INFEMNITY™ Arts and Culture News

Tavern on Jane (31 Eighth Avenue) was the location for the opening of the exhibit A Solitude of Squares  by Marcia "GridKid" Gilbert last night. The owner of Tavern on Jane, Michael Stewart, has been featuring local artists four times a year since 2003. Regarding A Solitude of Squares : "Each piece in this new exhibition is a composition and even a keyboard: the improvisation that was never possible when [I] played the piano. At times the squares seem to precariously litter the page, dancing to a new tune," said Gilbert. "Watercolor paint, pencils, and crayons become colorful backgrounds for tumbling, sewn squares. Recycled colored patches of magazine pages come together, overlapped by more sewn squares, this time on clear plastic. Folded square paper components are linked together into multiples of color, textures, and layers." Originally from Lakewood, Ohio, Marcia Gilbert has lived in and around NYC since 1980 after graduating from Washington University...

  Women took over the Great Hall at The Cooper Union March 18th as part of the Women's History Month celebrations in New York City. Women's Rights icon Gloria Steinem engaged in a fascinating conversation with Salamishah Tillet, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and scholar. The event was part of The Gardiner Foundation Great Hall Forum series and a day of Cooper Union programming, including an exhibition on view in the Foundation Building's colonnade windows, dedicated to lifting up and celebrating Great Women Live from the Great Hall. Gloria Steinem Steinem and Tillet were introduced by Laura Sparks, the first female president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Hundreds of women and friends stood in line outside of Cooper Union to enter the Great Hall Saturday afternoon. We were invited to return that evening for stellar performances by Tiler Peck, principal ballet dancer for the New York City Ballet; Grammy nominated songstress Melissa Manchester...

Two years ago I was the only African-American Lammy Finalist in the Lesbian Memoir/Biography category for Practicing for Love . This year there is NOT ONE African-American finalist. WTF!  While there are no African Americans, there are some women of color represented in the category: an Asian-American, a Hispanic/Latina, and a Cambodian immigrant. The two white women represented are a butch dominatrix from West Virginia, and a Jewish woman who falls in love and loses her father to a heart condition around the same time. These were some heavy-hitting publications from major publishing houses. Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Her book Lost & Found is Longlisted for the National Book Award, is a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and is Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. It is also one of People Magazine's Ten Best Books of the Year, and is listed as one of the Best Books of the Year in Time , NPR, Oprah Daily , Th...

  As part of the International Women's Day celebrations at the United Nations, the Permanent Mission of Italy to the U.N. and U.N. Women, among other Member States, presented a screening of a project titled Tell It Like A Woman in the U.N. General Assembly Hall on March 3rd. The film was created by the non-profit organization "We Do It Together" founded by Italian film producer Chiara Tilesi. Before the screening, opening remarks were given by the Permanent Representative of Italy Ambassador Maurizio Massari, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming, the Executive Director of U.N. Women Sima Bahous, Permanent Representative of Argentina Ambassador Maria del Carmen Squeff, and Chiara Tilesi. Tell It Like A Woman is a compilation of short films directed by eight women. The opening piece, directed by Taraji P. Henson, starred Jennifer  Hudson in the role of a mentally ill, drug-addicted prisoner. Eva Longoria also starred in one of the segments as ...