art fag benefit

The Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Art Awards and Auction*

Get your ticket now!

Who used their genitals best this year?
Who spent the most time doing nothing?
Who is the art world’s best Jerry?
Who is 2012′s most ubiquitous person?
(and most importantly)
Who is 2012′s Most Powerful Person in the Art World, by bench press?

This February 23rd, Art Fag City will host The AFCRPAAaA*, because let’s face it: no one can get enough of Rob Pruitt (or the quiet implication that he may be involved somehow, in spirit). Get ready for awards, cocktails, and mayhem.

When:
Thursday February 23rd, 2012
6:30 – 10 PM

Where:
Site/109
109 Norfolk
New York, NY 10002

We haven’t announced all the details yet, but here’s what we can tell you:

• An auction with auctioneer C K Swett, featuring work and contributions by Zachary Aarons, Joshua Abelow, AIDS 3D, Greg Allen, John Baldessari, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Saul Chernick, John Giorno, Debbie Harry (yes, that one), Independent Curators International, Richard Kern, Scott Kilgour, Marilyn Minter, Stephen Petronio, Rob Pruitt, Johnny Reinhold, Felix Salmon, Alec Soth, Penelope Umbrico, and Hennessy Youngman
• Awards decided by an expert jury including Anton Vidokle, William Powhida, and Jen Dalton.
• An Award ceremony hosted by William Powhida
• Andrew Andrew to DJ
• Free bouncy rides by Nate Hill
• A pig fountain, providing a selection of smoked meats and live-gathered fresh fruits wrapped in edible gold and silver, provided by Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw
• Drinks provided by Bomb Beer, Blue Moon, and White Pike Whiskey
• Music
• and special guests!**

Prepare for a night of entirely too much.

The best part of all? All proceeds from the AFCRPAAaA* ticket sales will go directly to keeping New York’s best art blog running. Tickets are $100, $50 for artists. If you’re buying a full-price ticket, and feeling extra-generous, you can also choose to sponsor an artist for just $50 more – which means we’ll be able to give somebody out there (your choice or ours) a free ticket to the event of the year season month. All the ordering information’s below – we hope to see you at the awards!

In-kind donations from Abrams Books, ArtCat/Idiom, Collectrium, Double Triple, Independent Curators International, The L Magazine, Nectar Ads, Roberta’s, Skyframe, Site/109, and Yerba Buena

Benefit Committee Members: Joshua Abelow, Helen Allen, Fred Benenson, Jill Brienza, Catherine Brodsky, Sean Capone, Carolyn Cartwright, Lauren Cerand, Saul Chernick, Collectrium, Andrew Ehrenworth, Michael Gillespie, Rachel Greene, Veken Gueyikian, Dylan Fareed, Dave Harper, Heather Hubbs, Rob Hult, Julia Kaganskiy, Ingrid Bromberg Kennedy, Scott Kilgour, Rhiannon Kubicka, Allegra LaViola, Michelle Levy, Doreen McCarthy, Risa Needleman, Murat Orozobekov, Marsha Owett, Marcin Ramocki, Sara Reisman, Magda Sawon, Andrea Serbonich, Daniel Stedman, Steven Stern, Steven Stewart, Jeffrey Teuton, Benjamin Tischer, John Thomson, Alexis Tryon, Ken Tyburski, Rachel Uffner, Penelope Umbrico, Manish Vora, Sam Wilson

*Still not affiliated with Rob Pruitt
**Possibly including Rob Pruitt

via John Gasner

Long Island City lab on cutting edge of urban farming with aquaponic system

LOFT LIC to set up water-based growing systems on rooftops and lots

Comments

By Clare Trapasso / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 6:00 AM

Christie Farriella for New York Daily News

Rael Clarke works in his aquaponics lab in Long Island City where he grows heirloom vegetables and tilapia using a water-based system.

Christie Farriella for New York Daily News

Rael Clarke works in his aquaponics lab in Long Island City where he grows heirloom vegetables and tilapia using a water-based system.

A former Abercrombie & Fitch model has become a pioneering urban farmer without trading in his preppy clothes for overalls.

Rael Clarke, the 24-year-old owner of LOFT LIC, transformed a Long Island City office into a laboratory where organic vegetables and fish are grown using an eco-friendly aquaponics system.

Clarke plans to turn the system into a business that sets up the water and space-saving designs on rooftops and vacant lots across the city

. He is trying to raise $6,000 by March 1 on the fundraising website kickstarter.com for the project.

“My plan is to spread the knowledge of how to grow your own food,” Clarke said. “I wanted to show you could grow a high-density amount of food in a small carbon footprint.”

The growing system builds on the local food movement that has spawned urban farms and greenhouses all over the city.

Clarke constructed the aquaponic mechanism last month from plastic tubs, tubes and wood from Home Depot after he read a manual on the water-based growing method.

“I hope to one day see systems like this all across New York,” said Clarke, who lives on the upper East Side. “It’s the most sustainable way to produce food in New York.”

It works by piping fish waste generated by tilapia and goldfish swimming in his 27-gallon tank into a plastic tub filled with water, worms, clay pellets and seeds.

The waste becomes food for the plants once they sprout. They are then moved into an 8-foot-tall pipe system that resembles a bookcase propped up against a wall.

The seedlings continue to be fed the same water circulated through the system through holes in the piping before the liquid is piped back into the fish tank.

“The nutrients all come from the fish,” Clarke said. “I don’t feed the plants at all.”

Christopher Toole, who gives lectures in the Bronx on urban farming, said aquaponics makes growing food easy in the city.

“Aquaponics have caught [on\] in the locavore movement, the organic movement [and\] the sustainability movement,” he said. “It’s sustainable, it’s economical and suitable for urban and crowded environments.”

Brooklyn College Biology Professor Martin Schreibman said it’s “the wave of the future.”

“This is going to be the new revolution in food production,” he said. “You can raise a lot of food in a very limited areas without using much water or any soil at all.”

ctrapasso@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/long-island-city-lab-cutting-edge-urban-farming-aquaponic-system-article-1.1021844#ixzz1mMTyjQdV

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Mike Kelly R.I.P.