I took time off from a busy work weekend to celebrate Umberto Crenca’s 60th birthday at AS 220 with music by the Criss Cross Orchestra.

That’s Obuamah Laud Addy at the drum and my friend Phil Edmunds  of The Gnomes is playing pipes– it’s a kind of Afro-Irish mix.

There’s a show up, art from Crenca’s new book, ‘You Can’t Call Your Own Baby Ugly’.

You Can’t Call Your Own Baby Ugly features several bodies of work, including the large scale mixed media trptych’s Devolution, the Free Mickey series that examine copyright and copy wrong, Dis Dat Dees Does, and Bert’s Head, of off the wall sculptural paintings of the artists’ influence and imagined self, plus a whole lot more. Exciting show with well over a 100 works of art representing at least a decade of focused, engaged art-making.

Bert’s opening reception is also the book release of : “you can’t call your own baby ugly: the doodles of Umberto Crenca” The book contains hundreds of doodles and drawings Bert has done over the last ten years on scraps of paper, conference agendas, and hotel pad paper, documenting the artist’s ceaseless flow of creative output. Signed copies will be available at the opening.

Bert will be giving an artist talk on November 19th at 5:30 p.m. that begins Main Gallery at 115 Empire St. and will end at the As220 Project Space at 93 Mathewson St.

I’ll say his work is unsettling, definitely not dull. That band was good– everyone was out on the floor dancing. I’ll look for them around town.