Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Terence Koh’s Untitled, a stack of thirty-three glass cases, is a striking presence in the Contemporary galleries.  Almost every case contains an artifact that’s been painted white. Some of these date back to the artist’s childhood while others are from friends and lovers, or flea markets. The sculpture is like a shrine that preserves meaningful relics from various chapters of Koh’s life. Unlike many artists, he embraces the effects of entropy and decay on his work, such as mold, or glass shattered in transit.

Terence Koh (born China, 1977). Untitled (Vitrines), 2006. Mixed media, variable. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Peres Projects, Inc., 2008.34.

The piece is part of a larger body of monochrome work in which Koh explores the meanings of white in different cultures, ranging from purity to mourning. With its investigation of temporality and allusions to eventual death, the Brooklyn Museum’s glass stack provides an introspective counterpoint to Koh’s flamboyant public persona. (See his website) Sex and death are themes that run obsessively throughout all aspects of his work.

As part of Performa 09, Koh will be at the Brooklyn Museum on November 7^th for Target First Saturday to perform Saaqiou. At 9:30 p.m., he will be performing and DJing in the Rubin Pavillion, incorporating the Rodin sculptures.

I am really looking forward to November’s Target First Saturday, which takes place on November 7^th and highlights our special exhibition Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present. Rock music and rock journalism are two of my passions and I’m excited to see them coming together with the programming around this exhibit.

As a public programmer I’m always looking for new entry points into an exhibition’s content and how to make that content accessible and engaging for Museum visitors. In conversations about public programming for the exhibit with Gail Buckland, the guest curator, she discussed how one of her goals with the exhibition was to focus on the photographers and the images they have created, not only on the musicians and bands featured in them. She also wanted to have an event that captured what up-and-coming rock photographers are doing now and invite them to participate.

Inspired by Gail’s idea, and because we love Brooklyn photographers, on First Saturday we are inviting local photographers to come and shoot the bands that are playing and post their photos to the Brooklyn Museum’s flickr group. Afterwards, Bob Gruen, a rock photography legend who is featured in the exhibition and has shot the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and The Clash, will look at the photos and blog about his favorites here!

The Beets.  Photo by Aubrey Stallard.  All Rights Reserved.

In addition, I couldn’t be more thrilled about the lineup of bands: The Beets, Grass Widow, and Crystal Stilts. In choosing the bands, my colleagues and I wanted to try to capture the feeling and energy of the Brooklyn indie scene that’s really taken off over the past few years.  To select the bands and capture the feeling of shows in clubs alternative spaces around the borough we teamed up with New York City indie show organizer extraordinaire Todd Patrick (aka Todd P.). I first went to one of Todd’s shows in Portland, Oregon in the late 1990’s, and felt there was something special and community oriented about it. Since then, he and I have both moved to New York and he’s been organizing shows in Brooklyn for years.  He really has his finger on the pulse of the scene here and able to spot talent as it emerges, while keeping that community vibe to his shows.

As a final note, even if you don’t take pictures you can participate by dressing up as your favorite rock star. I look forward to seeing you here with your camera and your outfit! You’ll know me, I’ll be the Brooklyn Museum staff member ensuring the bands have sound checked, the photographers are happy while dressed like a 1960’s French popstar.

If you are a fan of the The Commons on Flickr and live in the NYC area, come to our Common Ground meetup this weekend to celebrate—we’ve got tons and tons of neato stuff to give away!  The folks from the NYPL are going to be joining us to meet and greet and answer questions about the fantastic images being uploaded to The Commons.  We’ll be running a really big slideshow curated by the Flickr community in the lobby, so come find us this Saturday October 3rd, 6-9:30 pm!  That’s smack dab in the middle of a fabulous opera-inspired Target First Saturday, so there will be lots to do here that evening.

Don’t forget, this is a global meetup, check out these other venues if you live closer to these areas:

Sydney, Australia. A bit jealous of our colleagues over at the Powerhouse Museum who have been making preparations all week for an outdoor slideshow on the facade of their building.  The Powerhouse peeps are teaming up with the State Library of New South Wales for a joint event.

Brisbane, Australia.  The State Library of Queensland is also presenting the slideshow outdoors on their Queensland Terrace—one of my personal favorite buildings in all of Australia is the Queensland Library, so that should be an amazing event in a great location!

Canberra, Australia.  The Australian War Memorial is also taking part with a projection in their orientation gallery.

Safety Harbor and Tallahassee, Florida.  The State Archives of Florida are running two events in the area.

Rochester, New York.  George Eastman House is hosting an event in their theatre and that means you can meet Ryan…he’s the one we have to thank for the slideshow because he did a ton of work programming the voting tool and the slideshow via the Flickr API.  Thanks, Ryan!

Corvalis, Oregon.  Don’t miss the photograph on this event listing—these Oregon peeps have a sense of Flickr-humor and we love them for it.

…but perhaps the Swedish National Heritage Board has us all beat!   They are hosting their event in the Medieval St. Karin Church ruin in central Visby on the island of Gotland, Sweden.  That very same church ruin is actually pictured in one of the photographs they’ve uploaded to The Commons.  It kind of doesn’t get more meta than that!

Coming to a meetup?  Tweet using the #CommonGround hashtag and if you upload photos to Flickr, tag them CommonGround2009 and we’d love to see them added to The Commons group.  Hope to meet you there!

Are you a fan of the materials being uploaded to the Flickr Commons?   Well, we are huge fans and that got a few of us wondering about a way to thank the community of people who’ve rallied around our materials by tagging, commenting, investigating and looking.   Paula Bray (Powerhouse) was thinking it was high time to take community favorites, do slideshows on our buildings and have a giant global meetup to celebrate! Sure sounded like a good idea to us, so save the date of October 2nd and 3rd—each institution will be posting more information about their hosted meetup as we get closer.  For our part, we are teaming up with the New York Public Library at Target First Saturday for a joint event—stay tuned.

In order for us to have a slideshow, we need your help.  Ryan Donahue at the George Eastman House created a way you can go and vote for which images you’d like to see during the meetup.   So, you’ve got until September 16th to tell us which of your favs should be in the slideshow.

More news via the Flickr blog or the Powerhouse and keep your eyes on this discussion topic on Flickr where we are making all the announcements.  We can’t wait to see you at the meetup!

Summer’s Target First Saturdays have been great and I’ve loved watching everyone stream into the Museum’s parking lot to dance under the stars.

West Indian-American Carnival 2008 - Brooklyn, NY by David Berkowitz via Flickr.

This is just a reminder that there’s no First Saturday in September, but there will be plenty going on around the Museum with the all events surrounding the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association’s Labor Day parade that will be taking place.

My colleagues and I are not taking a break, however, and are busily preparing for the next season of Target First Saturdays. We’ll be kicking things off on October 3rd with a collaboration with the Hungarian Cultural Center as part of their year long Extremely Hungary festival. We’re excited to offer a night of art and culture beyond visitor’s expectations that will include a performance by Vertical Players Repertory, an Opera Open Mic with Brooklyn’s beer swilling, jeans wearing opera singers from Opera on Tap, and a soulful dance party hosted by Brooklyn’s DJ Reborn and a top Hungarian DJ.

If you just can’t wait for October, you can join me on the Brooklyn Museum’s Facebook page during the month of September where I’ll be asking questions about visitor’s experience at and thoughts about First Saturday. Please join me. I’d love to hear what you think!