June 7^th, 2012 | 7-11PM

@The Box, 189 Christie Street, New York | Map

Featured Performance by:
Sean Lennon, Hydra, The Click Clack Boom

Special Aerial Performance by:
Seanna Sharpe

Art Exhibition and Silent Art Auction:

Rieko Fujinami, Chambliss Giobbi, Dan Hillier, Jen Harris, Melissa Murray, Wednesday Wolf, Gemma Fleming, Melodie Provenzano, Joseph Grazi, Ed Colelli, Greg Lipton, Heather Reynolds, Angelo Bellobono, Nicholas Papadakis, Geoffrey Krawczyk,  Indira Cesarine, Boyang Hou and Richard Sylvarnes

Admission: $25

Contaminate NYC and Taxiplasm are pleased to present Out of The Box, a fundraiser event for film director Brian Gonzalez’s new film series: Above Our Heads & Below Our Feet to be held at The Box, 189 Chrystie Street, New York on June 7th, 2012 from 7:00pm to 11:00pm.

Above our Heads and Below our Feet is a three-year long epic film project inspired by the ferocious music of Colin Stetson with themes of institution, man versus animal, and our relationship with the divine. The concept is not this project’s only edge by any means. With no dialogue or lyrics, visual and conceptual art inspired by the audacious power of the music as well as the mythological story of the film becomes the key narrative element of the film. A perfect combination of established and emerging artists such as Chambliss Giobbi, Dan Hillier, Jen Harris, Melissa Murray, Wednesday Wolf, Gemma Fleming, Melodie Provenzano, Joseph Grazi, Ed Colelli, Greg Lipton, Heather Reynolds, Angelo Bellobono, Nicholas Papadakis, Geoffrey Krawczyk, Rieko Fujinami, Indira Cesarine, Boyang Hou and Richard Sylvarnes have agreed to participate to this adventure and to work with Brian to realized his dream. This team of visual artists is undoubtedly an audacious, courageous and irreverent group of creative talent that can rarely be found in the fine arts world today. Indeed, nothing less would be necessary to challenging the way people perceive film, art, language and humanity. We believe that something as fragile as an idea can change the way we live our lives, which is what all art should do, is it not?

The evening will unfold as an art salon, featuring live performances, an art exhibition and an art auction. Stellar composers and singers Sean Lennon, Sarah Small’s group Hydra, and The Click Clack Boom along with aerialist start Seanna Sharpe will entertain the public from 8pm to 11pm.

An Art Exhibition held upstairs and presented by expert guides will be a great opportunity for collectors from the art world as well as patrons in film and music to hunt for exceptional artwork and help us raise money for the film project.

About Taxiplasm
Brian Gonzalez (aka Taxiplasm) graduated with honors from the School of Visual Arts as winner of Outstanding Cinematography, class of 2009, and has since garnered numerous accolades from Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Art Basel, The Robert Wilson Watermill Center, and more. Gonzalez works primarily with Chimera Music, XXXX Magazine, Atlantic Records, as well as performance artists including Sarah Small, Seanna Sharpe and more. He resides in Park Slope, Brooklyn and continues to make high concept cinematic experiences, challenging the fusion of light installation, sculpture, performance, fashion, mythology, and non-fiction. www.taxiplasm.com

PR and Media Inquiries:
Claudia S. Saide – claudia@contaminatenyc.com

Curated by Virginia Villari

May 30^th to July 25th 2012

OPENING RECEPTION: May 30^th from 7:00 to 10:00 PM
@ CONTESTAROCKHAIR

535 Hudson St. (corner Charles St.), New York, NY

For its third gathering of the year Gate535 presents Monochromatic Portraits, the solo show of Colombian photographer Carolina Montejo.

Carolina created a new series of photographs specifically for this exhibition. These images are a reminiscence of an early stage of photography, the days of Fox Talbot and George Eastman, when photography served to fix memory onto an object. Those devotional items were mainly faded, non-realistic portraits, often retouched with paint precisely to make them look like paintings or watercolors, as photography wasn’t considered Art. These hand-painted portraits greatly inspired the Monochromatic Portraits, a series in which color is the essential element to create a new space based on two different experiences: the outside world and the subject’s subconscious world. As much as the portraits look from a bygone time, there are details such as the characters’ clothes, attitudes and expressions that bring us back to our contemporary everyday life. Monochromatic Portraits reveal the polar opposites of color alteration through memory and creates a decomposed view of the chromatic circle, giving each person a modified memory, one that is known consciously as a fashioned outcome, but kept in time as factual memory of that moment while they sat patiently in the artist’s studio.

Carolina’s work emphasizes questions and scenarios based on memory, the subconscious, dreams, and illusion. Her photography responds to her interest in how the brain experiences, stores and reproduces information through mental processes of intangible imagery, unique to each individual’s psyche.

Carolina Montejo was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia, in 1981. She currently lives and works in Bogotá where she is an art photography teacher at Zona Cinco Film and Photography School and co-director of Galería MÜ, the first fine art photography gallery in Colombia. By being raised in Colombia Carolina has been exposed to a colorful equatorial landscape that greatly influenced her art, made of symbolic images of dreamlike circumstances where color is both inspirational and necessary. Carolina´s photography creates worlds that rise from unconscious happenings from all stages of life; she questions size and space and fills these gaps with memories. With a bachelor’s degree in communications from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and additional studies in photography from the Argentinian School of Photography in Buenos Aires, she has been dedicated to photography for the past five years and has exhibited her work in Austria, Indonesia, the United States and Colombia. carolinamontejo.com

curated by Virgina Villari

Wednesday May 25th^rd from 7:00 to 9:30 PM

 @CONTESTAROCKHAIR
535 Hudson St. (corner Charles St.), New York, NY

What happens to the world around us after 10 shots? Life gets funnier, people get ridiculous, colors and lines get blurry and the environment feels pretty much upside down.

After 10 Shots is a one-of-a kind photography contest ideated by Contaminate NYC for the series of art events “Gate 535” in collaboration with ContestaRockHair. Three photographers will be presented with an extraordinary surprise space set up designed by Simone Serlenga. They will have only 10 shots each, every shot followed by another type of shot. Photographers will pick up their models among the public, except for 2 shots for which they’ll be able to use professional models styled by the staff of ContestaRockHair.

Contaminate NYC will judge the three groups of photographs and the winner will have a solo show of her/his 10 shots at ContestaRockHair salons in New York and Miami. After 10 Shots is an experiment that blends art, fashion, architecture, interior design and a lot of fun. It’s an interactive event that involves the audience and gives them the chance to become models for one night and collaborate with professional photographers on the production of artworks.

Simone Serlenga is an experiential artist working with digital techniques and applied arts. Born in Turin in 1977, Simone has worked for theater, performing arts, opera, acting, and set design for fashion shows, advertising and movies. He has ongoing collaborations with prestigious organizations in Europe and the U.S. such Big Art Group (New York), ContaminateNYC (New York), Theatre of Opera (Rome), Arena di Verona Foundation, Teatro Comunale (Florence), Teatro Goldoni (Livorno), Armunia Festival (Livorno), Segnomaterico (Turin), Cristiani Art Gallery (Turin). He had worked for Plan-B (Milano) on advertising events such as Nivea Cream, Samsung, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Peuterey, and commercials set design for Ariston, Kinder Surprise, Discover Channel. Simone holds a BA in Art and Design Production at the Academy of Art and Design L.Cappiello in Florence, a BA in Video Projections Applied to Video Art and Video Mapping at New Technologies for the Arts S.Servolo, Venice. A curious and passionate soul, he is now continuing his studies in New York City and intends to continue his artistic research wherever life takes him. simoneserlenga.com

• The winners for the Economic track are Amsterdam-based Wouter Kalis and Corinne de Korver with the project Social Unit.
• The winner for the Social Track is London-based artist Jei Lee with her project Hollow.
• The winner for the Environmental Track is London-based Chia Shan Lee with her project The Never Ending Story.

An honorable mention goes to projects by Oberholtzer and Konopitskaya, Elham Asadi, and Matthias Tarasiewicz. Details on the winning projects are posted on the competition website at onehundreddays.us. The three winners will have the opportunity to showcase their artwork in a solo-show each, to be planned in Fall 2012 at Kristin Hanson Gallery and Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimó.

The competition, which challenged artists to create and propose a project inspired by the principles of sustainability, touched more than 10000 viewers in 1133 cities and 97 countries, with the largest outreach in the US and Europe. New York, Vienna, London, and Milan were the top four cities with participating artists.

Melissa’s in-laws own a 300-year-old farmhouse in Cape Cod. Built for a different time, this house is, in Melissa’s words, “in need of repair. Falling apart. So falling apart and so weird.”  Last summer, she took pictures of it from the inside out, recording the unique detailing. From this, the house became a springboard of sorts and the photos a blank canvas that Melissa could “set like a stage.”  [more]

Equality Now, a benefit and exhibition featuring works by Lara Pacilio, presented by Yes Gallery and curated by Lesley Doukhowetzky opens on April 28th 2012. The exhibition will run until May 20th, 2012.

Rather than showing women as elegant figures with attractive poses Lara Pacilio takes on a whole different perspective in which she exposes what women often go through in everyday life. With the use of unconventional tools such as iron and covered wood Pacilio is able to create pieces that are sensual yet bold, graphic yet subdued with images showing the pains and struggles of women.

At an early age Pacilio traveled around the world with her family, spending parts of her childhood in Africa. It becomes evident that her experiences traveling have been used as a tool for inspiration. Pacilio tells us not only about herself and her experiences but also about a unique concept in a language that is sometimes extremely explicit, depicting problems linked to the gender differences which are still numerous and of difficult solutions.

Women are defined legally equal to men, but this is an ideological attempt to enslave them at higher levels of society and the job market. Freedom for women is not living the role men have assigned to them but to create mutual respect based on equality.

Art sales and donations will go towards achieving legal and systemic change that addresses violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world.

刺身 from Simone Serlenga on Vimeo.

self portrait from Simone Serlenga on Vimeo.

face to face from Simone Serlenga on Vimeo.

Born in Turin in 1977, Simone Serlenga has worked for theater, performing arts, opera, acting, and set design for fashion shows, advertising and movies. He has ongoing collaborations with prestigious organizations in Europe and the U.S. such Big Art Group (New York), ContaminateNYC (New York), Theatre of Opera (Rome), Arena di Verona Foundation, Teatro Comunale (Florence), Teatro Goldoni (Livorno), Armunia Festival (Livorno), Segnomaterico (Turin), Cristiani Art Gallery (Turin). He had worked for Plan-B (Milano) on advertising events such as Nivea Cream, Samsung, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Peuterey, and commercials set design for Ariston, Kinder Surprise, Discover Channel. Simone holds a BA in Art and Design Production at the Academy of Art and Design L.Cappiello in Florence, a BA in Video Projections Applied to Video Art and Video Mapping at New Technologies for the Arts S.Servolo, Venice. A curious and passionate soul, he is now continuing his studies in New York City and intends to continue his artistic research wherever life takes him.

Opening Reception: May 10th, 2012 | 8:00pm – Midnight

Ongoing Exhibition: May 10th – July 10th 2012 | By Appointment Only

@ Antebi Loft
29 east 22nd Street, Suite 7N, New York | Map

Special thanks to our sponsors Peroni, Trattoria Cinque, Meloni Vini and Fonti San Giorgio

To allow oneself to be altered, to allow oneself to be restrained, is to understand how the world outside has the power to pollute…

Contaminate invites you to an experiential art evening curated by creative producer Claudia Saide featuring a combination of visual art, performance art, and music. Participating talent include: visual artists Chambliss Giobbi, Joseph Grazi, Carolina Montejo, Melissa Murray, Samuela Malizia, and Gemma Fleming; Simone Serlenga with his new video installation SLIP; dancer Alexis Convento; and the collective Tell me Your Secrets with Brian Gonzalez, Renzo Vitale, Gemma Fleming, James Donovan, and organicMobb unveiling their latest installation at the event. The music act will be performed by experimental electronic group NWSPR – New Wave Solar Powered Robots and DJ set Joe Livingston.

In this small realm of the visually created, let us allow manipulation to make us think, to make us dance. Tonight, we will not allow the control outside to be let in. Let us allow ourselves to be open to this night, to succumb to the visually freeing. The independence of the works that surround us tonight strive to conjure up emotion and feeling, yet we will embrace the control that will come over us. And further, the works will become open. They have surrendered to one another, allowing themselves to be swallowed up by other works, to be overpowered, under shadowed, changed, and manipulated into a larger visual then each piece’s original intent.

Tonight we will dive into this atmosphere, we will invite the acts of manipulation. Yet we will accept all of this consciously. It is inside these walls that we will choose to engage in the acts and reactions of what it is that controls us. Tonight we will consciously give in. Let us alter the way our minds become contaminated with controlled, and instant reactions. Succumb to the performance, get lost in what it makes you feel. Let this art change you, but feel the change and understand it. Acknowledge the physical manipulation of these works.

Let this night be dedicated to our awareness of what remains outside. Let us be controlled tonight with cognition, let us see what manipulation is through the dialect of the visually stimulating.

Exhibition Catalogue

Funded in part by the Cornell Council of the Arts, Lux is a unique exhibition encompassing both art and science. A combined effort by the Department of Art and the Department of Physics, this exhibition will bring to Cornell “light artists” drawn from all over the world. These are individuals recognized for giving new meaning to ideas that range from mapping the universe to drawing with light. The blending of visual arts, science, and nature is revealed in these installations. These works are inspirational not only to artists, but to scientists, engineers, and architects. An interesting thing happens when you combine art and science. The two worlds can inspire innovation in each other, strengthening the investigations in both worlds. Physicists, chemists, biologists from Cornell will hold seminars on light and its countless manifestations in nature.

LUX: Art and Science Exhibition

FlutuArte is a gorgeous floating gallery of art that can be seen from both land and sky. It is a collaboration between artists, fishermen and the Rio de Janeiro community. The artists of FlutuArte are painting the rooftops of fishing boats in the Quadrado, a harbor in the historic Urca neighborhood.

“The project is bringing together fishermen, tourists and various communities from the nearby neighborhoods,” say Maxine and Nicolina. “Teenagers from the local favelas are now visiting the harbor, along with students from one of the city top photography schools, Ateliê da Imagem. The space is being transformed with colorful and engaging art and is now seen in a new way. It is inspiring.”

Indeed, the energy that Maxine and Nicolina bring to the community is so contagious that the fishermen are now restoring their boats to be even more involved in the project. Quadrado da Urca is in fact a tranquil fishing harbor in the beautiful historic south-eastern neighborhood of Urca, Rio de Janeiro. Nestled between the iconic Cristo Redentor and the Pão de Açúcar, the harbor boasts one of the most beautiful views from the foot of the city. Though the tiered, concrete square was once a competitive swimming pool in the 1920s, it is now home port to over sixty local, colorful fishing boats and their equally as colorful captains. The small and low hanging Domingos Fernandes bridge is the single entrance and exit for boats and sea turtles, alike. Local kids gather by the bridge in the evening to relax and jump into the cool waters of the Guanabara Bay.

This art project is a celebration of the harmony between man and nature and how this relationship can allow us to become aware that our magic, the sense of mystery within us, is real. Maxine and Nicolina are inviting artists to join their initiative and be part of FlutuArte.

Naturally, the project needs to be financed so they are looking for help from people who see the value in creating public art and how it affects the lives of those who encounter it. Donations will be made tax deductible through their non-profit sponsor City Lore. They have already collected $14000 but they need $52000 to finance the completion of the project, so visit their website at flutuarte.com to read more about the project and donate whatever you can.

Stay tuned for more updates on this project progress in the next few weeks!