Almost fifty years since Chile’s 1960 Valdivia earthquake, history’s largest ever recorded at 9.5, a shattering 8.8 shakedown left Concepcion and the surrounding regions in ruin this past weekend. Yet another coastal calamity that shook Chile at it’s core in Santiago, the devastating blow is significant to Latin America as a whole and will have deep effects in the years to come. Concepcion, the second largest city south of Santiago, was considered by many to be the hub of the country’s progress, known mainly for its industry and education. Although the Chilean people have suffered 711 deaths thus far, according to the Associated Press, they were spared the unimaginable magnitude of death and destruction that has affected Haiti since its earthquake over a month ago. This is due to the country’s past experiences with earthquakes, its preparedness for future ones, stronger building codes and higher construction standards. Of course this has much to do with the vast differences between wealth and poverty in the two countries. Even so, there is tremendous humanitarian need in Chile with over two million people displaced from their homes across a much broader geographical area, and this should not be overlooked by the international community. Nearly 100 aftershocks have hampered the relief effort at this point, but rescue workers are doing everything they can. President Michelle Bachelete has assigned military troops to the rescue, and a curfew is being enforced in an effort to keep looting at bay.   

Tuesday night, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I watched a 77-year-old woman perform a three-hour rock concert at full tilt. She danced, shook, shimmied, sang, screeched, howled, and cajoled and charmed the crowd, all while beaming with lightness and pixie playfulness — she even dropped some major doses of universal love and unity on us throughout the evening. Who was this enlightened septuagenarian banshee? Yoko Ono, of course.
     The occasion was a multi-pronged celebration: Yoko’s upcoming birthday; 2009’s release of Between My Head And The Sky (which marks a new beginning for her and John Lennon’s seminal Plastic Ono Band); a reunion with some of the original band’s members after nearly forty years (Eric Clapton and Klaus Voorman!); her collaboration with son Sean; and life itself. Joining the celebration were the band’s new members — fairly evenly divided between cutting-edge Japanese noise pop musicians (Yuka Honda, Cornelius, Haruomi Hosono, and others) and downtown New York experimentalists (Erik Friedlander, Shahzad Ismaily, Michael Leonhart, to name a few) — along with a list of heavyweight special guests: Paul Simon, Harper Simon, Bette Midler, Justin Bond, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Mark Ronson, and Scissor Sisters. Needless to say, it was a memorable, possibly historic show.

Marisa Olson is one of PLANET’s longtime art writers, having written major features on Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliason, Terence Koh, and many others. She’s also a pretty amazing artist herself. She’s got a performance piece running this weekend at P.S. 122 in Manhattan.

Economically, 2009 could be viewed a debacle. Fortunately gallery owner and photography enthusiast James Danziger does not measure achievement in terms of the Dow. Validating 2009 with The Year in Pictures, now on view at Danziger Projects through February 27, Danziger displays sublime photography from his personal blog. The exhibition, aimed to provide exposure to contemporary artists, allocates three walls to “photographers who would otherwise not be known to New York gallery going audiences” and one for legends in the medium. Resulting from a selection process boiling down to two criteria — quality and originality — the show is a highly satisfying group of images spanning decades, nationalities, and aesthetics.
     Featuring work by fifteen photographers — Jowhara AlSaud, Chan Hyo Bae, Thomas Bangsted, Mandy Corrado, Stephen Gill, Joseph Holmes, Alejandra Laviada, Greg Miller, David Schoerner, Patrick Smith, Tommy Ton, Scout Tufankjian, Oliver Warden, Katherine Wolkoff and Tsukasa Yokozawa — representing nine countries — Saudi Arabia, Korea, Denmark, Britain, Mexico, Japan, France, Canada, and the US — The Year in Pictures is a compendium of rich artistic perspectives. United solely by the element of color — a mode of photography almost taken for granted now — works were chosen at Danziger’s discretion to encompass a myriad of subjects and techniques.

Paper is traditionally the gift for a first anniversary and, if all is well with the young union, a quiet night out at a fine restaurant, white wine, and an evening between the sheets are in order. For the first anniversary of the Museum of Art and Design, however, paper may be the theme, but the festivities will be anything but quiet. Already a growing destination for lovers of chic, finely crafted objects, the new location of the Museum of Arts and Design — it’s housed in the revamped 2 Columbus Circle, once deemed the “ugliest building in New York” — will play host to the MAD Paperball, a charity event benefiting the institution and marking the opening of the new exhibit, Slash: Paper Under The Knife. In keeping with the general two-dimensional motif, the exhibit features works crafted of paper using laser etching, burning, and myriad other techniques by artists such as Kara Walker, Olafur Eliasson, and Pietro Ruffo. That’s all well and good, but back to the party — hosts Coco Rocha, actor Bryan Batt, Harley Viera-Newton, Cassie Coane, Leo Fitzpatrick, and the ever-present Paul Sevigny will set the mood as attendees bid on paper-based works by Frank Tell, Jeffery Monteiro, Greg Lauren, Issey Miyake, and many more. Naturally Jean-George will provide the nibbles and all are invited to partake. Bring your wallet from 6pm to midnight and get ready to tear the roof off the place (just try not to rip the artwork while you’re at it).

The MAD Paperball is tonight at The Museum of Arts and Design. For tickets click here

Decades ago, long before an architect could tweet his latest design to bloggers and PR people, world’s fairs were a big deal. The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago for six months in 1893, attracted 27 million people, about half the U.S. population at the time. Any kid living in or around New York City in 1939 or 1964 no doubt begged his parents for a ticket to the two world’s fairs in Queens. But ask someone today how psyched they are for Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and you’re bound to get a blank stare. While world’s fairs have long since lost their cachet, countries are still sponsoring praiseworthy pavilions. Here are the ones we think will make the biggest splash in Shanghai.

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Dark Night of the Soul – the first collaboration and installation between Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, and David Lynch – explores the idea of collective introspection. Now showing at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles, the exhibit consists of a two-room installation streaming the album written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, accompanied by photos taken by Lynch. Inspired by the album, Lynch’s photo sets read like mini-storyboards, and resemble a series of film stills. The album features guest vocalists The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of The Super Furry Animals, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of The Pixies, Iggy Pop, James Mercer of The Shins, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, and Vic Chesnutt. The interplay between music and visuals in Dark Night of the Soul heighten and confuse the sensory experience, creating a myriad of emotions and responses.
     Hauntingly beautiful and grotesque, poignant and sometimes comical images accompany lyrics about revenge, war, pain, loss and hallucinatory states. From the opening track, The Flaming Lips’ “Revenge”, to David Lynch’s “Dark Night of the Soul”, we are taken on a disturbing and cerebral journey, one that moves increasingly from the tangible to the surreal. Each track is accompanied by a set of three or four images, which individually and collectively tell a story.

Beauty, as it’s been told over the centuries and engraved into our skulls, is in the eye of the beholder. Yet true as this may be, some beholders have a better eye for it. Often, the beauty in question isn’t breathless landscapes or beguiling abstracts but the universal muse and eternal mother of art: the endlessly interesting female form. This is where the art of Alex Asher Daniel begins. But as we’ve also learned, beauty is only skin deep, and Daniel is especially attuned to this, connecting layers in his work that hint at something vastly more complex and powerful hidden beneath the surface, yet without negating the essential beauty of his subject. “I’m interested in the meeting point between the inner and outer world,” he says. “The female body is such an interesting vehicle to me; it’s the most divine representation we have of that intersection.”
      Working with oilstick and charcoal on paper, the works are a combination of line drawing and rich pigments applied in paint-like clusters and rougher lines that partially abstract the figurative qualities of the work. Even though there are clear figures here, the work is gestural and expressionistic. Most strikingly, there are obvious fetal gestures central to all 19 of the drawings on display, which at first seems a strange and slightly discomforting motif to invoke through grown women.