Tag: The Reading Room

Contemporary Art

Second Stop: The Reading Room

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vincent-falsetta

The Index Cards: Vincent Falsetta will open at The Reading Room on Saturday, December 3 from 7 to 9 pm and continue through December 31. There will also be an artist talk on Saturday, December 10 at 4 pm.

“Process as content is for me a form of indexing the moment, “Falsetta says about his practice. The index cards date back to the 1980s. There is a format that he follows. First the work is described in detail: dimensions, materials, when the canvas was stretched, then title and any dedication. There is usually but not always a thumbnail of the work, sometimes a diagram or chart, and questions that he poses to the work and to himself. He writes, deliberately, with pen and ink, thus slowing the process down and making it more than just documentation or a journal entry. There are over 600 cards.

Contemporary Art

Saturday Afternoon with Friends

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Rebecca Carter’s 'The Wrong Perspective,' graphite and wood; 'Dirty Rainbow,' silk thread and electrical plugs
Rebecca Carter’s ‘The Wrong Perspective,’ graphite and wood; ‘Dirty Rainbow,’ silk thread and electrical plugs

The Reading Room. Again I waited until the last day to see a show, Rebecca Carter’s Reading the Love Letter, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. While most folks were probably killing themselves with frantic Christmas shopping, I found a wonderful respite in Karen Weiner’s little space located far away from the holiday madness. It was a fun lazy afternoon reconnecting with old friends, chitchatting, listening to the haunting background music, and poking around in all the little spaces and hidden corners searching out Rebecca’s little surprises.

Contemporary Art

Wednesday at The Reading Room

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"Beauty has less to do with how things look. There is only one beauty that does not fade… it is the beauty of the process." Douglas MacWithey
“Beauty has less to do with how things look. There is only one beauty that does not fade… it is the beauty of the process.” Douglas MacWithey

First there will be readings from Douglas MacWithey’s notebooks at The MAC, September 21, from 6 to 7 pm by Charles Dee Mitchell, and the novelists David Searcy and Ben Fountain. The evening is a presentation of WordSpace.

Immediately following the reading there will be a reception from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room. “How it is the dead man suffers the loss of his loved ones,” MacWithey’s large three panel drawing from which the reading is taken, will be on view. This drawing, dating from the 1980s, has never been shown before.

MacWithey’s practice included drawing, sculpture and performance and almost always incorporated dense, handwritten text. His work was shown in a 1993 Concentrations exhibition with Cady Noland at the Dallas Museum of Art and at Carol Taylor Gallery and Barry Whistler Gallery. Selections from Seals of the Philosophers was shown in 2009 at testsite in Austin and is currently being exhibited at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary.

Contemporary Art

Happy Endings

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wb_end_sm

Keri Oldham’s exhibition of film related work will open with a reception tomorrow, Saturday, August 13 from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue. It will continue through August 28.

The pieces in this exhibition are the fade-out “end scenes” from various films, re-imagined and used to examine endings on a personal level. Oldham is interested in how we are influenced by film and television narratives and incorporate stories about love, success, and morality into our lives both consciously and subconsciously.

Oldham is an artist, curator, writer, and former Dallasite now living in Brooklyn. Her work has been shown at Camel Art Space, Fountain Art Fair, and Dave Bown Projects as well as The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 500X Gallery, Centraltrak Artist Residency, and Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas. She holds degrees in philosophy from Loyola University and in curatorial studies from San Francisco State University. She is a 2010 BRIC Arts Media Fellow.

Glasstire has also done a writeup about The Reading Room and this upcoming exhibition. If you’re interested in knowing more about visual art here in Texas, Glasstire is definitely worth a read and a bookmark.

UPDATE: Follow the below link for more images of Keri Oldham’s work exhibited at The Reading Room.

Contemporary Art

A Bloomsday Celebration

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ottinger_ulysseses

The Reading Room will present a Bloomsday celebration on Thursday, June 16 from 6 until 10 pm, with readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses, music and related visual material.

Confession: I have never read Ulysses. Question: Should I go and pretend to know something about something? What Karen has lined up for the evening sounds like it would be fun and interesting, but I’m terribly afraid of saying something stupid. I wonder if Half Price Books will have an old collection of Cliff Notes. Woohoo! I just found an online version of Cliffs Notes. If you’re like me, study up here before attending and also go here for an NPR article by Frank Delaney.

Agenda: Festivities will begin at 6 pm with a screening of Harrell Fletcher’s Blot Out the Sun in which a very condensed version of major themes of Ulysses is staged in a service station. Readings by Jeff Whittington of KERA, Charles Dee Mitchell, and Diane Orr will follow. And to conclude the evening, there will be a bit of Irish music.

Thanks to Conduit Gallery, Jennie Otttinger’s book portrait Ulysses will be on view. It is part of her larger library project which was recently shown at the Volta Art Fair (NYC). Ottinger received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland and lives and works in San Francisco.

The Reading Room is a project space dedicated to the intersection of visual and literary culture and is located at 3715 Parry Avenue. For further information: Karen Weiner, www.thereadingroom-dallas.blogspot.com.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room this Coming Friday

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Amy-Revier, 'Untitled,' 2010
Amy-Revier, ‘Untitled,’ 2010

A Quiet Root May Know How to Holler. Amy Revier’s digitally manipulated photographs, sculpture, and woven textiles reflecting Iceland’s recent economic, political, and geological upheavals can be seen at The Reading Room. The opening reception is Friday, February 11 from 7pm until 9pm, and on the last day of the show, February 27 at 4pm, Philip Van Keuren will give a reading of collected texts that relate to the work. The Reading Room is located at 3715 Parry Avenue in Dallas.

Contemporary Art

Peace Meals on Sunday

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anna-badkhen

At The Reading Room. There will be a reading and book signing for Peace Meals with author/journalist Anna Badkhen on Sunday, November 28 at 4 pm, 3715 Parry Avenue in Dallas.

As a journalist, Badkhen has covered wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and Kashmir. Her trip to Afghanistan was made possible by a grant from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Peace Meals (Free Press, 2010) is a record of her experiences there, the people she met and the food she shared with them. Badkhen searches for the common denominator amongst peoples in war ravaged areas and focuses on the effects of war on civilians.

Badkhen grew up in Russia and did her first reporting for the St. Petersburg Times. From 2002 to 2004 she was the San Francisco Chronicle’s Moscow bureau chief. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Ms., Salon, The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her e-book Waiting for the Taliban became available last month.

Contemporary Art

One Night Only

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readingroom

The Reading Room. I just received an email from Karen Weiner about her next happening this next coming Monday, November 8. The incredible local produce purveyor Tom Spicer of Spiceman’s 1410 will give an exotic mushroom demonstration–lobster, hedgehog, maitake, matsuke, clamshell, crab, black trumpet. He will provide information about their qualities and uses. Hopefully you remember my last post about The Reading Room and what a unique experience it was for me. I’m looking forward to this one. So come join us. The Reading Room is located at 3715 Parry Avenue. The doors open at 6, and the demonstration begins at 7 pm.

Also for your viewing pleasure…

Contemporary Art

Thursday Evening’s Art Trolling (part 1)

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readingrm_0414

The Impossibility of Doing Nothing at The Reading Room. Across from Fair Park on Parry Avenue in a tiny space, Karen Weiner has set up an unusual kind of gallery experience. Described in her own words, “A project space which, through occasional readings, performances and installations, will explore the many ways in which text and image interact.” Personally I believe that most, if not all, good things happen only in small rooms.