Contents for April 03, 2023
47 years ago to the minute, at 12 noon on April 3rd, 1976, artist Martha Wilson first opened the doors to Franklin Furnace Archive, the artists’ organization she started in her living loft at 112 Franklin Street in TriBeCa, NYC. Thanks for helping Franklin Furnace reach its 47th birthday, and stick with us as we begin planning for the big 50 in 2026!
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1. Xinan Helen Ran, FF Alumn, now online at NYMag.com
2. Adam Pendleton, FF Alumn, at Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria, thru Jan. 7, 2024
3. Judy Giera, FF Intern Alumn, at Waterloo Arts, Cleveland, OH opening Apr. 7
4. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, at El Barrio Artspace, Manhattan, April 3-10, and more
5. Saya Woolfalk, FF Alumn, at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, thru Oct. 8
6. Pablo Helguera, FF Alumn, now online in LATimes.com
7. Epstein & Hassan, FF Alumns, now online at TheaterScene.org
8. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, now online at BroadwayWorld.com
9. Ann-Marie LeQuesne, FF Alumn, now online at Vimeo.com
10. Joseph Nechvatal, FF Alumn, now online at ConcreteWheels.com
11. Mark Berghash, Stephen Shore, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, at California Museum of Photography/UCR ARTS, Riverside, CA, opening April 15
12. Jody Lyn-Kee-Chow, FF Alumn, named to 2023 Residency Unlimited cohort
13. Harold Olejarz, FF Alumn, at Atlanta Photography Group, GA, April 10-May 11
14. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, receives Best Experimental, Florence Film Awards
15. Raquel Rabinovich, FF Alumn, now online at Instagram.com
16. Candace Hill, FF Alumn, at Cafe Oto, London, UK, April 9
17. Marie Christine Katz, FF Member, at Marmalade Festival, Oxford, England, April 12
18. Jacob Burckhardt, FF Alumn, at National Arts Club, Manhattan, April 11
19. Sha Sha Higby, FF Alumn, at BRAVA Studio, June 9 & 11, and more
20. La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela, FF Members, at Peter Freeman Inc., Manhattan, June 2, 4
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1. Xinan Helen Ran, FF Alumn, now online at NYMag.com
Please visit this link to New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix, featuring the current exhibition of Xinan Helen Ran, Franklin Furnace Program Manager (in the “Brilliant/Highbrow” upper right corner):
https://nymag.com/article/the-approval-matrix-week-of-march-27-2023.html
Thank you.
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2. Adam Pendleton, FF Alumn, at Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria, thru Jan. 7, 2024
Adam Pendleton: Blackness, White, and Light
mumok—Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Adam Pendleton
Blackness, White, and Light
March 31, 2023–January 7, 2024
Opening: March 30, 7pm
mumok—Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
Adam Pendleton grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to New York in 2002, staging his first solo show there in 2005. His art, developed across dozens of exhibitions, is a reflection of “how we increasingly move through and experience the world on a sensorial level”—a form of abstraction that, in its painterly, psychic, and verbal expression, announces a new mode of visual composition for the twenty-first century.
With Blackness, White, and Light, mumok presents Pendleton’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in Europe, and his largest presentation of new work anywhere. These works, almost all made specifically for the exhibition, offer a visual chorus of collective difference. Since 2008 Pendleton has articulated much of his work through the idea of Black Dada, an ever-evolving inquiry into the relationship between Blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. The paintings, drawings, films, and sculptures in the exhibition flatten the distinctions between legibility and abstraction, past and present, familiar and strange.
The exhibition begins on the ground floor with a group of Pendleton’s Black Dada paintings. These diptychs are compositions of painterly marks that document the evolving nature of an artist’s work. Each is completed with one or more typographic letters from the phrase “Black Dada,” establishing a polyrhythmic space with its two modes of inscription: digital typesetting and painterly gesture. Accompanying these paintings is a group of ceramic Code Poem sculptures, arrangements of geometric symbols that the poet Hannah Weiner derived from Morse code in her 1982 book of the same name.
On the second floor, three triangular pavilions in the main gallery serve a dual function. Their exterior walls support Pendleton’s drawings and paintings while their interiors serve as viewing rooms for his video works, including three of his film portraits: Ishmael in the Garden: A Portrait of Ishmael Houston-Jones (2018), So We Moved: A Portrait of Jack Halberstam (2021), and Ruby Nell Sales (2020–22). Projected in adjacent galleries are What Is Your Name? Kyle Abraham, A Portrait (2018–19) and a new video, Toy Soldier (Notes on Robert E. Lee, Richmond, Virginia/Strobe) (2021–22).
Pendleton developed the pavilions and the angular sightlines in the main gallery in relation to the geometric formal elements in his paintings. The Untitled (Days) paintings integrate simple shapes and visual documentation of his daily studio practice—sprays, splatters, and drips of paint—building them up into dense, all-over compositions. In the vast space of his Untitled (WE ARE NOT) paintings—each nearly six meters wide—vibrational fields of text and gesture immerse the viewer in waves of collective enunciation.
For the large Mylar grids on the surrounding walls, painted marks are printed on transparent film. As Pendleton has said, “The gridded Mylar works are containers for different marks, gestures, and departures: visual departures, textual departures, incomplete utterances, visual and otherwise.” In a second gallery on the same floor, the reflective System of Display, a body of work he began in 2008, combines typography and painterly incident with meticulous archival specificity while remaining speculative and open-ended.
Curated by Marianne Dobner.
Catalogue
Adam Pendleton: Blackness, White, and Light
Hardback, 33 × 24 cm, 346 pages, 290 images
Edited by Marianne Dobner, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Texts by Adam Pendleton (preface), Marianne Dobner (essay), Lynne Tillman (essay), Simone White (poem), Lauren O’Neill-Butler (interview)
Designed by David Wise, forthcoming studio
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König,
Cologne, May 2023
ISBN (mumok): 978-3-903446-06-9
ISBN (König): 978-3-7533-0338-3
German-language edition also available
Contact
Please check our website for regular updates on our program.
For further information please contact: press@mumok.at
Thank you.
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3. Judy Giera, FF Intern Alumn, at Waterloo Arts, Cleveland, OH opening Apr. 7
And it can give some joy
A solo exhibition of mixed media paintings and wall works by Brooklyn based artist Judy Giera https://judygiera.com/
Waterloo Arts – 15605 Waterloo Road Cleveland, Ohio 44110 https://waterlooarts.org/
April 7 – May 20, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday April 7, 2023 6 – 9 pm
Artist Led Exhibition Tour: Friday April 7, 2023 8 pm
I am so thrilled to share that my second solo exhibition will open April 7, 2023 at Waterloo Arts in Cleveland, Ohio. Featuring 17 new mixed media paintings and wall-based works ranging in size from a few inches to several feet, this exhibition engages a theatrical materiality to offer joy and humor as a strategic means of survival against the onslaught of hate and erasure being levied against trans folx like me. Utilizing bright, often fluorescent or metallic colors drawing inspiration from the cheap capitalism of party supply and dollar stores as well as the pop culture aesthetics of the 1990s, the works in this exhibition combine traditional art materials alongside cheap tchotchkes, everyday objects, and personal ephemera into organic compositions solidified under reflective, glossy, plastic-like surfaces throughout. Always returning to a sense of performance, this work functions similar to the archetype of a fool within a Shakespearean play; strangeness, humor and lambent tackiness is riddled with moments of truth about surviving and thriving in our contemporary moment.
If you are in Northeast Ohio, please join me at the opening reception on April 7, 2023 from 6 – 9 pm. I will be leading an artist walk-through of the show at 8pm during the reception. This show is close to my heart as it not only marks my first project outside of New York City, but also a return to my hometown of Cleveland. The exhibition will remain on view through May 20, 2023. For more information on Waterloo Arts, including their push to support women artists this Spring, check out this recent write-up from the Collinwood Observer: https://www.thecollinwoodobserver.com/articles/celebrate-women-this-spring-at-waterloo-arts/
Thank you.
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4. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, at El Barrio Artspace, Manhattan, April 3-10, and more
Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez, founder and director of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco, Peru, featured in Kathy Brew’s film, Following the Thread, will be in NYC April 3-10 with several presentations that are open to the public. Due to the impact of the pandemic and the current political situation in Peru, tourism has been severely impacted, which impacts the weaving communities and how they support themselves. At these public events, handmade
textiles will be available for sale to help support the CTTC weavers.
Tuesday, April 4: Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez Presentation: Demonstration and Market, 4-7:30 pm; Textile Study
Group of New York, El Barrio’s Artspace, PS109, 215 East 99 th Street, NYC (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
https://www.tsgny.org/workshops-2
Wed, April 5: Andean Textiles: Connection to Nature and the Spiritual World, 7-9 pm;
Golden Drum, 97 Green Street, G1, Brooklyn, NY
Friday, April 7: Film screening: Following the Thread, featuring Nilda and some of the CTTC weaving communities, followed by presentation by Nilda with display of textiles; 5:30 pm
The Great Room, 19 University Place, 1st Floor, NYC
Sponsored by NYU’s Center for Latin America and Caribbean Studies
Saturday, April 8: Pop-up market and demonstration with Nilda, 11am-6pm
Weaving Hand, 197 7th Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn
(718) 855-5666
Thank you.
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5. Saya Woolfalk, FF Alumn, at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, thru Oct. 8
Saya Woolfalk in Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Through October 8, 2023
We Emerge at the Sunset of Your Ideology, Saya Woolfalk’s newest immersive, multimedia installation, commissioned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) for their inspiring new exhibition Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America, uses science-fiction and fantasy in recognizing American culture as a pastiche of European colonialism, slavery, Native American history, and immigration. Woolfalk draws on personal history and such disparate sources as Japanese animé, African masks and nineteenth-century American landscape painting to create new speculative fictions. Four monumental figures and two animated video projections extend the story of the Empathics, an invented race of female/plant hybrid beings. Their bodies present cross-sections of a single figure, with layers representing bones, nervous system, flesh and skin. In transforming the central rotunda of the museum building, Woolfalk presents the space as a “secular chapel” – the site for an alternative creation myth.
Organized in collaboration with the African American Museum of Philadelphia (AAMP), Rising Sun takes place at both institutions and also includes works in a wide range of mediums by Shiva Ahmadi, John Akomfrah, La Vaughn Belle, Tiffany Chung, Lenka Clayton, Petah Coyne, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Demetrius Oliver, Eamon Ore-Giron, Alison Saar, Dread Scott, Rose B. Simpson, Sheida Soleimani, Renée Stout, Mark Thomas Gibson, Dyani White Hawk, Hank Willis Thomas, Deborah Willis, and Wilmer Wilson IV.
The exhibition was organized by: Dejay Duckett, Vice President of Curatorial Services (AAMP); Judith Tannenbaum, Project Curator (PAFA); Mekhala Singhal, Curatorial Fellow (PAFA); Michael K. Wilson, Curatorial Fellow (AAMP). Curatorial Contributions by: Jodi Throckmorton, Originating Curator (PAFA); Juan Omar Rodriguez, Curatorial Fellow (PAFA).
Saya Woolfalk: The Woods Women and Other Works Part Two, remains on view by appointment at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects through April 5, 2023.
Thank you.
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6. Pablo Helguera, FF Alumn, now online in LATimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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7. Epstein & Hassan, FF Alumns, now online at TheaterScene.org
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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8. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, now online at BroadwayWorld.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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9. Ann-Marie LeQuesne, FF Alumn, now online at Vimeo.com
DoubleXposure | The Barbican is now online!
04/12/22
A cold grey Sunday in December… A series of actions were filmed in two simultaneous performances, taking instructions from mobile phones and flash cards as if we were miles apart. (We were just out of sight of each other.) The similar but different locations provided building blocks for imagined new structures. The circular forms that participants leaned against spread rapidly. Occasional passers by could be seen at a distance and became targets for our attempts at communication. | THE END | in both locations was the reveal of our methods.
Ann-Marie LeQuesne
Thank you.
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10. Joseph Nechvatal, FF Alumn, now online at ConcreteWheels.com
Hello all,
Trouble’s Spring 2023 Music Issue is out. Take a look! Please share it around, far and wide.
Thanks to all who helped bring it to fruition…
Go here to download and use this link to share: http://concretewheels.com/trouble/trouble.htm
Best,
Matthew Rose
Thank you.
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11. Mark Berghash, Stephen Shore, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, at California Museum of Photography/UCR ARTS, Riverside, CA, opening April 15
CMP at 50 is a showcase of history and wonder, an exhibition that celebrates the first 50 years of the California Museum of Photography. From its inception, the CMP has dedicated itself to collecting and exhibiting photography not only as an art form, but as a cultural and technological phenomenon. The exhibition celebrates this legacy, and the countless supporters, staff, faculty, donors, collectors, members, and students who have enabled the museum to thrive. CMP at 50 draws on the world-class collection of 500,000 images and objects to present an exhibition of gems and marvels connected to the museum’s evolution and to the dramatically shifting course of photo history.
Photographs by: Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Marie Bovo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Yolanda Andrade, Lewis Baltz, Thomas Barrow, Mark Berghash, Laurie Brown, Wynn Bullock, Steven J. Cahill, Jo Ann Callis, Phil Chang, Larry Clark, Will Connell, Linda Connor, Darryl Curran, Bruce Davidson, Wayne E. Davis, Joe Deal, Lewis deSoto, T. Enami, Walker Evans, Jona Frank, Travon Free, Anthony Friedkin, Lee Friedlander, Francis Frith, Flor Garduño, Anna Gaskell, Raoul Gradvohl, Philippe Halsman, Graciela Iturbide, Mike Kelley, André Kértesz, Sant Khalsa, Kusakabe Kimbei, Hiromu Kira, Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Danny Lyon, Mike Mandel, M. Robert Markovich, Eniac Martinez, Douglas McCulloh, Susan Meiselas, Pedro Meyer, Joel Meyerowitz, J.C. Mills, Barbara Morgan, Kenji Nakahashi, Keystone View Company, Arnold Newman, Anne Noggle, Kenda North, Marion Palfi, Sheila Pinkel, Man Ray, Stephen Shore, Rubén Ortiz Torres, Marion Palfi, Sheila Pinkel, Jim Pomeroy, Herb Quick, Man Ray, Christopher Russell, H.M. Shaw, Stephen Shore, Larry Silver, Phel Steinmetz, Penelope Umbrico, Underwood & Underwood, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Andy Warhol, Gillian Wearing, Edward Weston, and Garry Winogrand.
Spring Reception
Saturday, April 15, 2023 | 6-9pm
Free and open to the public. CMP at 50 is curated by Leigh Gleason, Interim Executive Director and Director of Collections at UCR ARTS. This exhibition received generous support from Keith Downs. Exhibitions at UCR ARTS are supported by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCR, and by the City of Riverside.
https://ucrarts.ucr.edu/exhibitions/cmp-at-50/
Thank you.
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12. Jody Lyn-Kee-Chow, FF Alumn, named to 2023 Residency Unlimited cohort
Residency Unlimited (RU) is pleased to announce the 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residents. Please join us in welcoming Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug), Tatiana Arocha, Miatta Kawinzi and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow to RU!
The five artists submitted applications to an open call for artists who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color who have research-based practices that fill in gaps in historical knowledge. During their three month residencies from April 3 – June 30, 2023, the artists will focus on the research and development of multi-disciplinary projects. The artists will participate in a culminating group exhibition at PS122 Gallery in June.
The artists were selected from more than 180 applicants by a panel of three arts professionals: Elvira Clayton, visual and performance artist and 2021 NYC-based artist-in-residence; Rachel Gugelberger, curator of visual arts at Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in the Bronx; and Dario Mohr, interdisciplinary artist, educator and founding director of AnkhLave Arts Alliance.
The 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council.
Thank you.
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13. Harold Olejarz, FF Alumn, at Atlanta Photography Group, GA, April 10-May 11
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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14. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, receives Best Experimental, Florence Film Awards
Just learned that Mixed Messages won Best Experimental award at the Florence Film Awards for the year (March 2022-February 2023).
Gratifying that this very first personal video from 33 years ago still has resonance and relevance.
Yours truly, Kathy Brew
Thank you.
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15. Raquel Rabinovich, FF Alumn, now online at Instagram.com
Dear Friends,
I wanted to share with you that I have just created an instagram account –https://www.instagram.com/raquelrabinovich.legacyproject/-We will be posting updates and insights about my career and projects, current and past.
I hope you are all well!
My warmest wishes,
Raquel
Thank you.
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16. Candace Hill, FF Alumn, at Cafe Oto, London, UK, April 9
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/matinee-james-goodwin-candace-hill/
Matinee -Joint Book Launch: James Goodwin / Candace Hill
£10 £8 Advance £5 Members
Materials/Materialien presents the launch for two new collections: James Goodwin’s Faux Ice and Candace Hill’s Short Leash Kept On. In dialogue with Skepta, D.S. Marriott, Monkstar and Klein, Faux Ice echoes the condensed form of the grime lyric: a poetry not interested in building up, but in dismantling a stable subject position. A 200-page epic in dialogue with poets Lloyd Addison and Russell Atkins and artist Tom Feelings, Hill’s extraordinary 200-page epic Short Leash Kept On flies in on torrents of invention like a Cecil Taylor solo. “molten bitumen is poetry’s tendency anyway”.
For this event, the two poets will read from and discuss their work (James Goodwin in person and Candace Hill via video link). Music will likely also be played and discussed.
James Goodwin has assembled a Spotify Playlist to accompany Faux Ice which be accessed at the following link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5lXi0WknLWO9mibKL7Gq44?si=aefb73594d8d4187
Thank you.
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17. Marie Christine Katz, FF Member, at Marmalade Festival, Oxford, England, April 12
LTAW#57, My Favorite Grandmother & #DancingalonewithmyShadow in April
Let’s Take a Walk #57
I am delighted to announce that I will conduct, Let’s Take a Walk #57, a participatory performance as part of the Marmalade Festival in Oxford, England, on April 12th at 2 pm (GMT)
More info about Marmalade Festival here: https://www.marmalade.io/2023-festival
Let’s Take a Walk brings people to share a moment, a step toward peace. Participants from anywhere in the world join us via:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcayer?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letstakeawalk_world/
#walkingtogetherapart.
On-site, a Town Crier, Tweet Master, and Drummer assist me. Addressing topic(s) related to the walk, prompting dialogue, and inviting audience participation. As we journey, the knitted overskirt I wear, created days before each walk with passerby, unravels, leaving traces. Performance time 30 minutes. So far, there have been 56 walks.
Prior to the performance, I work with passersby, knitting and sharing stories, posing questions directly related to the theme of the performance. Shlepping & Displaying consisted of displaying the unraveled dress over the few days following the walk.
As part of the project, I maintain a blog, which you can find here: http://letstakeawalkmc.blogspot.com
My Favorite Grandmother
In addition, I had the chance to attend the exhibition of Oana Maria Cajal’s Shattered: Symbolic Gesture, presented by the Romanian Cultural Institute. That evening I approached two participating poets, Vera Sirota and Claudia Serea and Oana, asking if I could include their poems and images in my blog, My Favorite Grandmother. I am delighted to add a lovely story from my friend Wendy Wasdahl’s grandmother, Ida.
If you have a chance, please visit My Favorite Grandmother here: http://www.myfavoritegrandmother.com/
I would be very happy to add your story.
Finally, I look forward to presenting #DancingAlonewithmyShadow performance at the En Transito exhibition curated by Clemencia Labin in San Antoni de Portmany Ibiza from April 27th to 30th.
More info about Clemencia Labin here: http://www.clemencialabin.com/
#DancingAlonewithmyShadow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dancingalonewithmyshadow/?hl=en
Thank you for your time and participation.
Best wishes,
Marie Christine
Thank you.
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18. Jacob Burckhardt, FF Alumn, at National Arts Club, Manhattan, April 11
Slide lecture on The Loft Generation
On Tuesday, April 11 I will give a slide lecture on The Loft Generation: From the de Koonings to Twombly: portraits and sketches, 1942-2011 (Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2021) by Edith Schloss (my mother) at the National Arts Club.
It will center on the illustrations, especially those that (for reasons of space) did not get in the book, plus images of her work.
The occasion is the book’s paperback release. Copies will be available for purchase.
See you there,
Jacob
Where and when:
The National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South,
New York, NY, 1003
Tuesday, April 11 at 7:30PM
Admission is free but you should make a reservation. To register go to: https://www.nationalartsclub.org/default.aspx?p=.NETEventView&ID=3865530&qfilter=&title=&type=0&ssid=323204&chgs=
Thank you.
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19. Sha Sha Higby, FF Alumn, at BRAVA Studio, June 9 & 11, and more
Sha Sha Higby in the Powdered Sea
Performances June 9th and 11th and workshops
You can get your discounted tickets now before the end of March for SFIAF2023!
Link to tickets: https://www.sfiaf.org/2023_sha_sha_higby
Link to SFIAF 2023: https://www.sfiaf.org/sfiaf_2023
Using micro puppetry there will be serene forests of animals and birds followed by a stylized battle of demons of fire in the forests. After being extinguished by the oceans, the sky opens and it begins to snow. Fish search through the remains for flying souls. What is to happen next?…as this ornate giant watches over.
She will perform in full regalia costume be at the SFIAF Festival in San Francisco the 9&11th of June 2023 at Brava Theater in San Francisco. There will also be one at the Throckmorten Theater Mill Valley September 24th but details later.
Also workshops online June 3,10,17: https://www.weebly.com/app/front-door/signin?path=login&redirect=%252Fapp%252Fwebsite%252Fusers%252F22824258%252Fsites%252F556376008860072465%252Fdashboard%252Feditor#/page/c019b0b0-cd01-11ed-8048-d937bb57a77e/block/da1c7531-0a58-11eb-afdd-53977486823c/
You may take one or all.
Sha Sha will introduce what she means by micropuppetry in her upcoming performance and you will get to make one of your own and perform it online. Choose an area of your body you would like the stage to be.
Sha Sha will introduce you to her approach to movement and theater as it originally came to her through sculpture, mask, and costume. She will have images of her early work and the steps and choices she made to come to what the work is today. She will also show and explain actual samples of her work for people to closely examine. Then we will stretch with movement using music and paper and color,wire,and elastic and projections to expand the possibilities of the space around us which is. Participants will be invited to ask questions.
“The Powdered Sea is presented as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival (or SF international Arts Festival or SF Intl. Arts Festival).
More about SFIAF here: https://www.sfiaf.org/
Public phone number for performance tickets and information is 415-399-9554.
Workshops contact Sha Sha.
Sha Sha also sent an artwork to the Hubei Museum of Art in Wuhan,China that is going on now.
Video of exhibition in Throckmorten: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOJ3oymbYwE
Enchanted Garden 2022 performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-9BYhGCsSg
We are raising money for that and you can support it directly at SFIAF but earmark it for Sha Sha.
Also Check out some of the items from Sha Sha’s Store which includes the workshop registration: https://sha-sha-higby.square.site/
Thank you.
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20. La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela, FF Members, at Peter Freeman Inc., Manhattan, June 2, 4
La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela
Just Charles & Cello in the Romantic Chord in a setting of Abstract #1from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals with Dream Light
June 2, 2023
7:00 (doors) 7:30 (concert)
June 4, 2023
4:00 (doors) 4:30 (concert)
Peter Freeman Inc.
140 Grand St, New York, NY 10013
$55 through April 7 / $60 April 8 – June 1 / $65 day of
Please visit this link for tickets: https://www.blankforms.org/events/just-charles-cello-in-the-romantic-chord-in-a-setting-of-abstract-1-from-quadrilateral-phase?utm_source=Blank+Forms+press&utm_campaign=b97aba5258-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_28_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0e600333b-b97aba5258-61476357
Just Charles & Cello in the Romantic Chord, composed by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela for cellist Charles Curtis in 2003, is a monumental essay in sustained sound and gradually shifting light projection, centered on the voice of Curtis’s cello-playing, improvising within the rigorous formal framework of Young’s composition. Composed in just intonation, which Young describes as “that system of tuning in which every frequency is related to every other frequency as the numerator or denominator of some whole number fraction,” Just Charles mobilizes Curtis’s capacity for exact tonal precision as he intones pitches and melodic figures over pre-recorded cello drones. Compositionally, the work expands on the “Romantic Chord” section of Young’s evolving improvisational magnum opus The Well-Tuned Piano, translating material written for Young’s specially-tuned Bösendorfer Imperial Grand into the realm of the sustaining cello. Curtis describes playing the piece as a “realtime acoustical investigation” during which the constant inflection of pitch becomes performative material, as he searches for the frequencies, intervals, and overtones that define the intonational structure. Just Charles can be seen as a bridge between The Well-Tuned Piano and Young’s works with sustained tones such as The Four Dreams of China and Trio for Strings. As on its premiere nearly two decades ago, the work will be performed within a setting of Marian Zazeela’s light environment, Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals with Dream Light, installed for this occasion by Jung Hee Choi, Young and Zazeela’s senior disciple. Just Charles is one of only two works conceived by Young for a soloist other than himself, along with The First Butterfly of Spring composed for Choi, begun in 2003 as a word piece.
Across nearly four decades of collaboration, Curtis and Young have built an intimate working relationship centered around study, shared music-making, and the careful re-examination of the performance practice of Young’s oeuvre. The two first met in 1986, and worked together preparing a performance of Trio for Strings (1958), Young’s seminal early minimalist composition, for the thirty-year retrospective of Young’s work at Dia in 1988. Curtis describes his first rehearsals with Young as “one of the foundational learning experiences of my musical life.” In the years since, he has participated in performances and premieres of more of Young’s compositions than any other interpreter.
In 2003, the ongoing collaboration between Young and Curtis coalesced in the composition of Just Charles through months of extended rehearsals at Young and Zazeela’s Church Street loft. Young, seated on the floor directly beside Curtis’s cello, would sing the melodic lines to Curtis, who would then match Young’s voice on his cello, building up the work note by note until a body of material was formed. (Curtis and Young had used this method in their collaboration once before, on their arrangement of the lost early Minimalist Terry Jennings’s Piece for Cello and Saxophone in 1989). While listening in on their daily rehearsals, Zazeela made the drawings that would eventually become the constantly-transforming calligraphic projection Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals. Poet Louise Landes Levi, who observed Curtis’s extensive preparation for the piece’s debut, has called it “the most powerful presentation of contemporary sacred music I have ever heard, a masterpiece and a masterful rendition.”
La Monte Young (b. 1935) is a world-renowned composer, performer, and artist. For over 65 years, he has pioneered the field of extended duration in music, developed the technique of just intonation, and explored the psychological and phenomenological effects of precise tuning in physical sound environments. In the summer of 1958, Young composed a seminal work, Trio for Strings, acknowledged as the first work written as musical minimalism. In 1962, Young, alongside longtime collaborator and partner Marian Zazeela, formed the short-lived group, The Theatre of Eternal Music and developed a highly influential performance practice. The members include Young, Zazeela, Terry Riley, Angus MacLise, Tony Conrad and John Cale. In 1970, Young and Zazeela supported Indian master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath’s journey to the United States, eventually spending twenty-six years under his tutelage in the Kirana style of Indian classical singing. In 1974, Young premiered his monumental, ongoing, improvisatory solo piano piece The Well-Tuned Piano in Rome on a specially-tuned Bösendorfer piano. With the support of the Dia Art Foundation, Young and Zazeela built their most expansive Dream House sound and light environment at the former New York Mercantile Exchange building, where it was open to the public from 1975 to 1985. The Dream House remains open to the public in its permanent home at MELA Foundation at 275 Church Street.
Marian Zazeela (b. 1940) is an artist working in a variety of media encompassing painting, drawing, graphic design, film, light projection, stage design, sculpture and environment. Over the past six decades, she has developed a singular visual language, incorporating her signature calligraphic iconography within highly saturated colored-light environments in which light, sculptural form, and phenomenological effect feed into each other to create a total experience. Working closely alongside her partner La Monte Young since 1962, Zazeela’s light environments and graphic design have formed the visual language of virtually all of Young’s major output, from posters and records to the Dream House sound and light environment across each of its iterations. Zazeela began singing with Young in 1962 as a founding member of The Theatre of Eternal Music, and performed as vocalist in almost every concert of Young’s ensemble. In 1970, she became one of the first Western disciples of renowned master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath and has since performed and taught the Kirana style of Indian classical music. She accompanied Pandit Pran Nath in hundreds of concerts throughout the world and continues to perform in The Just Alap Raga Ensemble and The Sundara All Star Band, which she founded with Young and Jung Hee Choi. Abstract #1 from Quadrilateral Phase Angle Traversals consists of a projection of abstracted letter forms which gradually metamorphose in quadrilateral symmetry over the duration of the performance, itself bathed in the light of her Dream Light performance environment, created specifically for the concert performance of Young’s music. Zazeela’s installations, works on paper, and performances have been presented by major American and European institutions, most recently at Dia Beacon from 2019–2022.
Charles Curtis (b. 1960) is among the premiere avant-garde cellists living today. A graduate of Julliard, Curtis has woven a unique and storied career through the worlds of both classical and experimental music. Among La Monte Young’s closest and most enduring collaborators, Curtis has devoted much of his musical life to the realization and interpretation of Young’s music, from whom he learned just intonation, improvisation, and the Kirana style of Indian classical music. Curtis also attended classes with the late master vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, and performed in the Just Alap Raga Ensemble directed by Young and Marian Zazeela. He has led numerous performances of Young’s work throughout Europe and the U.S., including all of the Four Dreams of China, a Subsequent Dream of China, a number of the Compositions 1960, and most importantly Trio for Strings, Young’s 1958 composition now universally acknowledged as the first work of minimalism in music. In consultation with Young, Curtis devised the just intonation tuning and the originally intended Longer Duration version of Trio, premiered at the Dia:Chelsea Dream House in 2015 and released as a 4-LP box set by Dia in 2021. Curtis is also one of only a handful of musicians to have appeared in duo formations with Young, performing Richard Maxfield’s Perspectives for La Monte Young for low string instrument and tape, and Terry Jennings’s Piece for Cello and Saxophone, recently released on Saltern Records in a solo cello version made by Young expressly for Curtis. He has performed modern classical, minimalist, and chamber music compositions all around the world. Numerous major composers—Alvin Lucier, Éliane Radigue, Christian Wolff, Alison Knowles and Tashi Wada among them—have written works specifically for him. Curtis is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. Recent releases include Performances and Recordings 1998–2018 and two complete performances of Radigue’s hour-long solo, Naldjorlak, her very first work for an acoustic instrument and a live performer, on Wada’s Saltern label.
Jung Hee Choi (b. 1969) works across a variety of media, including drawing, video, photography, sculpture, performance, sound, and multi-media installation. Choi received her MA in art and sound from New York University. She became a disciple of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in 1999, with the traditional Kirana gandha bandh red-thread ceremony taking place in 2003. Young and Zazeela’s primary adherent, Choi has participated in and directed the presentation of their installations and performances around the world. In 2002, she co-founded the Just Alap Raga Ensemble with Young and Zazeela, which Young calls the primary vehicle of his work. The three artists have performed together extensively since 2002 presenting live performances with their ensembles; The Just Alap Raga Ensemble, The Sundara Trio, The Sundara All Star Band, and the reborn Theatre of Eternal Music. Choi’s solo exhibitions were presented annually from 2009 through 2017 in the Dream House, curated by Young and Zazeela, the only long-term installations other than their original environment. Since 2018, Choi’s works have been presented simultaneously with Young and Zazeela’s in the Dream House, forming a continuous and collaborative sound and light environment. She has exhibited and performed widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including at Dia Art Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum, Berliner Festspeile, FRESH Festival in Bangkok, FRAC Franche-Comté, and Bundeskunsthalle.
Just Charles has been made possible with generous support from Peter Freeman, Inc., Lostand Foundation, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Peter Freeman, Inc. is wheelchair accessible with a short ramp to the main entrance. There is an additional entry point with a longer ramp that can be accessed with the assistance of gallery staff. For further access information, please contact info@peterfreemaninc.com or call 212-966-5154.
Blank Forms is a nonprofit organization supporting emerging and historically significant artists who produce work across disciplines, often rooted in traditions of experimental and creative music. We aim to establish new frameworks to preserve, nurture, and present these artists’ work and to build platforms for practices underrepresented in art’s commercial, institutional, and historical fields. Blank Forms collaborates with artists on commissions, exhibitions, publications as well as archival and estate projects within contemporary cultural ecosystems and in perpetuity. In presenting and documenting this work, Blank Forms seeks to foster an artistic community founded upon engaged and equitable conversations across continents, media, and generations.
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Kate Liu, FF Intern, Spring 2023
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