Gründlehämmer @ 2640 Space

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society Proudly Presents Their Debut Producion

October 2nd through 4th

2640 Space @ 2640 Saint Paul Street

Friday and Saturday at 7 pm

Sunday at 5:30 pm

Gründlehämmer is an entirely original, medieval, fantasy rock opera that combines completely ridiculous stage theatrics with great live music. Gründlehämmer will feature 15 original rock songs performed live by a 7-piece metal orchestra, in addition to a full cast and crew of talented people.

Imagine a medieval world where music ruled: plants grow at the beckoning of a farmer’s guitar; battles between good and evil are won by the man with the shiniest guitar (and the sweetest riffs). This vision, imagined by a group of Goucher College graduates, inspired the formation of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society. The process of creating their debut production—Gründlehämmer—is an extensive one and the BROS began working on their rock opera in January of 2008. The entire script and fifteen original songs have been written collaboratively. The DIY project has grown to over 100 Baltimore residents, artists, musicians, and actors who are enthusiastically lending their time, talents, and skills to the production.

Gründlehämmer takes place in the mythical land of Brotopia, a once prosperous agrarian Kingdom where the melody of an electric guitar wields power enough to tend a field of crops, to heal the sick, or to smite an enemy. The great farming musicians of Brotopia have become disgraced under leadership of the tyrannical Dark King, Lothario. With the aid of the Royal Guard, Lothario has oppressed his citizens, confiscated the powerful instruments that gave voice to their music, and formed an alliance with an immortal cave-dwelling monster, the Gründle. While most Brojans live their lives in fear, an innocent young boy of great talent is coming of age in a tiny hamlet on the outskirts of the Kingdom. His tremendous skills on the guitar bring hope to the tiny farming village and spark the flames of resistance in those that can still remember TRUE ROCK. Will this young boy cast off his innocence to claim the Gründlehämmer? Will the Dark King release his iron grip on the lifeblood of Brotopia? Join the Brojans in their struggle to reclaim the power of Rock and Roll. GRÜNDLEHÄMMER!!!

Buy tickets through Brown Paper Tickets before they sell out!

Funny Games @ Load Of Fun

Nick Van Woert's "Mr. Potato Head"

FUNNY GAMES

Exhibition Preview:
October 10, 8 - 9 pm

Opening Reception:
October 16, 7 - 10 pm

Frontier Projects, in collaboration with Load Of Fun Studios, is pleased to present Funny Games, a new exhibition curated by Jamillah James.

Funny Games takes as its starting point humor and play as critical devices. The ten artists featured in the exhibition use equal parts cynicism and visual comedy to question the role of the artist in and artistic practice in and outside of an institutional context. Cognizant of their own entrenchment in the machination being examined, the artists take on the art market's value system, the notion of "art stars," theory and the academy, and problems of representation, among other quandaries. The approaches used are varied - the use of unconventional, sometimes "cheap" materials; intentionally naive or reductive techniques; contrived theatricality, visual gags and inside jokes; mining the art historical canon for content - resulting in work that continues the perilous conversation begun some 90 years ago about authenticity and art.

Artists participating in Funny Games include Leidy Churchman (New York), Sara Clendening (Los Angeles), Petra Cortright (Berlin), Peter Harkawik (New Haven, CT), Dina Kelberman (Baltimore), Maria Pithara (Richmond, VA), William Powhida (New York), Scott Reeder (Chicago), Jordan Rhoat (MICA Alumni - Chicago) and Nick Van Woert (Brooklyn)


Funny Games will be on view at Load Of Fun Studios, located at 120 W. North Ave, Station North Arts District, Baltimore, Maryland, from October 10 - November 6

Gallery Hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 - 6 pm and by appointment with Frontier Projects, frontier.projects@gmail.com

Photos from In Our Nature @ MAP

Alex Lukas

Rachel Sitkin's exhibition in this year's Curators' Incubator focused on artists who investigate the tension between man-made and natural environments/structures, and the affect it has on both people and the landscape.

Kim Beck

Igor Pasternak above and below

Laura Cooperman above and below

Relative Terrain @ The Whole Gallery

Relative Terrain Opens Saturday, 9/26 8 - 10 pm

In this exhibition, Geddes installs pedestrian commodities through structures that have been simplified into wood and vinyl; Pham presents drawings in horsehair, silk, and wax that communicate displacement and meditation; and Weishaar explores different modes of location, destruction, and play in his dollhouse installations. Geddes and Weishaar both teach art in the Baltimore City school system, and Pham works as a book conservator. All three artists reside in Baltimore.

The Whole Gallery
405 W. Franklin Street 3rd Floor
Baltimore, MD 21201

Annie Hall @ Charles Theatre

A new print of Woody Allen's Oscar-winning ANNIE HALL screens three times this week as the Charles' revival.




Showtimes:

Saturday, September 19 at Noon
Monday, September 21 at 7 pm
Thursday, September 24 at 9 pm

1977. Dir. Woody Allen. Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Mordecai Lawner, Jeff Goldblum, Dick Cavett. 93m.

In a boy-has-already-lost-girl story, comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) reflects on his failed romance with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and attempts to get her back. It's a slight story but what makes this film significant in Allen's long career is that it's really the first time he wrote adult characters. Previous movies such as the mock Russian literature epic "Love and Death" are funnier but are only really a sequence of gags. From here his writing (with Marshall Brickman) and directing make an unexpectedly subtle and involving movie. It's in "Annie Hall" that Allen first seems to have first learned the power of excision. Later he would re-shoot scenes, or once an entire movie ("September"), but here he deleted over an hour of footage. What's more, "Annie Hall" is really a murder-mystery but you'd never know it because that lost hour of footage included the murder and the mystery (this surplus plot became the basis of Allen's "Manhattan Murder Mystery"). Crime is a crutch in storytelling because it starts with the crime and ends with the inevitable unmasking of the villain, so it's a mark of greater sophistication that Allen chose to throw that away. This more intelligent film-making is rewarding because it hasn't dated as much as its 1970s fashions or focus on psychiatry. Its best sequence is still being ripped off, too: Allen and Keaton have a flirtatious chat that is subtitled with what each of them is really thinking. It's really no surprise that "Annie Hall" beat "Star Wars" to the Best Picture Oscar of 1977. (William Gallagher, BBC)


"Arguably Allen's best film: a thoroughly winning examination of the relationship between the ditzy title character and Allen's standard neurotic loon. A seminal '70s movie, and it holds up beautifully."
– Time Out New York

"Recommended! Remains Allen's clearest, cleanest intersection of whimsy, riotousness, and angst. It's a film that lovers and would-be lovers bond over—a jumbled sketch of a romance from start to finish, with well-observed moments of what love is really like."
– The Onion

“An aggressively experimental fantasia in which he unleashed all the kung fu in his cinematic arsenal, Annie Hall leaves any other romantic comedy made since choking on its dust.”
– Grady Hendrix, The New York Sun

Photos from Stuff: Domestic Treasures

Natasha Tylea, KФkken Historier (Kitchen Stories)

Katherine St Paul Hill, Bears and Balloons

Elena Johnston, Framework

Dina Kelberman, Three Walls of My Room

Monique Crabb, Blue Elvis

Katie Rose, Globe Collection (around the world in Katie days)

Stefani Levin, Tiny House

inside Tiny House

Photos from Love Letters and Debriscapes @ Civilian Art Projects

Cara Ober's and Nikki Painter's simultaneous solo shows at Civilian Art Projects in DC featured lots of new work by both ladies, and was received by an enthusiastic crowd. The shows run through October 17, and are the last exhibitions in Civilian's current location. For more info on the shows, artists and gallery, visit Civilian's website!

Stuff: Domestic Treasures opens @ Metro Gallery

Stuff: Domestic Treasures

Saturday, September 12, 2009 – 7 p.m.
DJ Nugget and DJ Eskimodane play music. 7-10


Baltimore artists Natasha Tylea and Elena Johnston welcome seven notable local artists to showcase their domestic treasures. This exhibition is about the objects that we, as artists, assign meaning to. The private shrines we create in our intimate spaces, studios, and bedrooms. It is important to celebrate not only the artists’ creations, but the stuff that they find inspiration in. These simple objects work together to explain the way these artists interpret themselves. The show will take the form of installations complete with tokens and collections.

Participating Artists:
Monique Crabb takes photographs and is a director of the Current Gallery.
Shaun Flynn is a Baltimore musician who makes posters and sculptures.
Katherine St Paul Hill is a singer of Lexie Mountain Boys, makes drawings, and decorates cakes at Charm City Cakes.
Elena Johnston is an illustrator who publishes art books.
Dina Kelberman is a part of Wham City and makes comics.
Victoria Legrand is the singer for Baltimore band, Beach House.
Stefani Levin is a part of Wham City and makes puppets.
Katie Rose makes drawings, loves maps, and decorates cakes at Charm City Cakes.
Natasha Tylea makes photos, melts metal and mixes music.

High Zero Opening Party @ Load of Fun

High Zero Opening Party
September 8th, 2009
@ Load of Fun 120 W North Ave. Baltimore

7:30 PM - $6 admission

The High Zero festival kicks off with a party at the site of High Zero's gallery installation show, INEQUALITIES, and will feature varied performances by the installation artists. Tickets available only at the door.


"INEQUALITIES"

High Zero Sound Installations
August 28th - September 14th, 2009
@ Load of Fun 120 W North Ave. Baltimore

Since 2001, High Zero Festival has included a gallery show of installations, primarily to do with sound and other elements related to the broad experimental music and thought culture of which High Zero is a part. This year, High Zero Foundation presents INEQUALITIES, a gallery show at the Load of Fun curated with works of four very interesting local artists. Special thanks are due to Ric Royer and Sherwin Mark, and to the artists. The gallery does not have regular hours but is often accessible during the day, and is accessible during all Load of Fun events. See loadoffun.net for a schedule.

Included works-

"Tempest" by Waltr carpenter

A continuously morphing rhythmic stream produced by a modular synthesizer with radio emissions being used as modulation sources.

"Space Is Deep" by Owen Gardner

The three guitars are tuned to certain resonant frequencies of the room, which the e-bows sound continuously and over a long duration. The specificity of the tuning and the durational aspect of the sound, combined with the superimposition of this aestheticized simulation of the room on the actual room, will (I hope!) subtly alter and make more beautiful the experience of being in the space.

"my_ga" by Jesse Haas

Computer runs a program that modifies its input (digital audio signal) by a method which is loosely based on the concepts of evolution and genetic recombinance (my_ga = my genetic algorithm). Starting with a live recording of local band Janitor, the program randomly performs hacked-up signal processing operations on its input until it assembles something it considers musical, plays that, then scrambles it up and attempts to make it musical again, ad infinitum.

"A Girl Said." by Ayako Kataoka

A girl said (acrylic resin, 10" x 10" x 2", 2007), was inspired by my explorations to capture sound in solid form. After experimentation with running sound waves through ceramics slip, jelly, milk, plasters and water to visualize sound and forms, I conceived of a method to realize the project by using a rapid prototype machine. A girl said was made from FFT (Fast Fourier transform) analysis data of a girl saying 'I love you'. This sound data was analyzed and modeled in the software programs Max/MSP Jitter and form-Z. Following this, a 3D acrylic resin object was materialized via a rapid prototyping process, also known as stereo-lithography.

"Power Wagons" by Jimmy Joe Roche

Charles Manson's psychic manifestation cult of peace. Jimmy Joe Roche channels Manson in his living room and alters the past by injecting himself in Hitchcock’s the Birds.

Photos from the Opening of Lab Door/Ozone Shelf @ Open Space

Open Space's first exhibition, Lab Door/Ozone Shelf
Featuring:
Eamon Espey (http://wormdye.com/main.html)

Andrew Liang (http://www.andrew-liang.com/blog/)
& Matthew Thurber (http://www.ambiguousmass.org/)

Open Space is an artist run gallery and music space in Baltimore Md. It was founded summer 2009 by a group of 8 friends and collaborators (Brendan Sullivan, Neal Reinalda, Molly O'Connell, Chris Day, Andrew Kennedy, Eric Bos, Conor Schetzulte, Eric Steiner), in a renovated section of a functioning auto-body shop. ```

"Lab Door/Ozone Shelf" is their first opening and curatorial effort, opening Sep 5th 2009. Open Space plans on having art shows monthly, along with music events, film screenings and other events throughout the year.

The exhibition runs through September 27
2720 Sisson Street
http://www.openspacebaltimore.com

Love Letters and Debriscapes @ Civilian Art Projects

Love Letters, new works by Cara Ober opens Friday, September 11, 7 - 9 pm

Love Letters is Baltimore-based artist Cara Ober’s first solo exhibition with Civilian Art Projects. Ober layers drawing, painting, and printmaking into mixed media works that examine and reinterpret sentimental imagery. Intricate and funny, Love Letters explores the relationship of the artist to image, word, and personal meaning found in the exploration of secret fantasy and expressive interlude.
Also Opening @ Civilian:
Debriscapes by Nikki Painter
With Debriscapes, her first solo exhibition in Washington DC, Richmond VA-based Nikki Painter exhibits new drawings and a site-specific installation that explore -- in bright neon colors, pencil lines, and various materials -- the relationship and continuum between the built and natural worlds.
BE THERE.