For years, art was hung salon-style. Then it was done the way SoHo galleries did it…with loads of white space surrounding each work. Here in the Catskills we have Varga-style, a cornucopic potpourri of everything blasted all around a series of rooms, with music and performance tossed in to give it all a multi-dimensional experiential sense of oomph. Some (right…me) have labeled it all Energy Art.
The 20th Anniversary of the Fiercely Independent Woodstock Film Festival has passed, and everyone’s still a bit breathless. Who won what?
Using painting and music as performance Manuel Oliver drove home into our hearts the shock of youth lost to gunfire.
“Ancient Baseball is a response, of sorts, to the way that Major League Baseball has ruined the game for me and so many others,” says author Mikhail Horowitz.
It’s up. It’s running. The 20th Annual Woodstock Film Festival, still “fiercely independent,” is finally upon us all…and yes, there are still tickets left for some key films and events.
The collages are small and made entirely of paper from old books. Squares of varying shades of off-white and tan are arranged in rectangles criss-crossed with brown lines that look drawn but are actually the time-stained edges of pages. Occasionally — in not more than two or three spots per collage — a tiny face, limb, or bit of text peeks through the squares. The letter “O,” the word “but.”
A sketch in the premiere episode of this season’s Saturday Night Live took aim at our region’s most well-known autumnal activity for day-trippers: pick-your-own apples. The format is a television commercial hosted by two sisters (Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon), the owners of “Chickham’s Apple Farm,” which is “located in the part of New York State that has confederate flags” where “for just $45, you can bring home $10 worth of apples.”
As another major hallmark arrives here in town, what are the Woodstock Film Festival’s highlights over the years, both maverick and community-minded?
You might expect that the woman pianist who has played the most solo recitals on the main stage at Carnegie Hall would be an internationally known celebrity who lives in some major metropolitan area. But Katya Grineva, who holds that distinction, leads a relatively quiet life just outside of Woodstock, and she has no plans to change her life.
Draw all the attendees of Woodstock’s top exhibiting nonprofit arts organizations together for a post-Labor Day party and several things become clear straightaway. Pretty much everyone knows most everyone, and many know the entire crowd.