Living in New York for the last fourteen years, I have amassed a really wonderful group of smart, talented, and supportive female friends. Unfortunately, our varied professions and scattered personal lives make it difficult to get together (as a group) on a regular basis. In fact, I think we talk about it more over emails, texts, and bbm than we actually are able to see one another, so I was intrigued to hear about/see the new show over at Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte. Cleopatra’s Presents: Xavier Cha, Jenna Gribbon, Hannah Hoffmann, Andrea Huelse, Anna Lundh, Caris Reid, Hanna Sandin, Maayan Zilberman is a group show featuring friends (all women) of different creative disciplines, who have been getting together regularly over the last few years for somewhat of a conversational support group, internally dubbed, “Lady Luck.” They work in a range of creative professions: jewelry designer, performance artist, painter, writer, scenographer, photographer, sculptor, lingerie designer. These lucky meetings have taken place over potluck dinners at their various homes and studios, which I am guessing lends itself to the warm, welcoming experience I had walking through the show. Though some are non-traditional fine artists, and none have worked together, I could sense that the thoughts and ideas exchanged between these friends have overlapped . There seemed to be a genuine dialogue between their work in the space. My personal favorite piece was from Andrea Huelse, the scenographer of the group. She created a beautiful, draped curtain (with tassels!) around the entrance, made out of plastic drop cloths – “a sort of wink at classical interior drapery” that she’s so familiar with.

The show runs through January 15, 2011 at Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte, 541 West 23rd St., NY, NY.

Above image: Caris Reid; Below image: Maayan Zilberman

There is an opening at Apexart tonight for Avant-Guide to NYC from 6-8pm.  Curated by Sandra Skurvida, the show attempts to map an assortment of the city’s “minor” histories and includes work by Julieta Aranda, caraballo-farman, Kabir Carter, Dexter Sinister, Eckhard Etzold, Andrea Geyer, Pablo Helguera, Nancy Hwang, Nina Katchadourian, Pia Lindman, Anna Lundh (whose Front-time Reworkings is pictured above), Carlos Motta, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere, Hatuey Ramos-Fermin, Katya Sander, Ward Shelley, Xaviera Simmons, and Alex Villar. Apexart is at 291 Church St. and the show will be up until December 19th.  Visit Apexart for more information.

As a part of X-Initiative’s No Soul For Sale opening on the 23rd of June, Rhizome will present an exhibition entitled The World is Flat, a series taking the ‘flatness’ of culture characteristic of a web-centered information economy as its orientation.  Artists and collectives including B’L'ing, Anna Lundh, Oliver Laric, Lizzie Fitch, Alexandre Singh and David Horvitz approach this centerpoint discursively, offering everything from found-footage and sculptures to zines and Mariah Carey remixes — and, perhaps mostly excitingly, teaching, as Anna Lundh, on June 27th from 2-3 PM, walks visitors through a short history of hexaflexagons as well as offers a walk-through of their construction.

The exhibition will be on display from June 24 until June 28, and is free to the public.

This weekend, put on your power suit and head to LMCC open studios on Broadway and Water street. The 9-month residency is nearing its end, so the studios are brimming with the energy and artwork of the 21 visual artists and 8 writers accepted this year. It’s a pretty good mix of New York talent (Hanna Sandin) and international (Anna Lundh). So go check it out!