The Lower Hudson Valley’s Premier Arts Festival – Garnerville, New York

Open Artist Studios & Demonstrations – Live Music - Crafts Bazaar Children’s Workshops - Film – Dance - Creekside Sculpture Trail Exhibitions - Delectable Foods – Organic Coffee Bar

 “This event is like no other art exhibition,” says GAGA President Robin Rosenberg. “Our complex of mill buildings houses 15,000 square feet of gallery space, and is the living, breathing, working home where artists create their art for a living. The public gets a chance to see the open studios and live demonstrations of a variety of artisans, while wandering the back alleys, alcoves and creekside sculpture trail of this historic, Civil War-era textile mill. GAGA Arts Festival has become a hot destination, drawing nearly 5000 visitors from the tri-State region including more and more who make the short journey up the Hudson from NYC.

Saturday and Sunday, April 30th and May 1st - 11 AM to 6 PM [rain or shine]
Admission is $7 - children under 14 accompanied by an adult are free.

- Singer\Songwriters Showcase. Talented musicians young and old will perform throughout the weekend, including the students of Westchester County’s renowned Lagond Music School*

- Creekside Under the Stars music event (tbd) with ArtsRock *

- GAGA Creekside - Nature Walk and Sculpture Trail. Including Ted's Giant Head, the largest Stonehead ever made by nationally recognized 'outsider artist' Ted Ludwiczak.

- Live Demonstrations including glass blowing, jewelry making, ceramics, homemade-instrument building and dog agility!  Keep Rockland Beautiful will sponsor a trash can painting demo for an aspiring young artist.
- Children’s Workshops in art and dance sponsored by Arts Alliance of Haverstraw*
- Student Art Show representing student work from 12 schools throughout the region, including the winners of United Way of Rockland County’s Day of Caring t-shirt contest and toddler art displayed by Palisades Association for Young Children

- Dance, dance, and more dance. From butoh to modern: in and around the complex throughout the weekend         
- Outdoor Food and Music Tent featuring great food for sale from Jamaican to Japanese, Vegan to Hot Dogs; with live music performances!

Location and Contact Information:
GAGA is located at the Garnerville Arts & Industrial Center, 55 Railroad Avenue, Garnerville, NY 10923 in the Village of West Haverstraw, Rockland County. For directions and additional information, visit: www.gagaartscenter.org; call 845-947-7108, or email gaga@garnervillearts.com

This year’s exhibitions include: 
Sari Dienes Retrospective

The work of one of the world’s great abstract artists, Sari Dienes, who has been described as “a touch of yeast in the cauldron of the avant-garde movement in America”, will be on display at GAGA Arts Center from April 16 – May 15, 2011.  Dienes’s massive body of work – not seen regionally in 25 years - includes assemblage, ceramics, painting, sculpture and printmaking, and stylistically ranges from figure drawing to Abstract Expressionism. Born in 1898 in Debreczen, Hungary, Dienes studied with Fernand Leger and Henry Moore, and exhibited alongside some of the great American masters such as Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt and Stuart Davis.  Dienes’s ability to stretch the imagination to encompass every bit of the world around her did not gone unnoticed. LIFE Magazine, during its heyday in the 1950s, documented her discoveries in picture and story, turning her into a national celebrity.

In 1980, People Magazine devoted a two-page article to her over a headline that read: "Like Any Other Masterpiece, Sari Dienes Seems to Improve With Age—She's 81 Going on 60."  In 1972, the State of New York commissioned two large silk-screens depicting the state's tree (Sugar Maple), flower (Rose), bird (Bluebird), animal (Beaver) and gemstone (Garnet) to hang in a hearing room of the Legislative Building in Albany. A recipient of a gold medal in art from the Academy of Parma (Italy), in 1976 Sari was presented with the International Women's Year Award for her contributions to the world of art. Dienes’s work has appeared in the most prestigious museums and galleries, including the Whitney and Museum of Modern Art. Her work reflects an indomitable spirit, deeply engaged with the world around her.

Portions of foregoing excerpted from Michael Hitzig and www.saridienes.org.

This project is made possible, in part, with funds from the Community Arts Grants program of the Arts Council of Rockland and the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.

GAGA Arts Festival is sponsored, in part, by Garnerville Arts & Industrial Center and the Town of Haverstraw.

* Lagond Music School, located in Elmsford, NY, has created an innovative, dynamic approach to music education, theory and live performance. Students have taken the skills acquired through Lagond to top conservatories and universities around the country.
ArtsRock is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase access to professional arts and multi-cultural programs for an underserved, diverse audience in and around Rockland County.  ArtsRock has the expertise to produce any type of performing arts event in almost any kind of venue, and a desire to utilize the many wonderful performances spaces operating in Rockland.
Arts Alliance of Haverstraw Multicultural Center for the Arts offers fine and performing arts classes and exhibitions for all ages.

open STUDIOS art EXHIBITIONS
DYE WORKS BAZAAR coffeehouse
affordable ARTS & CRAFTS show
singer\songwriter MUSIC fest JAZZ
indonesian MONKEY CHANT
african DANCE butoh dance
children's WORKSHOPS

Saturday May 1st -Sunday May 2nd, 2010

2010 ARTS FESTIVAL IMAGES - click here

Dye Works Bazaar - 2010 Indoor Art Fair \ Coffeehouse featuring the beautiful [and affordable] artworks of over 25 talented outsider artists, craft artists, and artisans. Plus music and seating in the GAGA Coffee Bar, all under one roof in our unique 8000 square foot Dye Works Gallery.

GAGA MAIN GALLERY

Complification
Christopher Baker - daniel Baltzer - R. Justin Stewart

Additional attractions for 2010:

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC - Legond School of Music

Chiku Awali Dancers

Eseohe Arhebamen/Edoheart -experimental dance performance with sound and video projections

- Indonesian “Monkey Chant” - with Tjokorda Gde Arsa Artha

-Vangeline Theater Butoh Dance

- Jonathon Shorr -International Group Exhibition: Painting, Photography, & Sculpture “Social Circuitry”

- Rettocamme Dance Troupe - Emma Cotter, Choreographer

- Video Space - M. Henry Jones - Curator
- Student Art Show

- Youth Workshops - painting and crafts.

- GAGA Creekside - Nature Walk and Sculpture Trail. New trails, new sculptures along the Miniceongo Creek. Including Ted's Giant Head, the largest Stonehead ever made by nationally recognized 'outsider artist' Ted Ludwiczak.

OPEN STUDIOS !!!

ERIC LAXMAN's metalworking studio....................................CHRIS RANDOLPH's painting studio.

JAMES TYLER's sculpture studio......................WOODY's guitar making studio.

...and the

GARNERVILLE ARTS & INDUSTRIAL CENTER

Come early! Give yourself plenty of time to wander the grounds and bask in the charm of a unique Civil War era textile mill...the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center.

For directions and Site Map: Click here

Platinum sponsor – Garnerville Arts & Industrial Center

Gold sponsor – Town of Haverstraw http://www.townofhaverstraw.us

Silver Sponsor

GAGA Arts Festival also thanks:

Village of West Haverstraw - Mayor John Ramundo

Town of Haverstraw - Supervisor Howard Phillips

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GAGA Arts Festival 2009

Saturday May 2nd -Sunday May 3rd

...a unique project, one that goes beyond the ordinary
photographic show. Some of the work on display rivals (I would say surpasses) the "American" large-format photos I saw recently at the Whitney Museum in NYC...

Really beautiful show! Art Gunther

On May 9, 2008, Ken Karlewicz and 30 other photographers spent one day capturing digital images along Route 59 in Rockland County, New York. The result is a remarkable photographic distillation of a single day in the life of a diverse fifteen mile stretch of America. Exhibition will include over seventy large scale photographs documenting the encounter.

For more 59x59 info: Click Here

Platinum Sponsor

Dye Works Bazaar
Indoor Art Fair \ Coffeehouse featuring the beautiful [and affordable] artworks of over 25 talented outsider artists, craft artists, and artisans. Plus music and seating in the GAGA Coffee Bar, all under one roof in our unique 8000 square foot Dye Works Gallery. Many of the artists will themselves be present at the fair.

- Vagabond Puppets - Life-size puppetry performance.

- Student Art Show

- Youth Workshops - Musical instrument building, painting and crafts.
- Frankencorn's Execution - Installation by Mike Conner

GAGA Arts Festival 2008

This year’s exhibitions include: OUTSIDE IN -2008

This is the second year that GAGA will be featuring outsider art. Over fifteen thousand square of gallery space will be made available. "It’s just a natural fit for GAGA. People loved last year's Outside In show, so we are making it even bigger and better for 2008.”says Executive Director James Tyler.

The paintings and sculpture of fifty self-taught ‘outsiders’ and American folk artists will be on display at the GAGA Arts Center as a part of this year’s GAGA Arts Festival. Exhibition will include new works by:

Matt Sesow - Bob Justin - Ed Kirkland - Ross Brodar

Brendon Burke - Alison Silva - Carl Mullen - Rick Johnson

David Eddy - Larry Zingale - Eric Von Ploennies

Ted Ludwiczak - Patricia Stewart - Candyce Brokaw

This year GAGA is being joined by HAI of New York City.

The HAI exhibit will include works by renowned outsiders:

Everette Ball - David Blaisdell - Jim Bloom - Oscar Brown

Julius Caesar Bustamante - Donna Caesar - Carl Greenberg

William Gonzalez - Harper Deering Hair - Adam Elias Hines

David Kime - Gene Legay - Blake Lenoir - Renee Leshner

Kenny McKay - Frances “Lady Shalimar” Montague

Adeyinka Perry - Irene Phillips - Jose Rivera - Joe Simms

Laura Anne Walker - Melvin Way - George Zuniga

The OUTSIDE IN - 2008 exhibition will continue thru July 13^th.

Gallery Hours are Friday 3-7, Saturday 1-6, and Sunday 1-4

For more Information about OUTSIDE IN: CLICK HERE

Additional attractions for 2008:

- Welder's Jam- Lee Tribe, Jenny Lee, Bob Wilson, and friends will present a creative performance of welded steel and music.

- GAGA Creekside - Grand opening of GAGA's new sculpture park with Stoneheads by Ted Ludwiczak.

- Film - Outside In, a new film by Cherie Raglin. Not Like In The Movies, directed by Kevin Frech

- Dance - Random Dances Two by Marta Renzi. Frances Becker at the Brickhead

- Music - Jonathon Trotta and friends, Lisa Karrer and David Simons, and many more.

- Student Art Show.

- Farmageden - Artist Mike Conner's quirky installation about agri-business.

- Eric Laxman Studio Gallery - new group show.

- Face Painting - Andy Golub.

- Instrument Building Workshop- Lisa Karrer, David Simons.

GAGA ARTS FESTIVAL 2007

Rivertown Magazine - 14 page photo essay by Jeffrey Fleisig - click here

OUTSIDE IN Outsider Art Show

Curated by James Tyler and Dean Lozow

The paintings and sculpture of twenty five self-taught ‘outsiders’ and American folk artists will be on display at the GAGA Arts Center as a part of this year’s GAGA Arts Festival.

Mike Conner

Matt Sesow.........................................Carmen C. Johnson

SUMMER LOVE

Curated by Andréa Stanislav and Macy Topp

Contemporary artwork that questions and explores the folly, work and heat of Summer, through - printmaking, photography, sculpture, sound.

Artists:David Baskin, Kathy Budd, David Helm,Tom Kotik, Pam Marchin, Vallessa Monk, Clive Murphy, Andrea Polli, Wayne Potratz, Jenny Schmid, and Andréa Stanislav

David Helm

Andea Polli

NEW INSTALLATIONS BY

Kris Burns [building 3 alley]

Michael Zansky [building 5]

OPEN STUDIOS

MIKE CONNER's painting studio.