Artist Organized Art

Monday, June 30, 2008

photo: Jean Pike, onsite view Site Santa Fe Biennial 2008

Overlaps and Relocations
New Architecture at the Site Santa Fe Biennial
Lucky No. 7

by NYC Artist Architect, Jean Pike
download the original pdf

Site Santa Fe’s generic warehouse space was transformed for its 7th Biennial into a rich spatial experience by architects Todd Williams and Billie Tsien and unveiled during weekend opening events June 20-22. The architecture that was inserted into the space was an armature for movement and viewing and provides the thread that holds together a show of site-specific work by 25 artists from 16 countries.

Todd Williams and Billie Tsien, who had used ideas about “spatial curiosity” and “approaching” to generate a previous project with curator Lance Fung for the Snow Show in Torino, developed peripatetic ways of moving through the Site exhibition space that offer elevation changes (ramps, steps, balconies and raised walkways) and the possibility to perceive space, art and people from multiple angles, heights and perspectives. Spaces for moving become event spaces: locations for stopping, gathering, looking, listening, sitting, talking, art-making and other random actions.

photo: Megan Fisher McHugh, courtesy of santafelucky7.com

The exhibition space is largely defined by the presence of the surfaces upon which and within which one moves. Vertical walls, where they exist, are sometimes punctured, sometimes partial, allowing for moments of spatial transparency, parallax and specific perspective views. Because of the complex ways of moving and looking at the art one starts to perceive an overlap, an overlapping of spaces, of art, of one artist’s work upon another and of one location upon another, of digital onto analog and vice versa.

photo: Jean Pike, onsite view Site Santa Fe Biennial 2008

The idea of spatial overlap and extension mixes with the content and concepts of the art: paintings of internet images made in Korea and paintings of internet images made in Santa Fe (artist Soun Myung Hong), Mnemonic connections between disparate locations such as that which exist between Studio Azzurro’s interactive video projection, Fourth Ladder, and actual ramps with actual people climbing on them within the exhibition space, work like an alternating montage between digital and analog.

photos: BayAreaEventPhotography.com

Abduction, a work by Fabian Giraud and Raphaël Siboni also references alternate locations. Their piece, taken from a Santa Fe gallery, was transformed, installed at Site, and is intended to be relocated back to its original gallery after the Biennial closes, having been transformed yet again. Even the materials used for the architectural construction of the exhibition will be dismantled and reused elsewhere at the end of the show. Be it literal or conceptual, the offsite projects are now also overlapped onto the site, and a sort of simultanaeity begins to occur. Work created elsewhere and the sensibilities of artists from elsewhere, an interest in recyclable art-making materials and a spatial experience that, through movement and view, emphasizes montage, are all brought to bear on the site and reverberate back outward beyond its confines.

photo: Jean Pike, onsite view Site Santa Fe Biennial 2008

At the front, the new transparent entrance structure, built with manufactured materials, is a contemporary version of the traditional New Mexican ramada, a trellis-like structure made from wood branches that provides ventilation and shade in the harsh summer months. It’s moving shadows mix with the simulated and static (painted) projection images of Michal Budny and Zbigniew Rogalski’s Slideshow and vibrate with the complexity of here and now and then and somewhere else all at the same time. With the addition of the piece by Rose B. Simpson, Eliza Naranjo Morse and Nora Naranjo Morse snaking through, it makes a great introduction to the show, revealing all the passion and energy of the artists’, architects’ and curators’ work.

Can we, as Christine Boyer asks in reference to postmodern cities, “find the unity of community in this fragmented experience?” At Site we see our stories overlapping into new and exciting configurations that offer the promise of an even greater community, no matter how complex.

Jean Pike is an artist|architect living and working in New York City. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Yale School of Architecture. Her work has been shown at Viridian Artists Gallery in NYC, The California College of Arts and Crafts, The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning Gallery, Tao Gallery in Hong Kong and Gallery 61 at The New York Institute of Technology. Her work is about translating between various forms of representation (abstract drawing, video) and three or four dimensional work (sculpture, architecture and installation). Coming from a background in dance, it is often about the physical sense of the body in space and time and how that relates to psychological and emotional states.

Lance M. Fung (fungcollaboratives.org) is the 2008 curator of Site Santa Fe Biennial titled "Lucky Number 7." There are currently 25 artists from 16 countries participating including: Martí Anson, Fabio Cirifino, Paolo Rosa, Stefano Roveda, Leonardo Sangiorgi, Erick Beltrán, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Michal Budny, Ricarda Denzer, Hiroshi Fuji, Fabien Giraud, Piero Golia, Soun Myung Hong, Scott Lyall, Nick Mangan, Eliza Naranjo-Morse, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Ahmet Ögüt, Mandla Reuter, Nadine Robinson Born in 1968 in London, Zbigniew Rogalski, Wael Shawky, Raphaël Siboni, Rose B. Simpson and Shi Qing Born with a curatorial team including: Ferran Barenblit, Iara Boubnova, Gregory Burke, Colin Chinnery, Alexie Glass, Lukasz Gorczyca and Michal Kaczynski, Laura Steward Heon, Barbara Holub, Vasif Kortun, Chus Martinez, Martina Mazzotta, Tsukasa Mori and Yuu Takehisa, Joseph Sanchez, Patrizia Sandretto, Guillermo Santamarina, Hyunjin Shin, Alessandro Vincentelli, Marc-Olivier Wahler, William Wells, William Wells,

SITE Santa Fe was launched in 1995 to organize the only international biennial of contemporary art in the U.S. Conceived to bring the global contemporary art dialogue to the art-rich Southwest, and as a major event on par with such renowned exhibitions as the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale, it has become an integral event for contemporary art aficionados, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from around the world. To date, SITE Santa Fe has successfully held six biennials, each of which has drawn worldwide attention and brought important contemporary art from all over the world to Santa Fe. Past biennial curators have either arrived as or have subsequently become superstars in the world of contemporary art. Following their SITE Santa Fe Biennial guest curatorships, Francesco Bonami (1997), Rosa Martínez (1999) and Robert Storr (2004) were chosen to organize the Venice Biennales in 2003, 2005 and 2007, respectively. Dave Hickey received the coveted MacArthur “Genius Award” after curating SITE’s Biennial in 2001. In 2006, Klaus Ottmann, a New York-based independent curator organized SITE Santa Fe’s Sixth International Biennial, Still Points of the Turning World that ran from July 9, 2006 to January 7, 2007.

Past artists have included: Marina Abramovic, Chema Alvargonzález, Francis Alÿs, Robert Ashley, Rebecca Belmore, Barbara Bloom, Imre Bukta, Carlos Capelán, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Braco Dimitrijevic, Felix Gonzáles-Torres, Ann Hamilton, Gary Hill, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Anish Kapoor, Catherine Lord, Chie Matsui, Jakob Battner, Gerald McMaster, Bruce Nauman, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Alison Rossiter, Meridel Rubenstein, Andres Serrano, Lorna Simpson, Valeska Soares, Pierrick Sorin, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Tseng Kwong Chi, Millie Wilson, Massimo Bartolini, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Olafur Eliasson, Giuseppe Gabellone, Kevin Hanley, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Gary Hume, Lukás Jasansky & Martin Polák, KCHO, William Kentridge, Suchan Kinoshita, Udomsak Krisanamis, Sharon Lockhart, Esko Männikkö, Tracey Moffatt, Chris Moore, Elizabeth Peyton, Huang Yong Ping, Tobias Rehberger, Miguel Rio Branco, Rudolf Stingel, SubREAL, Sam Taylor-Wood, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Jaan Toomik, Eulalia Valldosera, Helena Almeida, Ghada Amer, Janine Antoni, Monica Bonvicini, Louise Bourgeois, Tania Bruguera, Cai Guo-Qiang, Lygia Clark, Diller + Scofidio, Dr. Galentin Gatev, Greenpeace, Yolanda Gutiérrez, Mona Hatoum, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Carsten Höller, Simone Aaberg Kærn, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Nikos Navridis, Shirin Neshat, Rivane Neuenschwander, Gabriel Orozco, Pipilotti Rist, Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Bülent Sangar, Arsen Savadov & Georgy Senchenko, Charlene Teters, Sergio Vega, Miwa Yanagi, Kenneth Anger, Jo Baer, Jeff Burton, James Lee Byars, Pia Fries, Gajin Fujita, Graft Design, Frederick Hammersley, Marine Hugonnier, Jim Isermann, Ellsworth Kelly, Josiah McElheny, Darryl Montana, Sarah Morris, Takashi Murakami, Nic Nicosia, Kermit Oliver, Jorge Pardo, Ken Price, Stephen Prina, Bridget Riley, Ed Ruscha, Alexis Smith, Rafael Soto, Jennifer Steinkamp and Jimmy Johnson, Jessica Stockholder, Jane and Louise Wilson, Ricci Albenda, Louise Bourgeois, Charles Burns, Francesco Clemente, Bruce Conner, R. Crumb, John Currin, Carroll Dunham, James Esber, Inka Essenhigh, Tom Friedman, Ellen Gallagher, Robert Gober, Douglas Gordon, Mark Greenwold, Lyle Ashton Harris, Jörg Immendorff, Jasper Johns, Kim Jones, Mike Kelley, Maria Lassnig, Sherrie Levine, Christian Marclay, Paul McCarthy, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Elizabeth Murray, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Jim Nutt, Tony Oursler, Gary Panter, Lamar Peterson, Raymond Pettibon, Lari Pittman, Sigmar Polke, Neo Rauch, Alexander Ross, Susan Rothenberg, Peter Saul, Jenny Saville, Thomas Schütte, Jim Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Fred Tomaselli, Adriana Varejão, Davor Vrankic, Kara Walker, Jeff Wall, John Waters, John Wesley, Franz West, Lisa Yuskavage, Miroslaw Balka, Jennifer Bartlett, Patty Chang, Stephen Dean, Peter Doig, Robert Grosvenor, Cristina Iglesias, Wolfgang Laib, Jonathan Meese, Wangechi Mutu, Carsten Nicolai, Catherine Opie, Thorns Ltd.

#permalink posted by Jean Pike : 6/30/2008 07:04:00 PM

Friday, June 20, 2008

Harvard Nashawannuck Remix
Nashawannuck Gallery Easthampton Massachusetts Meets
Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology

left: Ryan Red Corn, Wazhazhi-Pod, REMIX,
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
right: Dan Loudfoot, Everyone Wants To Be An Indian,
Nashawannuck Gallery, Easthampton, Mass

by artist Nayana Glazier

From April 1st through the 30th at Nashawannuck Gallery located at 40 Cottage St. in Easthampton MA (nashawannuckgallery.com) hosted “Untold Stories & Native Voices.” Participating artists were Dan Loudfoot, based in Brooklyn, NY with the tribal affiliation of Pequot. Courtney Leonard, based in Providence RI with the tribal affiliation of Shinnecock. Peter McLean based in Connecticut with no tribal affiliation and myself, Nayana Glazier, based in Massachusetts and affiliated with the Ojibwe and Potwatami of the Wikwemikong first nation.

left to right: Courtney Leonard, Peter McLean, Dan Loudfoot, Nayana Glazier
Untold Stories & Native Voices
Nashawannuck Gallery

Our media, styles and works are unique and could have stood on their own, however together they made a statement about the history, present and future of native people.

At the reception held on the second Saturday of the month each of the three attending artists (McLean, Leonard and myself) spoke about the work on display and answered questions from attendees. McLean, professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at the Hartford Art School/University of Hartford in West Hartford Connecticut, spoke first (http://www.petermcleanfinearts.com/) and his years of teaching were evident as he discussed the sources of his large and impressive charcoal drawings. Each has its own life and history using historical events and native pop culture icons to suggest the Americanization and de-culturization of native peoples through pop culture and the historical canon. His “Disney Pox”, a 52”x 46” suspended charcoal drawing, uses images of Pocahontas with red pock marks and classic images of explorers with Americanized natives, comparing Disney to Small Pox in its negative effect on native life, or the perception of native life in modern culture.

I then spoke on my work and the work of Dan Loudfoot. Dan’s work uses images from his interactive project "I lost My Language And My Tribe" about which Dan says:

“This work is a performance that deals with issues of colonization that I go through on a daily basis and this dis-connect I feel from living in present day American Society. I am a Pequot (Native American) artist. I am a direct result of what colonization has done to a people and the cultural disconnect that we face as a people. These words that I am writing and these words that I speak are not my own, my language was eradicated from my relatives mouths and I now speak English. This performance involves walking down the streets of Brooklyn, NY with my mouth covered with a piece of paper over my mouth with the words, "I lost my Language I lost my Tribe." -Dan Loudfoot

Also included are pieces from his project of making paper dolls of himself and his loved ones in traditional regalia. He then takes those pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he uses some creative placement and a digital camera to place the figures as Christ-like in the museum’s religious depictions.

Dan had this to say about this project:

“My recent work has taken me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York City conducting performances in the Religious Icon Art galleries that explore various modes of hybridity. I use paper caricatures of my wife and myself in our traditional regalia and hold them at a distance from actual paintings; after taking digital photos of the caricatures that I am holding they create an illusion that they are actually in the painting. In this performance I am bringing “Native Americans” to a Holy Iconic form, a form that does not exist in American Mass Media today. Creating a voice of authenticity while bring light to these issues is core to my practice. This series of performances has opened up an ongoing dialogue with the public. This work stems from memories of my childhood spent in Catholic school after troubling experiences at the local public school. A non-Catholic, being an outsider forced to sit alone in the pews while the other children received their daily bread and wine. In St. Patrick’s church, I looked up at that man nailed to a cross and asked myself, “Where is MY creator?” ...” -Dan Loudfoot

The last piece he included is “Everyone Wants to Be and Indian”. Dan had this to say about the piece:

“This is an interactive project where the audience is able to participate in my art making and revive early childhood memories. I have drawn a Halo with Bingo Paint (my casino Indian media) on construction paper in this work I am trying to bring Native Americans to the holy Iconic form that we rarely reach. This work stems from my memories in grade school around the times of Thanksgiving and having to wear construction paper headbands with feathers in them. This work also deals with the actual painting becoming a figure similarly to art in museums, galleries and public spaces. When people stand next to or in front of artwork and take their pictures. With my project “Now Everyone Can Be an Indian” the audience is invited to do so.” -Dan Loudfoot

My own work is always difficult to speak about. The work itself does come from reflection on my experiences and ideas. My earlier work dealt very clearly with being native in modern society and feeling out of place, showing brightly colored native peoples feeling out of place in a monochromatic cityscape. But my more recent work investigates the existential and the challenge of remaining entirely human.

Nayana Galzier, Untitled, Acrylic, Nashawannuck Gallery, 2008

Courtney Leonard then spoke on her work, its construction, where she came from and its purpose. What struck me was her candid nature in addressing the show’s concept. “Untold Stories & Native Voices”, Leonard Stated that by her experience these stories were not untold. Perhaps not heard, but certainly not untold. Her work calls on the skills she learned at RISD, her experiences traveling to different regions and missing her home on the Shinnecock reserve in Long Island. Though being native and an artist were part of her they were no more or less than her other history and experiences, her work spoke less to being native and more to being herself. Viewing native ceramic objects one might expect the traditional. Her work is more a representation of herself, her feelings, her experiences than the history of ceramics or a statement on modern art by native artists.

This got me thinking. My own work is now bypassing heritage to focus on humanity over label, individual sovereignty artist or not, native or not etc. Courtney had expressed similar ideas to me and so I set out to see if other artists from some of these exhibitions also engaged these issues.

Courtney mentioned the now famous Harvard show REMIX Indigenous Identities in the 21st Century at The Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University (April 5 - August 31, 2008.) REMIX features work by Doug Miles (San Carlos Apache), Ryan Red Corn (Osage), Courtney Leonard (Shinnecock), and an artist I’ve mentioned extensively on Artist Organized Art, Bunky Echo-Hawk (Pawnee and Yakama) also included is rapper Quese IMC. In REMIX, these artists transform traditional materials, ideas and iconography into contemporary art. The exhibition is curated by Kelsey Leonard, Tanner Amdur-Clark, LeRenzo Tolbert-Malcom, and Caitlin Young, members of Native Americans at Harvard College on behalf of the Ivy Native Council.

left: Douglas Miles with famed Hip-Hop photographer Ernie Paniciolli,
his film The Other SIde Of Hip-Hop was shown at REMIX Harvard
right: Douglas Miles, LOVE

That the show was presented at The Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology spoke volumes. Why are Native cultures, among the most heavily studied groups of different peoples under the same umbrella ever assembled in North American history, stuck in a time freeze. A view perpetually studied in the past tense, so much so that even virtually self organized contemporary art which, by global standards, is practiced by very contemporary artists, would still only find venue at the enlightened authority, Harvard University, through an archaeological and ethnological spin.

Archaeology – noun 1. The scientific study of historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures by analysis of their artifacts, inscriptions, monuments, and other such remains, esp. those that have been excavated. 2. Rare. ancient history; the study of antiquity. -www.dictionary.com

What is the function of such an alienating, analytical and clinical form as to be “studied.” Some of the works in the exhibition were only created months before the show was hung, yet they are observed in the same respect that works are studied in a museum of natural history. The overwhelming consensus among the artists I have spoken to is the desire to be seen as artists, to have their work appreciated on its own regardless of the artist’s ethnic affiliations or any other factors than the merit of the work itself.

left: The Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
right: Nashawannuck Gallery, Easthampton Massachusetts

I was fortunate to interview Douglas Miles briefly and get his perspectives on things.

“…It is tiring and somewhat demeaning (to artists / natives) in a certain cense. Because even though it is meant to serve an educational purpose it also serves to commodify and cleanly categorize a whole “people” in nice little dioramas, placards or booklets without respect to very real complexities…This is not to disrespect staff or “experts” in those fields, however why do we have to show in an “Anthropological (Archaeological) Museum?” Are we not artists with valid points of view like any other artists from any other background?….all artists should endeavor to let their ART speak for itself without regard for the ethnicity of its maker.” -Douglas Miles

Nayana Glazier(NG): Knowing that you question the idea of the native themed exhibition based solely on the fact that the work was produced by native artists, and considering that all of us at our core would prefer to be known as artists and not specifically native artists...would you continue to participate in native themed shows in the future?

Douglas Miles(DM): It's not that I question the purpose or reasons for showing. It’s time for a new paradigm. The places we show(Anthropology Museums and Museums of Natural History etc...) seem to already dictate how our art is to be viewed, taken and is/isn't accepted. That is why new venues need to be discovered challenged, sought out or hi-jacked because time is short. I will support any show, curator, museum, gallery or collector(s) who does not try to label, categorize, define or pigeonhole what we (as artists) do.

The Harvard REMIX is/was revolutionary in that students (Youth) came up with the concept, felt these artists are significant voices of change, and requested us there. They basically hi-jacked some Museum space at Harvard and allowed us freedom to create. In "Native Art" that is almost unheard of with the exception of my projects like www.thenativeagents.com or www.apacheskateboards.com which not only include art but skateboarding, poetry, film, photography, sculpture, performance, music and whatever else we want to make. Major museums are now trying to emulate the concepts we built. Some are even opting to dis-include us from their discourse as they attempt to replicate our innovation. However what Apache Skateboards, The Native Agents and myself have done is well documented. It is art for the people.

Douglas Miles, Art For The People, apacheskateboards.com, 2008
with Kelsey Long in photo

NG: Would you try to gear your career more toward shows about art and not the cultural backgrounds of the artists or the cultural themes in the work?

DM: My art takes on a life and direction of its own. Though I am the composer, like a jazz musician, I've learned to improvise , embrace new styles, and work in various settings. It is almost impossible in the Native Art field to create a show concept that is not about your tribal background. However more and more I am being asked to participate in non-Native themed shows. I am not trying to "gear" my art in any direction. Nor am I trying to "cross-over." When an artist begins to understand the power of their own voice, develops a style apart from the norm and learns to walk blindly yet boldly into opportunity, their work can go anywhere. Good work can and should transcend any real or imagined boundaries. If I'm geared up for anything its to have fun with my work and work with others who share similar goals. It (the art) is taking me where it wants and needs to go. It is leading me into clothing/product design, the street art movement, underground galleries, film work, photography, performance, poetry, media, magazines, books, and a longer list of projects in the works. My job is to listen to my art and allow it to breathe and exist in the fields alleys, hallways, theatres, back streets or wherever and with whomever wants to see and be part of it.

NG: Do you feel that this theme of show which is sprouting up around the country will eventually pigeon hole many of the artists involved? Or do you think that some or most of the artists will be able to define themselves as artists and humans first and native artists second?

DM: The Harvard REMIX is unique in the sense that students not " Native Art Experts" curate the show. I would hope that this type of guerrilla art show becomes the norm. It allows access to artists who do not get any. Meaning access (to venues) is usually defined by who has the longest curriculum vitae or who has sold the most art or who has befriended the coolest curator/collector etc. All artists should try to be as human as possible. I hope I'm doing a good job. Artists need to be as creative as possible and as true to their current "here and now" as possible.

My current work is not romantic. It is dirty/gritty and not easy to look at. This is how our communities affect us. I am part of a community and a tribe. It will always inform the work that I do. However it does no artists any favor to constantly refer to their ethnic background as some kind of relevance. Especially if their art is mediocre. An artist’s work must always do the talking. Eventually critics, writers, patrons will figure out that the artist is from somewhere. Artists (Native) really need to begin to look for ways to be as freely creative as possible without the demands of a "market". It may be awhile before that occurs yet it is necessary in order for art to flourish.

Keeping everything in mind that I have learned through this experience I can only speak from my own experiences and perspectives on what will happen with these kinds of exhibitions in the future. To be honest I think none of us can deny the allure of the exhibition regardless of theme or label that might be attached to it and subsequently us as individual artists. But when it comes to the idea of a native themed show with a grouping of artists who are brought together solely because they share a set of genealogical traits is one that is unavoidable for anyone. Who we are, weather we try or not, is directly reflected in whatever art we as artists individually make and as such our heritage comes though. It might be the feeling of a lack of heritage or the abundance of it that shines through behind the indistinguishable that makes us stand out as native artists but it is there. It would be foolish for any of us to deny it or try to stay away from it, it is who we are as much as anything else. Presenting us together as separate artists under the same umbrella can both be to our benefit and detriment depending on the audience and the location. In some respects being categorized as an ancient civilization has leant itself very well to opening the discussion on that very subject. Surely seeing modern art in an archaeological context is a different sort of education and experience for the students at Harvard studying our modern day historical artifacts. So long as these ideas are presented along side the work, that the body of combined artists and styles are presented as such different people from different backgrounds, brought together on one basis only…their ethnic heritage, their differences being the educator to those attending, to bring their concepts and understanding of indigenous cultures to the same stand point that they would think of people of other ethnic backgrounds and possibly take one small step closer to earning ourselves a spot as an easily recognized modern people. As complex, modern and Americanized as anyone else.

Personally I will continue to support and participate in these exhibitions whenever possible in the hopes that soon they will move past the historical stage and into the modern art world so that each artist can have their work seen on its own for what it is and not just what label they fit under.

#permalink posted by Nayana : 6/20/2008 12:32:00 PM

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, Paris, France
Scenes Ouvertes à L’Insolite

covered by artist Angie Eng

Théâtre de la Marionnette
Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, Paris, France
15-25 May 2008
http://www.theatredelamarionnette.com/scenesouvertes.html

In a country rich with history, how does one approach innovation? Experimental Tradition seems to be all too common in the Art Festival de Paris. For three weeks in May, Le Théâtre de la Marionnette presented ‘Scènes Ouvertes à L’insolite’ (Open Stage For The Unusual) This umbrella program of cross-genre theatre included: theatre of manipulated objects, puppetry, video, shadow play, circus, spoken word, magic show, contemporary dance/movement, actors, tap dancers, improvisational music, poets, ‘clowns’, mimes, did I forget anyone, anything? From the description of sub-genres the public is immediately informed to not expect the Muppet show. The closest might be Daisy/Violet, the ½ human ½ puppet Siamese twin strippers of "Me Too, A Sideshow," a performance ode to "Freaks" that merges the roles of object and manipulator.

What we do realize after viewing a few performances, in my case 7 of the 14 presentations, is each collective remains faithful to the exploration of reality through the discovery of the make-believe. In other words, facing death by rebirth. As with a magic show, suspense is the key emotion to unravel the cycle of personal development. Like the art student exploring a canvas by copying the masters, the actor/manipulator reveals how the mind confronts existence. In "Desirée," we are thrown into the cellar with a suffering abused girl who survives by recreating a dialogue between self, object and an imaginary persona. In coping with fear she displaces all emotion into gestural scenarios. Here is a production that presents ‘playing dolls’’ in a most dramatic, intense one-person drama, grâce à the performance of Coco Bernardis. And an honorable mention to the improvisational musician, Antoine Arlot who truly played visual sound.

"Mr. H" (an adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) is also a whirlwind in connecting the self with its multiple attempts and failures to illustrate life is a process. Visually dazzling as if watching a circus on acid, the three actors and one puppet move on, off, behind, sideways while playing tap dancing apes, reproducing via overhead projector "Journey to the Center of the Earth" mad scientist, syncing lights and alarms à la Richard Foreman, mocking Hollywood shadow dance and borrowing Film Noir in their mystic hysterics. Well, ‘I-can’t-remember-how-it-ended-but-I-liked-it-anyway’ was my reaction. It takes courage to cross the border.

I’ve worked 15 years with experimental technology under the label of ‘New Technology’, ‘New Media’, ‘Interactive Performance’ and/or ‘Experimental Video’. 50% of the time the questions were geared toward equipment brands and software development in-progress. Questions of poetry and content were non-existent. In "Me Too: A Sideshow," the story is about a baby puppet recounting his Siamese twin mother who reminisces of a time in a caravan by way of a video clip. (Did you catch that hall of mirrors?) Here, cinema is used as a dimension that could only be expressed by a window of moving images. (And nobody would ask how many lumens was the projector nor the name of the digital effects applied on the video!) Last month on the outskirts of Paris, I found myself every Sunday at the Théâtre de la Cité relearning the lesson on how marketing can jet your audience to a glacier mountain when the meeting point was in the Sahara. Under the heading of “Marionnettes” aesthetic parallels provided the base to the limitless use of tools and definition of ‘spectacle’.

In Encore des Changements a poet crawls on the floor like a handicapped child reaching for a cord. Video projection is used to recite words projected on her arm as cinematic tree silhouettes dance inside the painter’s paint. At one point she fondles a huge mass of cotton like a Fluxus inspired media artist dancing with paper (Jessica Higgins in "North Water Song"). It’s so sensual you want this moment of simplicity that fulfills an urge to last longer. Spirituality and sensuality make a good couple. In the end as in the beginning and middle of the piece, a combination of techniques is used to examine the fragility of existence. The narrative arch seemed to be underdeveloped. Be that as it may, I still look forward to the next attempt.

Incorporating cinema or merging forms effectively is no easy feat. However, the Festival Scènes Ouvertes à L’insolite’ gave me hope again. Breaking rules is necessary in experimentation, however there is a certain tradition that holds true- Start with a foundation and voyage to the ephemeral can bring fruitful results.

Angie Eng, Paris

#permalink posted by Angie Eng : 6/05/2008 10:16:00 AM

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Lance Fung Interviewed
Creating Community at Lucky Number 7

Lance Fung in interview with Artist Organized Art, March 30 '08

Artist Organized Art

This Artist Organized Art interview with curator Lance Fung is conducted by Joshua Selman and Erika Knerr, on March 30, 2008 at Lance's SOHO loft in Manhattan. It weaves together formative influences behind his first International Biennial, Lucky Number 7, at Site Santa Fe, opening June 20-22, 2008. The interview precedes a pot luck dinner at his loft attended by his core community of friends and family. Gathering at the space several times a year, most among them are former Lance Fung Gallery artists.

Here are two excerpts from the full interview:

Read the full interview

AOA: The question was if your way of curating is considered to be a reverse engineering of the normal curatorial process, and where the curatorial function of the institutional partners fits in?

LF: I wouldn't say it's a reverse procedure, because that would mean there would have to be strategy to my work, there's no method to my madness, I am who I am. I act, say, speak, think, write, dress, the way I do, you couldn't, and I'm forty five now, so I don't actually give a damn what people think of me, I get it when Holly Solomon said she didn't care --“I'm Holly Solomon,” -- well finally now I'm Lance Fung, you like it, you don't, can it be improved? Yes. Will I change it your way? Maybe, maybe not, and this is the point of being free as an artist and curator, as an individual, its not that you're like “oh everyone doesn't know what they're talking about…” but it's just that you're not concerned about pleasing someone, and by not trying to please someone you have a greater chance of pleasing someone, because you're grounded, you're satisfied, you have something to give, so I don't think so, now surely that most people would look at it that way, because it isn't the way most people would curate a show, I do see, however, a trend in people, a trend with younger curators trying to curate. In approaching their new practices in the way that I live my life, so I'm not necessarily saying they're copying me, but collaboration is coming up quite often now, but in a very different way and typically in a very superficial way, but what's nice is I think that my work has somehow seeped into the way people are looking at things, including some of the seasoned curators. Because, you can't work in an antiquated mode, and that's why people are trying, the art speak is becoming less and people are doing more common speak when they're talking about a show. Or, they're having a greater awareness of the general public in appreciating the work where, in fact, after the fact, I realized that was the main audience for The Snow Show, and that's what made it so profound, so I don't know, that's not for me to answer.

Read the full interview

AOA: In terms of the process of Lucky Number 7, of course, there are ancestors, for example, The Snow Show, Lance Fung Gallery, Construction In Process, Ryszard Wasko and The International Artists Museum, Charlotte Moorman and the Avant Guard Intermedia Festivals, Allan Kaprow, Billy Klüver, George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, etc. This brings up the comparison of “curating” to “organizing.” How do you see the comparison?

LF: I almost had Construction In Process in my essay, but when I showed it to international curators. most of them had not heard of it. So I just linked to a very general subject of something that was much less interesting to me until much later in my Lance Fung Gallery time period and that was Fluxus. Okay, Nam June, yes, but I don't think of him as Fluxus even though he is Mr. Fluxus. So, it does parallel to a lot of what Fluxus was about, this impromptu happening sans curator, it's artist inspired, it's “artist organized art” and Construction In Process is a little bit like that, because it did have, from what I know in the books and what I've heard from you guys, less of a curatorial roll and more of an energy and synergy that came about. So, definitely aspects of Lucky Number 7 are coming from Fluxus, Construction In Process, Lance Fung Gallery and a ton of other references.

It's interesting. Everyone will call this biennial so many different things. “The anti-biennial,” because they can either be talking in response to other biennials and what they stand for, marketing, branding, PR, or they can even talk about anti-market, because the works are ephemeral. It could be anti in many ways. Again, there's none of that strategy involved with Lucky Number 7. Essentially, in Lucky Number 7, I, as curator, have digested everything I've learned, seen and heard of in the art world that I like. Which has made me the curator that I am, because then I work in that mode as opposed to in a very commercial glitzy way. Which parallels Construction In Process, but the big difference there is that organization or production vs. curation are apples and oranges, and often as you well know with The Snow Show, I've had to wear all 3 hats, where I would most prefer wearing only the curator's hat. Not worrying about fund raising and legal and administrative issues, not worrying about promoting it, but just dealing with the curatorial end, would be great and that's what a curator “was.” But, in the new decade or millennium it shifted where almost every curator is out there “shakin' a tin can.” Whether you're working for a big proper museum or you're doing a freelance show you're out there with the Press, because that's another way to get visibility, so that when you're “shakin' the tin can” people are dropping a quarter in yours vs. someone else's. All of a sudden I kept feeling rather inadequate with The Snow Show, having to do all of this stuff. And, I felt slighted, like, “why am I having to do this as a curator?” Well guess what? The world caught up to me in a negative way when it was much better for the curator just to curate, someone else to write the check, and someone else to go out and talk about it. Another thing I've always been a little embarrassed about is my commercial background. In fact, I pulled it out from all of my bios and website and really eliminated Holly Solomon Gallery and Lance Fung Gallery, because very few, if any, curators made the transition from the commercial world to the not-for-profit world. Some went the other way because then by being an important curator, or with a museum, you can be paid more by working in a gallery, but going in the reverse direction, from “money” to “no money,” is “crazy.”

Lance Fung runs Fung Collaboratives, LLC

Also, the credibility is weak, because curator as dealer or dealer as curator has a lot of conflict of interest. We talked about it with The Snow Show. How many artists, that I'd worked with in the past, could I put in The Snow Show without it looking like there was favoritism, or commercial gain. Particularly when Finland was up, so was my gallery. I asked - people said “oh three to five artists based on your group.” In the end I only did two, John Roloff and Top, otherwise I would have put more, not because I was trying to promote the gallery, but because I believed in them. So it's interesting, but I was speaking at this conference on public art with all these other curators Jan Debbaut (formerly of The Tate) organized and they said “but, weren't you at Holly's?” I said “yes, but I don't talk about that,” and they said “why?” I said “well…” they said, “you're' wrong because right now that commercial background you have is so needed and most curators don't have that information.” A) They don't know how to buy a work of art for the institution. B) They don't know how to talk about discounts etc. So it's very funny, curatorial work is evolving and it is including someone odd like me, because normally I wouldn't fit into that category, but I actually don't think it's for the better to be quite honest.

Read the full interview

Lance Fung is an independent curator based in New York City. One of Fung’s most well known projects was The Snow Show exhibition, realized in 2004 in Lapland, and in 2006 in Torino, Italy for XX Olympic Winter Games. Prior to his independent curatorial endeavors worldwide, he had an eponymous gallery in New York, and was the director of Holly Solomon Gallery.

Lance Fung curates International Biennial, Lucky Number 7, at Site Santa Fe, June '08

Since its opening in 1995, SITE‘s mission has been to bring the global contemporary art dialogue to the Southwest region of the US. SITE’s Biennial, organized by a guest curator of international reputation, always attempts a paradigm shift in the field of visual arts. SITE’s Biennial is known worldwide for its innovation and for showcasing great curators ahead of the rest of the art world. In fact, three of SITE’s six curators have subsequently served as Directors of the Venice Biennale, including this year’s Robert Storr, and a fourth won a MacArthur “Genius” Award.

Lucky Number Seven Curatorial Team and Partner Institutions:
1. Ferran Barenblit, Centro de Arte Santa Mónica (CASM), Barcelona, Spain, www.centredartsantamonica.net
2. Iara Boubnova, Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia, Bulgaria, www.ica.cult.bg
3. Gregory Burke, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, www.thepowerplant.org
4. Colin Chinnery, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, www.ullenscenterforthearts. org (Partnering with Centre for International Cultural Exchange, China, www.seechina.com.cn)
5. Alexie Glass, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, www.gertrude.org.au
6. Lukasz Gorczyca and Michal Kaczynski, Stowarzyszenie Integracji Kultury (Association of Cultural Integration), Warsaw, Poland, www.raster.art.pl
7. Laura Steward Heon, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, www.sitesantafe.org
8. Barbara Holub, Secession, Vienna, Austria, www.secession.at
9. Vasif Kortun, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, www.platformgaranti.blogspot.com 10. Chus Martinez, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, www.fkv.de
11. Martina Mazzotta, Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, Milan, Italy, www.mazzotta.it
12. Tsukasa Mori and Yuu Takehisa, Art Tower Mito, Japan, www.arttowermito.or.jp
13. Joseph Sanchez, Institute of American Indian Arts Museum (IAIA), Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States, www.iaia.edu
14. Patrizia Sandretto, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy www.fondsrr.org
15. Guillermo Santamarina, El Museo Experimental, Mexico City, Mexico
16. Hyunjin Shin, SSamzie Space, Seoul, South Korea, www.ssamziespace.com
17. Alessandro Vincentelli, BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England www.balticmill.com
18. Marc-Olivier Wahler, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, www.palaisdetokyo.com
19. William Wells, The Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt, www.thetownhousegallery.com
Special thanks to SITE’s local residency partner,the Santa Fe Art Institute

Artists
1. Martí Anson Born in 1967 in Mataró, Spain Lives and works in Barcelona
2. Studio Azzurro: Fabio Cirifino (born in Milan), Paolo Rosa (born in Rimini), Stefano Roveda (born in Milan) and Leonardo Sangiorgi (born in Parma), Located in Milan, Italy
3. Erick Beltrán Born in 1974 in Mexico City Lives and works in Barcelona and Mexico City
4. Luchezar Boyadjiev Born in 1957 in Sofia, Bulgaria Lives and works in Worpswede, Germany
5. Michal Budny Born in 1976 in Leszno, Poland Lives and works in Warsaw
6. Ricarda Denzer Born in 1967 in Kirn, Germany Lives and works in Vienna
7. Hiroshi Fuji Born in 1960 in Kagoshima, Japan Lives and works in Fukuoka, Japan
8. Fabien Giraud Born in 1980 in France Lives and works in Paris
9. Piero Golia Born in 1974 in Naples, Italy Lives and works in Los Angeles
10. Soun Myung Hong Born in 1959 in Seoul, Korea Lives and works in Seoul
11. Scott Lyall Born in 1964 in Toronto, Ontario Lives and works in Toronto
12. Nick Mangan Born in 1979 in Geelong, Victoria Lives and works in Berlin
13. Eliza Naranjo-Morse Born in 1980 in Espanola, New Mexico Lives and works in Santa Fe
14. Nora Naranjo-Morse Born in1953 in Espanola, New Mexico Lives and works in Espanola
15. Ahmet Ögüt Born in 1981 in Diyarbakir, Turkey Lives and works in Amsterdam
16. Mandla Reuter Born in 1975 in Nqutu, South Africa Lives and works in Berlin
17. Nadine Robinson Born in 1968 in London, England Lives and works in New York City
18. Zbigniew Rogalski Born in 1974 in D_browa Bia_ostocka Lives and works in Warsaw
19. Wael Shawky Born in 1971 in Alexandria, Egypt Lives and works in Alexandria
20. Raphaël Siboni Born in 1981 in France Lives and works in Paris
21. Rose B. Simpson Born in 1983 in Santa Fe, New Mexico Lives and works at Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico
22. Shi Qing Born in 1969 in Inner Mongolia, China Lives and works in Beijing

Biennial Leadership

Lead Underwriter
Jeanne & Michael L. Klein

Curator's Patron
Marlene Nathan Meyerson

Honorary Chairs
Anne & John Marion, The Burnett Foundation Margarita & Albert Waxman

Exhibition Patrons

Anonymous, Karen & Steve Berkowitz, Virginia Dwan, Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro, Jeanne & Jim Manning, Millstream Fund, Mary Lawrence Porter, Margaret Robson, Alice C. Simkins, Ann Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee

Exhibition Supporters

Dottie & Dick Barrett, Cornelia Bryer & Herman Siegelaar, Bobbie Foshay, Marian T. Fung & Family, Katherine & James Gentry, Mari & Peter Kooi, Mihail S. Lari & Scott E. Murray, Rosina Lee Yue & Dr. Bert Lies, Toby D. Lewis, Joanne N. McCarthy, Alicia & Bill Miller, Cindy Miscikowski & Doug Ring, Rita & Kent Norton, Lorlee & Arnold Tenenbaum, Kathy & Charles Webster, Nancy Ziegler Nodelman & Dwight Strong

Artists' Patrons
Miguel Abreu Gallery, Susan Hobbs Gallery

Exhibition Friends

Anonymous, Gay Block & Rabbi Malka Drucker, Tina & Robert J. Denison, Sally & Thomas Dunning, Judith & Richard Greer, Pat T. Hall, Amanda & Keith Innes, Jeri Berger Hertzman & Dr. Philip Hertzman, Mary Kahlenberg & Rob Coffland, Carol Prins & John H. Hart, Crennan & David K. Ray, Courtney F. & Scott Taylor, Susan Steinhauser & Daniel Greenberg, David Teiger, Bebe Woolley & Daniel Gorski, Sandy Zane & Ned Bennett

Corporate Sponsors
UBS Financial Services, Houston Sotheby's

Special Events Sponsors
Gebert Contemporary & Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, Landfall Press, James Kelly and SITE Unseen 5

Supporting Cultural Organizations

Arts Council Korea, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York Canadian Council of the Arts, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Goethe-Institut, Los Angeles Institut, Ramon Llull Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles, The Japan Foundation, Polish Cultural Institute, Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX),

Biennial Weekend Event Chairs
Cornelia Bryer & Herman Siegelaar

Residency Partner
Santa Fe Art Institute

Honorary Committee
Co-Chairs, The Honorable Bill Richardson Governor, New Mexico, The Honorable David Coss Mayor, Santa Fe

Committee Members

Dr. Indrasen Vencatachellum Chief of Section for Arts, Crafts & Design, UNESCO, Ambassador Dennis Richardson Embassy of Australia, Ambassador Eva Nowotny Embassy of Austria, Consul General Alain Dudoit Embassy of Canada, Ambassador Pierre Vimont Embassy of France, Ambassador Klaus Scharioth Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mariusz M. Brymora Culture & Public Affairs Counselor Embassy of the Republic of Poland

Off-SITE Location Partners

1005-G Alto Street Center for Contemporary Arts, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Institute of American Indian Arts, Museum of Indian Arts & Culture Museum of International Folk Art, National Dance Institute, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, Palace of the Governors Santa Fe Opera School for Advanced Research

Additional Support

New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs' Office of Media Initiatives & students from the College of Santa Fe, NM Highlands University & Institute of American Indian Arts Santa Fe Art Institute, Warehouse 21,

www.santafelucky7.com

SITE Santa Fe is fortunate to partner with an extraordinary student documentary team, which is hard at work not only to document Lucky Number Seven, but also to incorporate the show's guiding principles-experimentation, collaboration, process, and community-into its final product. The documentary component of the project aims to convey the spirit of the exhibition and to serve as a lasting record long after the artists have gone and the exhibition is over. The finished product will be presented at SITE in the exhibition and online at www.santafelucky7.com.

The filmmakers wish to thank biennial curator Lance Fung, the artists, and SITE Santa Fe for allowing the access and the opportunity to create this project. Thanks to the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and the academic programs: the Media Arts Program at New Mexico Highlands University, the Documentary Studies Program at the College of Santa Fe, and the New Media Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Art, and for funding from the Mandelman-Ribak Foundation. SITE wishes to thank HD Solutions for its support of this project.

Student documentation team

Kenneth Bachicha, Veronica Black, Jeana Francis, Jason Jaacks, Carlo Martinez, Megan Fisher McHugh, Marni Samuels, and Paul Conley. The project is coordinated by Eliot Fisher from the College of Santa Fe under the overall direction of Mimi Roberts, DCA Director of Media Projects. Faculty advisors are Professors Robert Drummond and Miriam Langer from the NMHU Media Arts Program, Tony O'Brien from the CSF Documentary Studies Program, and Carlos Peinado from the IAIA New Media Arts Program

#permalink posted by Artist Organized Art : 5/03/2008 04:11:00 PM

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Alison Knowles Tate Modern
London Times: Make A Salad

From: Alison Knowles
To: Joshua Selman
Subject: Tate rated
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:15:11 –0400

Josh: The event score to be performed at the Tate in London on May 24th at four o'clock in the afternoon is from the Great Bear Pamphlet By Alison Knowles published in 1964. The proposals for performance are labeled "propositions."

#2-Proposition (October, 1962)

Make a Salad

Premiered October 21st, 1962 at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, I made and served up salad for perhaps 20 people.

Visiting the Turbine Hall is like standing in Grand Central Station at rush hour. Around 1900 people each day will attend what is titled the Fluxus Long Weekend. My friend Larry Miller and I are the arrangers of the event. He will do the Fluxsports and I the Salad. The other days will include collaborative pieces with performers they provide from Goldsmith college and I will also do a sound work called Newspaper Music. I am very honored by the invitation.

The Tate has been very cooperative with me in my structure for the performance and I in turn have yielded to their demands. They are both large and prestigious and have certainly made salad for special guests over the years, however the differences are significant. My audience must see and hear the salad in production before they can eat it. The first roadblock we surmounted was the actual performance site. I chose the bridge overlooking the entire space. The bridge is about twelve feet wide and approximately four metres from the floor below.

The salad will be selected by the head chef, that's me. The five other chefs they are providing will arrive with their own knives and implements for cutting and shaving vegetables. Chefs, I learned, never share their knives. They will all accompany me the day before to the Borough Market (nearby and the best in London they say) and help select the vegetables flowers and fruits to make a salad for around 500 people. Five hundred people is the figure that was printed in the London Sunday Times Ad this week at any rate. There will be no limit or selection of the people invited to eat. We will eat until it is gone. The table of preparation will be contact mic'd beneath, and the sound spread through the space with a PA system.

All the ingredients will be clean and bagged before we begin. Beneath the bridge a tarpaulin twelve meters square will be spread. It will receive the radishes, olives, violets, rose petals, carrots, tomatoes, at least three types of lettuce for sure. These ingredients will float down, thumping and bouncing and raining down from the bridge to the tarp below . The tarp will be held up at the sides and corners by only the most gifted students from Goldsmith college! The dressing will be dribbled over from the bridge. They promise canoe paddles and a sterilized garden rake for the mixing process, the tarp by now being too heavy to lift. I wished my grand daughters to do the raking in sterilized rubber boots, but this did not pass.

A Mozart quartet will initiate the chopping and when the salad is complete the quartet will finish the selection signaling the serving operation. The music of Mozart and the music of chopping have found a place together at last in contemporary sound art thanks to Proposition #2 and Lucy Railton who heads the quartet.

I have bowed to the hygienic demands of the institution, which has gone through hard territory with the English health department to have a legal salad. We have agreed to wear net hats and gloves but not mouth masks. They (five curators) have "adjusted" the small restrictions and we do have the approval of the Bank of England (really) who will be funding the Fluxus Long Weekend. I am confidant we will not be arrested. I wish the salad to be stupendous not sensational. We know that if we could get this world together there would be enough salad to feed everyone and that's the metaphor.

So, if you find yourself in London in May come to the Tate at four o'clock on the 24th and we can all pitch in, pitch it over and pull it off.

Alison Knowles for Artist Organized Art April 27 03

#permalink posted by Alison Knowles : 5/01/2008 10:31:00 AM

Friday, April 25, 2008

Jeremy Boyle
at Hudson Franklin Gallery, Chelsea
Mar 20 - Apr 26 2008

correspondent: artist Nicholas Sullivan

Jeremy Boyle's ingenuity ranges from everyday three-word emails to his students, to solo art shows, like the one now at the Hudson Franklin Gallery in Chelsea, New York. As a student of Jeremy's, I found his approach to instruction deeply refreshing. Coming from a high school where the emphasis and concentration was either on drawing a tree outside the classroom on a piece of paper with oil pastel (in, gasp, unrealistic colors) or churning through the ridiculous number of still life requirements for the AP art portfolio (I got a 3), Jeremy's take on the foundations program at UMass made me realize the limitless possibilities within the realm of "art." No longer would I slave at a charcoal self-portrait, nor would I even take a gander at a set of oil pastels. A new world had been opened up, and I was sailor-diving into it.

I have taken four different classes with Jeremy. It is always quite an unusual comparison between the classes I take with other professors and the ones I take with Jeremy. Where some instructors concentrate overwhelmingly on technique, and what I deem as replication, Jeremy instead pushes concept. We have talked a number of times about the power and value of teaching conceptually strong art earlier in an artist's formal training. An artist with a strong concept, and the will to achieve it, will take those steps to make it happen. Thus the technique follows the concept. Creative freedom is exactly what Jeremy gave me. It is then when art really became exciting, when those doors were open and the vast expanse of everything lay open before me. It was wonderful.

From that point on I was brimming with ideas, some rather outlandish, and some a bit more conventional. Regardless of the idea, Jeremy's expertise and general knowledge on just about everything constantly came to the rescue. At one point, for instance, I attempted to make a Jell-O mold for a project. I was never able to complete the project, but I brought up my failed Jell-O attempts to Jeremy and off the top of his head he gave me a list of ways that Jell-O could solidify faster as well as hold its shape better. How he knew this was something I ponder quite frequently. Instances such as this occur on a daily basis with Jeremy. His capacity to help, and to provide information is boundless.

During this current semester I had the opportunity to work with Jeremy as his assistant preparing for his show at the Hudson Franklin Gallery. Every Saturday for about a month or so, I was over at the Boyle residence ready to rock and roll ... or sand and paint. The first day we spent the entire day cleaning an astonishingly thick layer of sawdust off everything in his studio. The rest of my days were usually spent working and reworking the exterior of the small wooden boxes involved in his White Noise piece. We deduced at the end of the entire process that each box (there were approximately 250) took around an hour of labor. But, might I say, dear god they looked good. I loved sanding, spackling, and painting. Jeremy's ipod provided a plethora of new musical discoveries, and I routinely encountered bands I had never heard before (my first day on the job I played 5 straight hours of Morrissey--something that I believe now may have been slowly driving Jeremy insane). The process was exciting to be a part of, and I know that many of my other professors, sadly, would have no art to need help on. Having a professor who is a successful working artist is something that I feel is invaluable. Jeremy's dedication spanned out of the classroom and into his own studio space, where he spent hours going over every meticulous detail of his pieces, exemplifying a practiced and precise level of craftsmanship.

As the show neared, we packaged up the stuff and Jeremy made the long voyage to New York for his installation (which was apparently quite grueling). A few days later a few classmates and myself made the journey to New York for the opening. As we approached the gallery we saw approximately thirty people waiting for the elevator just to get up. I thought to myself, "This is like a godamn Kiss concert." I hadn't expected to see such a huge turnout.

Jeremy's work in the show, I think, can be viewed on a number of levels. But, for the most part I view it as an explanation of the ironies and idiosyncrasies of human behavior, as well as exploring the close relationship of process and creation. For example, his piece involving the large circular screen with the rotating projection, and the video on a rotating pedestal, both deal with similar ideas. The dichotomy that existed between the two pieces I thought was one of the most important of the show, and really embodied ideas reflected in a lot of the other pieces (more on these works below). It is these minute observations that Jeremy is able to delicately bring to the forefront and make obvious. Our human experience is under close scrutiny by Jeremy Boyle, and I think his art will tell you that. Jeremy's sound pieces also seem to illustrate a certain form of dissection and re-contextualization. Since the gallery was so packed, it was hard to hear the white and brown noise pieces, but I felt that their relationship existed similarly to that of the two video pieces. The machine drawings on the walls were something that I never was able to see the actual construction of, nor had I seen the devices that created them. It seemed unimportant to me because I have seen how Jeremy works, and the work around the drawings explains them completely. The self-playing guitar (I think all of UMass has talked about his self playing guitar) was a manifestation of what Jeremy had been teaching our small independent study class about electronics. It is just so visually complex, and so actually complex, it nearly exists in another realm of understanding. It becomes for me something very different than a guitar.

Jeremy was able to show a lot of brand new, and newly refurbished work in this show, and individual pieces are situated in ways that help individual pieces complement each other in interesting ways. For instance, as viewers enter the gallery space, they immediately encounter a large circular construction that is hung from the ceiling screen (one layer of Spackle, one layer of primer, two top coats) at eye level. Projected on the inside of this circle is a digital image of Jeremy's head. The image of Jeremy's head rotates around the inside of the circle. Similarly, nearby, there is another video piece involving rotation. In this case it is a video that stands on a rotating pedestal, with again another rotating image.

In two corners of the room were some of Jeremy's sound pieces, one being White Noise, and the other Brown Noise. The white noise boxes (which I worked on) were approximately 3" x 3" inch white cubes, some with speakers in them and some without, all stacked on top of each other in a pile. The piece emits a soft hum of "white noise." Nearby was the similar Brown Noise piece, made of brown boxes a little bit larger (about 6" x 6") arranged in the same manner and form as White Noise. Finally, Jeremy's self-playing guitar, a complex electronically based instrument made to play without any help of the human hand, and instead running off a micro computer, electronics, hydraulics, and a lot of highly advanced programming.

The machine drawings were one of the pieces that I was most excited about. Although I played no role in their construction, nor did I actually ever see them being made, I found them to be deeply compelling images. The complex images rendered by Jeremy's hand-made machines seemed to fit perfectly with his other pieces that showed some of his elaborate electronic handiwork, such as the self-playing guitar. I find the idea of removing the artist's hand almost completely from the final product, and really having the artist's role exist behind the scenes a compelling idea. Upon closer inspection these machine drawings, done in a surprisingly simple ballpoint pen, have their imperfections. The process did not produce perfect drawings, but it was these mistakes that really drew me to them. Seeing the areas where the pen began to run out of ink were the most aesthetically pleasing, and the most interesting, as the flaws in even a mechanical design are exposed.

Jeremy's large wall Spirograph seems to play off of Jeremy's use of machines as well, although in this case the artist's hand is visible, and the machine is instead just a facilitator. Rather than in the machine drawings, this Spirograph just literally guides Jeremy's hand to make the pattern. In this case, there is a closer connection between the artist and his materials and final product. On another level, the Spirograph hints at a certain youthful vigor that Jeremy seems to occasionally play off of within his work. This can also be seen in his use of the ballpoint pen, often in my case associated with school-book scribbles and haphazard note taking. But, upon closer inspection of what the Spirograph really is (a series of gears within gears that creates mathematical curves in a very specific manner) you are able to see where the connections in Jeremy's work begin to be made.

Finally, a piece that I have grown to know and love, whether it be because of my role in its production or its simple genius, is White Noise. I have found a place in my heart for this piece. "White noise" by definition is a signal with equal power across all frequencies. Jeremy's piece was approximately 250 small boxes stacked on top of each other, some with speaker playing a level of white noise out of them. In this piece Jeremy actually provides a physical representation of sound, while including the sound that is being represented. Although during the opening the white noise was hard to hear coming out of the speakers (unless your ear was directly against them), I had heard them previously and the actual white noise that emits is quite interesting. It is a short of high hiss sound. This piece is accompanied almost directly across the room by the Brown Noise piece, and this created an interesting relationship within the gallery. The two pieces were speaking to each other in their different pure forms of sound, carrying on a kind of conversation. The literal stacking of the boxes creates an almost post minimalism take on sound. The White Noise and Brown Noise pieces both literally and figuratively converse with each other, describing an arena where audio landscapes are transcribed into physical realizations, thus providing. Similarly, the Spirograph wall drawing, and the machine made drawing also hold a dialog which suggests a distinct relationship between creator and creation, as well as the imperfections of not only the human hand, but also the machines.

After the show I felt a bit of remorse, knowing there would be no more topcoats to put on, no more boxes to sand, and no more Morrissey playing in a dusty studio. But from those days I spent in Jeremy's studio, and from the time I spent with him in the classroom, I have learned a great deal not only about art, the art world outside of college, but also life itself. Jeremy Boyle works hard, he works very hard, and it shows not only in his show at Hudson Franklin Gallery (which I think was a tremendous success), but also in his students' loyalty and dedication to his teaching. Jeremy does not gain respect from his students by being loud, or by enforcing rules and deadlines. Jeremy gains a students' respect by being a teacher, by being kind and generous, and by doing what he does best: creating amazing art.

In the end I am constantly left questioning whether my college experience, and my parents hard-earned dollars, are worth a BFA, which in my mind really means nothing. I think often of a philosophy student. A philosophy student is taught philosophy, only in most cases to become a philosophy teacher, thus creating a static cycle. But there is always that one Nietzsche, or that one Marx. Similarly, this is true for the art world. It is not really about the diploma, or AP portfolio, but instead it is about working hard for what you want. College is merely a way to facilitate that. Jeremy's show at Hudson Franklin is a manifestation of what I am working for during these four years, and I will be eternally grateful to him for showing me that.

-Nicholas Sullivan

Born in Pittsburgh in 1975, artist/musician Jeremy Boyle received his BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and MFA from the Ohio State University. He was a founding member of the Chicago group Joan of Arc and has performed music (both solo and collaborative) extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan and his recordings are internationally distributed. He has exhibited artwork, most of which is sound and technology based, in major cities across the U.S. including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Sacramento, Seattle,Miami, and Pittsburgh. he was awarded the PA Council on the Arts Fellowship in 2003, received the Heinz Creative Heights Award and completed a residency at the Mattress Factory in 2004, and received a Sprout Fund Seed Award in 2005-6. Recent projects include the completion of a public artwork commissioned by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and the Heinz Endowment in collaboration with architect Gerard Damiani and a solo exhibition at the Hudson Franklin Gallery in New York City. he is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His work has been most recently seen at Deadtech in Chicago, IL, and at a mini-tour of performances last fall featuring his (self- playing) guitar and drums. Also in 2007, Boyle created the score for Jennifer Reeder's first feature film, "Accidents at Home and How They Happen," which premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, on March 1. This is his third solo show with Hudson Franklin.

Nicholas Sullivan is an emerging artist completing a degree at UMASS Amherst where he has studied closely with and worked as assistant to artist Jeremy Boyle.

Hudson Franklin Gallery, 508 W 26th St., NYC, was established by Nicole Francis, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's MA program in Art History. Artists at Hudson Franklin includ Michael Bernstein, Jeremy Boyle, Jesse Chapman, Martin Esteves, Peter Fagundo, Alice Konitz, Elizabeth Saveri, Genevieve Walshe

#permalink posted by Nicholas Sullivan : 4/25/2008 10:16:00 AM

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Dennis Oppenheim. Theme for a Major Hit, 1974. “The Puppet Show.” Installation view.
Institute of Contemporary Art. University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler

Puppets, Mortality, Humor and Suffering;
Three States, Three Venues Explored

AOA correspondent: Artist Eva Mantell

The Puppet Show, Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pa, from January 18 to March 30, 2008; traveling to the Santa Monica Museum of Art; the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Frye Art Museum, Seattle.

Bianca Neve, Teatro del Carretto, LaMama E.T.C., NY, NY,
January 10 - 27, 2008; Teatro Araldo, Torino, Italy, April 18-19 2008

Argonautika, The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts,
directed by Mary Zimmerman, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ,
March 20 - April 6, 2008

Puppets look easy, child-like and direct. They are obviously about the body, about power, about imagination, about the self, about comedy and about mortality.

Any artist can drop in on this art form and give it a try. A puppet could be made from anything: your hands (Cindy Loehr gives us a video with talking fists which quickly reminds me of "The In-Laws" with Alan Arkin); your genitals (Guy Ben-Ner's video gives a sometimes shy body part a star singing role); your whole body as you act like a puppet (Paul McCarthy, scary clown slopping paint around for us).

Puppets are about drawing and about sculpting too. Film, video, computer animation too. Robotics (Survival Research Laboratory lavishly blows up robots, which is certainly one approach). I think the thing vacuuming my neighbor's home right now is a puppet. I'm pretty sure some of my children's pets are puppets, that "live and die" by various digital reenactments of nurturing. And this month I had my first sighting of a Baby Think It Over Doll at, where else, the mall! A teenage girl, right out of an after-school special, is dutifully carrying her puppet baby, waiting for its electronic wail, her cue to turn a key in its back while it digitally records her mothering skills. Looking at her a little more closely: does she or doesn't she? Is she also wearing a strap-on empathy belly?

http://www.enasco.com/product/SB43113G

Where, America, can you get a brain to strap on?

Memories can be strapped on or strung up: by Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, or by Dennis Oppenheim with his mini-me's. Playing with dolls can transport you to the realm of fear. Natalie Djurberg's romps in a cardboard world are kinda sick, kinda cruel, kinda cool. Kara Walker's shadows time-travel into a conflicted, messed-up American history. Her elegant lines are an ironic pleasure, a facade for the crude sadism that is the real story.

“The Puppet Show.” Installation view. Left to right: Anne Chu, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith,
Annette Messager and Maurizio Cattelan in the background. Institute of Contemporary Art.
University of Pennsylvania. Photo: Aaron Igler

Take a break with someone else's problems: Bruce Nauman's dinner date gone yucky. Doug Skinner and Michael Smith's potty mouths. The body and the world are about failure. Things regress then fall apart. Chaos was a greek proto-god who got in at the ground floor. Ubu Roi, an early expression of things gone ape-shit almost gives a classical feeling to stuff going beserk.

Ubu Roi and the Truth Commission, a play from South Africa, with William Kentridge on visuals, riffs on this little archaic psycho-policeman. The brutality of the regime, the document-shredding, the erasing of crimes, create, warp and envelop the testimony of the citizens' suffering. This stuff is real and the art is just mediating the experience. Being good or bad art doesn't matter so much as that it just is art, and art helps me be human in the face of unbearable absences of humanity.

Just do art, and keep it coming. Teatro del Carretto's Bianca Neve (Snow White) at LaMaMa E.T.C. feels Medieval, distilled, sorrowful. A velvet lined box opens up in different ways to reveal shifts of scale, humor and suffering...from the miniature 7 dwarves to the terrifying full-scale actress portraying the witch/queen with an unmoving mask.

The mask that doesn't move and the strings that don't work are the stuff of nightmares. What we most need is agency in the world, connection, love, action and reaction. In the play Argonautika at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, early on, a marionette puppet of a baby wiggles its arms and legs making eager clicking sounds. I laugh at the repetitive, silly motions, but laugh too soon because now the king's henchmen cut the strings, and leave it dead, noiseless, still on the stage.

Any fool knows that plaster, wood, screws and glue don't add up to life, but puppet that I am, my heartstrings are pulled and here come the waterworks.

#permalink posted by Eva Mantell : 4/23/2008 07:38:00 AM

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Gema Alava: "Tell Me the Truth"
at Messineo / Wyman

! Extended to May 2 !

March 20 - ~~April 26, 2008~~
Messineo Art Projects and Wyman Contemporary
227 West 29th Street, 4th Floor (# 111)
New York, New York

by Ted Mooney

The truth is a hard apple, whether thrown or caught, as this young Spanish artist clearly knows. She tends, at her best, to think three or four moves ahead of her work's viewers-not out of disdain for them or out of personal elusiveness, but simply to allow herself room to adjust her own thinking in relation to the effect her imagery has on her (rapidly growing) audience. One even gets the sense that these adjustments are what she's most interested in. And that, if correct, is promising news indeed.

Alava's most recent show, thoughtfully installed in Messineo / Wyman's tiny 29th Street space, is breathtakingly elegant, deftly using the gallery's space limitations to the works' advantage. On exhibition are nine black-and-white silver gelatin digital photographs, printed on fiber paper and individually framed in white maple. Each work depicts, toward the left side of the print, a nail of indeterminate size-no scale is established in these works-protruding from a light gray, almost bluish ground that subsumes both foreground and background. Meanwhile, toward the right side of each print, emerging from a hole in this same placeless gray-blue void, are a few black threads, which seem to have ventured out along the ground to wrap themselves around the nail at midpoint or higher in what appears to be an attempt to uproot it from the security of its hole. A struggle, then-and so, inevitably, the appearance of a narrative. Each print shows the two elements-nail and thread-in a different state of dominance or submission relative to one another. At times the nail leans rigidly away from the threads, drawing them so taut they seem to fray almost to the breaking point. At others, the threads, exerting no less force, bend the nail savagely toward them, flexing it and nearly extracting it from its stubbornly held position. Occasionally, the two forces reach an equilibrium, though whether in exhaustion, momentary truce or even a hard-won peace, it's hard to say.

At least on first encounter, it would be all but impossible for the viewer not to see in this struggle, which is presented to us as if on a completely featureless proscenium stage, the successive seasons in an emotional, probably romantic, human relationship. It could even, if the "time" interval between prints is imagined to be much shorter, be thought of as depicting various moments in a single act of lovemaking. The nail is undeniably phallic, the threads undeniably tactical in their approach and adaptive in their manner of struggle, almost certainly feminine. But no sooner has the viewer hit upon this fairly obvious thought-one even the most completely unreconstructed, frankly fanatical formalist would be hard-pressed to deny-than other, totally different questions begin to bubble up, one after another, in almost alarming profusion.

These questions begin with purely pragmatic speculations as to how these scenarios were physically created. The background suggests a space that is either infinite or non-existent, and, like someone who has just witnessed a magic trick, the viewer is seduced into trying to figure out how this effect was accomplished. Whether one arrives at a satisfactory answer or not, these speculations segue very quickly into the oddly threatening realization that there are absolutely no clues as to what the scale here might be. The force of the depicted struggle (as well as the size of the rather large, horizontally formatted prints) makes it hard not to succumb to the illusion that the stature of the protagonists-nail and thread-is equally epic. And yet when was the last time you saw a ten-foot nail? By now the sense that you are being manipulated is so strong that you begin to question everything. Where exactly can the physical tableaux that appear in the photographs be found? Why aren't you being shown them, instead of what suddenly seems like photo-documentation of the real works, which are being denied you? Did the "true" art work somehow slip away between its physical embodiment and the trace of it preserved in the photograph? Or is the photo itself the art work?

And if these simple physical matters cannot be pinned down, then what about your earlier snap-judgment-strongly reinforced by the linear, apparently sequential installation of the photographs-that together they constitute a definite narrative, from image one to image nine ("The End," as it were). Could the photos be resequenced so as to make a different "story"? Is the story you take from the photos really there, or is it a story you make from them because that's the story you know: your story. Naturally, you then try looking at the prints in different orders to determine the possibilities. And so, by degrees, and quite unexpectedly, you find yourself stranded on a sparsely populated plain in the land of Beckett-or, more befittingly, given the artist's Spanish background, that of Salvador Dali. (Note the Dali-esque shadows cast by the nail.) The seamlessness with which you have been transported from an almost cartoonishly amusing allegory of human relations to a place where some of the darkest fears and needs of the human heart are enacted-enacted and reenacted over and over again unto death-suggests that the artist's intentions were, just possibly, not quite as innocent as you may have assumed. What you still have left to go on, however, is the title of the show: "Tell Me the Truth."

To ask someone to tell you the truth-not a truth but the truth-is to instantly vaporize for good the very object of your request, the one that was so comfortably within your reach until you opened your mouth. Now the possibility of knowing the truth you asked for is forever denied you, because it died the moment you expressed your desire to hear it. This is something all unfaithful lovers know. And, however much we might wish it otherwise, when it comes to the truth, we are all of us unfaithful lovers.

Gema Alava's work carries an uncanny power whose source lies precisely in how lightly she offers it. Often made from the humblest of materials, her art nevertheless gives off just the faintest trace of intense and prolonged concentration. Modest in scale, frequently fragile, it makes you think not of modesty or fragility but of resistance and struggle, life and death, the largest matters. Alava has a gift for effortless reversals that she does not hesitate to use in making her mortal point. And that point, more often than not, has to do with the universality of human suffering-cast by her, at times, in a Spanish key, for Spain's suffering at the hands of history is well known. But the artist is under no illusion: such suffering is a condition of life, not of nationality.

Alava's show remains open until April 26. See it now, before she becomes too well known for her work to be shown again in such intimate quarters.

Author: Ted Mooney is a senior editor at Art in America and the author of four award-winning novels. His most recent, forthcoming in early 2009, is titled The Same River Twice.

Artist: Gema Alava born Madrid, 1973. MFA San Francisco Art Institute, 2000. Her work has been shown at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Queens Museum of Art and, thanks to the generous collaboration of Cai Guo-Quiang, her latest art project took place at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 21st 2008.

#permalink posted by Ted Mooney : 4/02/2008 01:05:00 PM

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Rough and Ready at Pier 94
The Armory Show

Jonathan Meese detail at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin

by artist Alison Knowles

For AOA