Local galleries and studios schedule openings, events
Although centered in Kingston, the annual Upstate Art Weekend on July 17-21 will stretch south to the Highlands. Several exhibits, along with a new music venue and a video arts gallery in Beacon, will debut.
In Philipstown, Manitoga introduces an annual Arts + Residency install of fiber, wood and clay works in black and white. Curator Alyson Baker, founder and executive director of the River Valley Arts Collective, will discuss the exhibit, All the Light and Shadow, at 2 p.m. on July 19. See visitmanitoga.org.
On Main Street in Cold Spring, Studio Tashtego will host a panel discussion at 5 p.m. on July 19 with four ceramic artists, including Elizabeth Blake (whose work is on display), David Moldover of The Newburgh Pottery, Brad Lail from Catskill and Beacon resident Emil Alzamora. See studiotashtego.com.
The weekend marks the coming out of Shigeko Kubota Video Art Foundation, which has operated a restoration studio at 20 West Main St. in Beacon since 2017. Starting on July 17, it will offer studio tours and unveil the inaugural exhibition in its new gallery (formerly occupied by Analog Diary) that is dedicated to the work of Kubota and her husband, Nam June Paik, pioneers of video-oriented installs in the 1960s. See shigekokubotavideoartfoundation.org.
On Long Dock, Soon is Now will host a reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on July 19, followed by a performance in conjunction with the Goudy Wildlife Club, for an exhibit by its first artists-in-residence, Andrew Brehm and Jennifer Lauren Smith. Smith’s pieces are collaged flowers gathered at Brooklyn’s historic Greenwood Cemetery that reflect “the irony of achieving longevity through artificiality,” while Brehm constructed a site-specific sculpture using marine foam and other river detritus. See soonisnow.org.
KuBe Art Center will feature a full weekend of programming and exhibits, including areas at the former Beacon High School that are typically closed to the public.
The Graffitti Room, curated by Ray Arcadio, will present a group show of global contemporary artists. The reorganized Art Library is a spiffy research spot to explore the accomplishments of KuBe owner Ethan Cohen’s parents, experts in Chinese art and culture. And Kelly Ellenwood and family transformed a former band space into St. Rita’s Music Room, a new nightclub that will host Broadway in Beacon on July 18 and the Dick Griffin Quartet on July 19 (see saintritasmusicroom.com).
KuBe will also host two Distinguished Artist Lecture Series talks, each followed by a reception. At 6 p.m. on July 18, new Beacon residents Mickalene Thomas and Derrick Adams will share a preview of the forthcoming exhibit, The Secret Life of Plants; for free tickets, see dub.sh/thomas-adams.
At 6 p.m. on July 19, Algernon Miller, who hobnobbed with Andy Warhol, Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra, will discuss Afrofuturism. He will speak in the third-floor gallery space, where some of his far-out paintings will be on display. For free tickets, see dub.sh/algernon-miller.
Living in the East Village during the heady 1960s, Miller and a few buddies “understood that what we’re being told on the subject of history is not our complete history, so we spent a lot of time at Wesier’s bookstore studying the occult, mysticism and spirituality in pursuit of truth and knowledge,” he says.
Miller invited Griffin, the trombonist for Sun Ra’s free jazz ensemble, the Arkestra, to play at the opening of his solo exhibition at Cohen’s gallery in Manhattan. It’s no accident that Griffin is headlining the inaugural concert at St. Rita’s Music Room on July 19.
Miller, a laconic and laid-back professional artist since the 1960s, plans to speak for around an hour. “I’m a quiet painting guy, and it won’t be a formal talk, but if you get me started on certain topics, I can get on a roll,” he says. “I’ve seen several iterations of a lot.”
For more information about Upstate Art Weekend, which includes 158 participants in 10 counties in the Catskills and Hudson Valley, see upstateartweekend.org.
