First Friday Artist’s Talk at ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery addresses environmental racism

By bvgallery on March 18, 2016

¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art announces a special Artist’s Talk for the show Climate Change, System Change, Personal Change by artist Ashley Powell on First Friday, April 1 at 7 p.m. The gallery is located at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, NY’s Allentown District.

Artist’s Talk: Powell will discuss her work and its relation to environmental racism, a topic of special relevance right now in light of the rising awareness of rising rates of lead poisoning in poor children and children of color in Flint Michigan, as well as right here in Buffalo. Powell’s installation challenges people to think about environmental racism and classism.

Artwork: 2016 Ashley Powell, The Solution (To All Our Problems) Water Filter – 2016

The show Climate Change, System Change, Personal Change includes two interrelated exhibits:

• Black on the Ground, White in the Air, artwork from Ashley Powell
• Climate Change—Realities and Resistance, by international photographers from the Critical Information Collective makes its US debut after hanging at the UN Paris climate summit in December

The artist’s talk will be held on First Friday, April 1 at 7 p.m. at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art, 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. The gallery will be open for First Friday from 6-9 p.m.

Wine and hors d’oeuvres provided. The show runs through April 29.

For further information please contact Kip Doyle, Media Coordinator, +1.716.867.4080 <kip@globaljusticeecology.org>

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Paris Photo Exhibit, 7 – 11 December 2015: Climate Change—Realities and Resistance

By bvgallery on December 7, 2015

The industrial revolution may have brought technological advances, but its reliance on fossil fuels also means that dirty technologies have proliferated, with consequences for our environment and our climate. Photo ©: Bogdan Bousca (Romania) bogdanbousca.finegallery.net

Paris, France – Telling the story of the growing global demand for climate justice, featuring images from photographers in Australia, Croatia, Romania, the UK and the USA. This exhibition is on display in Paris during the UNFCCC COP 21 negotiations, at the Climate Action Zone (ZAC), 7-11 December. The address is Room Ecuries C, Centquatre, 5, rue Curial, 75019 Paris. (The closest metro stations are Stalingrad and Riquet.)

It includes images from the following Critical Information Collective photographers, in panels of six images: David Tao (Australia), Luka Tomac (Croatia), Bogdan Bousca (Romania), Orin Langelle (USA), Jason Taylor (UK), and JudithDeland (Australia). There is a seventh panel comprising images from Stephen D Melkisethian (USA), Susan Melkisethian (USA), Joseph O Holmes (USA) and Ronnie Hall (UK).

For the exhibit, please go to UN Climate Conference of the Parties 21 (COP 21) Exhibition: Climate Change—Realities and Resistance

The second showing of this exhibit will be at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo, NY. The exhibit opens there on 4 March 2016. That show will include work by artist Ashley Powell.

Notice that Orin Langelle, Buen Vivir! Gallery director, has one of the panels, Struggles for Justice, with six photographs in the Paris show, that is coming to Buffalo.

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Please Join Us for Our Winter Solstice Party! & Exhibit Closing Reception,Thursday Dec. 17th 6-9 p.m.

By bvgallery on November 30, 2015

Global Justice Ecology Project and the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery invite you to our annual winter Solstice Party. This is also the closing reception of the gallery exhibit The End of the Game, The Last Words from Paradise – Revisited.

This year the party and closing reception take place on Thursday, December 17th from 6-9 p.m. at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

Camel’s Hump, Vermont. Photo: Petermann

Gallery Director Orin Langelle and GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann will give brief presentations at 7 p.m. about the mission of the gallery and GJEP including ways you can get involved.

There will be music, wine, hors d’oeuvres, and we will celebrate the Solstice and the return of longer days.

We also hope to have some exciting news to share about a new venue for Orin Langelle’s historic exhibit: The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, Revisited. If you haven’t seen it yet, this will be your last chance to see it in Buffalo…

Truman Capote with Peter Beard at Studio 54 during Beard’s 40th birthday party. This photo by Orin Langelle was published in the Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa, by Jon Bowmaster (1993)

Event is Free and Open to the Public. Casual dress.

See you there!

Info: 716.931.5833

Anne Petermann
Orin Langelle

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Now online – Free Speech – Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001: Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later (Returned Objects: A Multimedia Art Installation)

By bvgallery on November 24, 2015

The ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery is pleased to be able to release the online version of the exhibit that appeared in our gallery last July. This documentary Multimedia online essay is titled: Free Speech – Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001: Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later (Returned Objects: A Multimedia Art Installation)

Below is an edited excerpt from the Gallery statement about the exhibit:

Art means many different things

At the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery, the exhibits we choose illustrate and demonstrate the intersection of the realms of art and politics regarding the times in which we live.

Sometimes art should creatively communicate the reality hidden behind the propaganda we encounter in or our daily lives, where most communication is designed to sell something you probably do not need or that makes you feel good about yourself–from McMansions to reality shows, to drugs and/or belief systems with no mental challenge.

In this exhibit, we demonstrate how art and Free Speech are intrinsically tied together. Fourteen years ago the FBI raided the Earth Liberation Front’s Press Office in Oregon and confiscated their communications equipment. The equipment seized by the FBI, along with related photography, news clips and Federal Agency documents are now on display online in Free Speech – Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001: Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later (Returned Objects: A Multimedia Art Installation)

A group of artists and activists worked almost a month to turn a pile of obsolete office equipment seized from Burning Books co-owner Leslie James Pickering during the 2001 FBI raid into an installation highlighting free speech, art and state repression.

In addition to the now released office equipment (still tagged as evidence), the show features censored government documents, photographs, first-hand accounts, and statements by Pickering and Civil Rights attorney Michael Kuzma.

It is ludicrous and absurd that the FBI held these objects for fourteen years. If there were any incriminating evidence, it would likely have been found very quickly. The seizure of the equipment, and its confiscation for fourteen years, was intended to squash free speech.

This exhibit is about art, the repression and liberation of free speech and maybe a subliminal or not so subliminal message: In a world where we see more and more potentially apocalyptic scenes, especially with increasingly common climate catastrophes, is “civilization” and the dominant economic system pushing the inhabitants on Earth to the brink?

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The End of the Game Revisited Exhibit Open

By bvgallery on October 16, 2015

A photo exhibit, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, Revisited opened at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo. Friday, 9 October 2015. Photos by Orin Langelle. It will continue through 17 December with a special Allentown First Friday Reception on 6 November.

The Gallery is located at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. Hours are from 1:30 to p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 6 to 8 p.m. Friday evenings and I to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Peter Beard at his 1977, International Center of Photography opening in Manhattan, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.

2015 is the 50th anniversary of artist Peter Beard’s book, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise. Beard spent many years in Africa documenting the impact of Western civilization on elephants, other wildlife and the people who lived there. In 1977 Beard had the first one-person show at Manhattan’s International Center of Photography, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.

Over four months, Orin Langelle photographed Beard and the people, many celebrities, that were part of Beard’s life prior to and during the exhibit’s installation and the subsequent opening, plus Beard’s 40th birthday party at Studio 54 in January of 1978.

Langelle’s photographs are of events surrounding Beard’s 1977’s The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise. The ICP installation consisted of Beard’s photographs, elephant carcasses, burned diaries, taxidermy, African artifacts, books and personal memorabilia. In the early 60s Beard worked at Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, during which time he photographed and documented the demise of over 35,000 elephants and 5,000 Black Rhinos.

Poster: Peter Beard photos

Langelle’s work at the International Center of Photography gave him a rare insight into Beard, whose controversial views on ecology then, are just as relevant today.

With the support of the Peter Beard Studio, ¡Buen Vivir! presents this exhibition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beard’s book, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.

The book, soon to be released, can be ordered from Taschen.

Below are two photos from the opening of the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery exhibit in Buffalo last Friday 9 October taken by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project.

More photos, like the one below from the exhibit can be found here

Peter Beard and Truman Capote at Beard’s 40th birthday party, 22 January 1978, held in Studio 54

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Seized objects by the FBI returned 14 years after raid

By bvgallery on July 15, 2015

Former Earth Liberation Front press officer, James Leslie Pickering unloading a box of items seized in a raid 14 years ago at the EFL Press Office in Oregon. Global Justice Ecology Project's Anne Petermann is on the right. The returned objects will be on display at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo, NY. through July 26.

Former Earth Liberation Front press officer, James Leslie Pickering unloading a box of items seized in a raid 14 years ago at the ELF Press Office in Oregon. Global Justice Ecology Project’s Anne Petermann is on the left. The returned objects will be on display at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo, NY. through July 26. Photo: Langelle

Special Gallery Event – Opening July 15th, 6-9 p.m.

Returned Objects:

A Multimedia Art Installation

Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001

Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later

This multimedia art installation of returned objects, Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001: Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later, opens on July 15 from 6-9 p.m. The installation runs through July 26th.

On display will be items seized in an April 5, 2001 raid by a Joint Terrorism Task Force led by the FBI on the Earth Liberation Front Press Office in Portland, OR. These returned objects, fourteen years after the raid, include fax machines, computers, a cell phone, phone books, and typewriters. The communications equipment seized belonged to the former ELF press officers, including current Buffalo Burning Books co-owner, Leslie James Pickering. – More on Exhibit

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Closing reception for Struggles for Justice

By bvgallery on May 27, 2015

The show opened 3 April 2015.

Please come to this closing reception and gallery walk-through – refreshments include wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Struggles for Justice is the last show in the present gallery space. The ¡Buen Vivir Gallery is moving to the first floor of the same location at 148 Elmwood Ave., in Buffalo’s Allentown. The Grand re-opening of the gallery will be on 7 August 2015 with a photo exhibit by Anne Petermann entitled Triumph Over Tragedy.

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and the Coordinator of the international Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees.

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First Exhibit: Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest – Photos from the front lines

By bvgallery on December 5, 2014

First Exhibit: Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest – Photos from the front lines

3 October – 5 December 2014

Now Online

A new gallery in the historic Allentown district in Buffalo, NY, ¡Buen Vivir¡, opened its doors Friday 3 October 2014 with an exhibit Climate Change: FACES PLACES & PROTEST – photos from the front lines, that showcases more than two decades of work by photojournalist and gallery curator Orin Langelle.

The climate crisis was chosen as the theme for the gallery opening due the impacts it has on communities, ecosystems and human rights struggles. The theme was also timely. The exhibit began shortly after the 21 September climate march and the 23 September UN Climate Summit hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in New York City, and ended on 5 December 2014 during the UN Climate Conference and Peoples’ Climate Summit, in Lima, Peru in December.

Langelle’s exhibit, “Climate Change: FACES PLACES & PROTEST – photos from the front lines,” documents a wide range of topics including the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua in 1998, 2011’s Hurricane Irene in Vermont, as well as protests and demonstrations during UN Climate Conferences spanning five continents, between 2004 and 2011.

“Orin Langelle may not be a combat photographer, but he has risked his safety and well being to cover peoples’ struggles for a better life, sometimes in remote territories deep in the jungle, in communities imminently threatened by military or paramilitary invasion, or immediately after a natural disaster,” stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. “This gallery will be an opportunity for the people of Buffalo to be exposed to this important body of work.”

The ¡Buen Vivir¡ gallery is located at the offices of Global Justice Ecology Project, which also house the international Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees, and Biofuelwatch.

Prior to this show, an exhibit of Langelle’s photos documenting impacts of and response to the climate crisis was held last November at the 2013 UN Climate Conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Moving to Allentown in 2012, concerned photographer Orin Langelle has documented topics, cultures, ecosystems and geographies across six continents, including struggles against human rights abuses, economic domination, ecological devastation and the oppression of women, as well as Indigenous Peoples’ efforts for autonomy and land rights.

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Posts from the ‘¡Buen Vivir! Gallery’ category

Special Gallery Event – Opening July 15th, 6-9 p.m.

Returned Objects:

A Multimedia Art Installation

Earth Liberation Front Press Office April 5, 2001

Communications Equipment Seized by FBI Released 14 Years Later

First Exhibit: Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest – Photos from the front lines