¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art

Posts from the ‘Exhibit’ category

The Buffalo News: ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery closing Elmwood Avenue space permanently

By on July 22, 2020

Leslie J. Pickering, center, talks with his attorneys Daire B. Irwin, left, and Michael Kuzma during the installation of his exhibit at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo. Photo courtesy of The Buffalo News

People wishing to take part in the virtual exhibit opening, please register here.

Contact: Theresa Church, Global Justice Ecology Project, +1.716.931.5833

theresa2@globaljusticeecology.org.

The Buffalo News 10 July 2020

Mark Sommer

The museum, which has been at 148 Elmwood Ave. since October 2014, attributed the closing to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The activist-oriented gallery space will offer a final exhibit online with the July 30 opening of “Chile: Peoples’ Uprising/An Exhibition of Images from the Front Lines” that will feature photos and videos shot in November and December of 2019 in the ongoing peoples’ uprising in Chile.

Gallery’s founders Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle were in Chile during the uprising from mid-November to mid-December. Chilean activist Alejandra Parra from RADA in Chile, along with Biofuelwatch’s Gary Hughes in California will join them online on the exhibition’s opening night.

The Buffalo News

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Goodbye Peter Beard – “The End of the Game”

By on April 20, 2020

For Nejma and Zara Beard

This photograph was taken 19 June 2016 from the cliffs at Peter Beard’s Montauk, NY home. Photo: Orin Langelle

20 April 2020 – This morning The New York Times reported that photographer and artist Peter Beard’s body was found in Camp Hero State Park near his home in Montauk, NY. He was 82. He had been missing for 19 days. Peter had a huge impact on my life. I created this post in Peter’s memory and to pay respect to Peter’s wife Nejma and daughter Zara.

April 19, 2020, An excerpt from the statement on behalf of Peter Beard’s family:

Peter was an extraordinary man who led an exceptional life. He lived life to the fullest; he squeezed every drop out of every day. He was relentless in his passion for nature, unvarnished and unsentimental but utterly authentic always. He was an intrepid explorer, unfailingly generous, charismatic, and discerning. Peter defined what it means to be open: open to new ideas, new encounters, new people, new ways of living and being. Always insatiably curious, he pursued his passions without restraints and perceived reality through a unique lens. Anyone who spent time in his company was swept up by his enthusiasm and his energy. He was a pioneering contemporary artist who was decades ahead of his time in his efforts to sound the alarm about environmental damage. His visual acuity and elemental understanding of the natural environment was fostered by his long stays in the bush and the “wild-deer-ness” he loved and defended. He died where he lived: in nature.”

Peter Beard’s signature “autograph” in Zara’s Tales to Anne Petermann and me.

The last time I saw Peter was at his home in Montauk during the summer of 2016. My wife, Anne Petermann, and I were invited by Peter’s wife, Nejma, to spend some time with Peter around the occasion of his retrospective exhibit at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, NY.

Anne and I had a great time in Montauk with Peter and his family. We all drank wine, shared stories and, always creating, Peter decorated and signed his book Zara’s Tales, for us. The book was a tribute to his daughter.

The last time I spoke to Peter prior to our trip to Montauk was in Manhattan in January 1978 most likely at his 40th birthday party at Studio 54.

The first time I met Peter was in 1977 when Peter had his first one-person show at Manhattan’s International Center of Photography, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise. Over four months I 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.

Those photographs are in the Peter Beard Studio files and have illustrated several books and articles.

In 2015, on the 50th anniversary of Beard’s book, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, with the support of Nejma Beard and the Peter Beard Studio, the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art in Buffalo, NY presented my work Peter Beard’s The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, Revisited.

To me Peter was not only a great documentary photographer and artist, but also an ecologist who understood the connections of life and death. I learned much from Peter’s photography and ecological perspectives that have helped shaped my work in photography and how I have come to understand Earth with a greater depth. For this I will always be grateful. Safe and wild journey’s Peter. – Orin Langelle

The following link goes to photographs from the exhibit:

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New Press Statement coming soon

By on March 5, 2020

Above posted on 6 April 2020

Press Statement                               March 17, 2020
 
¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art Postpones April First Friday Event in Buffalo
Chile: Peoples’ Uprising Exhibit Opening to be Rescheduled   
 

Buffalo, NY: Due to the current public health emergency and recommendations for events not to exceed fifty people, the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art is postponing our April 3 First Friday event. The opening reception for our new exhibit, Chile: Peoples’ Uprising, will be rescheduled for a later date. We will be sure to inform you of the new date for the exhibit opening when we make that determination.

Contact: Orin Langelle +1.716.536.5669

Chile: Peoples’ Uprising

Images from the Front Lines

Exhibit Opens April 3

BUFFALO, NY – The ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art will present documentary photography and videography from the ongoing peoples’ uprising in Chile that started in October of last year. The images were shot by the gallery co-directors, Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann in the months of November and December, 2019 from the front lines of the uprising.

The Opening Reception of Chile: Peoples’ Uprising will be held during Allentown’s First Friday event on April 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art, 148 Elmwood Avenue at Global Justice Ecology Project space.

A massive popular uprising in Chile began on October 18, 2019, and continues to this day. Millions are demanding a new economic and political system in Chile and a new Constitution.Chile’s existing Constitution was written during the Pinochet Dictatorship, ushered in during a military coup supported by the U.S. in 1973.

Today Peoples’ Assemblies are taking part in all regions of Chile to create a process that will rewrite the new constitution. Chile’s President Piñera is trying to take control of this process and to crush the protests with extreme violence and repression.

Petermann and Langelle documented street protests including clashes between activists and Carabineros (national police) in the cities of Santiago and Temuco.

As of the first week of March of this year reports state that since the uprising began in October, 36 activists have died, more than 28,000 Chileans have been detained and 4,080 minors arrested. Additionally over 11,000 have been injured by the Carabineros. Shotguns loaded with rubber-coated metal pellets deliberately aimed at protesters’ faces have caused 445 serious eye wounds. Many people have partial or complete loss of vision in one or both eyes. In addition, several protesters have been run over by armored vehicles.

Langelle and Petermann also traveled to two indigenous Mapuche land re-occupations, where communities had taken back 1,500 hectares of their ancestral lands, stolen from them during the dictatorship. On U.S. Thanksgiving, they took photos and video interviews after Carabineros shot and teargassed people in the re-occupation.

_______

On Tuesday, April 7, Jim Shultz, Executive Director of the Democracy Center, will launch his newest book My Other Country, Nineteen Years in Bolivia? in the BV Gallery from 7 – 9 p.m. The full moon event commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Cochabamba Water Revolt in Bolivia that Shultz was involved in and helped publicize.

The gallery is free and open to the public.

 

Contact: Theresa Church Theresa2@GlobalJusticeEcology.org                                                                                 ++1.716.931.5388                

BuenVivirGallery.org

Santiago de Chile: Water cannons chase crowd. A caustic liquid was mixed with the water to irritate the skin and lungs. Water cannons were strategically used to target street medics and the Red Cross.

Santiago de Chile: Depicting blood and eyeballs in the hands of the government. This guerrilla theater on International Human Rights Day, December 10th, commemorated the (then) 350+ eyes injured, some permanently by the Carabineros de Chile (national police) who intentionally shot people in the face with shotguns filled with rubber-coated metal pellets during the protests.

This young Mapuche is from the community of Quilape Lopez, Chile, which is re-occupying stolen ancestral lands. Elders say the young are the future of the Mapuche, as is the land.

all photos by Orin Langelle / photolangelle.org

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#notwhite collective: In Between the Middle Exhibit Closing Reception AND Photo Essay of an Exhibition Opening

By on June 7, 2019

[Closing Reception Friday, June 7, 6 – 9 p.m.at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art, 148 Elmwood Ave., in Buffalo NY’s Allentown Art District. Hors‘douvres and refreshments served. The event is free and open to the public.]

The following photos were taken during the #notwhite collective’s Opening Reception, Friday, April 5, 2019 for their Buffalo, NY Premier Exhibit In Between the Middle held at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art. The #notwhite collective is a group of thirteen women artists elevating the stories of the others. They are based in Pittsburgh, PA.

There is a resemblance of the U.S. flag in their exhibit which you will notice in several of the photos below as a backdrop. The title is Mom, you know we’re all just shades of brown by Fran Ledonio Flaherty.

The photos of the opening below are by Orin Langelle / PhotoLangelle.org

Similarity

#notwhite collective member Fran Ledonio Flaherty and reflection of her hearing dog – Olympia

The #notwhite collective, with their art and message, brought seriousness and laughter together in one of the best – if not the best –  openings at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery since it opened in October 2014 with Climate Change: Faces, Places & Protest. I (Orin Langelle) hope the gallery continues to have exhibits that reflect the seriousness of our times with contemporary art and photography along with much needed humor while inspiring people, as the #notwhite collective says “…to share, to question, to investigate, dig deep into what identity is within and outside the construct and context of white –not in skin color, but as a system of oppression, a system we do not align ourselves with.”

Alison Zapata, from the #notwhite collective

#notwhite collective members Allison Zapata (l) and Sara Tang

The Collective’s Carolina Loyola-Garcia (l) and Santiago Masfererr from El Buen Amigo

A content young one with mother

Hugs

The name of the gallery, ¡Buen Vivir!, is a concept stemming from Indigenous and other cultures of the Southern Americas. ¡Buen vivir! means life in harmony between humans, communities, and the Earth – where work is not a job to make others wealthier, but for a livelihood that is sustaining, fulfilling, and in tune with the common good.

Smiles

Maritza Mosquera (l) from the #notwhite collective

Viewing “Warriors” a photograph by Liana Maneese

#notwhite collective’s Sarika Goulatia

From Left to Right Top Row: Carolina Loyola-Garcia, Bianca L. McGraw, Danielle AJ, Alison Zapata, Amber Epps Middle Row: Maritza Mosquera, Sarika Goulatia, N’gana, Sara Tang Bottom Row: Fran Ledonio Flaherty, Madame Dolores, Veronica Corpuz

From the exhibit

Well…

IN BETWEEN THE MIDDLE – April 5 through June 7, 2019

#notwhite collective Is a bi/multi-racial/cultural, immigrant or descendants of immigrants. Since 2016, they have met to share, to question, to investigate, dig deep into what identity is within and outside the construct and context of white –not in skin color, but as a system of oppression, a system we do not align ourselves with. They provide an artistic platform for difficult discussions on the complexities of cultural identity in America to move us all towards humanity.

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Global Justice Ecology Project Celebrated its 15th Anniversary Sept 14-15

By on September 11, 2018

Global Justice Ecology Project held two events to celebrate its 15th anniversary on Sept. 14-15, 2018 at ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art in Buffalo, NY. Both events include wine and hors d’oeuvres and are free and open to the public. See details below.

148 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14201
+1.716.931.5833
buenvivirgallery.org

ONE WORLD: Issues Across and Through Skins

Photos from Buffalo to Africa by Johanna C. Dominguez

¡Buen Vivir! was on a year long hiatus and opened its doors again in September 2018 for Johanna C. Dominguez’s “One World: Issues Across and Through Skins.” This was her first solo exhibit. She sees her camera as “Simply a vehicle” for recording the importance of protest – from Buffalo to Kenya.

And:

THE STORY OF A FOREST

Global Justice Ecology Project 15th Anniversary Party include a special private film showing of The Story of a Forest including talk by the director.

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Langelle and Dilenno receive 2017 CEPA Gallery Members’ Exhibition Award

By on February 8, 2017

If you have trouble opening these photos in Safari, please use another browser – thanks -OL

Buffalo, NY– On January 27, CEPA Gallery (Contemporary Photography & Visual Arts Center) opened the 2017 CEPA Gallery Members’ Exhibition. Photographers Natalie Dilenno and Orin Langelle received the 2017 Exhibition Awards.

2017 Exhibition Award winner Natalie DiIenno Underground Gallery

2017 Exhibition Award winner Natalie DiIenno
CEPA Underground Gallery

Both Langelle and Dilenno will have a solo exhibit at the CEPA Gallery in 2018. CEPA Gallery’s 2017 Members’ Exhibition features the photography and photo-related work of some of Western New York’s most talented artists. The exhibit runs until March 4, 2017.

The juror was Maiko Tanaka, the new Executive Director at Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Arts Center.

2017 Exhibition Award winner Orin Langelle Underground Gallery

2017 Exhibition Award winner Orin Langelle
CEPA Underground Gallery

Langelle is the Director of the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art and Langelle Photography in Buffalo, NY. Langelle also serves as the Strategic Communications Director of Global Justice Ecology Project.

Langelle Photography and the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art are part of Global Justice Ecology Project’s Social Justice Media Program.

Orin Langelle is a concerned photographer, who for four decades has been documenting social and environmental struggles.

Since 1972 Langelle has documented peoples’ resistance to war, corporate globalization, ecological destruction and human rights abuses. His first photographic assignment was to cover the protests against the Vietnam War at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Langelle’s Exhibition Award photograph was from that first assignment (below).

 

Republican National Convention—Miami Beach, FL 1972. Wounded soldier from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in a wheelchair during protests against the RNC. Photo: Langelle

Republican National Convention—Miami Beach, FL 1972. Wounded soldier from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in a wheelchair during protests against the RNC. Photo: Langelle

Langelle says, “I approach my role as concerned photographer by not merely documenting the struggle for social and ecological justice, but by being an active part of it. This has enabled me to garner the trust of many of the subjects I have documented, allowing me access that would not have been possible otherwise. In this way, I have been able to expose the truth that is so often hidden by the powers of injustice.”

He continues, “My work is an historical look at social movements, struggle and everyday life.  It is designed to counter the societal amnesia from which we collectively suffer—especially with regard to the history of social and ecological struggles. This is not merely a chronicling of history, but a call out to inspire new generations to participate in the making of a new history.  For there has been no time when such a call has been so badly needed.”

When asked about her Exhibit Award photo, Natalie DiIenno says, “I’ve been studying Yves Kline and appropriated that image because he influences my work so much.”

She continued, “I’ve been making blue artworks recently, so he’s been a major reference for the blue and his concepts that deal with the notion of the ‘void’. A whole. That image is just a more literal explanation of this idea than his blue paintings (and my blue abstract photographs).”

[Note]: Many in the art world consider Yves Klein the most influential, prominent, and controversial French artist to emerge in the 1950s. He is remembered above all for his use of a single color, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue. Klein (1928 – 1962) said, “The imagination is the vehicle of sensibility. Transported by the imagination, we attain life, life itself, which is absolute art.”


Photographs of Natalie DiIenno and Orin Langelle, courtesy CEPA Gallery.

The CEPA Gallery is located at 617 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203. Viewing hours are Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

More about CEPA after the current exhibits:

Other Exhibits that Opened January 27 at CEPA

David Jaan: I See People

David-Jaan-Portfolio-Featured-Image

Lingxiang Wu: A Modern Flaneur’s Possession

Linxiang-Wu-Portfolio-Featured-Image

Exterior Views: The Richardson Olmsted Complex

Cepa_Gallery_Lavin_Thomas_Towers_DetailsandAbstractions_first_place-1

Located in Buffalo’s historic Market Arcade Complex, CEPA Gallery is a full-service contemporary photography and visual arts center with impact in both the local and national communities serving approximately 300,000 individuals annually.

With four galleries of changing exhibits and events, multimedia public art installations, arts education programs, and an open-access darkroom and digital photo lab, CEPA creates a vibrant presence in the heart of downtown Buffalo.

CEPA’s programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Originally incorporated as the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art to serve as a community darkroom and exhibition space, CEPA Gallery was founded during the Alternative Space Movement in May 1974 by recent graduates of the University of Buffalo.

Throughout its history, CEPA has strived to reflect the creative priorities for working artists, while growing to accommodate the educational and social needs of Western New York’s diverse community. Over the years, CEPA has evolved into a nationally recognized arts center that is truly international in scope, but regional in spirit. It is now one of the oldest and largest not-for-profit photography-based arts centers in the United States.

CEPA remains dedicated to photography and the photo-related and electronic arts, and has developed its programs and opportunities to provide working artists, urban youth, and other individuals with the necessary programs and facilities for the production and reception of contemporary art.

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Volunteers Needed for the !Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art

By on March 21, 2016

Volunteers Needed for the !Buen Vivir! Gallery

The ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art at 148 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY, is currently seeking volunteers to help with staffing the gallery during open hours on Fridays 6 – 8 p.m. &  Saturdays 1 – 3 p.m., as well as helping with special projects. Our educational gallery with free admission hosts 3-4 shows per year and was founded to present an historical look at movements for change, struggle and everyday life. If interested please email Carolyn Lansom, Gallery Manager, <carolyn@globaljusticeecology.org> or call 716.931.5833.

Our current show runs through, April 29th Climate Change, System Change, Personal Change features two exhibits:

1. Climate Change—Realities and Resistance, photographs by Critical Information Collective (CIC)
2. Black on the Ground, White in the Air, artwork by Ashley Powell
This multi-faceted art and photographic show is designed to challenge viewers to think about what type of changes are necessary to effectively confront the root causes driving the extreme weather that is occurring globally.

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

By 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

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 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

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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