Buffalo Rising Online

Buffalo Rising is taking the opportunity of the Beyond/In Western New York exhibition, an event that brings twelve Buffalo Niagara region art spaces together to show the work of fifty artists who live and work within the Great Lakes region, to showcase Buffalo artists. We are visiting artist’s studios to learn about their working process, their art, their studios, and how they live and work in Buffalo.

In this episode, we visit the studio of A.J Fries and Ani Hoover in the Seneca Building, in South Buffalo, around the corner from the Larkin Building. This massive structure is the home to a number of artists’ studios, nestled between various small factories. The two artists moved into this studio a year ago, but have known each other for about five years. When interviewing them together, I was struck by their thoughtful considerat…

The Beyond/In Western New York exhibition is an event that brings twelve Buffalo/Niagara region art spaces together to show the work of fifty artists who live and work within the Great Lakes region. That region extends out to include Toronto, Syracuse and Cleveland. The momentous weekend of openings that dot the area is not until the weekend of September 14th and 15th, but this Friday, August 17, the Albright Knox Art Gallery opens their portion of the exhibit as a preview of the show.

Buffalo Rising is taking the opportunity of this biennial survey of artists to showcase the Buffalo artists who are included in the exhibition(s). We are visiting these artists studios to learn about their working process, their art, their studios, and how they live and work in Buffalo. Amanda Besl is the first artist we will fe…

Starting June 15, two local galleries will present the works of master photographer Ken Heyman.

Heyman burst onto the photography scene late in college, after his professor, Margaret Mead, noticed his work and brought him with her on an anthropological trip to Bali. They then began a decades-long working relationship, which included collaborating on two books- both of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Heyman admits that the time they spent together in Bali was very influential. “My interest in human behavior and relationships was nourished by (Mead), as was the style of my photography,” he writes on his personal website [http://www.kenheyman.com].

In addition to the anthropological fieldwork done with Mead, Heyman has produced many other notable works. His Pop Art series, of which the Albright Knox Art Gallery will display 24 pieces, includes skillful and …

So, we celebrated the Buffalo-Niagara Film Festival (BNFF), and the Buffalo International Film Festival (BIFF) is on the way -- but there's another Buffalo film festival that you may not have heard of -- The Buffalo International Jewish Film Festival. Sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo, the festival is one of the oldest of its kind in the nation, with co-chairs Ruth Goldman and Michael Silverman and the Film Festival Committee developing the content for this year’s Festival and adding to Buffalo’s rich pageant of artistic events.

Film takes a very special place in the heart of a culture, capturing stories in both visual and verbal form in a way that few other mediums can -- it preserves history, explores emotions, and illustrates the subtle dynamics of human relation on we don’t even know we’re experiencing. A film festival of this caliber and d…

Buffalo Rising Online has partnered with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery to give you a very special treat -- a privately curated walk through of their featured exhibit, Raw Human Emotion: Francis Bacon Paintings from the 1950's.

Join Senior Curator Douglas Dreishpoon, Ph.D., as he gives us insight into Bacon's tortured world of dark genius, starting with a larger-than-life photograph of his studio, and working through one of the of the most comprehensive looks at Bacon's most prolific period ever compiled. As Dreishpoon explains, most shows of Bacon's work have given a chronological look at his life and work. This exhibit, by contrast, goes more deeply into his work in the 1950s, bringing together paintings from as far away as China.

While modern art may seem difficult to relate to, especially the dark abstractions of Bacon's caliber, Dreishpoon's insights and anecdotes will br…

In a very special edition of Gusto at the Gallery, the Albright-Knox pairs with the Just Buffalo Literary Center to present Tell My Horse: Zora Neale Hurston at the Albright-Knox. Tonight's events will be filled with material inspired by the Big Read selection, Their Eyes Were Watching God, as well as fun art activities for the kids, and a moving performance of A Symphony Down in My Soul . The evening is capped off by a live taping of Off-Beat Cinema, presenting White Zombie. (In addition to her classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston also wrote a famous study of Caribbean voodoo called Tell My Horse. The cast of Channel 7’s Off Beat Cinema will do a live taping of the show on site and present a classic B-Horror Film about voodoo and zombies.) Full schedule below.

Friday, May 18, 2007 Free Albright-…

While getting youth involved in the arts is fairly common, The Albright-Knox has created an innovative program to get youth involved in the process of curating art shows. Future Curators is a weekly after school program for high school students in grades 11 and 12 to learn about the day-to-day work of a museum curator, by organizing an exhibition of artwork by young local artists. Under the guidance of the Gallery’s Education department, fourteen exemplary students work with various staff members and are involved in every aspect of planning the exhibition, from selecting artwork to producing the invitation and planning the opening reception. The program culminates in an exhibition opening May 11, entitled “Almost Famous”, as a part of the Gusto at the Gallery Series. This unique opportunity highlights the work of the next generation of artists, as envisioned by tomorrow’s…

The painter Francis Bacon, descendent of the 16th century philosopher, once said, “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery,” and he certainly succeeded in that mission in the course of his life and work. Known for his austere and even grotesque imagery, Bacon’s life took turns to the strange from the very beginning that were reflected in his work.

Bacon’s sickliness and overt homosexual tendencies enraged his father, getting him horsewhipped once and eventually thrown out of the family homestead. Having been frequently displaced as a child, at the age of 17 he was on the streets permanently with a tiny allowance from his mother’s trust fund, and quickly found unsavory ways of keeping himself housed and fed, either by petty theft, rent-dodging, or by finding wealthy male patrons to take him in. After one such tryst, Bacon found himself with enough wherewit…