The Merry Month of May(kr)

May: a month so full of new and exciting possibilities that they just had to name it after this blog.

Storm King has awakened for the season and on May 9 will officially open Maya Lin's new Wavefield to the public. The third of a series of such earth works created by Lin, Wavefield is a four acre array of grass laden waves. Last fall the work seemed to be fully formed, but had only irregular patches of grass on the peaks and valleys and muddy tire tracks from the earth moving equipment still traced their way around the entire area. An accompanying exhibit of Lin's work is on view inside the park's gallery.
Here is Holland Cotter's NY Times write up of Wavefield (5/8/09)

The weekend of May 16 and 17 has several things going on.
That weekend essentially marks the sixth anniversary of the opening of Dia:Beacon (the museum opened on May 18, 2003). On the 16th, Dia:Beacon will be hosting the final Merce Cunningham Dance Company's event in the company's two year residency at the museum. As with all the other MCDC's events before it, this performance sold out quickly, so if you have no ticket by now, you still won't have one on the day of the event. I have not yet seen any last minute scalpers standing outside the museum hawking any extra tickets.
Also on that weekend, the museum will be opening a new exhibit of work by Antoni Tàpies "The Resources of Rhetoric" which is installed in the galleries that formerly housed multiple exhibits of Agnes Martin's work since the Riggio Galleries opened in 2003. The selection of Tàpies strikes me as a little odd, but I'm very interested in seeing it in relation to the museum's other work. The exhibit is the first in a series of institutional exchanges between Dia and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. Tàpies' work will be on view through Oct 19, 2009.

May 15-17 marks the first of several weekends that Mike and Doug Starn's Big Bambú project will be open to the public. Between 11 am and 4 pm on each of those days, visitors are welcome to come by and see the work. If you're planning to visit, you are asked to send an email to the studio. The email address and driving directions are on the Starn's website. Big Bambú will be open to the public every 2nd and 4 weekend in June, July and August.

Also on the 16, Olafur Eliasson's Parliament of Reality officially opens on the campus of Bard College. Eliasson will be facilitating a series of presentations and symposia which are scheduled to happen on the island forum he's designed. I caught a glimpse of the permanent installation when it was under construction earlier this Spring.
As part of the opening activities, a conference is scheduled for the 15th on the use of music as instrument of torture will be led by the Human Rights Project at Bard.The opening events are free and open to the public.
I'll post schedule information when it comes available.

Ahh Spring & Fair Weather

Storm King opens for its 2008 season on April 1st. There is no exhibition information for this year on the Storm King's website, but Tyler Green has reported that the Center will be hosting an exhibit of Sol LeWitt sculpture beginning on May 14.

This year, the coming of Spring also means the onset of NYC Art Fair Week, and the Armory Show is charging $30 for entry. Whawa wHa What? But, if you get nine or more of your friends together as a group, tix are just $15. I would hope someone would stage a group formation booth outside of the show where people could gather together, and once the requisite 10 heads were assembled, the ad hoc group could enter the show, and demand the group rate.
Also on the dockets for the dates of March 27-30: Bridge - $10, Scope - $15, Pulse - $15, Volta - $10, Art Now (has a fancy website, and a nice map showing proximity to Volta and Red Dot, but no admission price info.), Red Dot - $12, DiVA - free (runs from today through the 30th)
I'm planning on attending the Art Bloggers panel discussion hosted by Red Dot, which will be comprised of some of our -er- my favorites:

Moderator: Joanne Mattera, painter, Joanne Mattera Art Blog. Panelists:
Edward Winkleman, Winkleman Gallery and Edward_Winkleman blog; Carol Diehl,
painter and critic, Artvent; Paddy Johnson, blogger, Art Fag City; C-Monster,
freelance writer whose identity will be revealed at the event; Sharon Butler,
artist/writer/professor, Two Coats of Paint.

This discussion is scheduled for 11am on March 30. There are several other talks on the schedule that day as well.