Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > June > 01
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Weekend: Lipstick Pages Party at Beauty Bar
And they say performance art is dead. Instead, it’s moved back to the clubs where it was spawned, leaving behind warehouse theaters and inhabiting instead online and up-close-and-live spaces at the same time. The Lipstick Pages party at the effortlessly ironic Beauty Bar on Friday linked outrageous fashions with novelty video and outer-space-ready performances. The online magazine has been touting “creative feminism” — love the term — since 2003. Webzines continue to redefine journalism, and this one lives mostly on MySpace and Facebook. We adored everyone we met at this shakin’ shindig.
Heather Coffey, Carmen Knight
Lisa Killbuck, Anson L.
Melanie Moore, Jennifer Harrison
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Weekend: ALO’s ‘The Bat’ at the Long Center
How would Austin audiences respond to the marriage of opera and Esther’s Follies? We’ll wait to see what the critics think — Statesman correspondent David Mead was in attendance on opening night, as was the Chronicle’s Robert Faires — of “The Bat,” but I caught the fashion parade outside the Long Center on Friday. (Although I was sorely tempted to cover the impromptu bike gathering atop the Doug Sahm Hill nearby instead.)
Meredith Dunning, Cary Cocke
Some arrived in cool evening wear, couture but not overdressed. It was late May after all. (Opera first-nighters are often drawn to winter looks, even in Austin and the indoor-outdoor conditions of the Long Center.)
Tamsen Cohagan, Fred Cohagan
Joe Grubb, Julia Langenberg
One man ascended the exterior staircase — not grand, but formal, processional, place to view people who know they are being viewed — in ultra-cool seersucker and flipflops. Now, flipflops work on .001 percent of the population, then only within a 100-yard perimeter around swimming opportunities, but this guy worked the whole look. (Alas, even in flip-flops, he slipped past my camera.)
Many others looked sharp, crisp in summery suits. And once again, the Long Center patio was the place to gather and sigh at the skyline on a dry, warm evening. I’ll catch the opera on a less frenzied social night.
Awww … austin360.com editor Gary Dinges on his way to the opera. It must be a hot event if the inventor of the A-List is there.
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Weekend: Steve Brudniak Reception at Butridge Gallery
Followers of innovative sculpture resemble certain subsets of indie rockers. It’s a scruffy, but intellectual breed — well-muscled and sun-burned, many of them, from shaping mountains of stuff outdoors or in sweaty workshops. They appear to belong on punkish Red River Street as much as shady, laid-back Barton Springs Road.
Rose Saenz, Steve Brudniak, Belinda Casey, Jimmy Jalapeeno
So an opening for long-absent Steve Brudniak, who twists industrial and mechanical materials into whimsical, provocative forms, is bound to attract the cut-offs crowd as well as heavy hitters from the Old Guard of Austin arts, such as Jimmy Jalapeeno and Bob “Daddy-O” Wade.
Allison Kramer, Nellie Moore, Danielle Tierney, Ed Salanga
Friday’s reception, the first of eight social events we attended that evening, took place at the Julia Butridge Gallery in the Dougherty Arts Center, a community gathering as it were, since his highly refined, vaguely elephantine pieces can go for many thousands of dollars, thus out of reach for the red-wine-in-paper-cups tribe. The good thing is that the rented gallery is supremely accessible, so while the exhibit runs, drop by to see these wonders without the attendant crowd. And maybe there are some serious collectors among Brudniak’s staunchly loyal following.
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