, Halvorson made preliminary painted sketches, six of which are on view at The Gallery at Ace Hotel in New York along with a film created by RAVA Films that provides insight into Halvorson’s artistic process, thoughts and installation at Storm King.
The exhibitions run through August at Ace Hotel New York and through November 27 at Storm King Art Center.
Discwoman, a New York-based platform representing cis women, trans women and genderqueer talent often underrepresented in the electronic music mainstream, has several artists included in this year’s Warm Up lineup. MoMA PS1 has invited Discwoman to present Lossless — a solo exhibition of new works by visual artist Emily Fuhrman in Ace Hotel New York’s gallery. In this series, Fuhrman uses original code and unique conceptual constraints to produce data-driven 2D interpretations of selected tracks by artists featured in MoMA PS1's Warm Up series this year, including: “Queen” by TT The Artist; “Lionsong” by Bjork (Juliana Huxtable remix); BEARCAT’s score for Body Electric, the CHROMAT documentary; “Stillness” by SADAF, and “Homonyms” by Eartheater.
Presented by Ace Hotel New York and Discwoman in conjunction with Warm Up at MoMA PS1.
Introduced to the general public in the mid 1990s, the Precor M9.1 Precision Electronic Treadmill featured a microprocessor-regulated motor control system, Manual and Interval modes and various factory-programmed courses. Originally designed to provide home-users with a comfortable workout, John Kilduff — a Los Angeles-based artist who'd studied at The Groundlings, Los Angeles City College and the Otis/Parsons Art Institute — had something different in mind for the device.
In 2001, "Let's Paint TV" began broadcasting live on Los Angeles Public Access television. Episodes centered around Kilduff’s painting practice, which consisted of a variety of activities — taking calls from viewers, motivational speaking, cooking, playing ping pong and concocting “blended drinks” — all while running on a treadmill in a paint-stained Brooks Brothers suit.
Ace Hotel and 99U tapped the imagination of Tokyo-born and NYC-based artist Miho Hatori, who proposed a series of Hanafuda cards designed by twelve contemporary artists. Winston Chmielinski, Brian Close, Brian DeGraw, JD Samson, Michael DeSutter, India and Jack, Greg Fox, Brian Paul Lamotte, Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Ayako Kurokawa and Akari Endo-Gaut each spent a night at Ace Hotel New York to sketch out the beginnings of their designs. At Ace’s request, Hatori herself got in the mix.
The result is a unique collective take on a 400 year old tradition. Images in the Inoshikacho exhibition are in proportion to actual Hanafuda cards, which themselves measure about 1.2”. x 2”. In addition to the 48 works on display, a limited set of 50 decks have been produced to raise funds for More Trees (Japan).
On the occasion of the 8th edition of Seven on Seven, held at the New Museum on May 14, Surveillance and Dissentlooks back on a topic that has defined this art-meets-tech event in recent years: government surveillance.
During the 7th Seven on Seven (2015), Rhizome brought together celebrated artist Ai Weiwei and security researcher Jacob Appelbaum. As both were prohibited from traveling to the United States, they met at Ai's studio in Beijing and produced a sculptural work, Panda to Panda, that was delivered to dissidents around the world. To document their collaboration, Seven on Seven commissioned director Laura Poitras (CITIZENFOUR) who's resulting short film The Art of Dissent premiered at The New York Times in June 2015. Finally, archival footage of talks and lectures from Seven on Seven explore the broader cultural ripples of the surveillance disclosures.
With Distansya, Filipino American Museum presents recent works by artists of Filipino descent living and working in the New York metropolitan area. Featuring work by Maia Cruz Palileo, Rico J. Reyes, Jaret Vadera and Aldrin Valdez, Distansya is a collection of personal and cultural chronicles which embody and disembody, reveal and obscure, abstract and confound. Works appear visually and figuratively out-of-focus; distant echoes of recorded histories or constructed identities. This is deliberate.
Distansya has been curated by Filipino American Museum — a young, nomadic platform for contemporary Filipino American art, culture and community. The exhibition marks the beginning of a year-long programming initiative between Ace Hotel and FAM called Pulling Focus. Stay tuned for a wide roster of events and exhibits from across the cultural spectrum — with artists, writers, musicians and more all hanging out in our halls.
Presented in the non-traditional exhibition space connecting Ace Hotel New York’s lobby to The John Dory Oyster Bar and Opening Ceremony, Shelflife exists at the intersection of salon, gift shop, hallway, and communal lounge. Artists have been asked to produce works which are not necessarily part of their everyday practice, but that do cater to Shelflife’s specific personality: a mix of the high and the low, of Art and art.
Ladies and gentlemen we’ve got shirts, stickers, and shoes. We’ve got postcards, specimens, jewels, sculptures, bean bags, sconces, toothbrushes, paintings, and ephemera – all presented on custom modular Shelflife furniture sure to appeal to today's savvy consumer.
Born at the tail end of the 1970s and raised by television, New York based artist Denise Kupferschmidt's primary understanding of womanhood — and in turn her own body — was mediated by the ubiquitous image of a male-imagined female form, often used for advertising and marketing purposes. Her recent body of work explores the many selves claimed by and projected onto women from a variety of shifting societal perspectives. "Like fashion models, her characters are depersonalized; yet, unlike them, they are not idealized: they are imperfect copies of one another." (Foxy Productions, 2015).
Denise Kupferschmidt lives and works in New York. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Foxy Production, Joe Sheftel, Eleven Rivington, Nicole Klagsbrun, Tracey Williams, and Lucien Terras (NYC, NY); BAM and Southfirst Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); and in solo shows with Halsey McKay (East Hampton, NY) and Cooper Cole (Toronto, CA). She has published with Nieves Books, Museums Press and The Holster. She co-organized the itinerant group-show series ”Apartment Show,” was included in Modern Painters “100 Artists to Watch” and was a 2010 NADA Emerging Artist. Kupferschmidt studied at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and is represented by Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton, New York.
The political rhetoric playing out on social media today, forty years ago, took place in part on the covers of paperback books. The sale of these publications, 99-cents at a time in pharmacies and grocery lines across America, helped shape contemporary discourse and design. With Designing Black Power, a pop-up display curated by Interference Archive, we examine the striking cover of Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton'sBlack Power as one example of such publication.
With Take Me to Funkytown, award-winning photographer Allan Tannenbaum brings a personally-curated selection of his work to Ace Hotel New York. Pulled from his SoHo News archive, this exhibition previews a new collection of rare photos from his newest book Funky But Chic – NYC Style in the 70s (Insight Editions, Fall 2016), as well as some iconic photos from his first collection, New York in the 70s.
Tannenbaum worked as a merchant seaman, taxi driver and bartender before landing his first professional photography position as chief photographer and photo editor of the SoHo Weekly News in 1973. He covered art, music, politics, theater and nightlife in New York City until the newspaper folded in 1982. Tannenbaum later went on to cover national and global stories for Sygma Photo News. Internationally, Tannenbaum has covered the volcanic disaster in Colombia, apartheid in South Africa, the Philippine Revolution, the first Gulf War, the Palestinian Intifada, demonstrations in Korea, the siege of Kabul, German reunification and countless other stories of human triumph and tragedy.
Ace Hotel New York presents TV Dinner, a two-person exhibition — curated by Anna Schechter and Makiko Wholey in collaboration with Creativity Explored — exploring the role of media, spectacle and popular culture in the work of artists Yukari Sakura and Daniel Green. Creativity Explored is a dynamic nonprofit art center and gallery where artists with developmental disabilities have been creating, exhibiting and selling their art for over 32 years. Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, Creativity Explored provides workspace, materials and mentoring by a team of professional artists, and exhibition space and career opportunities for approximately 135 studio artists per year.
Blastosphere: Digital Art Becomes 3D Fashion is a month-long exhibition at The Gallery at Ace Hotel New York that brings together three artists who are exploring and expanding the potential of creating art online. The works – by Alexandra Gorczynski, Miles Peyton, and Tara Sinn – began as commissioned projects for NewHive, a multimedia-publishing platform. From there, each piece was translated into a physical garment that has been encoded with augmented reality. The result is a 3D wearable internet that blurs the lines between art, virtual reality and the tangible world while calling traditional notions of fashion into question.
UntitledVVV by Alexandra Gorczynski combines an art historical cement sculpture with animated rose petals, painterly lines, and photographs of nature, seamlessly blending real and artificial imagery.PartsPartsParts by Miles Peyton provides a digital meeting place for people to contribute to, and assemble, a hive body. Congratulations You’ve Reached the Endby Tara Sinn features a tiny spinning beach ball of death surrounded by RGB-filtered detritus. The title is taken from a line of code in programmer Paul Irish’s “infinity scroll” which appears once a user has scrolled to the end of content.
Located about an hour north of the George Washington Bridge, Storm King Art Center has greeted guests from around the world with the best in large-scale and site-specific work for over 50 years. Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, Storm King is home to over 100 post-WWII sculptures by the likes of Alexander Calder, Sol LeWitt, Louise Nevelson, Richard Serra, Isamu Noguchi, Mark di Suvero, Maya Lin and Ursula von Rydingsvard.
With Outlooks, Storm King invites emerging or mid-career artists to create temporary works of art specifically for their site. This season, Luke Stettner presentsa,b,moon,d — a series of trenches inspired by archaeological digs and pictorial code as well as original and found photographs and sculptures created onsite from concrete and discarded mobile phones. Experimenting with materials and images related to a,b,moon,d, Stettner has also produced a series of drawings and collaged works on paper for display at The Gallery at Ace Hotel New York.
Ace Hotel and MoMA PS1 present COSMO: Give Me a Pipe and I Will Move/Celebrate the Earth. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at COSMO —the water-purifying "movable artifact" designed by 2015’s Young Architect Prize recipients Andres Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation — this exhibition marks the start of Warm Up, MoMA PS1’s outdoor music series that brings the best in experimental live music, sound and DJs to Long Island City each summer. Built out of a system of irrigation components — pipes, tanks, hoses and plants — COSMO, designed as both an offline and an online prototype, creates pure, drinkable water while providing a space for discussion on crucial environmental issues. Engineered to filter and purify three thousand gallons of water per four-day cycle, COSMO eliminates suspended particles and nitrates, balances pH and increases levels of dissolved oxygen. The purifying process in turn cools the air beneath the structure. As a result of its complex biochemical design, the structure's plastic mesh glows as water becomes purified.
The Lower East Side Ecology Center’s Gowanus E-Waste Warehouse collects hundreds of thousands of pounds of unwanted and broken electronics from residents across New York each year, and through their E-Waste Artist-in-Residence program, creates opportunities for artists and designers to breathe new life into a myriad of materials. The program’s inaugural artists, Taezoo Park and Marcela Godoy, have collaborated for a one-month display this July at Ace Hotel New York.
The Lesbian Herstory Archives presents Out/Reach — a selection of newsletters, posters, photos and zines from the largest collection of lesbian materials in the world. Beginning in the early 1950s, and highlighting contributions from the Archives' community of coordinators, volunteers and interns, Out/Reach spans more than 60 years of lesbian history. Each work represents a unique effort by queer women to represent themselves within both their communities and the public sphere.
Presented by Ace Hotel New York and 99U, Mass Produced by Hand displays work by Steve Keene, created in just a few hours live onstage at this year’s 99U Opening Party earlier this month. For our closing party, we're asking the public to help deinstall some 70+ paintings. We provide the screwdriver, you provide the muscle. On a first come, first serve basis guests will be able to select a painting and take it home.
Brooklyn-based painter Steve Keene developed his practice SK Art in 1993. Keene's collaborations with musicians Silver Jews, Pavement, The Apples in Stereo, Soul Coughing and Merzbow on album art, video sets, stage sets and posters paved the way for more recent exhibitions at Moore College of Art, Rice University, The Museum Ludwig in Cologne, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, The Gulf Coast Museum and more. Keene works constantly, producing full walls of paintings every day. Though one of a kind, each of Keene's paintings is thought of as a part of a single, on-going opus, now many miles long, with individual pieces serving as souvenirs of this enormous work — the event of SK Art.
A RISD graduate and recipient of the 2012 MET Museum Costume Institute Accessory Design Award, H E I D I L E E is a NYC-based artist and designer whose hats have featured in VOGUE, V, Visionaire, Dazed & Confused, NYT, The Creators Project, etc. Selected exhibitions include MOSI Museum’s “3D Printing the Future” and MAD Museum’s “MAD Biennial: NYC Makers”. Her clientele range from Anne Hathaway to G-Dragon to Lady Gaga, and we're pleased to show off some of her work in the Gallery Annex for the month of May.
Where does the intersection of art and technology lie? How can artists influence the software we engage with in our everyday lives, and in what ways has technology impacted contemporary art and culture? These are the questions at the heart of Seven on Seven — the flagship conference from the art and tech organization Rhizome, which pairs luminary artists with technologists to make something new in just one day.
The artworks in this exhibition were created by previous Seven on Seven participants. In their work, the artists consider the everyday nature of the once technologically extraordinary, bringing technology and aesthetics into direct conversation. The 7th edition of Seven on Seven will be hosted at the New Museum (235 Bowery) on May 2, 2015.
This exhibition —including works by Michael Bell-Smith, Jeremy Bailey and Kristin Lucas, plus documentation of past Seven on Seven presentations from Ryan Trecartin & David Karp, Taryn Simon & Aaron Swartz, Frances Stark and David Kravitz and more— is organized as part of Rhizome's month-long Seven on Seven residency at Ace Hotel, which also includes Saturday Night DJs.
Challenging audiences with experiences that have been described as “post-apocalyptic modernism.”, EyeBodega is a multi-disciplinary design studio founded by Rob Chabebe and Joe Perez which creates work for some of the best publications, musicians, DIY holes-in-walls, and museums we know.
For their month-long installation at Ace Hotel New York, the group will display a new series of vases whose designs have been inspired by freeform drawing exercises and impossible-shapes; vessels which exist simultaneously as physical objects and 3D renderings in abstract virtual landscapes.
EO1 Beta Showcase features original works by David DeSandro, Dina Kelberman, and Rick Silva created specifically for Electric Objects’ EO1, a new high definition screen designed to bring art from the Internet into the home. The selection of works —portraits made with code, subtly animated digital sculptures, and colorful computer generated 3D images— together with the EO1 display itself marks an important shift in how we curate and display art in the home. To mark said occasion, Electric Objects issued an open call for artists to experiment and live with an EO1 prototype in their studios, and tasked them to consider a dedicated display in the home as the primary context for their work.
From within the depths of Bushwick’s Silent Barn, The Ditko! ‘Zine Library (est. 2007) houses a collection of over 700 ‘zines, mini-comics, and other small press objects curated, sorted, and cataloged with love. Built by a dedicated library staff, the collection is available to the 'Barn's residents, collective members, and patrons by request. Ditko! organizes and curates the twice-annual Paper Jam Small Press Festival (ahem— Sat Feb 7 2015) a free event where emerging small press creators showcase their works and network with complimentary DIY communities.
Friends of + POOL and Ace Hotel present Doing Something Big When No One Asks You To Do Something Big, an installation of four years' worth of research and development on the world’s first filtered floating pool.
From it’s inception, + POOL has focused on making its science-based process accessible and engaging. Doing Something Big When No One Asks You To Do Something Big features floor to ceiling drawings by the designers of + POOL, depicting the narrative of the project’s process from idea to reified structure.
An opening reception hosted by + POOL’s founders, board members and Ace Hotel will be held on Thursday, February 5, 2015 from 7–9pm. The reception's followed by a mixer for +POOL's Kickstarter supporters in Liberty Hall, located on the lower level of Ace Hotel New York.
One year ago, 36 artists stormed Ace Hotel New York, prompted with poems, scores, instructions, drawings and scraps. We provided the room, the wine and the charcoal sticks and then got out of the way. What resulted was a body of 24 works — sculptures, linotypes, ephemera, sounds and oyster shells. And we called it 24 BY 36.
Partnering with institutions such as The Museum of Art & Design, Tomorrow Lab,Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, Printed Matter and Flux Factory — we've kept our rooms in the art game ever since. We invite artists of all disciplines to stay every Sunday night and create. By the end of 2014, we'd collected a panoply of work and thought it neigh time to share it with interested parties.
One Night Only is a glance backwards at select works created while hotel rooms become studio spaces, workshops and platforms for cultural engagement. We agree with Richard Avedon when he says, "Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art," and it is in this spirit that we present the work in this exhibition.
Few DJs could adequately represent the last three decades of New York nightclub history —no less do so with such iconic credentials— as Justin Strauss. Tonight we celebrate with Justin on our decks, joined by guests he’s hand-picked, and a special one-night only exhibition of rare memorabilia in our gallery.
Since he was 17, when his first band, Milk 'N' Cookies was signed to Island Records, Justin has had a career that reads like a Who’s-Who of the music scene, spinning at nearly every dance club that you’d ever want to go to.
Especially active in the 70s, Milk 'N' Cookies had a loyal local following and have now achieved considerable cult status for contributions in the area where pop, glam, and proto-punk overlap. This exposure lead to DJ gigs at the legendary Mudd Club, and eventually Justin made his way through The Ritz, Limelight, Area, Tunnel, M.K., Life, Centro Fly and more. His pioneering sound earned him a seat at the table among the most sought-after remixers in the world.
The Gamelatron is the world's first fully robotic gamelan orchestra, a sound producing kinetic sculpture presented as site-specific installations and standalone artworks. The Gamelatron is modeled after traditional Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras. It features sets of classic instruments retrofitted with robotic mallets on sculptural mounts. MIDI sequences control robotic striking mechanisms that produce intricately woven rhythmic sound.
The idea for the project came to conceptual artist and composer Aaron Taylor Kuffnerduring a residency at The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) in early 2008. Working directly with Eric Singer, the construction of the beta Gamelatron was fully realized in September 2008. The beta Gamelatron was later deconstructed and used in the making of two modular touring pieces used in 2010 – 2011. Over the last four years Kuffner has built 17 Gamelatrons of various sizes, instrumentations and intentions. The collection of Gamelatron works is shown in diverse settings around the globe, ranging from museums to retreat centers, spas, private homes, unique public spaces, educational institutions, cultural centers, and at exceptional events.
Everyone loves an autodidactic genius. Dedicated, sometimes to the point of compulsion, they exercise a raw talent that suggests new ways of seeing. Once successful, we turn to the self-taught for their fashionable rejection of higher education. Do it yourself, they say. Bill Gates dropped out. Hemingway? He did it himself.
It's all very romantic, but for many devoted, self-taught artists, there's a significant accessibility gap — artists who have difficulty with traditional verbal or written communication, who occupy a place on the neurological spectrum that includes Aspergers, cerebral palsy, autism and Down syndrome. These constraints can impede on an artist’s ability to partake in the more market-driven aspects of the art world, placing them outside gallery walls. But this isn't "outsider" art — this is art by self-taught artists, exploring themes through a specialized lens.
The Gallery at Ace Hotel New York teams with the 99U Conference to present Local Artist, an exhibition of works by artist John Rombola. Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Rombola's creative career has inconspicuously paralleled the likes of Andy Warhol, Saul Steinberg and Ben Shahn. Local Artist travels back a half-century to revisit Rombola’s bustling commuter-scenes, playful robotic figures and depictions of high-style beach days.
Rombola's last solo show was in 1972 and his most recent studio visit — with Henry Geldzahler — was 20 years ago. Despite having works published in LIFE, Horizon, Idea-Japan, Holiday and Town & Country, being Included in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt, the National Design Museum in Washington D.C. and the New York Historical Society, John's works are still largely unknown by the public. For the past two decades, he’s retreated into his art, working diligently at his modest kitchen studio in Brooklyn, surrounded by pink walls and wallpaper of his own design, and quietly documenting the evolving architecture, people and fashions of the city with razor-sharp whimsy.
Ace Hotel New York invites you to take a trip to Storm King Art Center. For the month of August, we’re proudly displaying contemporary works on loan from the 500-acre institution — peeks at two special exhibitions on view in 2014: Zhang Huan: Evoking Tradition and Outlooks: Virginia Overton, as well as short video interviews and installation footage.
Located about an hour north of the George Washington Bridge, Storm King Art Center has greeted guests from around the world with the best in large-scale and site-specific work for over 50 years. Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, Storm King is home to over 100 post-WWII sculptures by the likes of Alexander Calder, Sol LeWitt, Louise Nevelson, Richard Serra, Isamu Noguchi, Mark di Suvero, Maya Lin and Ursula von Rydingsvard.
Ace Hotel New York and MoMA PS1 are proud to announce Warm Up Platforms, an exhibition celebrating the artists who set the stage for MoMA PS1's annual summer music series, Warm Up. The display here provides a closer look at the design strategies of three studios --The Principals, Fort Makers, and CONFETTISYSTEM.
Now in its 4th year, MoMA PS1's Warm Up stage design initiative supports inventive NYC makers by inviting them to create performance environments inspired by Warm Up's sonic experimentation and dynamic energy. In the tradition of MoMA PS1's history as an alternative space, these installations offer opportunities for art in unexpected places, inclusive of all museum surfaces, acting as platforms for emerging design talent.
Cody Hoyt's glazed and marbled planters combine Japanese Nerikomi contrast-color techniques with geometric designs fit for a Bucky Fuller home. Each piece is a one-of-a-kind, hand crafted statement that plays with intention Vs incident.
Hoyt employs ceramic multiples and drawings on paper as tools in his process-oriented investigations of classic studio-based problem solving. Paired down and with a focus on form / surface, the work sustains a formal complexity while reasoning with reductive, minimalist notions.
Internet Aware is an overview of artistic practices that engage with technology after the Internet. The exhibition features four contemporary artists drawn from the archives of Rhizome, an Internet-based organization that supports art engaged with technology.
Art Video Games in China is an investigation into works by Chinese game designers that attempt to break the norms and subvert the mainstream narratives of the Chinese video game industry through works focused on personal expression and values.
At the invitation of Ace Hotel New York, works curated by Bryan Ma will be installed into playable upright arcade cabinets designed by Babycastles featuring bold, one-of-a-kind paint jobs by local New York artists.
Presented by Ace Hotel New York & Babycastles with support from The Armory Show.
During the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s recent move to new offices, some custodians of culture at Ace Hotel and Mad. Sq. Art, while looking through the park’s archives, came across a small parcel containing beautiful aerial-view watercolors of the park.
Created in early 2013 by Brooklyn-based artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, the works - rarely seen by the public - were originally produced in conjunction with the duo’s installation of a walk-in camera obscura in Madison Square Park. With both the camera obscura and these works, viewers are presented with a new way of viewing one of New York’s most historic neighborhoods. 2014 marks the 200th anniversary of the naming of Madison Square – the site of Madison Square Park – and 200 years of sustaining public life in a changing city.
Scott Albrecht was born in 1983 in New Brunswick, NJ, and raised in Bethlehem Township, NJ. In 2003, he received a degree in Graphic Design from The Art Institute of Philadelphia. Albrecht is currently based in Brooklyn, NY and a member of The Gowanus Studio Space. His work incorporates elements of woodworking, hand-drawn typography and geometric collage using vintage printed ephemera and found objects.
Morgan Blair's brightly colored, hard edged amorphous forms and patterns suggest hypothetical scenarios in which personal and pop culture references interbreed to form optical absurdities. In this solo exhibition at Ace Hotel New York, site-specific murals are paired with recent paintings. Blair's recent works have appeared city-wide, from the pages of the New York Times to the awning of Silent Barn, on skate decks and recently, on a cement mixing truck in collaboration with Andrea Bergart. Blair earned a BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Le Maglie or “The Sweaters” celebrates mid-century Italian cycling apparel. This collection of wool racing jerseys was chosen both in honor of the racers who wore them as they flew down European roads, and for the virtues of their influential designs and construction.
Le Maglie is a small window into a golden era of cycling, and to a story that is still unfolding in the streets and showrooms of the world’s cities. Le Maglie is a collaboration between Victory, the quarterly journal of sports and culture, the sportswear brand No Mas, and the archive of Amarcord Vintage Fashion.
LAND Lovers is a fan-curated celebration of the LAND Studio & Gallery — one of the creative programs founded by the League Education and Treatment Center — which generates and showcases the art of our adults with developmental disabilities. The first of its kind in Brooklyn, LAND Gallery was created to give adults the opportunity to express their creativity and to be recognized as talented artists. Spanning the last decade, this exhibition features works by Rudy Bansraj, Carlo Daleo, Garrol Gayden, JB, Kenya Hanley and Michael Pellew.
The League Education and Treatment Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and internationally recognized agency for evaluation, treatment and education of children and adults with psychiatric and developmental disabilities, treating over 500 at-risk and underserved children and adults from all parts of the greater New York City area daily.
October 1969 saw the first issue of The Gay Blade — 500 copies of a single-sided newsletter begin appearing in gay bars around Washington D.C. Rooted in the Mattachine Society newsletters of the 1950s and 60s, The Gay Blade dubbed itself “an independent publication serving the gay community.” With editors Nancy Tucker & Bart Wenger overseeing a motley crew of volunteers, the publication helped fill gaps in organization and communications locally while reporting on national and international news affecting the queer community. The New York Times called the Blade "one of the most influential publications written for a gay audience." Still operational today as The Washington Blade, it is the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the United States.
This exhibition, curated by Ace Hotel in partnership with The Washington Blade, offers the unique opportunity to revisit the first six historic editions of the paper, as part of our June LGBTQ pride celebrations. In these hard-won pages, we find reports on civil rights issues and police harassment, roommate and job referral services, invitations to community dinners, legal advice and classifieds ads. Grown from the vitality and perseverance of queer culture and community, The Gay Blade helped citizens organize in their struggle for equality, while both supporting and documenting the mundanities of everyday life and survival. At the intersection of independent spirit, equality and the printing press, this exhibition aims to honor pioneers, envision a better future, and inspire new chapters of radical community.
During my time w/ Ace Hotel (2013-2019) I did annual events around Fashion Week. We developed programs that highlighted the work of artists and partners putting sustainability, social justice and equality on stage alongside their looks. These were all super different, always fun and we even got some nice press along the way.
DRØME: Revolutionere
September 2017
Photo by Seze Devres for Ace Hotel New York
DRØME emailed Ace Hotel, asking if we'd buy their 2nd issue for rooms. Their aim was described as "fostering community of doers carves out space for empathy and kindness, working against mainstream ideologies that indoctrinate patriarchal and hateful theories via policy". I wasn’t in a position to buy the magazine but liked their mission and asked them if they had plans for Fashion Week.
The evening featured original looks by Homic, Elle Barbeito, Archie Robertson, Sanchez-Kane, Falcon, Helena Eisenhart, Possessed, Jahise LeBouef, Brian Swift, Official Rebrand, Noah Pica and Leila Jinnah. Music curated by Amber Valentine, Son of Lee, Blu Detiger, Coven King and Sola. It was a blowout. I am not sure another body could have fit in the building that night. Line down the street. Thanks, DRØME.
Photo courtesy of Kimani Ashley
Kimani's Loft
September 2017
The Lewis-Ashley family home, a loft in Hell’s Kitchen, is somewhat of a cultural mecca. Throughout the years intimate gatherings over great food have attracted the likes of Fela Kuti, Danny Glover, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and August Wilson. One of the Lewis-Ashley's own, Kimani, is part of Ace Hotel's front desk team, and was asked to create his own take on the classic NYC salon.
Kimani was gifted a loft suite for two nights and asked to use it was place to discuss issues of identity, gender, race, safety, etc as related to fashion, both personal and industry.
Photo by Seze Devres for Ace Hotel New York
Illuscious: Textile Hive for NYFW
February 2017
Illuscious was NYC's first public exhibition of Textile Hive — a physical, digital and contextual collection of over 40,000 antique and handmade textiles spanning fifty countries and 200 years of design history.
Andrea Aranow, the co-founder of Textile Hive (along with her son Caleb Sayan), has been collecting fabrics from all over the world for decades, beginning in Peru in the 1970s.
Andrea invited a group of artists get inspired by the collection and create hand-painted yukatas made with Japanese washi paper. Models then walked the hotel lobby wearing these original artworks.
Photo by Seze Devres for Ace Hotel New York
Natural Causes
September 2016
Ace Hotel New York teamed up with artist Jae Rhim Lee and her company, Coeio, to produce a gallery exhibition, an evening of performance, and a gifting opportunity all to promote the Infinity Burial Project and the concept of green burials more generally. We added in some music by noted mushroom-hound John Cage, a collection of dried mushroom specimens from Blue Oyster Cultivation, and called the whole thing Natural Causes.
Coverage from Vogue, The Creators Project, Hyperallergic and Dwell.
Photo by Nick McManus
Platforms Heal
February 2016
Ace Hotel New York and Ace Hotel London Shoreditch presented Platforms Heal, supported by Squarespace. This program took shape during New York Fashion Week and London Fashion Week, respectively, using the loose lens of fashion to address topics of transphobia, xenophobia, racism and classism.
DarkMatter (NYC) produced an online zine, ctrl/alt/gender, promoting gender non-conformity. In London, Selina Nwulu wrote a series of works titled Another Lens, which directly confront the exploitation of black culture and the black body. The project earned positive press from Dazed, Time Out New York, and more.
Gogo Graham SS '16
September 2015
I read a short blurb on designer Gogo Graham in i-D, reached out to offer space for photoshoots, and she responded with another idea: a full-on runway show for her new SS '16 line.
In Gogo's words, "Gogo Graham’s namesake ready-to-wear line is created for trans femmes. Aside from the daily, often violent demands of living as an out trans woman in the city, each girl is also constantly confronted with the dysphoria-inducing decision of which clothing options, primarily designed for cisgender women, fits her body less poorly than others. This should not be the case."
The show was heralded as "groundbreaking" (Dazed), and earned positive press from Huffington Post, i-D, Posture Magazine, Bullett, W Magazine, and more.
Beyond Measure
February 2015
For Beyond Measure, Ace Hotel teamed up with suit-makers Bindle & Keep and lifestyle co. dapperQ to award three community-nominated do-gooders with custom bespoke suits. Hundreds of nominations came in, which were voted on by JD Samson, Murray Hill, and dapperQ. In the end Renata Hill, Zahyr Lauren, Tiq Milan came out on top.
Out.com, Nylon, GLAAD, and others covered the event, leading to Ace linking up with PBS's POV for a premier screening of Out in the Night, a documentary which focuses on Renata Hill and the "NJ4".
Photo: Cool Hunting
SLEEP / WALK
September 2014
With curatorial help from post-drag collective Chez Deep, we turned some of our best rooms into a four day fashion incubator — with progressive/subversive art and design collectives from across the city re-interpreting fashion in costumes, wearables and other fact-finding ephemera.
Chez Deep, Mike and Claire, Houe of Ladosha, and FCKNLZ took part, and in short this was an extension of Ace's Artists in Residence program. All weekend long people produced artifacts within the loose confines of "fashion" (flow charts, costumes, new looks, music videos, writings, candy, and more).
On Sunday September 7 — during Fashion Week itself — these garments, furniture wrappings, videos, and other fruits of labor were debuted in Liberty Hall in a public party withl guest DJs D'hanna and DJ False Witness. This was really fun, but the party was a bit of a flop. I blame not having open-bar during NYFW.
Cool Hunting said some nice things about it, as did Complex.
Pages from John Chamberlain’s Guggenheim retrospective book, torn out, balled up and placed on a mirrored surface. In celebration of bad ideas.
In 1994, a strike in Major League Baseball resulted in the season having no World Series –an event some suggest contributed to the rapid decline of values in the baseball card market. For this series I bought the complete Topps card set from 1994 and burned all of the “Draft Pick” cards to breathe some new life into them. While not pictured here, each burned card is preserved in a hard plastic screw-down case.
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