Olek's Crocheted, Wearable Sculptures and Performance Art Installation at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

During last weekend's Cherry Blossoms Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a performance art installation delighted visitors. The two participants wore artist Olek's crocheted, wearable sculptures made of multicolored, crocheted camouflage. They sat on a colorful crocheted blanket on the lawn while reading a book, relaxing and occasionally sipping from a crocheted wine glass. There were other crocheted objects around them including wine glass, gloves and fruits. 

Olek (Agata Oleksiak, and known professionally as Crocheted Olek) is a Polish-born artist living in New York City. Her extensive works include sculptures, installations such as crocheted bicycles, inflatables, and fiber art. Her best known piece is probably the apartment in which the contents, including the residents, were covered in crocheting as featured in my previous post. Olek's art generally includes members of the public crocheted directly into the suit without traditional fasteners.Olek has also exhibited abroad.

Actress Tilda Swinton Sleeps In A Glass Box For Art Installation at the Museum of Modern Art

video by paul george

In "The Maybe" performance art at the Museum of Modern Art, Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton lies sleeping in a glass box for the day. The exhibit moves locations within the museum every time Swinton performs. There is no published schedule for the performance, which will occur about a half dozen more times through the end of the year. Swinton first performed the piece at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1995. In 1996, she performed it in the Museo Barracco in Rome. She won an Oscar in 2008 for best supporting actress for her role in "Michael Clayton."

Horsing Around Grand Central Terminal - Nick Cave's "Heard NY"

video by NTDTV

The 100-year-old Grand Central Terminal is the venue for a new performance art called "Heard NY" by Nick Cave. The artist created colorful "horses" that break into choreographed movement twice a day (11:00 AM and 2:00 PM) in Vanderbilt Hall. Each "horse" is operated by two dancers wearing colorful costumes. The multicolored straw horses are some of Cave's signature Soundsuits, wearable sculptures that transform participants into living art pieces. The title, "HEARD NY," is a pun on a "herd" of horses, because these beasts' suits make sounds and there is live music. Cave took inspiration from the opulence of the terminal and the winged horse, Pegasus, painted on Grand Central Terminal's ceiling. The project is presented by MTA Arts for Transit and the public art organization Creative Time. The performance art continues through the end of the month.

Flora Choi's UPBRAIDING TRADITION (Refusal To Korean Culture Of Male Dominance) For The 7th Annual Art In Odd Places Festival

Upbraiding Tradition is a performative gesture of rejection created by sculptor and installation performance artist, Flora Choi. This performance art was presented this afternoon along 14th Street as part of the annual Art In Odd Places Festival. This ceremony involves a group of young Korean women who have been raised to accept the notion of male dominance within the traditional Korean family structure. This performance art is about refusal to the culture of male dominance. The women are dressed in traditional Korean white gowns called Sang-boks and tie their hair into Daeng'gi Meori braids that drag upon the ground behind them. Carrying an empty glass jar, they walk slowly from Avenue C and proceed along 14th Street towards the Hudson River where each chop off her braid, preserving it in a glass jar as a trophy or relic. The performance art will be repeated on Sunday, October 8 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM.

Flora Choi is a sculptor and an installation performance artist. Her current work investigates the cultural traditions within Korea's societal construct. She holds a B.F.A from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). In 2008, she was part of a group exhibition show called Up Next, at Deitch Projects in New York.

World Premiere of STREB's "Human Fountain" Makes A Splash At World Financial Center Plaza In Downtown Manhattan

Elizabeth Streb

Earlier this evening, the world premiere of STREB’s “Human Fountain” took place at the World Financial Center Plaza in downtown Manhattan as part of “Extraordinary Moves: A Celebration of Dance through Movement, Film and Art.” This fantastic outdoor performance art involves artists leaping from as high as 30 feet from a three-story structure in order to create cascades of airborne bodies, like a human fountain. This work was inspired by the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas. The free performances will be repeated on Friday July 15 at 12:00 noon and 6:00 PM, and on Saturday, July 16 at 2:00, 4:00 and 6:00 PM at the World Financial Center.

Dance Review from the New York Times (Gia Kourlas):

The main attraction is Elizabeth Streb’s new “Human Fountain,” inspired by the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, and it doesn’t disappoint. Ms. Streb is a rare choreographer whose work looks amazing outside: in “Human Fountain” the juxtaposition of sky, steel and flesh add up to a breathtaking convergence of materials. The dancers take their spots on a three-tiered structure — it rises 30 feet — designed by Ms. Streb and Hudson Scenic Studio. Dropping like logs, they fall horizontally through the air and land on thick mats to mimic the speed and frequency of shooting water. It seems inconceivable, but with lightness and force, the dancers show the distinction between a graceful arc and a harsh, humorous spurt. For the company, which operates with military precision, getting to the right spot on time might be even more harrowing than jumping. (You can even sense the performers’ brief flash of trepidation.) Watching “Human Fountain” is to live a little vicariously, but even better, the piece is about what you see in a delicate split second: the point at which danger and beauty hang in the air.