La MaMa Presents Randy Gener Installation

La MaMa La Galleria is pleased to announce the opening of a floral photography installation by the Filipino-American writer/photographer Randy Gener and the Romanian-born theatre designer/visual artist Nic Ularu. In the Garden of One World brings together theatre scenography, digital photography and installation art to create a conceptual space inspired by Ellen Stewart's famous dictum that theatre should "speak beyond words."

At once a scenographic statement and a thematically organized exhibition, In the Garden of One World puts forward a dream of a world garden. On display are more than 35 photographs of flowers and intriguing places taken in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Nevis, Panama, Romania, South Korea, Sweden and the United States.
The show officially opens Sunday, May 18 at La MaMa La Galleria, 6 East 1st Street, New York City, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue (212-505-2476; lamamagalleria@gmail.com; wwww.lamama.org).

A playwright, writer, critic and senior editor of American Theatre magazine, Randy Gener snapped these photos while he was on assignment abroad, delivering papers and lectures at interNational Theatre festivals and congresses, or participating in a number of cultural exchange programs and International Artists' residencies, including La MaMa Umbria International (the nonprofit cultural center and artists' residence and work center founded by Stewart in 1990 in central Italy). 

Designed by the Romanian theatre artist and scenographer Nic Ularu, In the Garden of One World reveals, enhances and re-stages the poetic and formal potential of these photographs through the metaphor of an abstract garden. Gener and Ularu are theatre artists whose professional careers have been nurtured at La Mama E.T.C. In seeking to make unexpected links between disparate international experiences, their collaborative show attempts to visualize and embody La MaMa's dream of "many cultures, one world."

Support for the interNational Theatre travels, which made In the Garden of One World possible, was made by Ernst Aichinger of The Austrian Foreign Ministry, The Consulate General of Sweden, The Ford Foundation through the Institute of International Education, The Foundation of the American Theatre Critics Association, The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, The Trust for Mutual Understanding, the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest and the U.S. Department of State.

Randy Gener is an award-winning writer, theatre artist, critic and editor, making his debut as a photographer. The author of the plays Love Seats for Virginia Woolf, What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn into Four Pieces, and other theatre works, he was among the inaugural batch of playwrights in LaMaMa Umbria International Playwrights Retreat in Spoleto, Italy, where he wrote his latest play, A Parliament of the Streets. The senior editor of American Theatre, a monthly magazine published by Theatre Communications Group, Gener lectures extensively in theatre festivals and universities in the U.S. and in Europe. He is the recipient of a 2007 Arts and Culture Prize from the 10th annual Filipinas Magazine Achievement Awards, honoring Filipino-American leaders and individuals who have excelled in their respective fields, as well as a 2000 Distinguished Service and Contribution in Arts and Culture from the National Federation of Filipino American Associations.

Nic Ularu is an Obie Award–winning designer, painter and theatre artist. Hailing originally from Romania, where he established himself as an important visual artist whose paintings were represented in a series of national exhibitions of fine arts from 1980 to 1988, Ularu has held eight solo exhibitions as well as several group shows in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Brussels, Bucharest and Craiova. Besides writing and directing his own plays, Ularu has extensive design credits in the U.S., Sweden, Northern Ireland and Romania. He was the head of scenography at The National Theatre of Bucharest. Recent credits include: writer/director of The Cherry Orchard Sequel at LaMaMa E.T.C.; 2003 OBIE award for the Talking Band's Painted Snake in a Painted Chair; 2005 co-designer of the exhibit World Stage Design in Canada; and 2007 lead designer and curator of the USA National Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial for World Scenography.

La MaMa La Galleria is a not-for-profit gallery that recently re-opened after a two-year renovation. The gallery building, which once stood alone on the block, is now surrounded by the one of the largest redevelopment programs in New York City's history. The improved appearance of this block gives a new vitality to an already dynamic neighborhood and provides new audiences for the artists we exhibit. La MaMa's La Galleria was opened in the late 1980's. The gallery's mission is an extension of the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club's mission to exhibit as many artists and art forms as possible. La Mama E.T.C. is a world-renowned cultural organization led by Ellen Stewart since she founded it in 1961 as a tiny basement theatre dedicated to the playwright and all aspects of the theatre.

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