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Join in! Guests welcome at Hallwalls' Artists and Models bashApr 30, 2010 (The Buffalo News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Every other year or so, when Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center gathers up the gumption and resources to mount the massive fundraiser and art party known as "Artists and Models," Western New York art lovers know they're in for a completely novel experience. The sprawling, one-night extravaganza of art installations, music and spontaneous acts of creation and consumption -- a mammoth feat of planning and organization for Hallwalls' small staff of six -- has ushered audiences into some of the city's more visually arresting properties. The buildings that have hosted "Artists and Models" since its inception 23 years ago -- disused warehouses and rusty old car plants, weathered union halls and dank train stations -- have always been the kinds of structures that beg passers-by to peek inside. This year's party, slated for Saturday night, is no different. It will occupy the Rock Harbor Commons Building at 57 Tonawanda St., a gigantic red warehouse nestled at the confluence of Black Rock Canal and Scajaquada Creek, visible from the Scajaquada Expressway. Saturday's event, which comes two years after the last successful "Artists and Models" was held at the Central Terminal, will boast 30 art installations and a variety of musical performances and ancillary events. Hallwalls Visual Arts Curator John Massier noted that the Rock Harbor building, on a stretch of land owned by local developer Ed Hogle, has a less cavernous quality than the Central Terminal, which will lend the art inside it a more focused feel. "It has a distinctly different vibe. It'll be tighter, or more intimate, still big enough for the crowd we want, but it will certainly be a different quality than walking into an old train station," Massier said. "It should play out in our favor, because it sort of jacks up the intensity of the event." As usual, the installations range wildly, from the thoughtful and sophisticated to the whacky and whimsical. Massier said that the emphasis at "Artists and Models" is squarely on fun, rather than the rigorous curatorial oversight that tends to pervade less festive events. "I wouldn't strictly say it's 'curated' the way that we curate exhibitions or something. It's something that is partly an exhibition because there's installations, but it's really a party," he said. Most of the installations include some sort of interactive element, whether it's a camera filming partygoers and projecting their image onto a gigantic screen, or a performance-based piece where people can spin a wheel and play dress-up. "Even the things that aren't particularly participatory, people somehow end up participating in," Massier said. The artists in this latest incarnation of the fundraiser, Massier said, are a younger crop than the "Artists and Models" participants of a decade ago. "In terms of the participating artists, the demographics are shifting. When I arrived here nine years ago, I would say there was a higher proportion of somewhat older artists that had done 'Artists and Models' before," Massier said. "In the last nine years -- I don't think I'm imagining it -- I think the youth culture in Buffalo has blossomed a little bit. There seem to be more young people trying to stay around after they graduate." In addition to 30 installations, the event will feature music and performances from Family Funktion & SitarJamz, Divi Rome Royal African Sound, Orchestra Stimuli, MC Wizzalot & the Tip Top Hip Hop Orchestra, Bev Beverly, Dance Electronica and the Stripteasers burlesque troupe. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door, with advance tickets available at Hallwalls (341 Delaware Ave.), Talking Leaves Books (3158 Main St. and 951 Elmwood Ave.), Sweetness 7 Cafe (220 Grant St.), Room (1400 Hertel Ave.), Clarence Center Coffee Co. (9475 Clarence Center Road) or online at www.hallwalls.org. No one under 18 is admitted. Parking for the event is located in Buffalo State College's "M" parking lot on Grant Street near the entrance to the 198, with a shuttle running continuously to the Rock Harbor Commons Building. Four proposals give a glimpse into the event's creative nature Artist: Vincenzo Mistretta, Buffalo The gist: Mistretta, a highly regarded Buffalo video artist, will create a video installation inspired by the paintings and techniques of the great masters Caravaggio and Rembrandt. The video, a 10-minute-long scene based on Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch," is separated into four audio tracks, which audience members can listen to through four separate pairs of headphones. Thus, as Mistretta writes, each person's experience of the video will be entirely distinct. Proposal excerpt: "The two people having a discussion in the foreground will be a woman talking to a friend about the difficulty she has paying her mortgage and her fear that she might lose her home. This triggers memories of her parents and her life in the home as a child. She talks about her father, who was a jazz musician and the time she would spend with him. This triggers in her friend the memory of when she was a young woman and the times she would go to the many jazz clubs in Buffalo like the Colored Musicians Club." Artist: Tim Scaffidi, Buffalo The gist: Think of Scaffidi's installation as a gigantic, interactive version of the iTunes visualizer. It's a projection of visual particles that responds to the movement of a person in front of a camera, producing curious waves and mutations on the screen. Proposal excerpt: "A grid of particles flow around the viewer's silhouette, generating sounds as they move and collide, amplifying the effects of even the smallest actions. Using a projector, camera and custom software, I have developed this system as an exploration of presence and behavior. The level of response is entirely up to the viewer: A small movement may generate a tinkling sound and a large movement creates an explosion of audio and visual synthesis." Artist: P.J. Moskal, Williamsville The gist: With "Divided II," Moskal plays on the idea of looking into a mirror by producing a gigantic, fractured version of participants' faces on a wall-sized screen. Proposal excerpt: "Difficult to recognize at first, the image stares at the viewer. Constantly redefining itself, it becomes a digital mirror, a digital persona of the viewer reflected in the virtual space that blends our desires, fears and complexes into a distorted, extended self. 'Divided II' is my reflection on the parallel lives, real and virtual, that people lead today." Artist: Shasti O'Leary Soudant, Buffalo The gist: Participants in Soudant's whimsically titled installation, "Gender-Bending Wheel of Fortune Photo Booth," will spin a colored wheel. Depending on where the wheel lands, they'll then be assigned gender-specific props like cooking implements and fake mustaches, ushered into the artist's giant lightbox and photographed. Soudant will print and sign a portrait of each participant and give it away for free. Proposal excerpt: "I intend to engage in a playful photographic representation of the performative aspects of gender, utilizing the partygoers as 'gamblers' and models, commenting on the capricious, ambiguous and mysterious nature of sexual determination and identity." [email protected] To see more of The Buffalo News, N.Y., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.buffalonews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Buffalo News, N.Y. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |