The LAB (for installation + performance art) presents Shopping For Life a performance piece by Kristina Skovby. This work is inspired by Conscious Consumerism, a social movement that is based around increased awareness of the impact of purchasing decisions on the environment and the consumers health and life in general. Skovby will use her body and a shopping cart to explore the relationship between societies wish to make ethical purchases as an expression of their moral choices, and their capitalist inclined desire to consume to excess, in the pursuit of happiness.

Kristina Skovby is a performance artist from Denmark and a former student of the Martha Graham School where she studied repertory with Pearl Lang. She recently finished in a production by InOktober at Here Arts Center in Manhattan, and is currently working with Nu Dance Theater on a site specific performance for the Botanical Garden on East 6th Street. Her own performance work has been presented at the LAB, Triskelion Arts Aldous Theater in Brooklyn, Gowanus Arts Building, The Brecht Forum, and Spinvox street events in NYC and San Francisco.

Previous Works:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo8CEVr9bXw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVFv0gpu5_Y&feature=related

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 30+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force interaction between high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions and nearly 25,000 daily passersby. THE LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration in Art. www.thelabgallery.com

For more information, please contact Danika Druttman at rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com or 212.339.2092

QUICK INFORMATION:
Shopping for Life, by Kristina Skovby
The LAB (for installation + performance art)
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, 47th and Lexington
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
September 20-24th, 2010 at 6:30pm every evening
This event is free. The performance will take place within confinement of the enclosed space of the gallery, the audience will view the piece from the sidewalk outside the gallery.
212-339-2092
www.thelabgallery.com

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Main Event:

The main event of the week will be 5 days of daily fashion installations in the Lab Gallery in conjunction with selected items for sale at RS POP Shop.

The week will highlight designers of both women and menswear whose styles incorporate versatility, sensuality and the true spirit of fostering entrepreneurship.

At 2pm and 6pm daily, the Lab Gallery will act as a runway and live billboard, including seats inside the gallery space available by invite only for VIP’s, press and sponsors. The 2pm show will be followed by a live interview by RS POP Co-Founder Melissa Gonzalez with the designer presentations projecting out into the intersection at 47^th Street and Lexington Avenue. You can see current videos at: http://www.rspopshop.com/designers. Following the presentations there will be an invite-only sponsored cocktail reception throughout the week at Lily’s.

Here is the Lineup!

September 10th- Fashion Night Out with Ricardo Rojas Salon & Makeup by Mojica

September 13th- Tribal Couture & Modalistas.com

September 14th- Sandra Baquero & Sohung Designs

September 15th- CEOLA and Blynk by Dominique Sade Sponsored byModalistas.com

September 16th- ECO Gir Sustainable Style Sponsored by Bagir

The Week’s Events are Sponsored by:

The Roger Smith Hotel, Lily’s, POP Chips , IZZE Sparkling Juice, Mapflex, Makeup by Mojica with Jing Ai Natural and Organic Cosmetics and Alaa of ZIBA Salon

All runways shows will be streamed live and open to the public from 47th & Lex sidewalk

Seats inside are by invite only!

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About the event
In conjunction with the Roger Smith Hotel and Blip TV will be hosting a Live Round Table Discussion in the Starlight Ballroom at the Roger Smith Hotel hosted by Jesse Cowell. Following the round table we will host a networking cocktail hour and world premier screening of Status Kill a new web series that will be released in the Fall of 2010.

When; September 1, 2010

Roger Smith Round Table with Jesse Cowell ; 5:30 – 6
Networking Cocktail Hour 6 – 7
Screening of Status Kill and Discussion 7 – 8
Networking 8 – 9

Where;
The Starlight Ballroom at the Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue at 47th Street
New York, NY 10017

About Status Kill
I go to my favorite social networks everyday. Every hour. I can’t stop. Follow my Twitter.  Become my Facebook friend.  Like me! This is the world we now live in. We are all stars in each other lives via sites “like” Facebook, Twitter, and many others.  We comment to impress and love to know we are heard.  You love/hate these things, and so do we.  You find the ever changing rules of communication maddening and so do we. You wish you had more time to do it (and more will power to quit it) and so do we.

http://www.statuskill.com/?page_id=2

Join us! Follow us! Become part of the conversation!

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$25 per person includes local draft beer
tax and gratuity not included

cheeseburgers, hot dogs, vegetable shish kebob,
pulled pork bbq, grilled chicken,
coleslaw, corn, chopped salad, watermelon, lemon bars.
for details and reservations call: 212-339-2097

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Special guest Ricardo Rojas and his salon crew will be POPPING UP to style

along with Denise Mojica of Makeup by Mojica (http://www.makeupbymojica.com/) and Jing Ai Cosmetics

with a 6pm Runway with Animated Closet

Yummy Snacks and Sips Provided by POP Chips, Sprinkle Splash Bakery & IZZE Sparkling Juice at RS POP

And RICARDO Punch Drink Specials at Lily’s Bar.

A little more about Ricardo…. In his fifteen year career, Ricardo has worked with a multitude of celebrities day to day and in preparation for red carpet events including the Oscars, Grammy’s, movie premieres, charity galas and more. His celebrity clientele includes such luminaries as Cher, Marisa Tomei, Angela Bassett, Jane Seymour, Sharon Stone, Gina Gershon, Liv Tyler, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Heidi Klum, Amber Valetta, Gisele Bündchen, Bar Rafaeli, Mischa Barton, Rossy De Palma, Paris Hilton, Aimee Osbourne, Natasha Bedingfield, Carmen Kass, and Donna Karan. In addition, Ricardo spent eight years as the personal stylist for Donatella Versace.

Join us in person or via ustream.tv at 6pm to see the live show!

See more at www.rspopshop.com

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The things in life that makes me happy are nature, physical activity and sharing the good moments in life with friends. Sometimes a smile or a joke with a complete stranger can have an even more positive effect, in a sense that the bonding process happens ultra fast, and generates a powerful feeling of being alive.
I think that this is one of the main reasons to why I ended up in New York. I was lucky enough to find a place where my mentality fits in, and where I continuously meet potential friends from near and far.
To me New York is like a connecting dot on the planet where people with different languages, cultures and styles all share the city. It’s funny but after some time spent in NYC, you start to notice that many of the people you meet are not originally from here, and many others (just like myself), are just passing by.

Being Roger Smith is not hard, not straining and not fake. Everyday I meet Roger Smith. There is a little bit of Roger Smith in all of us, but since this all about me I’m going to say it.
My name is Tomas Terstad, and I am Roger Smith (even when I spin on my head).

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Suite 15 by Jacob Mendel from Panman Productions on Vimeo.

In this beautifully styled black and white short, a man is conflicted with an existential yearning. What is it that we are doing here? Is this life just a transition, or is it all we’ll ever know?

Directed by Jacob Mendel

Roger Smith Shorts Film Festival Workshop 2009

Cast: Kevin O’Heron, Danny Boushebel, Halleluyah Walcott, David Green, Jake Newell,
Crew: Director: Jacob Mendel – Writers: Ajani Jackson, Jacob Mendel, Edmund Zagorin – Cinematography and Editing: Jacob Mendel – Executive Producers: John Knowles and Brendan Crane – Music: Gray Devio and Joshua Black – Gaffers: Cait Davic and Hemant T. – PA: Alma Osorio

About the Roger Smith Shots
With support from Ghetto Film School, Brooklyn Brewery and the Roger Smith Hotels patronage to the arts, the Roger Smith Shorts 09 (Festival Workshop) was conceived. The concept was envisioned as a collaboration of creativity and ingenuity among visual storytellers and those who form the structure behind it.

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501 Lexington Ave, at 47th Street, New York NY 10017 (map)

Cross Street: 47th Street and Lexington Avenue
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
Tickets: $15 includes cheese and wine (cash only, paid at door)
Reservations: Please contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com

Schedule:

September 12^th 2010, 4pm: Simon Powis

A passionate and expressive style coupled with a formidable technique has garnered attention for Simon Powis as a talented soloist, chamber musician and innovator. Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Powis began his studies at the age of five on the cornet. Inspired by his brother’s musical pursuits he took up the guitar at age eleven and began an enduring obsession that would result in performances throughout Europe, Australia and the Americas.

October 10th 2010, 4pm: Irene Gómez

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Irene Gómez graduated with the gold medal in guitar and chamber music at the Conservatory Claude Debussy in Saint Germain en Laye, France, with maestro Javier Quevedo. She was the first guitarist to graduate from the National University in Bogotá with maestro Ramiro Isaza. Gómez has released four albums with contrasting repertoires that have been highly acclaimed. Irene has toured extensively in France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Germany, The United States, and Colombia. She has both taught and coordinated the Guitar Program at the National University in Bogotá, and in the fall of 2010 will be relocating to New York to study at The Juilliard School with Sharon Isbin.

November 14th 2010, 4pm: Michael Nicolella

With a repertoire spanning from J.S. Bach to Jimi Hendrix, Michael Nicolella is recognized as one of America’s most innovative classical guitar virtuosos. He has received wide critical acclaim for his performances, recordings and compositions. As a concert artist, Michael has performed throughout North America and Europe as solo recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra. Nicolella’s most recent album, Shard, was described in Frets magazine as “an exciting textbook on how to honor classical tradition and kick it in the ass at the same time”.

January 9th 2011, 4pm: The Back Bay Guitar Trio

“The Back Bay Guitar Trio can conjure a sweet choir of angels or rip into the strings with the percussive fervor of a jazz drummer.” The Boston Globe

The Trio formed in 2002 and has performed throughout New England from Dartmouth College and Longy School of Music to Berklee College and The House of Blues.  . The BBGT have also been featured artists at the world renowned Boston Hatch Shell, the Boston Classical Guitar Society concert series, and have opened for guitarist Al Dimeola at the Lebanon (NH) Opera House.

February 13th 2011, 4pm: Tracy Anne Smith

Called “a great musician…full of feeling and colors,” by composer Jacques Hétu, Tracy Anne Smith is garnering increasing praise for her expressive performances, rich tonal palette and musical control. Cuban guitarist/composer Leo Brouwer praised her “polyphonic hands” and “tremendous sound” while American virtuoso Benjamin Verdery commended her “ability to express the emotion of a work to its core.” Even 80’s icon Sinbad offered, “I don’t know what she’s doing — but I know it’s deep.”

March 13th 2011, 4pm: Isaac Bustos

Classical Guitarist Isaac Bustos enjoys an extensive performing career that has taken him to Canada, Central America, Europe and all over The United States.  Bustos has gained critical acclaim and is recognized as one of the top guitarists of his generation.  He has made radio and television appearances and has been invited to perform in some of the most prestigious festivals: Guitar Foundation of America Annual Convention, Portland Guitar Festival, Southwest Guitar Festival, Brownsville Guitar Festival and the Classical Minds Festival.  Bustos has appeared as a soloist with the Orchestra of New Spain, The Baytown Symphony Orchestra, The Nicaraguan National Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro JoAnn Falletta.

April 10th 2011, 4pm: Nicolas Ciraldo

Praised as “an exceptionally musical and accomplished guitarist,” Nicholas Ciraldo is a leader among his generation of American classical guitarists. He has won awards and reached high levels at several prestigious solo competitions, including the Tredrez-Locquemau International Guitar Competition (France), twice at the MTNA Guitar Competition (USA), the Gaetano Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition (Italy), the GFA Solo Guitar Competition (USA), and the Portland International Guitar Competition (USA). Ciraldo has enjoyed numerous solo, chamber, and concerto performances throughout the United States, South America, and Europe, from Boston’s Jordan Hall to Berlin’s Berliner Dom to Brazil’s Teatro José Maria Santos.

May 8th 2011, 4pm: Lynn McGrath

While studying Spanish as a foreign exchange student in Mexico, Lynn McGrath bought a guitar on a whim and asked a visiting professor (Alfredo Sanchez) for lessons, never imagining that years later she would be invited back as a professional musician. Since then, Lynn received her Master and Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree from USC and has studied with some of today’s most prominent guitarists including William Kanengiser and Pepe Romero.  She has performed in many international festivals including the XIX Festival Internacional de Guitarra (Lima, Peru), the Guitar on the Mediterranean Festival (Italy), the Nikšić Festival (Montenegro), the III Muestra de Guitarra Ajijic (Mexico) and the 2009 GFA Convention. In her unique rendition of Platero y yo by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, she has astounded audiences and received critical acclaim by performing the role of guitarist and narrator simultaneously. She serves as the Tour Director for the GFA and presently lives and teaches in Albuquerque, NM.

June 12th 2011, 4pm: John Lehmann-Haupt

John Lehmann-Haupt, a New York based guitarist, has been playing since he was five years old. Known equally for his arrangements of popular and traditional songs, as for his classical interpretations, he has performed throughout the Northeast and in the homes of such prominent New Yorkers as Tom Brokaw, Madeleine Albright, and Donald Trump. His twelve year engagement at Windows on the World (atop the World Trade Center) was cited for musical excellence by The New York Times.

July 10th 2011, 4pm: Scott Borg

Praised as a guitarist with “enormous facility on the guitar, a fluent technique, who plays with total confidence and professional expertise, panache and artful spontaneity”, by Grammy Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin, Australian classical guitarist Scott Borg performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, he has been a featured artist at major concert halls such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and New York’s Apollo Theatre with rock legend Carlos Alomar. As a winner of Artists International, he made his Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall where New York Concert Review described his performance as “well balanced, gracefully presented, and expertly played”. Previous engagements have included performances and masterclasses at the Merida International Guitar Festival in Yucatan, Mexico, ICPNA International Guitar Festival in Lima Peru, Shell Darwin International Festival Australia, the 92nd Street Y, New York City Classical Guitar Society and Sydney Classical Guitar Society.

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Schedule

Fall 2010

Shopping For Life

Kristina Skovby

September 20-24th 2010

Shopping for Life is a performance piece driven by Conscious Consumerism, a social movement that is based around increased awareness of the impact of purchasing decisions on the environment and the consumers health and life in general. Skovby will use her body and a shopping cart to explore the relationship between societies wish to make ethical purchases as an expression of their moral choices, and their capitalist inclined desire to consume to excess, in the pursuit of happiness.

Kristina Skovby is a performance artist from Denmark. She is a former student of the Martha Graham School, where she studied repertory with Pearl Lang. Her own work has previously been presented at Triskelion Arts Aldous Theater (Brooklyn), Gowanus Arts Building (Brooklyn), The Brecht Forum (New York City), The Martha Graham Center (New York City), The Merce Cunningham Studio (New York City) and in Spinvox Street Events in New York City and San Francisco. Skovby was recently involved in a production by InOktober at Here Arts Center (New York City), and is currently working with Nu Dance Theater in a site specific performance for the Botanical Garden on East 6th St in New York City.

All Intellectual Animals

are Dangerous

Yeon Jin Kim

Curator: Joel Carreiro

October 7-29th 2010

All Intellectual Animals are Dangerous is a multi-media installation offering the viewer a more intimate experience than usually found with public art projects. The windows of the gallery will be whited-out except for several small apertures, which will reveal various room interiors constructed out of paper and graphite, depicting an array of characters and events. Like Hitchcock`s Rear Window, each opening will give the audience a glimpse into different lives, however in All Intellectual Animals are Dangerous some rooms are inhabited by animals, some by people and one by an enormous spider. They are all presided over by a giant “Alice in Wonderland” –like character. Several of the interiors are small and present intimate, three–dimensional static tableau, and in a scale jump, two of them open onto larger spaces with narrative video projections, which are made by filming paper and graphite models. Passers-by may experience the piece as a cross between the viewing holes cut in a construction wall and the window displays on Fifth Avenue at Christmas time. On the busy streets of mid-town, this piece provides a voyeuristic experience of a fantastic realm populated by unusual and anthropomorphic creatures, all governed by a dream logic.

Yeon Jin Kim was born in Seoul, Korea, receiving her BFA from Seoul National University and MFA from Hunter College. She has shown work at the Islip Art Museum (Long Island), the Anne Street Gallery (Newburgh NY), the Storefront Artists Project (Pittsfield, MA), the Catskill Art Society, and Times Square Gallery (New York City). Kim’s videos have been screened in Seoul, Egypt, Germany and New York City. She has recently completed residencies at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs NY), the Saltonstall Foundation (Ithaca NY), BRIC/BCAT (Brooklyn) and the Islip Art Museum. Kim is a recipient of awards from both the Tony Smith Fund and the Ahl Foundation, and is currently an artist in residence at Henry Street Settlement. She teaches at the Ashcan Studio in Manhattan.

Joel Carreiro is based in New York City and directs the MFA Program at Hunter College. As an independent curator he has organized exhibitions for the Rotunda Gallery (Brooklyn) the Rockland Center for the Arts (Rockland NY) and the Hopper House Art Center (Nyack NY), as well as the Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter College, and the Intar Gallery (New York City). He currently has a solo exhibition at Fairfield University in Connecticut, which will travel next year to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and then to Muehlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is also currently co-curating, with Brett De Palma, an exhibition for the Catskill Art Society in Livingston Manor, New York, called Utopia and Wallpaper.

The Dressing Room

Eva Perrotta and Sophie Bortolussi

November 8-26th 2010

The Dressing Room is a duet created by Nu dance Theater in collaboration with the architects Eva Perez De Vega Steele and Ian Gordon. Trying to reconnect with themselves and each other, two women face their own shadows in order to find intimacy. Tearing apart the many layers resisting vulnerability, together they travel through an invisible crowd of unspoken beliefs and opinions. The fish bowl environment of The LAB offers an inherent and incredibly rich tension to the exploration of intimacy. How to transgress the unspoken, publicly and openly, without only provoking, but more importantly going beyond our stigma of sexuality and gender differentiations.

Eva Perrotta, originally from France, first studied theater before focusing on her dance training in Paris, Buenos Aires and New York. She performed for several years with various choreographers and directors in France, Argentina, and the United States. She founded Nu Dance Theater in 2005 and since then her work has been presented in more than 50 venues throughout the Unites States. Recently, she was commissioned to choreograph for the Martha Graham Young Artist Program and was produced by Triskelion Arts Theater (Brooklyn), among others. Following the success of Hinterland, a Site Specific performance exclusively created in 2009 for a former synagogue renovated into a four story house, Nu Dance Theater has been invited to create a new site specific work for the Botanical Garden on East 6th St in New York City.

Sophie Bortolussi was born in France where she started her training in modern, contemporary and improvisational dance. In 2002, Sophie received a grant from the French Ministry Of Culture and Communication and a full scholarship from The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance in New York. In 2004, Sophie became a member of the Martha Graham Company and since 2005, Sophie has been working with the director and choreographer Martha Clarke, on multiple projects, including Kaos, Garden of Earthly Delights and Angel Reapers. She has also performed with AMDaT and Drastic Action/ Aviva Geismar. Sophie is a founding member of Nu Dance Theater. She became choreographer Assistant for Nu Dance Theater in 2007 and Artistic Associate of Nu Dance Theater in 2009.

Without Name

Verónica Peña Martinez /Curator: Creighton Michael

December 10-31th 2010

Without Name is a reconstruction of an ephemeral installation/performance created in 2008 in response to the loss of the artist’s father. In order to feel closer to him, Verónica Peña Martinez creates the world of the absent, and transforms herself into one of them. Her work is inspired by her desire to experience the union between the absent and the present. For Without Name, Martinez will cover the gallery with a thin layer of plastic and, thinking of the garage where her father died, she will paint red over the plastic. The artist will cross the room with strings from wall to wall. Using the strings, she will build a sculptural group evoking an encounter, and arrange and rearrange masses of paper until the sculptures convey a presence. Covered in a skin of plastic and paint, Martinez will sit or stand in a corner, a living sculpture, numb for hours. When performing, she cannot see, only hear. Hearing is the last sense we lose when we are dying… she will build the space and wait for her father to come.

Verónica Peña Martinez is an interdisciplinary artist from Spain, currently living and working in New York City. She received her BFA in Painting from The Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) and her MFA from Stony Brook University (New York) with a focus on installation/performance and video. Martinez work has been exhibited in Spain, Italy, and the United States. In New York her work has been featured in “Spain In The City” at the Armory Show 2010 (Gabarron Foundation), in “A Book About Death” at the Queens Museum of Art, in the “13th DUMBO Art Under The Bridge Festival” at the DUMBO Arts Center and The Parrish Art Museum (Long Island). In Spain, her work has been exhibited at Casa de America (Madrid), Fundacion Antonio Saura (Cuenca), Museo Orus (Zaragoza), Fundacion Caja Rioja (La Rioja), and The Polytechnic University of Valencia (Valencia). Martinez has been a recipient of the Socrates-Erasmus Grant, the Juan Genoves Universidad Complutense de Madrid Fellowship, and a candidate for the Dedalus Foundation Grant. She has recently published The Presence Of The Absent, a thesis about her body of work.

Creighton Michael received his MA in art history from Vanderbilt University and a MFA in painting and multimedia from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a recipient of a Pollack Krasner Foundation grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in sculpture and a Golden Foundation for the Arts award in painting. His work is in various public and private collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn Museum, and Denver Art Museum. Michael has had solo exhibitions at numerous galleries and art centers in New York City and throughout the United States, including The High Museum of Art (Atlanta); Katonah Museum of Art (Katonah NY) and the Queens Museum of Art at Bulova Corporate Center (Queens NY). He has also shown internationally, in Copenhagen, Montreal and Reykjavík. In the November 2010, Tangible Marking: The Dimensional Drawings of Creighton Michael, will be on view at The College of Saint Rose (Albany New York) Michael has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Hunter College, New York City since 2005 and is a member of American Abstract Artists and the International Sculpture Center, where he was recently elected to the Board of Directors.

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 30+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force interaction between high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions and nearly 25,000 daily passersby. THE LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration in Art. www.thelabgallery.com

For more information, or to schedule an interview with the artist, please contact Danika Druttman at rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com or 212.339.2092

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August 14 – September 14
The Roger Smith Gallery
16th Floor Solarium @ the Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Ave (@47th St).

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