Multi-media artist Frankie Lane was among the artist featured at this year’s ChaShaMa benefit. The Chashama Gala is a free-flowing, immersive event showcasing 200+ installations and performers. The event attracts hundreds of the city’s most forward-thinking landowners, corporate executives, arts professionals, and innovative creators.
ChaShaMa was founded in 1995 by Anita Durst to celebrate the legacy of theatre visionary Reza Abdoh. ChaShaMa’s initial focus was on producing and presenting new theatrical works. Recognizing that a lack of affordable space was the biggest threat to sustaining a diverse cultural environment in New York City, Durst began to work toward securing studio and presentation space in Midtown Manhattan for struggling artists by partnering with property owners. These owners were recruited to provide unused space to ChaShaMa. In the first decade, Durst and ChaShaMa secured seven locations on 42nd Street between 6th and Broadway, presenting over 700 shows.
Recent milestones for ChaShaMa include transforming space into small businesses, artist presentation spaces, creative workstation spaces, and classrooms for free art instruction. ChaShaMa has awarded over $13 million of what would be rent or lease income to real estate owners to creatives throughout New York. There are currently over 75 storefronts dedicated to minority and women small business owners.
Frankie Lane is an artist who works in various media, including photography, collage, painting, video, and music. Frankie Lane’s “You’ve Got Mail” art installation premiered at the ChaShaMa Gala 2021. New works and Lane’s individual photos and collaged canvases were featured throughout Times Square at this gala. Versions of Lane’s “You’ve Got Mail” are booked for future gallery-based installations.
Frankie Lane describes his process as follows. “A photographic image can capture a moment in time and preserve it. Collaging, tying, and bonding relics and artifacts to the printed image gives another layer of history. In my mailbox photography, I freeze time and connect my canvases to another parallel moment with canceled stamps, old letters, and envelopes. Blending images and tactile objects that have traveled miles from person to person to tell a story and carry a message to create a new meaning. In our day-to-day life, Pen-to-paper communication has almost completely been replaced by electronic mail, but we still see remnants of ancient message transmission. Reading and writing were, for many years, a privilege for the wealthy. Messenger pigeons, pony express, and handwritten letters have disappeared. Mailboxes that display personality, favorite colors, or professions have been pushed aside by Amazon, UPS, and FedEx deliveries. Preserving images of modes of mail delivery as art that provokes thoughts or promotes communication with others is a special interest of mine, “ Frankie Lane.
Sourced Photo
Other artists included in the ChaShaMa Gala 2023 were Christy A. O’Connor, Elisa Toro, Edisa Weeks, Lesley Ware, Andy Golub, Remy Knopf, Fritz Donnelly, Carolyn Chiu, Krystal Alica, Evan Sebastian LaGache, Angela Harriell, Chris Reilly’s Flambeaux Fire, Lya Pouleyy, Andressa Furletti, Anika Ignaozzi, Lieatla Samaz, Samuel Ezra Fisch, Conard Jackson, Erin Neufer, Julia Joyce-Barry, Juliana Burkhart, Michael Goldman, Amiri, Killer Kiska, Joules Magus, Kanami Kusajima. Moloy Gorin, Edwin Indio Garcia, Lil Aronoff, Jei Osorio, and dozens more.
To learn more about Frankie Lane, go to www.FrankieLaneArtist.com/
To learn more about ChaShaMa www.Chashama.org
