Tonight at NOMA, Skylar Fein will give an Artist Perspective in conjunction with the exhibition Visions of US: American Art at NOMA. Join us for great art, live music, free art activities, a cash bar, and more!

• 5-8 pm: Art on the Spot
• 5:30-8:30 pm: Music by Phil the Tremolo King
• 6:30 pm: Artist Perspective with Skylar Fein: “Larry Rivers’ Eulogy for Frank O’Hara”

About “Larry Rivers’ Eulogy for Frank O’Hara”

Skylar Fein on Visions of US: American Art at NOMA

Forget that he once won a lot of money on The $64,000 Question. Forget that he painted Napoleon as “The Greatest Homosexual,” forget the scandalous “Frank O’Hara Nude With Boots” — even forget (if you can) that the model (O’Hara) was his lover and a world-renowned poet and a curator at MoMA at the time. Forget all of that. The topic on January 22 is the eulogy. Rivers’ eulogy for Frank O’Hara was one of the most infamous and explosive art world events of late-Sixties New York, but you’ve never heard it. During this lecture, Skylar Fein will read the eulogy, courtesy of NYU Library special collections, and relate it to the Rivers painting on view in Visions of US: American Art at NOMA, situating this history within his own work, and the larger history of Pop Art in the United States.

About Skylar Fein

Skylar Fein was born in Greenwich Village and raised in the Bronx. He has had many careers including teaching nonviolent resistance under the umbrella of the Quakers, working for a gay film festival in Seattle, stringing for The New York Times and as pre-med student at University of New Orleans where he moved one week before Hurricane Katrina hit.

In the fall of 2008, his Prospect.1: Biennial installation, Remember the Upstairs Lounge, shined a spotlight on an overlooked piece of New Orleans history: a fire that swept through a French Quarter bar in 1973, killing everyone inside. The worst fire in New Orleans history has never been solved. His installation walked visitors right through the swinging bar doors, and offered visual riffs on politics and sexuality circa 1973. The piece was praised in Artforum, Art In America, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, among others. In late 2009, Fein had his first solo museum show, “Youth Manifesto,” at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The exhibition was an ode to punk rock as a force for social and cultural upheaval. True to form, the opening reception was shut down by police responding to the look of the unlikely art-going crowd.

Skylar Fein was the recipient of a 2009 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award and his work is in several prominent collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, The Louisiana State Museum, The Birmingham Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art.

About Phil the Tremolo King

Phil ‘the Tremolo King’ Vanderyken is one of those characters you will only find in the Big Easy. Born and raised in Belgium, Phil immigrated to the US as a young hobo, with a guitar and a few bucks in his pocket, determined to follow his muse. Phil and his backup band ‘The Uptown Downtown Orchestra” currently have a residency at the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street and have played local venues like AllWays Lounge, Tipitina’s, Dragon’s Den, Banks Street Bar, the Palmer Park Arts Market, Tip’s on the Tarmac ( Louis Armstrong Airport) and more.

Phil’s music is a gumbo of trad jazz, gypsy swing, country, blues and whatever else strikes his fancy. His original songs combine New Orleans roots music with a gypsy sense of melody. Living in the Big Easy with its many colorful characters provides a never ending source of inspiration. The “Uptown Downtown Orchestra” is Josh Wexler on piano and accordion, and Peter Orr on mandolin. Josh has studied jazz at NYU and performed and recorded with many local artists like the Dapper Dandies, Sarah Quintana and the Essentials. Peter Orr was an original member of legendary street jazz band the Loose Marbles which included Aurora Nealand and Meshiya Lake. He has released four CD’s as ‘Sneaky Pete” and is an accomplished writer and painter.Alex Levy, on sousaphone, has deep roots in New Orleans’ brass band community. He is currently playing with, among others, the Secondhand Street Brass Band, the Brownsville Brass Band, and Katrina Boudreaux.