Cool Nabe Stuff This Friday, 6/1

First Friday @ RePop: FIRST FRIDAY JUNE 1ST: Hook-Ups & Meanderings by Ellie Balk

Join us this Friday, June 1st at RePOP 95% Recycled for Hook-ups & Meanderings featuring fine art by Ellie Balk.

The series of work on exhibition is an expression of both tension and beauty, and the balance of the space that lives between the extremes. Urban, raw nature, tone, color, line, expression, documentation, fantasy....these things find harmony on found objects and canvases.

Complimentary wine reception is from 7:30pm - 11pm so come on down the the Navy Yard, mingle with the art and get your vintage groove on!

Instead of our usual 10% promotion, this First Friday we will be donating 10% of all proceeds to a very dear 8 year old Huskie named Otto. Recently, Otto moved to Pennsylvania with his mommie, Amy, and a few days ago collapsed while on a walk in the park. Otto is suffering from paralysis in all four of his legs and in need of surgery to remedy the situation. This surprising attack on Otto's otherwise healthy nervous system has been quite frightening for both Otto and Amy. Please send them your utmost positive thoughts and help us to help them have a successful breakthrough surgery.

Pink Elephant Projects

Pink Elephant Projects (PEP) is excited to present Women et Homme, a new photographic body of work by Evan Schwartz. This is Mr. Schwartz's first show of new work in two years and the follow-up to his critically acclaimed body of work, Reclaiming Puberty.

In his new work, Women et Homme, Schwartz turns his camera outward in his search for truth in identity. The idea of self is layered in personal and societal constructions of gender. The women in Schwartz's photographs have found expressions of their individual selves within these outward constructions of gender to define their personal experiences.

Schwartz writes, "from dinners within the confines of this small Midtown garden apartment to events in restaurants and excursions to their favorite tavern, the seemingly average lifestyle of these women is what most interests me. What the general public fails to recognize is that a cross-dresser does not necessarily dress for entertainment or shock value: they dress to live as another gender for a series of moments. These women's stories are littered with wives and partners, children and professions. Some come from supportive backgrounds and some remain secretive. One can only honestly document what they understand; this series is the continuation of my responsibility as an artist: the pursuit of truth."

The photographs capture the women in all their vibrancy. The intimacy of a shared laugh in the company of friends, the gesture of applying lipstick or fixing an earring - all distinctively personal, feminine gestures captured by Schwartz in an engaging immediacy is Women et Homme.

Evan Schwartz was born in Lake Forest, IL in 1982. After a brief stay in Israel, Mr. Schwartz attended Pratt Institute where he received a BFA in photography. While still a student, Schwartz was given his first solo show, Reclaiming Puberty, at Schroeder Romero in Williamsburg in 2005. It was for this work that he received a review in the New York Times by Holland Cotter who, "look[ed] forward to more intense and startling work in the future," from Mr. Schwartz. "Reclaiming Puberty" traveled to Italy earlier this year to be included in "Other Families" curated by Peter Weiermair. Works by Mr. Schwartz can also be seen in L.A. Ruocco's Xero and in the permanent collection of Yeshiva University. Evan currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Crossdressers International (CDI) is a nonprofit, non-sexual group based in New York City whose focus is primarily on closeted male-to-female cross-dressers, offering a safe, informative, and welcoming means for CDs to overcome their fears of being discovered and to happily and constructively express their transgendered selves. Our experience suggests that a CD's female side is born inside each individual, and therefore cannot be denied. For those who want to escape the closet, CDI can help.