Exhibition with Evening of Art + Performance
On view: July 17 – August 2, 2015

OPENING WITH EYE TO EYE SCREENING, READING + PERFORMANCE: Fri. July 17, 6 – 8 pm

CLOSING WITH DISCUSSION BETWEEN JACK WALLS + SEAN OSBORNE: Sat. Aug. 1, 6 – 8 pm

GALLERY HOURS: Saturday + Sunday, July 17 – Aug. 2 from noon – 4 pm, or by appointment

Free and open to the public.

Basilica Hudson is proud to announce an exhibition by artist Jack Walls. Paintings, Et Cetera opens Friday, July 17 from 6 – 8 pm and will feature vibrant paintings and selected ephemera by the legendary artist. Mr. Walls has been a fixture on the New York creative scene since the early 1980s, working primarily in collage and painting. In addition to his visual work, he is also an established poet and author, most notably for The Ebony Prick of the White Rose’s Thorn, which he will read from on opening night. The exhibition will be on view through Sunday, August 2, with a closing party and artist discussion on Saturday, August 1 from 6 – 8 pm. Gallery hours for the show are between noon and 4 pm every Saturday and Sunday, or by appointment which can be made by emailing info@basilicahudson.org.

The opening will include a screening of EYE TO EYE (Isabel Hegner, First Run/Icarus Films, 1989, 18 min.), a documentary film about Robert Mapplethorpe, Walls’ longtime partner and fellow artist who is known for his controversial, erotic, and highly stylized black and white photographs. EYE TO EYE features Walls’ narration over many of Mapplethorpe’s most provocative images. As told by Mr. Walls, viewers learn of the forces that drove Mapplethorpe’s evolution as an artist and his relationships to his subjects, right up until his passing.

After the screening, a reading from The Ebony Prick of the White Rose’s Thorn (aka T. E. P. W. R. T.) will take place with musical accompaniment by Harbour (Jonas Bers and Damian Patrick Cleary).

The closing party on Saturday, August 1 will feature a conversation with Jack Walls and Sean Osborne on the artist’s work, life and times from 6 – 8 pm. Sean Osborne, a resident of the Hudson Valley, completed his Master’s coursework at SUNY Purchase in Art History, with a focus on painting and sculpture of the late twentieth century and American modernism of the 1900s – 1940s.

About the Artist:
Chicago-born artist Jack Walls as been a vital part of the New York art world for over 30 years. He is a writer, poet, painter, and performer. In his early years in New York, he met and lived as a couple with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. This relationship lasted until Mapplethorpe’s untimely death in 1989. Since then, Walls has become a source of inspiration for a new generation of young artists. Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, and the late Dash Snow, to mention a few, have acknowledged Walls’ influence. Jack Walls lives and works in Hudson, New York. For more information, please visit www.jackwalls.com

The exhibition at Basilica Hudson is made possible in part with support from Green Mountain Energy.

Image credits: (top) Le Roi, painting by Jack Walls; (bottom) Portrait of Jack Walls by Steven Sebring.

Q&A + Discussion on Opening Night // Closing Party with music by Black Sea Hotel, Charlie Looker + Patrick Higgins

OPENING: SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 5-7 PM
WITH ARTISTS PRESENT FOR Q&A + DISCUSSION and PARTY PRESENTED WITH HUDSON SLOOP CLUB

CLOSING PARTY: FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 8 PM DOORS, 9 PM SOUNDS
MUSIC BY BLACK SEA HOTEL, CHARLIE LOOKER + PATRICK HIGGINS
$10 AT DOOR

ON VIEW: SAT-SUN, 1-4 PM & BY APPOINTMENT
AUG. 23 – SEPT. 1 (LABOR DAY)

The interactive whale exhibit BUMP arrives in Hudson, created by brothers Frank DenDanto and Dan DenDanto, one of the only whale skeletons you will be able to touch and interact with.

BUMP continues Basilica’s commitment towards celebrating the epic, eclectic history and heritage of Hudson, NY which was defined by the whaling industry.

The installation includes bones from three different whales, suspended at eye level in Basilica’s Main Hall and are accessible for hands-on touching – not normally an activity allowed at fine art galleries or natural history displays. Once touched, they are set in motion, causing shadows dance around the space.

On opening night, join us for a Q&A and discussion by the artists. The DenDanto brothers work in tandem – Dan is a cetacean biologist and his brother Frank is a light and theater designer.  The brothers have been collaborating for some years on whale skeleton articulations for numerous museums, but recently embarked on the more creative, interactive BUMP piece. BUMP is their first exhibit that was centered around an educational and interactive fine art approach, rather than a traditional scientific assembly. It has previously been exhibited at the Maine College of Art, and went on to show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, Maine.

A closing celebration with a special music performance by Black Sea Hotel, Charlie Looker, and Patrick Higgins will take place on Friday, August 29 with doors at 8 PM and music at 9 PM. Tickets will be $10 at the door.

Curated by Lea Bertucci, the closing party will provide “an intimate, early music vibe”. Powerhouse a cappella trio Black Sea Hotel are known for their electrifying arrangements of Balkan folk songs, interweaving the ancient and the contemporary in a harmonic blend that has been called otherworldly, haunting, even spellbinding. (Willa Roberts, Sarah Small, Shelley Thomas).  Charlie Looker (Extra Life, Seaven Teares, Psalm Zero) provides a haunting voice and guitar ranging from early music to demented covers. Patrick Higgins (Bacchannalia) is an “electrified Bach for the classical guitar”.

Black Sea Hotel

Charlie Looker

Patrick Higgins

BUMP is made possible by Allied Whale, the College of the Atlantic’s marine mammal research group who have loaned the bones for the exhibit, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Presented by Retrospective and Basilica Hudson

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
ART OPENING 7-9 PM FOLLOWED BY AFTER-PARTY LIVE SHOW AT 9 PM
FREE

ON VIEW | AUGUST 2-18
GALLERY HOURS | FRI-SUN 12-5 PM & BY APPOINTMENT:
EMAIL INFO@RETROSPECTIVEGALLERY.COM OR CALL 518-828-2288

“Ambulance Blues” curated by Erin Falls features work by Rey Akdogan, Polly Apfelbaum, Uri Aran, Donald Baechler, Milano Chow, Peter Coffin, Ann Craven, Sam Falls, Deborah Falls, Jack Goldstein, Elias Hansen, Marc Hundley, Mirabelle Marden, Nancy Shaver, Matt Sheridan Smith, Jordan Wolfson, and Joe Zorrilla with performances by Mick Barr and Hart of Gold.

After opening performances by Big French, Penn Sultan of Last Good Tooth, Lissy Trullie and Imaad Wasif with Brian Chase will commence at 9PM

“We live in a state of constant flux and communication, yet this hyper-connectivity somehow feels more disconnected than times when we had less options and ways to communicate. I see a lot of people making artwork out of this place – disconnected objects, fragmentations, deconstructions –  but without the actual answer or response or cure or even recognition of this feeling.  The artworks are considered ‘progressive’ but are themselves disconnected and fragmented, without any real acknowledgment of that fact. So even though they may be a ‘sign of the times’, they also just tend to blend blandly with the background becoming sterile purposeless objects.

For Ambulence Blues, I wanted to include works that went beyond this idea of progressive.  The artists included understand what it means to create a relic of a difficult world in flux with the desire to refocus our attention to something better. There is a real sadness and loneliness in recognizing this disconnected feeling and the works here evoke this.  Even further, the works exhibit continuous movement beyond this by reaching towards something sublime. Good art is about knowing and feeling that you live in a fucked up world but still being able to pull out the good human parts and point towards them.

Along with this, I chose the artists for the way they approach the creation of their art and a kind of honesty of spirit that is apparent in their work. It’s more about the idea and image you have of the person creating the work than any sort of special talent or technical capacity.”

– Erin Falls