If you have never been to Michael Alan’s Draw-a-thon, then you haven’t sketched nude, neon-painted and prop-smothered models stalking around warehouses or stuffed into his Brooklyn studio sink and acting possessed. And you really should, because it’s fun. Meanwhile… Read more »
The Times took a look at a recent Draw-A-Thon Theater, publishing a gallery of portraits and talking with artist Michael Alan, the driving force behind the performance, as “his cohort of artists and actors wriggled and writhed with clockwork precision” while the “paintbrush-wielding audience struggled to capture their moves.” The next performance art drawing session takes place May 9th at the Gershwin Hotel.
Photo by Elizabeth Lippman/NYT
Drunken butlers, naked maids and dead whores would ordinarily be cause for alarm. But at the Gershwin Hotel on Saturday, they’re just cause to break out pens and pencils and start drawing. The latest edition of Draw-a-Thon Theater is set to take over of the hotel this weekend with its unique blend of live performance art and figure modeling. Started in 2005, the event regularly brings in large crowds to draw, observe and participate in the spectacle for hours on end. Models dressed as badly behaved butlers, maids, and hookers, befitting the new hotel setting, will also be joined by “a robot, Siamese twins, babies, creatures, puppets” and scenes from The Shining. All of this will be set to live music orchestrated by Tim “Love” Lee with other musicians from 7 PM to 12 AM.
When we dropped in on his studio this weekend, artist Michael Alan, the mastermind behind Draw-a-Thon, was busy readying for the performance this weekend. More photos of the elaborate, sometimes crazy, masks and costumes are included after the jump.
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