A new exhibition, accompanied by a series of events, examines the design, art, dance, and cultural work involved in the prison abolition movement’s organizing.
ABC No Rio
Artist Anton van Dalen on the East Village, Saul Steinberg, and Pigeon Keeping
Next time you’re walking through the East Village, take a moment to look up at the skies over Tompkins Square Park. You might just spot Anton van Dalen’s flock of snow-white pigeons. The artist, who first learned to rear the birds at the age of twelve, is one of the few remaining pigeon keepers in Lower Manhattan.
1980s Counterculture, and Its Legacy, in Zines
Self-published, cheaply-made, and disseminated after running through copy machines, zines — short for “fanzine” — have existed as simple and cost-effective creative soapboxes. Zines+ and the World of ABC No Rio, a current exhibition at the Center for Book Arts, presents publications from the archives of ABC No Rio, the art and activism collective founded on the Lower East Side in 1980.
Is Punk, DIY Art in NYC Going Down With The Building?
Sitting in a cold performance space in the gritty, graffiti-ed punk art institution, ABC No Rio, for possibly the final time before the building is demolished for renovations in March, watching the last Michael Alan’s Living Installation performance, I became profoundly worried that I was witnessing the last gasps of a long history of free-wheeling, punk, D-I-Y art.
Struggling Seaport Museum Gets $2M Grant
Some good news for Manhattan’s Seaport Museum, which has been in financial trouble for quite some time, as they received a $2 million grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
Finding Where the Wild Things Are in a Brooklyn Basement
Underground in Kenny Scharf’s Cosmic Cavern, a Williamsburg basement covered from floor to ceiling with neon toys, furniture, disco-balls, and murals where Scharf holds dance parties, last Saturday night, I, along with about 250 attendees, traveled to the place where the wild things are with Michael Alan’s Living Installation.