State of the Art: Your Weekly Guide to NYC's Latino Art
Image: Miguel Ovalle
Twitter: @labarbaraaa
State of The Art is Remezcla’s weekly guide to Latin art openings in your city each week. Mingle with art admirers, collectors and casual passersby to check out these new works. And don’t forget to grab a free glass of wine…or three.
An opening party for the showing of badass artwork by Miguel Ovalle, Esteban Del Valle and Kajahl Benes will take place this Thursday, October 17th, from 6 to 10pm at Superchief Gallery. Miguel Ovalle aka “Dizmology” creates sculptures that writhe, snake and thrust with the freedom of 2D graphics in a sketchbook. But instead of notebook tags, Ovalle’s pieces are live installations. I’m excited to see what he shows this week. Inspired by the mural and graffiti scene in Chicago, Esteban Del Valle’s work is dark, elaborate and amazingly well-realized. He has a mural at the iconic 5Pointz site in Long Island City and works for Groundswell, a non-profit that engages the community in collaborative art projects around the city. The third artist in the show, Kajahl Benes, has a series of oil paintings that spin depictions of legendary royalty like Cleopatra or fictional deities from African tales realized in stone sculptures. Each artists’ work is quite distinct and make for an interesting juxtaposition. The show will only be on view for a mere six days from October 15th until October 20th, so catch it while you can.
Superchief Gallery at Culturefix 9 Clinton St New York, NY 10002
Super Sabado! Dia de los Muertos
Altares, marigolds, calaveras and the celebration of life that is Dia de los Muertos is upon us. I keep an altar with pictures and recuerdos of my passed loved ones year round, but around this time of year the departed are more phantasmically present (or so says the tradition.) It’s a time to celebrate the life of the dead. Festivities will begin this Saturday at Museo in Spanish Harlem with a full schedule of Day of the Dead programming lined up for participants. Calaveras Callejeras will begin the day at 11am with a musical procession beginning at Central Park’s Dana Discovery Center. Then, from noon to 3pm face painters will be creating caras calacas at the Black Box Theatre in the museum. From 1 to 3pm in Museo’s Cafe there will be storytelling about traditions surrounding Dia de los Muertos. And the day will be topped off with a performance by Mexican Ballet Folklorico dancers from 4 to 5pm. So start celebrating life and death early this year and drop by Museo for a dose of cultura Mexicana.
Lady Pink and Chris “Daze” Ellis
Lady Pink and Chris “Daze” Ellis put the final touches on their mural this past Sunday in a live graffiti art demonstration at the Museum of the City of New York. However, the mural is still up and you can see a current creation from two of the city’s most distinguished forerunners of the graffiti movement. Lady Pink, who is originally from Ecuador but grew up in NYC, was one of the very few female graffiti artists to begin tagging up the city in the 70s and 80s. Latina power! And since you’ll be checking out the mural, you can catch the museum’s current exhibit Activist New York that gives a history of social activism in NYC from the 17th century up to current days.