NEW!
The Premier Book of the
Unhinged History Series:
STICKS 'n STONES 'n
DINOSAUR BONES
Written by Ted Enik Illustrated by G.F. Newland
This first book in Enik `n Newland’s “Unhinged History” series is a ripping yarn – full of adventure and deceit – that brings to life the best-known public spat in all of Paleontology: the bitter rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh that became known as “The Bone Wars.” Lively and witty rhymes plus beautifully demented illustrations by G. F. Newland reveal how the paleontologists’ infamous rivalry began and how their mutual obsession with outdoing and ruining one another spun out of control.
Available in Paperback, iBook, Kindle and Nook:
http://www.unhingedhistory.com
Cultural Reflections On The Human Form with Amy Herzog
Wythe Marschall and Ted Enik, Hosts
CORNELIA STREET OBSERVATORY
CORNELIA STREET CAFE
29 Cornelia Street
Greenwich Village
New York, NY 10014
212-989-9319
JANUARY 29, 2012, 6:00 PM
$10.00 Admission, Includes a drink
Cornelia Street Cafe and Observatory present a new series: CORNELIA STREET OBSERVATORY: Illustrated lectures produced by Wythe Marschall and Ted Enik. (Originally produced at Observatory by Morbid Anatomy Library's Joanna Ebenstein).
Tonight: BODY AS FUNHOUSE MIRROR: Cultural Reflections On The Human Form, with Amy Herzog presenting the first in a series of three lectures: The Pornographic Arcades Project: Adaptation, Automation, and the Evolution of Times Square (1965-1975).
Amy Herzog is associate professor of media studies and coordinator of the film studies program at Queens College, CUNY. She is the author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film (Minnesota, 2010). She recently curated "Peeps," an exhibition at The James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center, on the dialogue between pornographic peep loops and contemporary art practices.
Art on the Moon
Art Exhibit: Oberservatory's first
group-curated show.
OPENING RECEPTION:
Saturday, January 7th, 7 - 10 PM, FREE
OBSERVATORY
543 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 243-1572
JANUARY 7 - FEBRUARY 26, 2012
Thursdays & Fridays 3-6pm
Saturdays & Sundays 12-6pm
Artists and scientists have always been attracted to the moon...
Our closest celestial neighbor, the earth's little sister, the moon creates the tides and illuminates the woods at night. For centuries, humanity believed the moon provided a key into the invisible realm: it called out the beast within us, freeing us to act as wolves, to run, to dance, to chant...and sometimes, to split in two, to find our double, our changeling moon-self.
Is the moon home to life? Today we know it isn't, but even as of 1830, speculation was rampant that the moon was inhabited by Christianized bat-people who worshiped in great ziggurats. We know the moon contains frozen water, and we dream of using it as our jumping-off point for visiting even more alien vistas.
Down here, despite all the prowess and nuance of our latest telescopes, earthlings still look up naked-eyed with excitement at the full moon. Artists portray the moon as a source of danger and power, and latter-day sorceresses and men of magic call up to that heavenly lamp, seeking to transcend the ordinary night. For them, the old myths have not changed so much...
Participating Artists:
Grace Baxter, Jesse Bransford, Susan Crawford
Noah Doely, Joanna Ebenstein, Theo Ellsworth
Michelle Enemark, Ted Enik, Jesse Gelaznik
Ethan Gould, Dr. Gary Greenberg, Maria Liebana
Chad Merritt, Heidi Neilson, G.F. Newland
Rebeca Olguín, Kathryn Pierce, Lado Pochkhua
Dylan Thuras, Binky Walker, James Walsh
Julianne Zaleta
ADDITIONAL LUNATION DATES TO SAVE:
Saturday, January 22 - Moon Magick Workshop presented by Pam Grossman of Phantasmaphile
Saturday, February 18 - 3rd Anniversary Observatory Fundraiser Party: Help support your favorite interdisciplinarian art, science, & occult event space!
Art Exhibit
An international exhibition featuring work inspired by the Loteria Mexicana deck of cards
OBSERVATORY
543 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 243-1572
SEPTEMBER 10 thru OCTOBER 22, 2011
Thursdays & Fridays 3-6pm
Saturdays & Sundays 12-6pm
OPENING RECEPTION:
Saturday, September 10, 6pm - 10pm
Borderline Projects is pleased to announce the opening of La Loteria, an international art exhibit that will feature the work of 29 artists from 11 countries, who drew inspiration from the symbolism, style, characters, themes and other aspects of the Loteria Mexicana deck of cards, in order to create their pieces. La Loteria is a game that uses a deck of cards illustrated with figures that represent everyday objects, plants, animals, mythical creatures and other characters. The origins of this game go back to 16th century Italy, where most of the lottery games (such as Bingo, the Lotto, etc.) were born, and where the first decks of playing card, including the Tarot, were introduced into Europe.
The idea behind this exhibition was to use the images of La Loteria as a matrix that helped generate dialogues, intersections, and points of encounter. To take a slice of Mexico's popular culture, characterized by its hybridism, and ask artists to make it their own. We have invited artists from all origins and disciplines to adapt, pay homage, adopt or desecrate La Loteria: a true artistic experiment. This exhibition seeks to open a liminal space, a border-zone where it can be possible to explore our differences together.
The Artists: Josephine Coy (UK) / Yvianna Hernández (US) /
Jeanne Sturdevant (US) / Tara Kathleen (UK) / David Trullo (Spain) / Richard Meyer (US) / Maria Liebana (US) /
Elena Rodz (US)/ Enrique González (Mexico) / Patricia Espinosa (Mexico) / Shannon Daugherty (US) / Beatriz Albuquerque (Portugal) / Fay Torresyap (US) / Saredt Franco (Mexico) /
Ted Enik (US) / Laura Conde (Mexico) / Art Garcia (US) /
Sanaa Khan (Pakistan) / Raúl Mirlo (Mexico) / Giselle Elías (Mexico) / Stephane Eck (France) / Tomás Hache (Mexico) /
Chocolate Habanero Arts Collective (Mexico) / Cynthia H. Hsieh (China) / Ral Veroni (Argentina) / Fabian Debora (US) /
Clari Netzer (Israel) / John Craig Freeman (US) /
Chiara Cola (Italy)
Or, embracing the tunnel-visioned, grudge-holding, Mr. Grumpypants blasphemer in us all
(A three-part study of transcendental fury)
with
Ted Enik, Daniel Grushkin, & Wythe Marschall
OBSERVATORY
543 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 243-1572
Thursday, August 18 at 8pm
Admisson: $5
Presented by The Hollow Earth Society
Captain Ahab: the best, first, and darkest dude with a zigzag lightning-bolt scar on his face. Moby-Dick—the unknowable Leviathan..
But wait—don't forget: Old King Ahab and the God of the Israelites. Quixote and his enchanted armies of giants. The Old Man and the Sea. The Coyote and the Roadrunner. Quint and the Great White. Ripley and the alien broodmother. Kahn and the Enterprise.
Each of us seeks her own Whale. Each of us is susceptible to the obsessive focus of the one-legged captain. We seek an object, perhaps—a talisman that will complete us—or a secret knowledge that will give us power and bring us closer to the Transcendent. We pick at a spiritual scab.
Or perhaps we seek revenge, because to overcome and finally own the object of an obsession plugs a gaping void in our psyche. "That dog has it in for me"... "Old Whiskers is the oldest meanest catfish in the lake. Nobody'll ever hook him!"
But why do we see in our objects of obsession an intelligence, a clever and evil intentionality that they consummately do not possess? Melville:
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks... If man will strike, strike through the mask! ...I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
On August 18, we strike through the mask of Ahab himself: Join illustrator Ted Enik and writers Daniel Grushkin and Wythe Marschall as they offer three Ahabs, three perspectives on obsession in literature, and three curious readings of American's greatest myth. Find out why you know the character having never read the book.
Our strikings (and sea shanties) will entertain and inform both those who have read Moby-Dick and those who have not yet done so. (In fact, there's a wonderful one-minute-long version of the classic novel on YouTube.)
For who among us has not sought a personal Grail and failed? Who among us can read Ahab's lyrical musings on the whale and not feel a twinge of shared guilt—a pinprick suspicion that we too have at some point, atop one object of obsession, piled up "all the general rage?"
All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
Kid's book artist/author, Ted Enik (www.tedenik.com), who isn't entirely convinced about reincarnation, must have been some sort of sailor-whaler person in a past life. What else would explain his possessing a button concertina, a collection of shantyman's tunes, and a foul-weather love of Mother Ocean?
Daniel Grushkin is a freelance journalist who covers the cross-section of science, biotechnology and culture. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Businessweek, National Geographic Adventure, Popular Science, and Scientific American. He is co-founder of Genspace, the world's first community laboratory focused on biotech education and exploration. The white whale has thus far eluded him.
Wythe Marschall (The Hollow Earth Society, Observatory) is a writer, artist, and lecturer for the English department of Brooklyn College. Wythe's stories and essays have appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and elsewhere. With artist Ethan Gould, Wythe's first book is Suspicious Anatomy, currently available online (suspiciousanatomy.com) and at fine bookstores in New York City.
Curated by Phantasmaphile‘s Pam Grossman
OBSERVATORY
543 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 243-1572
Opening reception: Saturday, May 7th 7-10pm
On view: May 7th - June 12th, 2011
Gallery Hours: Thursdays & Fridays 3-6 PM,
Saturdays & Sundays 12-6 PM
Alchemy is the art of transmutation. Of taking the rough and raw, and rendering it more precious. Rather than accepting the literal "lead into gold" definition, Carl Jung believed that alchemy is a process of individuation, a symbolic and active language which guides one's personal journey toward the realization of selfhood. An alchemist is a shape-shifter, a mystic chemist. A patient and meticulous devotee who turns the base into something resplendent.
Like dreams, alchemy speaks in pictures. At first glimpse, alchemical manuscripts from the 16th and 17th centuries look like a panoply of hallucinations. They feature images of fornicating kings and queens. Suns and moons shining in stereo. Lions and serpents and eggs, oh my. Black and white and red all over. Secret codes and effulgent iconographies teeming with meaning, yet ultimately ineffable. These pictures beget picturing. They're signs that beg to be resignified; to be reinterpreted and refined.
The participants in ALCHEMICALLY YOURS have done just that. Varying in medium and style, each piece in this exhibition pays homage to the alchemic tradition -- all the while affirming that the artist fills the role of alchemist in the present-day. For who better can elevate the mundane, turn the sub- into the sublime? From the prima materia of color and canvas comes great and vivid work.
The participating artists are:
Jesse Bransford
Molly Crabapple
Ted Enik
Marina Korenfeld
Adela Leibowitz
Sara Antoinette Martin
Ann McCoy
Robert M. Place
Ron Regé, Jr.
J.L. Schnabel
Hunter Stabler
Panos Tsagaris