Recently in the works Category

Peter Coffin, untitled

Posted By: Jenevive Tatiana

Arriving into a gallery space--even one as nomadic and unexpected as the WORKs--the viewer comes laden with a kaleidoscope of expectations and experiences that gives his or her particular viewing experience a singular, subjective quality. Any image, texture, phrase, smell, sound and perhaps even taste, encountered in an art installation might conjure any number of memories. More abstractly, our knowledge of contemporary art and art history, and any concomitant opinions, provides a filter through which we interpret and judge what we find before us. Beyond these practical registers mediating the experience of art is a primary form of anticipation. We expect to encounter some arrangement of objects and ideas. The encounter will encompass confrontation, engagement, reaction and evaluation. Perhaps we will stand in front of something, circle it and contemplate it. Perhaps not. While colored by the aforementioned subjective factors, this set of mental and physical behaviors is what we expect to bring to bear. And it is the raw material of this anticipation that artist Peter Coffin sculpts in his untitled work.

Kalup Linzy, SweetBerry: Sampled and LeftOva

Posted by: Dusty Hoesly

Beloved New York video and performance artist Kalup Linzy strutted on stage in a fine-looking dress (only to wear a black polka-dotted swimsuit later). Local jazz group The Ben Darwish Trio played tight, funky soul music as SweetBerry (Linzy's alter ego) sang songs of lust and love lost, alongside two backup singers. Despite some initial soulful material and excitement, the show became more of the same as songs drifted into one another and too much time passed between them.

Dj Beyonda at the Works
9/8/09

by Emily Katz

After the hilarious and defining performance by Artist in Residence Kalup Linzy, the large crowd quickly escaped the theater to refresh on drinks and eat from the now 3 food cart options, recharging to dance all night long.

C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience), robbinschilds

posted by: Jenevive Tatiana

The movement language and collaborative dynamics that span the multiple iterations of the projects of robbinschilds are almost painterly in nature. The radical relationality of color is echoed in their volatile collaborative practices of video, performance and installation. The pigment of a painting--say a canvas by Dana Schutz or Amy Sillman--exists meaningfully through juxtapositions that cause the hue to recede, buzz, heat up, cool down or hum. The magenta in my hand will exist differently depending upon the exact the network of colors, intensities, scales and marks on the canvas. And of course the phenomenological and physical orientation of the viewer collaborates with this spectral symphony; from the more literal instances of color blindness and Synesthesia, to Proustian sense memories and unconscious associations, color is never static or obvious but always alive, contingent and opening out into possibility.

9-4-09 The Works

2009 Time-Based Art Festival, PICA

Photo by G. Wilson

All Rights Reserved, PICA

by Emily Katz

Friday night's performance at The WORKS, introduced me to the music of a band who I embarrassingly should have seen before. My studio/shop mate, Heather Treadway, who plays rhythm in Explode Into Colors, also designed the colorful jersey jumpsuits and dresses for the performance. I was lucky to peek into her creative process while she and Jane (Janet Pants) collaborated on shape, color, and fabric choices.

TBA Closing Night
Brother and Sister, Scavenger Hunt
Sun. Sept.14, 2008, 10pm
Posted by: Camille Gerharter

Photo by: donfrankphotography.com

Brother and Sister create an atmosphere that is like kindergarten with no teachers.
People were climbing up and down off of the stage, drawing on the walls, jumping around like apes and dressed like neaderthals.
Four people got tatoos as part of the scavenger hunt!

Photo by: donfrankphotography.com

Amid the mad festivities I just had to .... air peddel

Photo by: Richard Brusky

Posted by Dusty Hoesly

Reggie Watts acted as curator for a night of performance art pieces and videos featuring Mike Daisey, tEEth, Rush N Disco, Tommy Smith, and the legend himself, Reggie Watts.

Ethan Rose is like a tinkerer in a musical toyshop, playing with each instrument before moving on to the next one, listening closely to the sounds and textures each element adds. Recording piano, flute, tambourine, snapping fingers, his own breath, and assorted other instruments, many of them obscure, then looping them through a machine, Rose creates playful music that shifts from one atmospheric thread to the next. Always attentive to transitions, Rose builds rhythmic or melodious connections between each theme, not so much changing songs as developing a new mood or taking a previous phrase and augmenting it. His music is often ambient and yet filled with surprising sounds (a click, a chirp). These disparate sounds and spaces come together under Rose's masterful hands and ears, the work of a conscientious, curious, and inspiring talent.

What better group to follow this fellow traveler than Au? Au is a rocking indie group fronted by the talented and gregarious Luke Wyland. Moving easily between various influences, from the blues to classic rock to pop standards of yesteryear, Au displays phenomenal energy. Wyland seems to be smiling during every song and through every lyric. A four-woman choir joins them onstage, singing music that is both reminiscent of 1940s pop and modern indie rock. Parenthetical Girls joins them later, adding a dozen vocalists in face paint, joyously singing along. At times riotous or dirge-like, marching like Sousa with Krupa at the kit or screeching discordantly in a maelstrom of noise rock, singing sweetly like the Andrews sisters or cheerily clapping along to a standard 4/4 beat, Au captivates and entertains. Au's performance and their music is solid gold.

Posted by Dusty Hoesly

Playing in front of projected images seemingly culled from a home decorating magazine, the Parenthetical Girls play songs of grace, sexuality, morality, and desire. Eerily earnest, alternatingly plaintive and tongue-in-cheek, Zach Pennington's lyrics and voice center this indie band's compositions. "Everything you're hearing tonight is true," Pennington says at one point, half-joking and half-serious. As he romps around the room on a wireless mic, he taps and stomps and waltzes, his angelic, androgynous voice wavering above the hushed crowd. "This is art guys; let's keep it real quiet... This isn't Music Fest Northwest!" The crowd, enthralled, embraces him.

After the intermission, a twenty-plus member orchestra joined the band onstage, leaving Pennington a forward mini-stage to himself. Carrying his long spindly fingers in the air like wands, he seems to conduct the music. His lyrics are often grandiose and lovesick and mature: "with an indifference divine," "all the years I casually exploited love," "we had low hopes, frankly." Still, as they work their way through the band's new record, Entanglements, the songs tend to bleed into each other. The orchestration is too similar, the vocal range stays near the same register. With Pennington pinned to the four-by-four platform, the stage show is reduced to his wand-like fingers and the faces of over twenty musicians sitting in cramped quarters. The immediacy and gusto of the earlier set has faded, though the audience remains enchanted like acolytes beneath a new star.

Posted by Dusty Hoesly

Posted by Dusty Hoesly

A man walks on stage wearing a gaudy black wig, sequined halter top, shorts (with silver lamé hot pants underneath), and large red glasses. He looks like the whitest account you've ever seen on a karaoke bender. Two dancers flank him as he sweats into Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love," delivering a frantic, loose-nipple-jiggling performance. Enthusiasm replaces rhythm and vocal talent. The crowd goes wild. Audio from Beyoncé's 2007 concert DVD serves as the musical accompaniment, complete with her vocal soundtrack, which Medlyn sings over. This is raucous nerd chic.