Wednesday, June 29, 2011

P.F.1 More Reason We Love New York

It's no secret that we love NYC. We've posted a lot about cool ish happening in the big apple in the past. Bike lights and green roofs and extensive public transit and (now) same-sex marriage (yay NY!) are all things found in this great city we get to run around this weekend.  Yes, we're Brooklyn-bound! No one's getting married (that we know of) but we'll definitely have some things to post about upon return. For now, in honour of this weekend's trip and thanks to our art friend Rodrigo Marti digging this up from 2008, here's a little video of an amazing project at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center a few years back.

Check the video and the P.S.1 website for more info. And if you happen to be in NYC this weekend, check our music friend Kids & Explosions at the Glasslands Gallery on Friday night.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Baruchel, Broadbent and Beyond the Walls | Art and Parties, tonight!




Hellllooooo! Bonjour! Hola! Guten Tag! We have returned from exploring smart cities of the Earth and emerged (temporarily) from the grant-writing dungeon we've been locked in just in time for two of our favoritest artists to show off their incredible new work. You will remember both of these (mostly) Torontonians from their outstanding contributions to the About Face Collective Art and Eco Fashion Show at Arta Gallery some time ago. They have both been incredibly supportive of all of our crazy ideas. So we can't confirm that either of them should be trusted, but we can confirm that they are both super talented painters that you should make a point to check out... tonight!

Virgil's Studio: All paintings and furniture by the artist

If you happen to be in Paris this weekend (well, lucky you. Also, please bring me a box of macarons from La Duree. Merci.) be absolutely sure to stop by and see Virgil Baruchel's last show before he leaves town. I had the pleasure of eating several croissants in the company of Virgil's new work recently  and was so stoked to see so much exciting new use of colour, materials, technique and tons of texture. His monsters, thankfully, are still just as scary and his titles (ie; ZEUSwasangryonedayandthelightningwasyellow) still just as amazing. If that's not enough, it also turns out he's ridiculously talented at designing and hand-building amazing furniture out of reclaimed materials. Yes, we like this guy (and yes, he's bringing me macarons). When he eventually makes it back to T.O. we plan to scoop him up to help design reclaimed elements for our rooftop art garden (more on this soon!).


From Joy Broadbent's new collection; The Look (Of Flowers) Being Looked at


If you happen, instead, to find yourself in Toronto ce soir, well, yay, you get to see us! The more exciting thing about this circumstance, certainly, is that being where we are means being at the opening of Joy Broadbent's first solo show in Toronto. Joy hails from London, Ontario, but set up in Toronto years ago. We've watched her style transform since, and are very excited to see the new collection tonight at Studio 835


You can can see her work online here, but you really have to see it hanging; it's incredible to see her layers and layers of paint opening up to other secret paintings below.  You also just have to meet Joy; she's probably one of the top ten loveliest humans on the planet. As a side-note, she also first introduced us to the awesome youth arts organization and our now project-partners, Sketch. I guess that was pretty mean of her....


AND if you're looking to hang with some more amazing folks later this eve, our friends over at the Centre For Social Innovation are having a dance party to raise funds for the new CSI Annex (keep an eye on this rooftop!).


Beverages will be available at all three events. Which is nice. There's no wine in the dungeon... 


Facebook events:


Virgil Baruchel; Bouboulina, One Last Show in Paris


Joy Broadbent; The Look (Of Flowers) Being Looked At

Centre For Social Innovation; Beyond the Walls! Party with a Purpose