18+ to enter
21+ to drink

Tickets now available at:

Room
Farmers & Artisans,
Rust Belt Books,
Talking Leaves…Books,

the Hallwalls office at 341 Delaware Ave.,

and online at hallwalls.org

Read the Artvoice cover story!

Read the Buffalo News' Gusto preview!

In its 40th year, Hallwalls announces the 25th edition of Artists & Models, a recurring art party and event established in the early 1980s by former Hallwalls' Performance Art Curator Tony Billoni and, after several successful versions, bequeathed to Hallwalls in the early 1990s as a fundraising brand.

Sites for the event throughout the years have varied considerably, in an effort to keep the atmosphere fresh and surprising for both audience and participants. These sites have included the lobby of Shea's, the Arena Roller Rink, a former Packard dealership, the Tri-Main Center, the Courtyard Mall, the Broadway Market, the Central Terminal, Rock Harbor Yard, and the Pierce Arrow Building. All sites have been located in the City of Buffalo and this year's event is no exception—located in the heart of the downtown, True Defective will take place at The Garage, a vacant former-garage space at 151 East Eagle Street, between Michigan and Elm.

This year's edition of A&M is titled True Defective, a name/theme that strikes at the core of Hallwalls, the event itself, its participants, and perhaps even its audience. As a contemporary art center since 1974, Hallwalls has always been about the experimental, the avant-garde, the creativity that flourishes and blooms along the fringe of mainstream culture, where ideas percolate in unexpected ways and arise to delight, inform, entertain, and even disturb. Ideas on the fringe have often been expressed by individuals who might otherwise be considered different, odd, eccentric, or allegedly defective. If that is true, let us say that Hallwalls embraces the so-called defective, exalts the defective, giving the defective a home in which to express itself. Because what one might call defective, another might call sublime or illuminating. If one doubts the value of the perceived defective, recall that it is The Fool who speaks the wisest lines in Shakespeare's King Lear.

That being said, we promise no wisdom. Just the possibility—not just of wisdom, but of frivolity, titillation, excitement, dark desires, and unsung dreams. To this end, we have engaged a number of Buffalo's most dynamic visual artists for a series of artworks, installations, projections, and performances. The true defectives who have agreed to illuminate your early summer world this year include:

Liz Bayan who will be producing a series of masks of herself so that the A&M audience can pose with them and the artist can properly take selfies…with herself.

Seth Tyler Black who present a performance piece exploring the seven deadly sins, which he promises will change and decay until it is "rendered chaos/hell at the end of the night."

Michael Bosworth who is building an oversized pinball machine full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, a spectacle alternating between play and tilt.

BUFFALO LAB who have promised a transtemporal booth, training workstations, and other technologies all culled together in an effort to travel back in time. To kill Hitler.

Nelson Bradley who is organizing the First Annual A&M Indoor Kite Festival.

David Butler who is the mac daddy of Artists & Models, having performed in more events than any other Buffalo artist (ever), will offer up his truck in a one-car Auto Show, including warranty information, loan applications, and a b-roll of the defectively sexy vehicle in action.

Kyle Butler, Ruby Merritt, Necole Zayatz who will offer the audience health and wellness time in their Clinic For Well Being, a social performance and functioning pseudo-clinic with reception desk and pharmacy.

Scott Bye who will present new and recently-produced sculptural works.

Jody Hanson who will present a blackboard-based sculpture as a tribute to the geeks, visionaries, and savants of the world.

Keith Harrington who will offer audience members a rapid fire photo booth with selective backdrops and loading messages, which will project their portraits in a continuous live feed elsewhere in the event.

Liz Lessner & Adam McFillin who will explore the gestural nature of speech in an audio piece located in the stairwell recording live sounds from two sources and remixing the recording in pitch and modulation for a live feedback.

Jeff Mace who will present an oversized turntable sculpture in a sentimental nod to songs he recalls from his grammar school years, which will be mixed and played from the sculpture.

JIMYN THE SINGING MIME who will roam the space in order to solicit guests to perform and sing with him in various short skits.

Kyle Marler & Jax Deluca who, as the conglomerate FLATSITTER, will use an Oculus Rift helmet to invite the audience to experience a virtual landscape of unsettling sights and sounds.

Marty McGee who will present a Defect-Effect Test Zone, which will ask the audience to follow instructions and replicate various movements and vocalized sounds.

Brian Milbrand & Holly Johnson who will present the Glamorandom Beauty Salon, where visitors can explore a full body makeover and leave with a complementary photograph of your salon experience.

Lorna Mills who will be offering up a curated projection of gif loops entitled Clusterfuck Zoo and featuring the work of 51 international artists.

Nancy J. Parisi who will revive her perennial A&M photo booth, situated appropriately close to the outdoor beer tent.

Liz Rywelski who will dress in homage to Shaye Saint John and play ping pong with you.

Tara Sasiadek who will organize a cluster of dancers into a moving spine sculpture.

Chuck Tingley who will be painting live for the duration.

Rich Tomasello & Marcus Wise who will present a action figure box/photo booth in which audience members can have their portrait taken in a customized setting under various titles: Artist, Curator, Hero, Jerk, Villain, Asshole…

Kurt Von Voetsch who will be doing a performative dance with the dead, with tombstone rubbings, with himself, with the fates.

Sara Zak who will be painting live for the duration.

As should be apparent from those shotgun descriptions, almost all installations and performances include elements through which the audience can be engaged directly with the artwork. Our participating artists are sharing their defective selves with your defective self and they know that sometimes that a meeting of defective hearts and minds requires direct action.

True to Artists & Models original Billoni-blueprint, the majority of the musical entertainment this year will be provided by a series of DJ sets, featuring:

ABCDJ

JOSH YOURMOMS

BRANDON CHASE/IGLOO MUSIC

DJ CUTLER

DJ LO PRO

And, as has been the case for several years, spontaneous live musical augmentation will be provided by Buffalo's 12\/8 Path Band.

Perhaps we've said this before, but from the depths of our True Defective heart, it all remains true—Artists & Models indicates a location, a state of being, a condition, an apparition, a temporary psychosis, an inevitability, and a breeding ground for frivolity.

Hallwalls wishes to thank our Artists & Models Affair 25 presenting sponsors

and



Additional generous support for Artists & Models Affair 25 from...
Signature Development
Crescent Manufacturing
Hertel Hardware & Plumbing
Lehigh Construction Group, Inc.
Frazer Montague Design
Buffalo Spree
Block Club Magazine
Off Beat Cinema
Eleven Twenty Projects
Abaca Press
Ristorante Lombardo
Kuni's
Sweets on the Hill
and
City Wine Merchant