News

Finally, a conference I can get exited about: A Congress of Curious Peoples:

April 9-18, 2010
at Sideshows By The SeaShore
AND
tHE coNEY iSLAND mUSEUM
1208 Surf AVE.

A Congress of Curious Peoples:
An Amazing Collection of Human Marvels

TICKETS FOR EACH EVENT ARE INDIVIDUALLY PRICED (SEE BELOW).
SPECIAL! gET A CONGRESSIONAL PASS GOOD FOR ADMISSION TO ALL EVENTS FOR ONLY $50!

Since the 1860's, Coney Island has been a beacon for strange and interesting people. For generations, it has attracted the curious and the enlightened, the onlooker and the performer. Every spring Coney Island USA convenes The Congress of Curious Peoples, a 10-day gathering of unique individuals at Sideshows by the Seashore and the Coney Island Museum, celebrating Coney Island's subversive and exciting power and exploring its political, artistic, and spectacular possibilities through performances, exhibitions, and films by important artists in the world of the 21st century sideshows.

Adding to the madness, this year, in conjunction with Observatory and the Morbid Anatomy Library, Coney Island USA introduces the Congress for Curious People. Consisting of a 2-day symposium and 5-day lecture series, this additional congress will take a scholarly yet popular approach to the curiosities and wonders of Coney Island and seek to investigate--via lectures and and a scholarly conference--the relationship between education and spectacle in American amusements, the collection of curiosities from the renaissance to the present, and the display of "freaks" and "primitive peoples" in fairgrounds and worlds fair settings. The series will celebrate the interdisciplinarity of Dime Museums while calling into question both popular and scholarly assumptions about the importance of Coney Island's legacy, its sordid past, and its titillating present.

HOW DO I MAKE SENSE OF THIS OVERWHELMING BUT EXCITING SPECTACLE!?
SCHEDULE:
1) Opening Weekend
The 10-day spectacular begins with the opening night party in Coney Island's Freak Bar and the induction of new members into the Sideshow Hall of Fame. Opening weekend features an exhibition at Observatory (off-site in Gowanus), and two days of performances by some of Coney Island's best-loved performers on stage at Sideshows by the Seashore.

2) 5 nights of Thrilling Lectures and Esoteric and Bizarre Performances
Opening weekend is followed by 5 nights of lectures and performances by international acts and scholars appearing on stage in the Coney Island Museum and Sideshows by the Seashore.

3) Super Freak Weekend and the Congress for Curious People
The climax of this star-studded wonderfest is "Super-Freak Weekend" - which includes performances by some of the world's most important natural-born freaks- individuals whose performance is their physicality itself - and a scholarly conference, called the Congress for Curious People, in the Coney Island Museum.

CLICK ON EACH DATE FOR FURTHER INFO AND TO PURCHASE ADVANCE TICKETS

OPENING NIGHT, FRIDAY, APRIL 9th
MUSEUM, FILM SCREENING, 6:30 PM - $5
Chained for Life (1951), a film by Harry L. Fraser. Starring the World Famous Siamese Twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton.

SIDESHOW, 8:00 pm  -  $10
OPENING NIGHT PARTY with Cheap Beer and Drinking Game. You come, you vote.
"The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre PRESENTS; A Puppet FreakShow"
plus Freak Hall of Fame Nominations with Drinking Game
The nominees are:
Working Acts: Brooklyn Strongmen Mighty Atom vs. Joe Rollino
Attractions: Blade Box vs. Electric Chair
Self Inflicted: Jolly Irene vs. Mortado
Born Different: Prince Randi vs. Otis Jordan
Show Folk: David Rosen vs. Fred Sindel
Hosted by Dick Zigun
Please join us to select five inductees in a drunken celebration of Coney Island madness.

SATURDAY APRIL, 10TH
SIDESHOW, 1PM - 8:00 PM, CONTINUOUS ADMISSION   -  $10
Alumni Weekend featuring The Great Fredini, Eak the Geek, more TBA

OFFSITE (Observatory), 7PM - 10:00 PM  - FREE!
THE SECRET MUSEUM EXHIBITION OPENING PARTY!
The Secret Museum--an exhibition on view at sister-institution Observatory's Gowanus-based gallery--will host a free opening party on Saturday, April 10th. The exhibiton explores the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world and features photographs from Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's travels to collections private, public, and backstage. More on the opening and exhibition, including directions to Observatory, here. Observatory : 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215

SUNDAY, APRIL 11TH
SIDESHOW 1PM - 8PM. CONTINUOUS ADMISSION $10
ALUMNI WEEKEND featuring The Great Fredini, Eak The Geek, more TBA

MONDAY, APRIL 12TH
MUSEUM, 7:00 PM - $5
Evan Michelson on "The Saddest Object in the World"

SIDESHOW, 8:00 PM  -  $10
Chris McDaniel Wild West comes to Coney Island. The undisputed master of Whip Wielding, World Record Rope Tricks, Gun-Twirling and more!
"THIS is something!" - David Letterman, The Late Show

TUESDAY, APRIL 13TH
MUSEUM, 7:00 PM - $5
Robert Marbury of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists on Taxidermy in the Fine Arts

SIDESHOW, 8:00 PM  -  $10
Eak The Geek reads from his two decades of Coney Island Journals

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14TH
MUSEUM, 7:00 PM - $5
Mike Zohn on Automata, past and present

SIDESHOW, 8:00 PM  -  $10
The Great Throwdini hosts a record holders event: Live, on stage, performers may attempt to set or break a world record. Adjudicators will be on-site for the event.

THURSDAY, APRIL 15TH
MUSEUM, 7:00 PM - $5
Pat Morris on the taxidermy of Walter Potter

SIDESHOW, 8:00 PM  -  $10
Penguin Boy vs. Sealboy moderated by Jelly Boy

  FRIDAY, APRIL 16TH
MUSEUM, 7:00 PM - $5
Sam Dunlap on pioneer museologist, Charles Wilson Peale

SIDESHOW, 8:00 PM  -  $10
Showdevils, featuring The Enigma. An evening of freaks and music with real chainsaws, cheerleaders and electrocution!!

SATURDAY SUNDAY, APRIL 17TH 18TH
SIDESHOW 1-8 PM CONTINUOUS ADMISSION - $10
Super Freak Weekend with Mat Sealboy Fraser, Jennifer Bearded Lady Miller, Koko the Killer Clown and Ravi the Indian Rubber Boy

THE CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE! (In the Coney Island Museum) $25 for the weekend Presented by Observatory and Morbid Anatomy, at and with The Coney Island Museum Date: Saturday, April 17th and Sunday, April 18th

The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore.

Saturday, 11am-12:30pm - Lectures and panel discussion - Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of Barnum Museum
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Moderated by Elizabeth Bradley, New York Public Library

Saturday, 1pm-2:30pm - Lectures and panel discussion - Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century.
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium (Contacted; not yet confirmed)
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, Author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

Saturday, 3pm-5pm - Lectures and panel discussion - Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

Saturday, 6pm-8pm - Drinks and light fare

Sunday, 12pm-2pm - Lectures and panel discussion – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

http://www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml

David J. Carol's newest book ALL MY LIES ARE TRUE... is a follow up of his award winning book 40 Miles of Bad Road... David's latest monograph is a collection of Black and White photographs taken while on commercial assignments or traveling with friends and family. In describing David's photographs Anne Wilkes Tucker, Museum of Fine Art, Houston said "Humor is best when shared with someone with the same skewed slant on life." David's books can be obtained directly from the artist and through the photo-eye bookstore.

The Camera Club of New York (CCNY) is pleased to announce an open call for applications for its Annual National Photography Competition. Photographers and photo–based artists working in any genre are eligible to apply. Applicants are encouraged to submit a cohesive body of work.

Selected applicants will be featured in an exhibition at the CCNY gallery in the summer of 2010 and also on our website. The first place selection will receive a $500.00 cash award.

Deadline: April 19, 2010

For more information or to download an entry form, please visit http://www.cameraclubny.org/competition.html

About the Juror:

James Casebere‘s pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. For the last thirty years, Casebere has devised increasingly complex models that are subsequently photographed in his studio. Based on architectural, art historical and cinematic sources, his table–sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Casebere‘s abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative and oftentimes suggestive of prior events, encouraging the viewer to reconstitute a narrative or symbolic reading of his work.

I happened to be in Detroit at the end of March on an assignment for TIME magazine, staying at “The D,” Time Inc.'s Detroit home base for a year-long journalistic commitment to the complicated city. I picked up the weekly rag of clubbing and nightlife, which seemed stocked full of partying not so much right downtown, but just barely out there in the suburbs. I was sort of surprised to find such a paper, as I had been, on my own, exploring the new “urban prairies” and very desolate, demolished parts of town. From what I’ve read, it seems he city has lost 1.3 million residents since its peak in the late Fifties. so some areas have returned back to some semblance of nature. I surprised two pheasants and one fox in my wanderings. Once-much loved and busy schools are now shuttered, and traffic lights at some intersections still hang there, but turned off, so as to not waste electricity. They have been replaced sometimes by the far “greener” stop sign. It’s all very difficult to comprehend. In the paper, I happened to notice a small reproduction of a grainy black-and-white photo of a car front-end hanging precariously above a worker. I read the accompanying text, and was thrilled to read that there was currently a Robert Frank show at the DIA, the Detroit Institute of the Arts. It was not just any Frank show, but a rare showing of 60 photos that he made while stopping in the Motor City on his 1955 road trip across the US. You’ve seen some of these pictures before: The black kids cruising in the convertible.  The factory line at the Ford River Rouge Plant. The Orange Whip lunch counter. The drive-in theatre.

Those photos, plus a few others, are among the 8 pictures in the iconic book, The Americans. That last one, by the way, is the Gratiot Theatre. A woman at the museum was telling her husband about remembering her going there as a child. I heard her say “Gratiot,” a street name I recognized from my driving around town. A lightbulb went off in my head – that backwards, half cut-off script above the screen says “Gratiot,” not “Capitol,” like I had always incorrectly assumed. Take a look at it. It ends with a “t” not an “l,” duh. The other 50-odd photos you’ve never seen are mostly from the Ford automotive plant, as well as some of the bus (which some automotive employees took to work, ironically), the street, the parking lot and of the photographer’s broken-down car, which was, you guessed it, a Ford. Wall text says that he had to take the bus around town because of this fact.

A side note: Some of my interest in the city comes from the fact that my family ran a junkyard for over 50 years, so I grew up with cars at the end of their lifespans, not at the beginning, which was the world-view people in Detroit once grew up having. A common saying in my dad’s garage was “Ford: found on road dead.” Or, “Ford: fix or repair daily.” The fact that Frank’s Ford broke down made me laugh out loud in the otherwise quiet galleries. Visit http://lisakereszi.com/joes-junkyard for some of the junkyard pictures.

The factory photos made me think a bit of Lee Friedlander’s pictures that were put together in his At Work book, taken for annual reports and such of workers in factories and in bland offices. But Friedlander’s are tack-sharp and lit with flash, whereas Frank’s, though taken with the same Leica camera, are just what you’d expect – gritty, dark and full of motion and emotion. Both ways of technically approaching the subject end of saying much the same thing in the end, because they are just two different ways of showing workers dwarfed by the machines that they use to make more machines.

Frank’s instinct was dead-on going to Detroit in search of America. The car was king, and he hit the road right when everyone else was doing the same thing. The exhibition is not just a reminder of the city and the company that once was, but also makes us look at how they/we put all our stock in one barrel, an easy thing to think when hindsight is, well, you know. When I was out towards Dearborn for my assignment, my guide showed me an overview of the Rouge plant, which is, in fact, rouge. He told me that only part of it is still used to make the steel for Ford, and that the bulk of the property was sold to a Russian company.

The prints in the show come from a DIA purchase many years ago, as well as a few larger ones from the collection of Frank himself. Unfortunately, there is no catalog, no announcement card and no photos allowed in the galleries. Fortunately, the museum has a blog with a few great posts about the show: http://diaphotography.wordpress.com/ So, you need to get on a plane (or, better yet, in a car) and get yourself to Motown before July, when the show comes down. There is also, fittingly, a wonderful Diego Rivera mural of workers from 1932 as you enter the Frank show, as well as the fantastic collection I unfortunately had to rush through.

For more information on Time Inc.’s project:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925681,00.html
If you are looking for a guide before you go, check out this post:
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/01/detroit-design-guide.html
for some great ideas of where to go. It was compiled by the Detroit blogger, father and photographer, Sweet Juniper. That is, use it if you don’t mind seeing the same couple in a silver Prius keep showing up at the same sites and driving right, smack-dab, into the center of your frame. It keeps you humble, and reminds you that you are not alone.

The World Premiere of TODAY, a documentary feature about a day in the life of three families in New Orleans, will be shown on April 7th at the Anthology Film Archive. Tickets go on sale at the box office at 5:30pm the day of the showing.

Watch the trailer HERE.