~SERGEJ VUTUC & LELE LIVE FROM USA .. opens to-nite
SERGEJ VUTUC and LELE Live from USA
opening reception: Sat Sept 18, 2011 // 7-10 PM
the show runs Sept 17 – 25, 2011 (so, don’t blink !!)
Hours: 2-9 PM – SEPT 18, 22-25.
ELK GALLERY – 97-01 SHORE FRONT PARKWAY at 97th Street – enter on Parkway side underneath the concessions
Rockaway, Queens, NY
Up on the roof, out on the street , down in the playground the hot concrete. In a bunker maze under the boardwalk permeated by a worn-out post-Soviet Bloc ambience SERGEJ VUTUC and LELE will inaugurate a journey through distant locales, via Vutuc’s black and white photographs of inactivated structures, nighttime blur, and blemishes on bodies of both aged and young, and conversely colorful, raw, and scabrous Slovenian-bred Art Brutesque paintings and drawings by LELE.
Floutas, cukes, cake, and liquor will be upstairs, and the Atlantic Ocean is just fifty yards away.
The subterranean architecture perfectly suits Vutuc’s paradoxically celebratory documentation of somewhere still feeling the repercussions of the fall of communism, with the not-meant-to-be-used seen through a cloudy scrim of abused film. A rounded corner with an inexplicable negative space in the middle, and discarded pieces of wood transformed into jerry-rigged functional sculptural contraptions. From south (and north, west and east) of the Danube these brooding, powerful, mysterious, and sometimes really funny photographs evince an innately strong individual outlook and poignant mood that translates no matter if you skateboard or not or what language you speak.
Displayed in a warren of dank concrete storage rooms, the images exude honesty mixing tattered beauty and morose reality in the service of muddied, distressed, and truthful glory. Counterbalanced by his friend and frequent collaborator (on Art of Asfalt, The Hat cr3w, and Plemplem) Leon Zuodar’s (aka LELE) humorous, rough, and unbridled mixings of text and image dripping with saturated colors, these sons of Doboj and Postojna will harmonize with each other on a very specific beachfront Balkan frequency.
A subtle silver nitrate chiaroscuro take on what’s out there – forlorn trees, vistas, roads, shadows in the shadows – will intermingle with its brotherly antithesis.
With this installation and some actual ad hoc skate structures built on the spot the viewer can chew out a rhythm on their bubble gum, attack a jacked 1/4 pipe, look at the pictures, fall down, get up, dance, and ride the wall.
The sun is out . . . so come get some, at Rockaway Beach.
Performances by the WOES and the Dirty Fences will also happen, as will the serendipitously concurrent celebration of the first full year of legal bee keeping in New York – the Honey Fest !!
~from the ELK press release
see: ELK ZINE GALLERY
see: SERGEJ VUTUC . . . yo dude – don’t miss this link !!
see: Dirty Fences
see: the WOES
see: New York City Honey Fest – buzz, buzz, bees !!
and, yes – it will be sunny !! today’s weather report c/o THE NEW YORK POST:
Today: Partly sunny and pleasant !! High 64 to 70. Tonight: Partly cloudy. Low 51 to 57.
TRAIN:
note: the A train is messed up on the weekends in question – but its not really a problem – if they would only provide some simple instructions – down there. here they are:
WEEKENDS: take the A train – direction Queens – there are 2 A trains, make sure you get on the one that says: FAR ROCKAWAY – as opposed to Lefferts. Ride that straight through till Howard Beach/JFK. get off – its the last stop anyways – & – follow the locals – making sure to get that green free pass/ticket for the shuttle bus – which an MTA agent hands out at the door of that immediate exit. Take the shuttle bus – you want the shuttle that goes to SHOREFRONT PARKWAY – and get off at 98 Street – which is the 2nd stop. sniff the air for the ocean – and walk down. you’ll see the concession building – you can’t miss it – its the only building on the beach !! have fun . . .
From Manhattan:
A train to Far Rockaway. Transfer at Broad Channel to the S (shuttle) train. Stops at 90th, 98th, 105th, and 116th. Get off the train (at 98th for the gallery) and walk 2 blocks up to the boardwalk.
L train to Broadway Junction. Transfer to the A to Far Rockaway. see above.
From Brooklyn:
J or Z train to Broadway Junction. Transfer to the A to Far Rockaway. see above.
CAR:
find yourself on the BQE towards Staten Island/Verrazano Bridge. Follow signs to the Belt Parkway West (veering left). Take exit 11S for Flatbush Ave S towards Rockaways. Merge onto Flatbush and continue onto Marine Pkwy Bridge. Toll to and from is $3.25. Continue straight onto Beach Channel Dr. Continue onto Rockaway Freeway. Take a right at 108th to Shorefront Pkwy.
PHOTO BY SERGEJ VUTUC – COURTESY of ELK GALLERY
PAINTING by LELE – IMAGE COURTESY of ELK GALLERY
NYC HONEY FEST LOGO & IMAGE COURTESY: New York City Honey Festival: get the buzz . . about “everybody’s favorite pollinator” !!