Past Exhibitions and Events 2018
May 20-June 2
Uncertain Distances
Residency with Meredith Bove and Lailye Weidman
From May 20–June 2, dance artists Lailye Weidman and Meredith Bove will be in residence at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery for Uncertain Distances, a collaborative project combining solo dance-making and dramaturgical practices. The residency focuses on the artists’ interests and histories as solo dance-makers, and their desire to choose companionship over isolation during processes of creation. The artists will oscillate between roles of performer, dramaturg, witness, researcher, archivist and caregiver for two solos: “Cathedral” (Bove, 2017) and “Showman” (Weidman, 2016), asking, “How does sharing our experiences and perceptions of one another's work impact the creative process?” These solos will be presented in public performances on June 1 and 2, 8pm.
Meredith Bove is a dancer, teacher, choreographer and writer, originally hailing from Vermont. She approaches movement and solo-making as a practice for befriending her mutable body. Her work has been seen at various venues and festivals across the US and in Berlin, Germany. As a performer, she has appeared in the work of Jérôme Bel, Luis Lara Malvacías, Sharon Mansur, Stephanie Miracle, Sarah Beth Oppenheim, and Jillian Peña among others. Meredith teaches in the Theatre and Dance Department at Keene State College, and writes for ThINKingDANCE (Philadelphia) from afar. meredithbove.wordpress.com
Lailye Weidman is a choreographer and writer based in Massachusetts. Her recent projects include an homage to the resonance of hardcore music, an ensemble dance theater work investigating consent and consensus, a storytelling solo tracing sounds and textures of place and displacement, and a site-specific performance and community dialogue with scientists from National Seashore. She is part of Femmelab, a research and movement collective with Anna Hendricks and Julia Handschuh; and she collaborates with the Movement Party to produce an annual site-based dance festival on Cape Cod. She teaches improvisation and dance studies in academic and community settings and is an assistant editor for Contact Quarterly
Image credits: Grant Halverson
May 15 – 19
Exhibition Benefit
DARK TO LIGHT
Journey to Syria and the Coffeelands: Conflict, Healing and Hope
The Polus Center invites you to a multimedia exhibition and week-long series of events highlighting 20 years of international humanitarian efforts helping victims of conflict around the world. Join us as we share our work with Syrian refugee youth and landmine affected Coffee farmers through art, conversation, food and film. Schedule of Events HERE
Photographs by Stephen Petegorsky
Artwork by Syrian Refugee Youth
Exhibition Benefit
DARK TO LIGHT
Journey to Syria and the Coffeelands: Conflict, Healing and Hope
The Polus Center invites you to a multimedia exhibition and week-long series of events highlighting 20 years of international humanitarian efforts helping victims of conflict around the world. Join us as we share our work with Syrian refugee youth and landmine affected Coffee farmers through art, conversation, food and film. Schedule of Events HERE
Photographs by Stephen Petegorsky
Artwork by Syrian Refugee Youth
Right to Left, What’s Left to Write?
R. Michelson Galleries and A.P.E. Gallery join to present a performance artwork enacting a dialogue between two cultures.
at A.P.E. 126 Main St. Northampton
Friday May 11, 5-8 pm on Northampton’s Arts Night Out
Saturday May 12, 12-5 pm and Sunday May 13, 12-5 pm
Next door see a display of Mr. Montenegro’s flatmensquared sculptures on the main floor of R. Michlelson Galleries
Over forty years ago, sculptor, then painter, Ernesto Montenegro was commissioned to do a series of Renaissance-style paintings for a residence in Boston’s South End. His career has since turned from painting to sculpture and his works can be seen in public spaces across the country including the Gateway to Manchester in NH, the Cyclist in Greenfield, MA, and the 53 foot Ourhandsthenandnow in Claremont, NH, in celebration of the town’s 250th anniversary.
Dr. Foad fled Iran in the late 1970’s as a 16 year old boy fearing danger because of his Baha’i faith which was prohibited and was widely persecuted in the new Islamic Republic. He came to the United States and educated himself at Boston University and Harvard University.
Mr. Montenegro has recently re-acquired this series of paintings and is joining with Dr. Foad for an event and conversation about cultural fusion. Dr. Foad will be engaging the audience in a dialogue and with their help will write a narrative over these paintings in the calligraphy of Ancient Persia, his native language of Farsi.
In our time of political polarization, cultural identity has brought with it both opportunity and strife. This event is intended to start a conversation about the nature of those identities and how they can co-exist. Separate events will happen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as each of the four panels are transformed through cooperation with the audience.
R. Michelson Galleries and A.P.E. Gallery join to present a performance artwork enacting a dialogue between two cultures.
at A.P.E. 126 Main St. Northampton
Friday May 11, 5-8 pm on Northampton’s Arts Night Out
Saturday May 12, 12-5 pm and Sunday May 13, 12-5 pm
Next door see a display of Mr. Montenegro’s flatmensquared sculptures on the main floor of R. Michlelson Galleries
Over forty years ago, sculptor, then painter, Ernesto Montenegro was commissioned to do a series of Renaissance-style paintings for a residence in Boston’s South End. His career has since turned from painting to sculpture and his works can be seen in public spaces across the country including the Gateway to Manchester in NH, the Cyclist in Greenfield, MA, and the 53 foot Ourhandsthenandnow in Claremont, NH, in celebration of the town’s 250th anniversary.
Dr. Foad fled Iran in the late 1970’s as a 16 year old boy fearing danger because of his Baha’i faith which was prohibited and was widely persecuted in the new Islamic Republic. He came to the United States and educated himself at Boston University and Harvard University.
Mr. Montenegro has recently re-acquired this series of paintings and is joining with Dr. Foad for an event and conversation about cultural fusion. Dr. Foad will be engaging the audience in a dialogue and with their help will write a narrative over these paintings in the calligraphy of Ancient Persia, his native language of Farsi.
In our time of political polarization, cultural identity has brought with it both opportunity and strife. This event is intended to start a conversation about the nature of those identities and how they can co-exist. Separate events will happen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as each of the four panels are transformed through cooperation with the audience.
May 3-9
Karinne Keithley Syers: A Tunnel Year
Performance on May 5 at 5 & 8 pm. Tickets: $10
Gallery hours: Monday – Sunday, 12-5, Friday 12-8.
A Tunnel Year is a three-part book with a play at its center, built from a few years’ worth of interrupted thoughts crammed into one-line scenes voiced by animals. Germinated in the bardo of parenthood and compelled to work in the form of the fragment, it asks: Did I escape? Or am I lost? A Tunnel Year will be installed as a walk-though comic book, and also performed as a live radio play with a cast of five actors from the 2016 New York production at The Chocolate Factory Theater.
Karinne Keithley Syers is a writer, performer, and book maker now based in Northampton after 20 years in the downtown New York experimental communities bridging dance, theater and poetry. Her installation/chamber opera, Montgomery Park, or Opulence, won a 2011 New York Dance and Performance "BESSIE" Award for Outstanding Production. fancystitchmachine.org
Photo by Brian Rogers
Karinne Keithley Syers: A Tunnel Year
Performance on May 5 at 5 & 8 pm. Tickets: $10
Gallery hours: Monday – Sunday, 12-5, Friday 12-8.
A Tunnel Year is a three-part book with a play at its center, built from a few years’ worth of interrupted thoughts crammed into one-line scenes voiced by animals. Germinated in the bardo of parenthood and compelled to work in the form of the fragment, it asks: Did I escape? Or am I lost? A Tunnel Year will be installed as a walk-though comic book, and also performed as a live radio play with a cast of five actors from the 2016 New York production at The Chocolate Factory Theater.
Karinne Keithley Syers is a writer, performer, and book maker now based in Northampton after 20 years in the downtown New York experimental communities bridging dance, theater and poetry. Her installation/chamber opera, Montgomery Park, or Opulence, won a 2011 New York Dance and Performance "BESSIE" Award for Outstanding Production. fancystitchmachine.org
Photo by Brian Rogers
"Four Ways In"
New work by Sally Clegg, Claire Crews, Kevin Pomerleau, and Esther S White
April 4-29, 2018
Artist Reception: Friday, April 13: 5-8 pm
Image by Sally Clegg
Esther S White, Kevin Pomerleau, Claire Crews and Sally Clegg present new work in conversation. The four artists have been meeting since September 2017, building a routine of collaborative thought and curation. Working independently, they have each created work that in a variety of ways addresses the subjects of touch, permeability, barriers, visualization, and proximity. Their work spans across the mediums of printmaking, textiles, book arts and sculpture and is concerned with these common themes: recognition of touch as a destructive force, textiles as a stand-in for intimacy or the domestic sphere, and documentation of time through printmaking. The artists work alongside one another at Zea Mays Printmaking and in this exhibition operate as a collaborative curatorial/studio art team, developing both existing personal projects and new collaborative artwork specifically for the gallery space at A.P.E.
Esther S White is a visual artist and curator. Her artists’ books, textiles, and prints reveal an experimental approach to materials and an interest in personal history. She is currently an Artist in Residence in Motherhood.
http://www.estherswhite.net
Sally Clegg is a visual artist and writer. Sally was awarded an MCC 2018 Artist Fellowship for Drawing & Printmaking. “My goal as an artist is to bear witness to private, protected, or otherwise invisible experiences or forces. My work integrates information from observation with invented content to create and manipulate narrative. I am continuously seeking the intersection of written and visual storytelling, and regularly experiment with utilizing literary tools in my visual practice, such as structural elements used in poetry, comics, and prose.”
http://www.sallyclegg.com
Kevin Pomerleau is a printmaker. His work focuses on telling stories through images of the textiles present during pivotal moments of his own life. Pomerleau’s work entices the viewer to peer into his world without actually allowing them to enter, touching on themes of isolation, connection, and the plights of the queer community.
http://www.zeamaysprintmaking.com/prints/flat-file/kevin-pomerleau-flat-file/
Claire Hawley Crews is a weaver and printmaker. Claire’s work interrogates digital technologies, memory and documentation, intimacy and ambiguity, from a growing technical knowledge of textile craft and intaglio printmaking.
March Projects at A.P.E. and 33 Hawley Street
google gogol
Friday, March 30 & Saturday, March 31, 8:00 PM
open rehearsal: Wednesday, 3/28, 8 pm
All performances and rehearsal are FREE
First come, first serve
No Theater presents google gogol, inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s Ревизор, (Revizor - The Government Inspector), the 19th Century comedy about how the corrupt officials of a small Russian town, headed by the Mayor, react with terror to the news that an incognito inspector (the revizor) will soon be arriving in their town to investigate them.
No Theater rarely performs locally. During the 70s and 80s they regularly performed on Thornes Third Floor such original works as The Elephant Man, DFS (de fiance suction), Last Resort, and Dupe. Their most recent local production was Richard Maxwell’s Cave Man, which previewed here for several months before its run in New York. No Theater’s work has been performed throughout Europe and also in Japan and Australia.
The cast of google gogol includes Barton Byg, James Emery, Tony Giardina, Charles Holt, Jane Karakula, Tom Mahnken, Tom Schieding, Peter Schmitz, and Sheena See. Directed by Roy Faudree. No Theater is in residence at APE the month of March creating the new work.
The image above is the logo for the Gogol Center (ГОГОЛЬ-центр), the Moscow Drama Theatre named after Nikolai Gogol, whose Artistic Director is currently under house arrest by the Russian government. Google Kirill Serebrennikov for details.
IN THE GALLERY
March 6 - 31
6'1": New Works by Luke Cavagnac, Jil Crary-Ross, Maclyn Milsark, and Kevin Pomerleau.
Gallery Hours: March 6 -22:1-5, Additional days and times: March 24 & 25:2-4pm, March 30,31: 1-5 pm or by appointment
Luke Cavagnac has a well-known presence in Easthampton, where his colorful, pop-art style can be seen on a big mural at 123 Cottage Street, on the side of the building that faces the entryway into Easthampton’s Cottage Street Cultural District. Working out of his “Invisible Fountain” studio in Eastworks, Cavagnac has concentrated on producing affordable and accessible works that also have a sense of humor.
Jil Crary-Ross is an NYC based painter. Jil explores the relationship between identity, the built environment, and form to create an account of new Americana. Process, ritual, utility, and decay are central to Jil's material vocabulary.
Maclyn Milsark currently lives in Brooklyn and finds himself regularly noticing different patterns; in different spaces, in ways of speech, in earning and spending, and interactions between objects, living or inanimate. Maclyn studied at Pratt Institute, where he broadened his working mediums.
Kevin Pomerleau’s work focuses on telling stories through contemporary textiles that have inhabited spaces during relevant periods in his life. Ranging from topics such as isolation, relationships, and the plights of the queer community Pomerleau’s work hopes to convey a narrative that entices the viewer to look into his world without ever actually allowing them to enter.
Image Above: Kevin Pomerleau
March 6 - 31
6'1": New Works by Luke Cavagnac, Jil Crary-Ross, Maclyn Milsark, and Kevin Pomerleau.
Gallery Hours: March 6 -22:1-5, Additional days and times: March 24 & 25:2-4pm, March 30,31: 1-5 pm or by appointment
Luke Cavagnac has a well-known presence in Easthampton, where his colorful, pop-art style can be seen on a big mural at 123 Cottage Street, on the side of the building that faces the entryway into Easthampton’s Cottage Street Cultural District. Working out of his “Invisible Fountain” studio in Eastworks, Cavagnac has concentrated on producing affordable and accessible works that also have a sense of humor.
Jil Crary-Ross is an NYC based painter. Jil explores the relationship between identity, the built environment, and form to create an account of new Americana. Process, ritual, utility, and decay are central to Jil's material vocabulary.
Maclyn Milsark currently lives in Brooklyn and finds himself regularly noticing different patterns; in different spaces, in ways of speech, in earning and spending, and interactions between objects, living or inanimate. Maclyn studied at Pratt Institute, where he broadened his working mediums.
Kevin Pomerleau’s work focuses on telling stories through contemporary textiles that have inhabited spaces during relevant periods in his life. Ranging from topics such as isolation, relationships, and the plights of the queer community Pomerleau’s work hopes to convey a narrative that entices the viewer to look into his world without ever actually allowing them to enter.
Image Above: Kevin Pomerleau
Big Dance Theater’s CAGE SHUFFLE starring Paul Lazar
Returns to APE at 126 Main Street for One Night Only!
Friday, March 9, 2018, 8:00 PM, Arts Night Out
$10.00 admission
Seating is limited: Reservations recommended,
call 413 586-5553
After playing to a full house at A.P.E. Space in Northampton last summer, Paul Lazar is bringing back his “joyous” and “transfixing” dance/theatre solo, Cage Shuffle. In Cage Shuffle Paul Lazar speaks a series of one-minute stories by John Cage from his 1963 score Indeterminacy while simultaneously performing choreography by Annie-B Parson. The stories are spoken in a random order with no predetermined relationship to the dancing. Chance serves up its startling blend of inevitable and uncanny connections between text and movement.
Parson and Lazar founded Big Dance Theater in in 1991. Based in New York, the Company tours internationally and is known for its inspired use of dance, music, text and visual design. The company often works with wildly incongruent source material, weaving and braiding disparate strands into a multi-dimensional performance of stories and movement.
For more information about Paul Lazar and Big Dance Theater:
http://www.bigdancetheater.org
Returns to APE at 126 Main Street for One Night Only!
Friday, March 9, 2018, 8:00 PM, Arts Night Out
$10.00 admission
Seating is limited: Reservations recommended,
call 413 586-5553
After playing to a full house at A.P.E. Space in Northampton last summer, Paul Lazar is bringing back his “joyous” and “transfixing” dance/theatre solo, Cage Shuffle. In Cage Shuffle Paul Lazar speaks a series of one-minute stories by John Cage from his 1963 score Indeterminacy while simultaneously performing choreography by Annie-B Parson. The stories are spoken in a random order with no predetermined relationship to the dancing. Chance serves up its startling blend of inevitable and uncanny connections between text and movement.
Parson and Lazar founded Big Dance Theater in in 1991. Based in New York, the Company tours internationally and is known for its inspired use of dance, music, text and visual design. The company often works with wildly incongruent source material, weaving and braiding disparate strands into a multi-dimensional performance of stories and movement.
For more information about Paul Lazar and Big Dance Theater:
http://www.bigdancetheater.org
“Proverbs N Portraits” by Ken Gagne
February 13- March 2, 2018
Artist Reception: Friday, February 16: 6 -8 pm
What do you get when you cross a proverb with a portrait? A.P.E. Gallery shines a spotlight on new work by local artist Ken Gagne that examines how, together, they can create a humorous situation, which nowadays isn’t so much a joke but a basic survival tool – a lifeboat we can use on life’s river.
“Ever since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated by the power of the proverb and how it can offer wisdom to the heart, be practiced and passed along to others,” states Gagne. “Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience. Portraits are of a similar nature. Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Expression, gesture, dress, ink even – all must combine to realize a character.”
There is a contemporary pop culture sensibility to Gagne’s images, using vibrant color to depict signs of our time. For example, in Gagne’s “Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you,” a tattooed steam punker sees his nose fly off his face and replaced by the seat of his pants. And in “Happiness is seeing your mother smile” the piece depicts a loving embrace of mother and child, all the while as the mother is preoccupied with all the concerns associated with raising a child in our current technological culture.
February 13- March 2, 2018
Artist Reception: Friday, February 16: 6 -8 pm
What do you get when you cross a proverb with a portrait? A.P.E. Gallery shines a spotlight on new work by local artist Ken Gagne that examines how, together, they can create a humorous situation, which nowadays isn’t so much a joke but a basic survival tool – a lifeboat we can use on life’s river.
“Ever since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated by the power of the proverb and how it can offer wisdom to the heart, be practiced and passed along to others,” states Gagne. “Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience. Portraits are of a similar nature. Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Expression, gesture, dress, ink even – all must combine to realize a character.”
There is a contemporary pop culture sensibility to Gagne’s images, using vibrant color to depict signs of our time. For example, in Gagne’s “Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you,” a tattooed steam punker sees his nose fly off his face and replaced by the seat of his pants. And in “Happiness is seeing your mother smile” the piece depicts a loving embrace of mother and child, all the while as the mother is preoccupied with all the concerns associated with raising a child in our current technological culture.
Collaborative Project: City of Northampton and WMAIA Design Project.
February 4-10, 2018
Design exhibition at the A.P.E. Gallery, for a one week exhibition, competition, speakers, and receptions.
The exhibit will help us highlight how we can create very small very green housing that is affordable to people left out of the green housing market, find a design solution to some surplus city-owned lots, and highlight conservation limited development.
LEARN MORE
|
Gordon Thorne
New Work January 2018 |