Via Blentwell I found this mix which is made up of sounds found via shortwave plus other songs. Visit lowlightmixes to download it and see the track listing.

Reminder: The NURTUREart benefit is tomorrow (Monday) at CUE Art Foundation on 25th Street in Chelsea. Come see us and say hi!

Spotted at La Granja de San Ildefonso, only 34 miles north of Madrid.

It’s happening this weekend, June 1-3. Check out the website for a map and schedule.

Rune Olsen, Kissing Wolves

Our friend Rune Olsen’s sculpture of “Kissing Wolves” goes on display today in a window at Saks Fifth Avenue, with the big reveal happening tonight from 7-9 at 49th and Fifth Avenue. It will be up through June 11.

If MoMA’s not careful, Saks (despite having nothing on the site about Rune) may show more contemporary artists this year than they do. At least there is the Barbara London-curated “Automatic Update” coming soon.

June 1

The artist Austin Thomas is having an opening for her new gallery space, called Pocket Utopia (site coming soon) just off the Morgan L Stop, featuring a site-specific installation by Jonathan VanDyke titled The Salon of the Covered Bride.

Friends Felicia Ballos and Michael Mahalchick are among the performers in the Movement Research Festival presentation of Populous by AUNTS at Judson Church at Washington Square:

Friday June 1, 7:30pm & 9pm, $8 suggested – Judson Memorial Church Gym
Like varieties of a species in a zoo, Populous is the controlled manage- ment of nine separate but simultaneous performances. The edges of the space are parceled off for each performance, delineated by markings on the floor, with a space in the center of the room for the audience. Each performance is allowed unlimited construction of movement, sound, light, and energy within its parcel. Visit: myspace.com/aunts. Ana Keilson. Liz Santoro. Juan Adley. Felicia Ballos. Jacqueline Fritz. Christine Elmo a.k.a. Andy’s MoM. Jennifer Rosenblit. Michael Mahalchick. Ede Thurrell.

June 2

Frankie Martin will be performing “frankfurter freakout” from 3-6pm at John Connelly Presents as part of the AVAF (Assume Vivid Astro Focus) installation.

Tomorrow is the last day to purchase special tickets for the NURTUREart benefit on June 4. Details:

• Combination ticket with gala entry and choice of one artwork for $200

• VIP Preview (early collecting at the champagne reception) includes choice of one
  artwork for $275.

Go here to buy tickets.

While I appreciate the fact that a lot of money is flowing into the art world right now, and a lot more artists (even ones I know) are making a living from their art, the idea that ones hires an art advisor to “save time” figuring out what one likes is revolting. Some selective quotes from today’s New York Times:

As for the collectors themselves, there appear to be as many types as there are art styles. Most buy the art because they love it, and some buy it for investment reasons. As for others, “no doubt — it makes a banker look more colorful and erudite when he can discuss his art at a dinner party,” Ms. Wächter-Campbell said.

While some work with advisers to accumulate art piece by piece over a number of years, others buy a new vacation home and call to say, “Fill it with art.”

Some collectors are like Ronny Zinner of Boston, who could not imagine building her contemporary collection without Leslie Rankow, a consultant based in Manhattan. “I am extremely busy, and Leslie does an incredible amount of research and legwork to stay informed of what’s going on in the art world,” said Mrs. Zinner, who comes from a family of art collectors and owns works by artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Ms. Rankow organizes art walks with her client’s taste in mind, previewing each gallery and work to build an efficient itinerary. She prepares dossiers on artworks and artists that Mrs. Zinner and her husband, Dr. Michael Zinner, are considering adding to their collection.

…

Artnet also creates virtual showrooms for more than 1,700 galleries in more than 250 cities around the world, so that advisers and their clients can start a worldwide search for an artist or style without leaving their computers. There is good fortune in strolling through a gallery and falling in love with a particular work, said Ms. Rankow, but strolling takes time — and many clients have little of it.

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This amazing antique carousel was one of two set up in plazas in Segovia the day we visited. The golden stone you see behind it is the Roman aqueduct.

Update: James said he didn’t think it was really antique, and he is correct. It’s made to look that way, but the two we saw were created by la MACHINE in Toulousse, France in 1999.

Annie McNamara and Gibson Frazier

Before we left I mentioned the play “God’s Ear” being produced by the wonderful company The New Georges. We saw it last weekend, and I highly recommend it. We were quite jet-lagged, and I was still thrilled with it. The language is experimental, funny, full of clichés (in a good way), and a bit broken. The amazing actors in the cast, along with the director Anne Kauffman and Michael Friedman’s songs, produce what could have been a somewhat formal exercise in language into a moving evening of theater. In an impressive cast, I have to say the performance of Annie McNamara as a tipsy bar fly in an airport lounge was a wonderful discovery.

This is one of the few plays I’ve seen in a while where I thought about going back a second night to watch it again.

The Brooklyn Rail has an article on the play written by the actress and playwright Heidi Schreck (who we saw with Gibson Frazier in Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist). It includes some excerpts:

MEL
And then we’ll kick up our heels. And have it both ways. And take a deep breath. And take it like men.

And sit back. Relax.

And ride off into the horse-shit.

For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. And the fat lady will sing. With bells on.

Here are some reviews:

• New York Times
• Village Voice
• Time Out New York

It runs through June 2nd. Go here to buy tickets.

[photo supplied by The New Georges]