Tonight I’m venturing over to the Renwick Gallery for the opening of an artistic collaboration that I am very excited about: that of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Daniel Albrigo, entitled Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is… A Love Story. Daniel is a tattoo artist based out of my favorite NYC tattoo shops, NY & Brooklyn Adorned, and Genesis is best known for his music and performance in Throbbing Gristle (who recently toured, with a stop in Brooklyn) and Psychic TV.

As our friend Marisa over at Needles and Sins writes:

Genesis and h/er late wife and other half, Lady Jaye Breyer, began a project in 1993 to transcend “body-based genders- and socially imposed identities,” thereby creating Breyer P-Orridge. Maxwell G. Graham sums it in the exhibition’s release: “…their two identities were merged through plastic surgery, hormone therapy, cross dressing and altered behavior in an effort to deconstruct the fiction of the self, each moving to resemble the other. Breyer P-Orridge, the cross-pollinated name of this endeavor, has continued even after Lady Jaye’s untimely death in 2007.”

In tribute to Lady Jaye, Daniel and Genesis join to tell a love story in painting, sculpture, photo-works, assemblage and jewelry.

The show and title is derived from the set of solid gold teeth that Genesis had installed to replace all of he/r original teeth. There are paintings documenting the casting process, as well as portraits of Genesis by Albrigo, sculptural objects, assemblages, and jewelry.  I’m fascinated by this collaboration, not only due to my interest in art that’s a little outside the mainstream, but also due to the great love that motivated the project.

The opening is tonight from 6-8 PM at the Renwick Gallery in SoHo, located at 45 Renwick Street between Spring & Watts. There will also be a closing reception on February 22nd.

Tattoo Orgy by Sean Toussaint

Metblogs pal and all-around awesome babe Marisa of Needles and Sins brings news of the very naughty-sounding (but suitable for the not-so-naughty) Tattoo Orgy party tonight at Tattoo Culture in Brooklyn. The party is the opening reception for a photography show, Tattoo Orgy, by Sean Toussaint, which features portraits of tattooed folks, always something I like looking at. There will be free booze, music by Lapdance Academy artists, and beautiful photography to look at, not to mention a whole lotta hot tattooed people.

The opening reception will be from 7-10 PM at Tattoo Culture at 129 Roebling Street in Brooklyn, a few blocks from the Bedford Ave stop on the L train. (Did I mention free booze and hot tattooed people? Getcher ass over there.)

Next stop: hell

This Metrocard will lead you straight into Hades.

Probably the greatest piece of original art I’ve seen in a while. I can always relate to art that is humorous. It defies time and space.

I don’t think I need to give an explanation, here is what the artist, Matthew Foglia, had to say about it:

Museum Mile is happening tonight. Do not miss it, whatever it is you do.

• FREE ACCESS 6pm – 9pm
  to all the museums along the mile
• 23 car-free blocks
  5th Avenue between 82nd & 105th

Click here for more details. Actually all the details you need are right above – click there if you want to browse their Website.

I know it’s already Saturday night and you’re probably just rousing yourself from your hipster party coke binge hangover to get ready for round two, but since I had such a lovely day frolicking around the city with hot tattooed girls finding bargains and checking out local events, I thought I’d give you a little roundup of awesome stuff to do when you come out of your Jager blackout tomorrow.

Photo by Atom Moore

– NYC Tattoo Convention: The always awesome, always crowded NYC Tattoo Convention is back again. Be sure to check out the booths of Calypso Tattoo for amazing blackwork, Chris O’Donnell for beautifully detailed Japanese-style work, New York Adorned for my favorite local tattooers, and Pure Body Arts for piercing. It’s open tonight until midnight, so you still have time to head over there and get that tattoo of your girlfriend’s name on your neck in cursive, just like you’ve always wanted. It’s also open tomorrow from 12-8. At Roseland Ballroom, 239 W 52nd Street between Broadway & 8th Ave.

– Decades Two popup: Decades Two is a Los Angeles-based resale shop that is known for having tons of high-end designer stuff at not so high-end pricing. They have a pop-up store above Kiki de Montparnasse just this weekend, and though it was only open to fashion insider types yesterday, it’s open to the public today and tomorrow. We stopped in today and found B. Romanek clutches for a mind-boggling 1/5 retail (and if they’d been carried at all, you couldn’t tell), an entire rack of bargain-priced Chanel (one woman nearly peed herself when she found out the Chanel jacket she tried on was a mere $100), and all the usual designer suspects (Lanvin, Louboutin, Prada, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, some insane McQueen pumps) at really great prices. Rumor has it that the pop-up will be back again soon, but for now the designer treasure trove is limited, so head over. 79 Greene Street at Spring. (You have to go inside Kiki to get to the sale, so pick up some lingerie or high-end bondage gear while you’re at it.)

– International Fluevog Day Sale: John Fluevog is having a sale of 15% off everything in the store in celebration of International Fluevog Day (aka the shoe designer’s birthday, which was yesterday). They also had cupcakes for the customers today from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, my favorite cupcake shop in the city. Don’t know if they’ll have any cupcakes left tomorrow (especially after my husband plowed through their cupcake stash today), but wander in and check out the great shoe selection, and if you’re lucky, meet the shop dog. 250 Mulberry at Prince.

– Extreme Mammals Exhibition: The newest exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History opened today and features live sugar gliders, which I am very excited about. I’m a sucker for a nocturnal flying marsupial, what can I say? They also have kid-friendly interactive exhibits, so you can bring your girlfriend’s 3 kids from a previous relationship. And don’t miss the Butterfly Conservatory, which is only open until May 25. You can frolic amongst live butterflies, which terrifies me utterly but does not faze small children in the slightest. Open 10 am – 5:45 pm tomorrow. 79th Street at Central Park West.

As part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature’s Afternoon with International Graphic Novelists, Neil Gaiman will be giving a talk this weekend at Cooper Union. The talk will focus on the work he has done with graphic novels, including Coraline, which was recently adapted into a movie (an awesome movie, I might add).

As someone who enjoyed Gaiman’s Sandman comics/graphic novels so much that I got a tattoo of one of his characters, I’m bummed that I’ll have to miss this. Everyone I know who has attended his talks has enjoyed them immensely.

The talk is Saturday, May 2, at 1 PM at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E. 7th Street. Tickets are available for $10, or you can get tickets for all three graphic novelist talks for a discounted rate of $25. You can’t buy them online anymore, but tickets are still available by calling 212.868.4444.

Neil Gaiman has given several other talks this week – anyone who attended, please let us know what you thought!

Went to Atlas cafe to talk bikes and 3D printing with Sean Bonner and Maker Bot co-creator Bre. Basically everyone who reads this needs to go and check out Maker Bot. They produce a kit they you can purchase so you can build your own 3-D printer. If that is not the coolest thing in the world, then I don’t know what cool is. Oh, and don’t forget to eat all the vegan yummies at Atlas!

If you’re sick of seeing the same old crap at the multiplex and lament the slow but sure demise of small theaters, you might try going to the IFC Center and checking out some of their special series. I used to go to these a few years ago when I had this glorious thing called “free time”, but with the slowdown in freelance work lately I now find myself with some extra time and wanting to take my mind off things. Perfect timing, as they are currently running a series of Cronenberg Classics. This series started on March 6-7 and each Friday and Saturday they run a special showing of a David Cronenberg film.

As anyone who knows me knows, I have an obsession with David Cronenberg films that borders on the unhealthy, so understandably I am quite excited about this. If you’re hanging out right now and want to go see a weird film that will leave you with a sort of… “huh?” feeling, they’ve got a midnight showing of his 1999 film Existenz tonight. The schedule for the next few weeks is as follows:

Mar 20-21: THE DEAD ZONE (1983)
Mar 27-28: VIDEODROME (1983)
Apr 3-4: NAKED LUNCH (1991)

As Videodrome is in my top 10 favorite films of all time, I will certainly be there for that one! I think it’s a great opportunity to see films in the theater that I’ve only seen on a wee TV screen.

IFC Center is located at 323 Sixth Avenue at West 3rd Street. You can check out the rest of IFC’s current schedule here.

AIGA (American Institute for Graphic Arts) is extending their annual  365 Annual Design Exhibition 29, which I saw yesterday and highly recommend, until this Friday, Feb. 27th. The annual competition presents the winners in their gallery at 164 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The exhibit can also be viewed on AIGA’s virtual gallery and is published in a “substantial” (their word for a big mo-fo coffee table adornment) book.  The selected works also becomes part of the AIGA Design Archives at the Denver Art Museum in Colorado.

AIGA National Design Center, 164 Fifth Avenue at 21st St. Manhattan; Mon. – Thu. 11 AM–6 PM; Fri. 11 AM–5 PM.

MoMA was buzzing yesterday. We went to see the Vik Muniz Artist’s Choice exhibit. Artist’s Choice is a program at the Modern that allows an artist to take on the role of curator and select works from the museum’s collection for an exhibit. Muniz chose the organizing principle of a rebus– ” a puzzle in which unrelated visual and linguistic elements create a larger deductive meaning,” according the MoMA brochure.

Over 80 works by Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, William Wegman, Tony Oursler, Gordon Matta-Clark, Martin Kippenberger, John Baldessari, Nan Goldin, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Eugène Atget, Massimo Vignelli, Dieter Rams, Edward Ruscha, Sigmar Polke and others are included.

Later on, it was off to Williamsburg for dinner at Walter Foods– a deliberately anti-Oscar activity. It was empty when we arrived around 7:30 PM, but diners slowly trickled in, other Academy Awards ignore-ers that seemed to share a bond of cheery indifference for the glitzy trappings of Tinseltown, and when we left almost three hours later the place was about 3/4 full.

For those of like minds when it comes to awards shows, Meghan Daum, one of the very few reasons remaining to read the LA Times, weighs in with her anti-Oscars lifestyle.

Photo: Walter Foods, Williamsburg; by CP