Contents for June 27, 2016
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Yoko Ono, Liliana Porter, FF Alumns, at Malba, Buenos Aires, Argentina, thru Oct. 31
2. Linda Carmella Sibio, FF Alumn, at Colliding Worlds Fine Art Gallery, Cathedral City, CA, July 2-16
3. Alicia Grullon, FF Alumn, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, June 30
4. Marja Samsom, FF Alumn, at Participant Inc., Manhattan, June 22-29
5. Jill Kroesen, FF Alumn, at the Whitney Museum, Manhattan, July 29-31
6. Diane Torr, FF Alumn, at Glastonbury Festival, England, thru June 28
7. Peggy Ahwesh, Cecilia Vicuña, FF Alumns, at Gasworks, London, England, opening June 22
8. Taylor Mac, FF Alumn, in The New York Times, June 22
9. Denise Green, FF Alumn, at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, thru September 25
10. Natalie Bookchin, FF Alumn, in The New York Times, June 23
11. Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, in The New York Times, June 23
12. Allan Kaprow, Robert Mapplethorpe, Claes Oldenburg, Cindy Sherman, FF Alumns, in The New York Times, June 23
13. Frank Moore, FF Alumn, in The Live Art Almanac Volume 4, now online
14. EIDIA House, FF Alumns, at 14 Dunham Place, Brooklyn, thru July 2
15. Bob Connolly, FF Alumn, at Writers’ Corner, London, UK, July 2
16. Rachel Frank, FF Alumn, at Zurcher Gallery, Manhattan, opening June 29, and more
17. Ann Hamilton, Howardena Pindell, FF Alumns, at Alexander Gray Associates, Manhattan, opening July 7
18. Jaroslav Andel, Hans Haacke, Suzanne Lacy, Krzysztof Wodiczko, FF Alumns, now online at artseverywhere.ca, and more
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Yoko Ono, Liliana Porter, FF Alumns, at Malba, Buenos Aires, Argentina, thru Oct. 31
Yoko Ono
Dream Come True
June 24-October 31, 2016
MALBA
Avda. Figueroa Alcorta 3415
Buenos Aires
Argentina
Hours: Wednesday 12-9pm,
Thursday-Monday 12-8pm
T +54 11 4808 6500
prensa@malba.org.ar
MALBA presents Yoko Ono. Dream Come True, the first retrospective of Yoko Ono (Tokyo, 1933) ever held in Argentina. Ono is an essential and pioneering figure in conceptual and participatory contemporary art. The show curated by Gunnar B. Kvaran and Agustín Pérez Rubio includes over 80 works, among them texts, objects, videos, films, installations, and sound recordings produced from the early 1950s to the present. The cornerstone of the show are the “Instruction Pieces,” which Ono has been working on for over 60 years. The title of the show can be read as a metaphor for Ono’s artistic career, but also as a commentary on the current global situation which, in Ono’s view, can be improved by group participation and creative exchange.
Ono is associated with conceptual and performance art, as well as the neo-avant-garde Fluxus movement and the happenings of the 1960s. She was one of the first to question the concept of the work of art and the artwork as object, breaking traditional boundaries between artistic disciplines. By inviting viewers to play an active role in the production of the work, she has created a new modality in the relationship between artist and viewer. Ono uses a clear and universal language to produce objects, events, rituals, and actions that culminate in the precise terms she formulates with audience participation. The “Instruction Pieces” consist of simple and poetic messages that invite viewers to perform specific actions such as “listen to the sound of the earth turning” or “light a match and watch till it goes out.”
The exhibition project encompasses two instances: the exhibition proper in MALBA’s galleries and the exhibition and communication of a great many works in the public space, the mass media, the internet, and social media. Instructions can be read, then, not only on the walls of MALBA’s galleries, but also on the pages of a newspaper, as part of a “dance festival,” on a billboard in the middle of a major avenue, at a bus stop or subway station; or they are heard on loudspeakers or the radio, or whispered in one’s ear; they might be received in an e-mail or as an image that goes viral on facebook.
In the framework of Dream Come True, Yoko Ono has invited Latin American women who have been subjected to gender violence to form part of the Arising / Resurgiendo project. The work compiles the testimonies received-a text that describes the experience and a photograph of the eyes of the participant-in an installation in MALBA and on the exhibition’s website. Through this instruction, addressed solely to women, Ono offers catharsis and healing to those women whose bodies and minds have been afflicted by acts of aggression. Also, for the exhibition, Ono invited a group of 12 Latin American artists-six men and six women-to produce a work-vessel capable of “taking water” to people, whether to heal their minds or to recognize their courage in expressing themselves. The artists invited for the Water Event were Alexander Apóstol, Tania Bruguera, Antonio Caro, Ana Gallardo, Alfredo Jaar, Runo Lagomarsino, Teresa Margolles, Hernán Marina, Amalia Pica, Liliana Porter, Rosângela Rennó and Tercerunquinto. The work could be addressed to a person, people, or region that desperately needs water. Yoko Ono completes the work of the participating artists by symbolically providing water to fill those vessels. Each of the works will be exhibited in the museum’s galleries as part of the show.
MALBA will publish two books: The exhibition catalogue published solely in Spanish at the explicit request of the artist and and a re-edition of 1,000 copies of Ono’s Grapefruit (1964). In 1970, the first Spanish-language edition of Grapefruit (“Pomelo” in Spanish) was published in Buenos Aires by Ediciones de la Flor publishing house. The edition was so popular it is still sold out.
In Dream Come True, Yoko Ono expands the breadth of a body of work with a strong political and social commitment, specifically to the feminist, pacifist, and environmentalist movements. Ono invites us to embark on an experience that will transform our relationship to ourselves and to others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2. Linda Carmella Sibio, FF Alumn, at Colliding Worlds Fine Art Gallery, Cathedral City, CA, July 2-16
Colliding Worlds Fine Art Gallery Presents
Double Indemnity
Selected Works by Multidisciplinary Artist
Linda Carmella Sibio
In Cathedral City, CA
Saturday, July 2 – Saturday, July 16, 2016
Featuring Pieces from The Insanity Principle (Paintings) and
Reflections in a Broken Mirror (Artist Book)
CATHEDRAL CITY, CA – June 21, 2016 – Colliding Worlds Fine Art Gallery will present Double Indemnity, an exhibit of thought-provoking works by prolific multidisciplinary artist Linda Carmella Sibio, opening on Saturday, July 2, 2016 with a reception from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. Diagnosed with schizophrenia decades ago, Sibio is the founder of Bezerk Productions, a nonprofit organization that, through art, assists those with psychological issues to express themselves. Her work, which embraces the symptoms of mental illness as a structure for making art, has been shown across the United States and internationally. Sibio, who lives in Joshua Tree, is also the recipient of numerous grants and prizes for her art. For more information on Sibio and Bezerk Productions, visit www.lindasibio.com.
Double Indemnity features colorful large-scale paintings from Sibio’s The Insanity Principle series. These paintings are an investigation into the structures of madness and use fragmentation and interrupters. Additionally, original pages from her in-progress artist book, Reflections in a Broken Mirror, will be on view during two special events at the gallery (at the July 2nd opening and during the July 5th art walk). The book, written and illustrated by Sibio, combines the artist’s personal biography, art techniques for teaching the disabled, and philosophical ideas through text and drawing. The artist will be in attendance at the opening event on Saturday, July 2nd from 5:00pm to 8:00pm as well as on Tuesday, July 5th from 4:00pm to 7:00pm for the Cathedral City Art and Cuisine Walk. Both events are free and open to the public. The ongoing exhibition is open through Saturday, July 16, 2016 at Colliding Worlds Fine Art Galler y, 68-895 Pérez Road, I13, Cathedral City, CA (http://www.collidingworldsfineart.com; 510-334-6996). Regular gallery hours are from 11:00am to 4:00pm, Wednesday thru Saturday. Double Indemnity is a 501(c)3 Bezerk Productions project.
A page from Reflections in a Broken Mirror
by Linda Carmella Sibio
Sibio on Schizophrenia –
Sibio embraces her diagnosis in her visual arts practice, as an art-making tool as well as a source of content. Says Sibio …
The fragmented thinking of the schizophrenic is actually a window into the placement of our culture. We are all living in a deconstructed world, no longer thinking linear thoughts. Television, the Internet, video surveillance, and the media continually interrupt our perceptions. We no longer have single, isolated thoughts. We think in a multi-layered complex pattern. In order for our culture to go forward, the darkness of the dismembered body needs to come into the light. We need to fragment in order to become whole again.
When I started my most recent artistic journey, I had lost my cabin in Echo Park, Los Angeles, had escaped from a board and care facility for schizophrenia, and had moved to the Joshua Tree area. I had a cat and I adopted four dogs. I was on 43 antipsychotic medications, which had been given to me at the Glendale Memorial Hospital.
I was switching between realities – shifting from hallucinations to delusions and hysteria – and was rapidly running the full gamut of symptoms related to schizophrenia. When I wasn’t lying in the sand having panic attacks, I was inside the cabin creating my art. It was in this state I found, hidden within me, millions of images. These images were intense. At this point, I discovered I could control my “symptoms” if I could put them within the context of my art.
Using stream of consciousness, I discovered my ideas. They came from simple and complicated sketches that communicated with me, hallucinations, and dreams. I was in an altered state and my brain was operating differently. In this state, I truly discovered my own vision, my own mythology, and visual vocabulary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3. Alicia Grullon, FF Alumn, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, June 30
Please Join Us Thursday, June 30
from 6 to 8pm for
Fair Care
A Conversation Organized
by the Center for Urban Pedagogy
Location: The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street
RSVP: media@sdrubin.org
Fair Care is the first of a series of programs presented with current Rubin Foundation grantees, and will examine activism and health advocacy as they relate to art and public policy. The conversation will be led by Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Executive Director Christine Gaspar with health advocate Claudia Calhoon and artists Alicia Grullón and Elizabeth Hamby. This conversation will focus on recent CUP projects that address the healthcare needs of underrepresented communities, covering such topics as understanding the Affordable Care Act, health care options for new immigrants, and the links between climate change, economic inequality, and access to community health. Fair Care has been organized in dialogue with The 8th Floor’s current exhibition In the Power of Your Care, which raises questions about health care as a human right and the interdependencies of care in our culture.
Claudia Calhoon joined the New York Immigration Coalition in 2014 as Health Advocacy Senior Specialist and became the Director of Health Advocacy in 2015. She leads the development and execution of city and state campaigns to improve health access, coverage, and delivery for immigrant communities. Calhoon has provided leadership to a diverse array of public health and non-profit settings including the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and the Open Society Foundations and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cuenca, Ecuador. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the HHC Delivery System Reform Incentive Program (DSRIP) Performing Provider System and the Community Advisory Board of the NYU Center for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities. Calhoon is currently enrolled in the Doctorate of Public Health Program at CUNY Graduate Center. She received a MPH from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and a BA in American History from Earlham College.
Christine Gaspar is Executive Director at CUP and has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.
Alicia Grullón moves between performance, video, and photography, channeling her interdisciplinary approach towards critiques on the politics of presence, an argument for the inclusion of disenfranchised communities in political and social spheres. She received a BFA from New York University and an MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Grullón’s works have been shown in numerous group exhibitions including Franklin Furnace, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, BRIC House for Arts and Media, School of Visual Arts, El Museo del Barrio, Jamaica Flux 10, Performa 11, Smack Mellon and Art in Odd Places, all NY. She has received grants from the Puffin Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York, and Franklin Furnace Archives, among others. Grullón has participated in residencies in the United States and abroad, some among them include: Artist in the Marketplace, Korea Arts Council in Anyang South Korea, Five Colleges Women’s Studies Research Center and the Art and Law Residency at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. She has presented workshops and talks for CreativeTime Summit in 2015, Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, and the Association of Art Historians. aliciagrullon.com
Elizabeth Hamby is an artist and educator who works as a Community Urban Planner at The Center for Health Equity at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Since 2006, she has worked with museums, nonprofits, and government agencies to design and implement projects engaging diverse New Yorkers in participatory planning processes to understand and transform their city. She has been profiled as a Citizen Placemaker by Project for Public Spaces, and in 2014, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Transportation Alternatives for her work to create safe streets for biking and walking in New York City. She has been featured in publications including DNA Info, The New York Times, and Untapped Cities and has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York, the Bronx River Art Center, The Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education, among others. Ms. Hamby holds degrees from Parsons: The New School for Design, and Eugene Lang: The New School for Liberal Arts.
The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement. CUP projects demystify urban policy and planning issues that impact New York City communities, so that the public can better participate in shaping them. Through collaboration with art and design professionals, community-based advocates, and policymakers, CUP addresses complex issues-from the juvenile justice system to zoning law to food access- breaking them down into simple, accessible visual explanations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4. Marja Samsom, FF Alumn, at Participant Inc., Manhattan, June 22-29
Marja Samsom, Miss Behave
June 22-29, 2016
Performances:
Wednesday, June 22, 8pm
Thursday, June 23, 8pm
Book signing:
Marja Samsom, Diary of a Forgotten Actress, 1972-1979
A publication curated by Inez & Vinoodh, 2015
Wednesday, June 29, 7-9pm
From June 22-29, 2016, PARTICIPANT INC is proud to present Marja Samsom, Miss Behave, a set of performances and a book launch activating a scripted environment including props, set, photographs, and films.
Samsom began casting herself as Miss Behave and Miss Kerr in her performance-based photographs and films in the early ’70s, producing Super 8 films inspired by illusionist and filmmaker George Melies. Pin-up, housewife, diva – a repertoire of self-objectification provided directorial authority. The ‘Forgotten Actress’ deployed. Polaroids/snapshots served as evidence of a living artform – a live performance, inspired by the art and friendship of Bas Jan Ader. Later in the ’90s,’The Dumpling Diva’ appeared when Samsom needed her at The Kitchen Club, as chef/owner and Circus ‘Ringleader,’ crafting the sublimation of sensuality, Dadaist humor into her photographs much like a sculptor uses clay. Miss Behave traces the workings of ephemeral artist as businesswoman and back.
Marja Samsom lives and works in New York City. In the ’70s, Samsom exhibited her work in various venues in Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam and elsewhere in Europe. Under the pseudonyms Miss Behave or Miss Kerr, she played with the concepts of housewife and pin-up. In 1976, she performed the piece Miss Kerr in Amsterdam at de Appel Arts Centre. In 1980, she traveled to New York for Dutch Treat, an exchange that Wies Smals set up with Martha Wilson from Franklin Furnace. Samsom designed the poster, and performed at Franklin Furnace. She decided to stay in New York, and subsequently opened The Kitchen Club and Chibi’s Bar from 1990-2010. In the fall of 2011, she started her residency at The Clocktower, culminating in the storytelling performance/installation Shrine. In 2015, Samsom published the artist’s book, Diary of a Forgotten Actress 1972-1979, curated by Inez & Vinoodh. She is currently working on a new photo project.
PARTICIPANT INC’s exhibitions are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Archiving and documentation projects are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Our programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
PARTICIPANT INC receives generous support from the Ames Family Foundation; The Blessing Way Foundation; The Greenwich Collection Ltd.; Harpo Foundation; The Ruth Ivor Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; FRIENDS of PARTICIPANT INC; numerous individuals; and Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Dept. of Education.
PARTICIPANT INC is located at 253 East Houston Street, between Norfolk and Suffolk Streets on the LES, ground floor, wheelchair accessible. Subway: F to Second Avenue, Allen Street exit; or JMZ to Essex/Delancey. participantinc.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. Jill Kroesen, FF Alumn, at the Whitney Museum, Manhattan, July 29-31
JILL KROESEN: COLLECTING INJUSTICES, UNNECESSARY SUFFERING
July 29-July 31
7:30 pm: Doors Open
8 pm: Performance
Artist, composer, and singer Jill Kroesen was an essential figure in the 1970s downtown New York performance milieu, working at the intersection of experimental music and then-emerging performance art. After studying at Mills College with composer Robert Ashley, she embarked on a series of performances that defied categorization, such as Stanley Oil and His Mother: A Systems Portrait of the Western World (1977), The Original Lou and Walter Story (1978), and Excuse Me, I Feel Like Multiplying (1979). With these performances, she invented a space between structuralist theater, graphically-scored musical composition, and cabaret. In the words of performance critic Sally Banes, “condensing political events with soap opera plots and infantile rationalizations about the way the world works,” Kroesen’s “systems portraits,” as she came to call her work, manifested socioeconomic, sexual, and gender politics through funny, ramshackle, and chaotic performances. Archival documentation of these works was presented at the Whitney in the 2013 exhibition Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama-Manhattan, 1970-1980.
After an artistic hiatus of over thirty years, Kroesen returns with a new show at the Whitney, Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering. This theatrical performance features original songs, dance, and the participation of many of her past collaborators-including an elaborate sculptural set designed and constructed by Jared Bark and costumes by Mary Kay Stolz. In this new performance, Kroesen articulates, for herself and for her audience, an allegory that animates the structures of parenting, socialization, and control that shape individual lives and collective society. Employing Kroesen’s own unique approach to portraiture, this performance coincides with the current exhibition
Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection.
Tickets are required ($22 adults; $18, students, seniors, free for members). Capacity is limited. Visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance. Online ticket sales close two hours before the program begins. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the admissions desk on a first-come, first-served basis.
The theatrical environment for Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering will be on view from 10:30 am to 4 pm, July 27 through 31, in the Museum’s Susan and John Hess Family Theater.
Whitney Museum of American Art
whitney.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6. Diane Torr, FF Alumn, at Glastonbury Festival, England, thru June 28
Diane Torr, FF Alumn, appears at the Glastonbury Festival, England, June 22-28, 2016 as guest artist with theatre company, CONFLUX, 1.30-4.30pm every day in the Theatre section of the festival.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7. Peggy Ahwesh, Cecilia Vicuña, FF Alumns, at Gasworks, London, England, opening June 22
Gasworks
A Kingdom of Hours
June 23-September 4, 2016
Preview: June 22, 7-9pm
Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
United Kingdom
www.gasworks.org.uk
With: Peggy Ahwesh (USA), Teresa Burga (Peru), Wilson Díaz (Colombia), Nilbar Güreş (Turkey), William E Jones (USA), Candice Lin and Patrick Staff (USA/UK), Priscilla Monge (Costa Rica), Solange Pessoa (Brazil), Emilia Prieto Tugores (Costa Rica), Cecilia Vicuña (Chile) and Osías Yanov (Argentina).
“Why did they give me a kingdom to rule over if there is no better kingdom than this hour in which I exist between what I was not and will not be?”
-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, as read aloud in Peggy Ahwesh’s video She Puppet (2001)
A Kingdom of Hours explores how artists disrupt sequential time-from biological rhythms to historical chronologies-to undermine rigid structures of belonging. Videos, woodcuts and sculptures by William E Jones, Emilia Prieto Tugores an Osías Yanov disentangle queer or feminist affects from their present tense through strategies of repetition, fragmentation and anachronism, while videos and works on paper by Peggy Ahwesh, Teresa Burga and Wilson Díaz reflect on how human life cycles are socially conditioned. Presented alongside sculptures, paintings and textile pieces by Nilbar Güreş, Priscilla Monge, Cecilia Vicuña and Candice Lin and Patrick Staff that explore gendered forms of cultural assimilation and societal expectation, these works emphasise material and symbolic experiences of plasticity, fluidity and mutability. Together they compose rhythms of empathy and desire that question how subjectivities are constrained by periodisation, patriarchy and capitalism.
A Kingdom of Hours is indebted to queer theorist Elizabeth Freeman’s writings on “chrononormativity”-a process of standardisation through which societies’ rhythms are internalised by their constituents like city smog-and “erotohistoriography,” or a deeply affective approach to history rooted in desire. The exhibition brings together artists from different generations and cultural backgrounds to consider the biopolitical implications of these terms and “chronodissident” strategies and forms.
Curated by Robert Leckie (Curator, Gasworks) and Miguel A. López (Chief Curator, TEOR/éTica), this exhibition is part of an institutional collaboration between Gasworks and TEOR/éTica, where a revised version of the exhibition will open on October 19, 2016.
Gasworks’ 2016 Exhibitions Programme is supported by Catherine Petitgas.
Related events
Museum, Musex, Mutext, Mutant: Giuseppe Campuzano’s Transvestite Machine: June 23, 7pm
Miguel A. López presents a talk on Peruvian philosopher, drag queen and activist Giuseppe Campuzano’s Museo Travesti del Perú (Transvestite Museum of Peru)
Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories: July 20, 7pm
Elizabeth Freeman discusses her recent work and research around chrononormativity and erotohistoriography
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
8. Taylor Mac, FF Alumn, in The New York Times, June 22
The New York Times
THEATER
Taylor Mac’s 24-Hour Song Cycle Sets Date for World Premiere
By JOSHUA BARONE
JUNE 22, 2016
“A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” the 24-hour-long magnum opus of the playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac, will be presented in its entirety for the first time this fall at St. Ann’s Warehouse.
The production, an idiosyncratic history of the United States told through song, runs Sept. 15 through Oct. 8 and opens the St. Ann’s season. It will be presented in two ways: as a series of three-hour concerts that cover three decades each, and as a onetime, 24-hour marathon that begins at noon on Oct. 8.
Mac, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun “judy,” has presented excerpts from the project while it has been in development for the past two years. On July 3, Mac sings selections at Joe’s Pub; in late July, the first 12 decades will be performed in a series of noon-to-midnight performances at thePowerhouse Theater in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
In performances, Mac has sung popular songs from each decade in American history – beginning with 1776 and ending with the present. The final, total work will consist of 240 songs and 24 costume changes. (The costumes, by Machine Dazzle, are notoriously brazen and sparkling.) For the first decade, Mac will be backed by a 24-piece orchestra. One instrument leaves the orchestra with each new decade, and by the end Mac sings original, not popular, songs without accompaniment.
Other productions during the St. Ann’s season include the director Phyllida Lloyd’s take on “The Tempest” (Jan. 13-Feb. 12). The play, imported from the Donmar Warehouse in London, is the third and final work in a series of Shakespeare plays – which included “Julius Caesar” and “Henry IV” – that Ms. Lloyd had set in a women’s prison. (Her all-female “Taming of the Shrew” ends its run at the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park on Sunday.)
Closing the season is “946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips” (March 16-April 9), a play adapted by Emma Rice and the “War Horse” author Michael Morpurgo from his novel. As performed by the British troupeKneehigh, the production will incorporate spectacle and live music in telling the story of African-American soldiers who were sent to the United Kingdom to rehearse the Normandy invasion during World War II.
Additional productions from the season will be listed soon atstannswarehouse.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9. Denise Green, FF Alumn, at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, thru September 25
Greetings,
I am pleased to inform you that I have six pieces, including two abstract paintings and four small and large-scale photo collages related to the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, in the Painting Biennale at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium, opening on the 26th June.
Best wishes
Denise Green
http:///www.denisegreen.net
Museumlaan 14
B-9831 Deurle
+32(0)9-330 17 30
Biennale of Painting
Nederlandse versie Version Française
INVITATION
The Board of Directors, the director and the staff of museum Dhondt-Dhaenens are pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition:
The Biennale of Painting
Yoknapatawpha
Followed by a reception in the garden of the museum.
in conjunction with the
Museum van Deinze en de Leiestreek & Roger Raveelmuseum Opening
Sunday June 26, 2016. 11 am-3 pm
Exhibition
June 26 – September 25, 2016
Tuesday till Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm
Ellen Altfest – George Condo – Walter Dahn – James Ensor – Liam Everett – Tatjana Gerhard – Denise Green – Maki Na Kamura – Johan Nobell – Albijn Van den Abeele
The three regional museums of the Lys region join hands again to bring together paintings from the last hundred and fifty years. This edition focuses on the longing for the Unknown and Exotic versus the certainty of the personal, and local, environment.
This exhibition carries the somewhat surprising subtitle Yoknapatawpha. The name’s origin can be attributed to American writer William Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County province, the setting for most of his novels
At the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, the work of two artists from the museum’s own collection, James Ensor and Albijn van den Abeele, provides the commencement for a painterly discovery that involves numerous artists from different generations and continents.
For more information about the Biennale of Painting:
www.museumdd.be
Patrons Rinaldo Castelli – Virginie Cigrang – Benedicte De Pauw – Michel Delfosse – Arnold Devroe – Regine Dumolin – Miene Gillion – Eric & Marc Hemeleers – Marianne Hoet – Luc Keppens – Marc Maertens – Michel Moortgat – Paul Thiers – James Van Damme – Tanguy Van Quickenborne – Pierre Verschaffel and anonymous members Benefactors Advocatenkantoor Keirsmaekers – Zeno X Gallery and anonymous benefactors Structural sponsors Christie’s – Eeckman Art & Insurance – Stageteam Exhibition sponsors BNP Paribas Fortis – Bank Degroof Petercam – Limited Edition Corporate club Atlas Reizen – Barista Coffee & Cake – Bio Bakkerij De Trog – bROODSTOP – Coeur Catering – Deloitte Bedrijfsrevisoren – Deloitte Fiduciaire – Duvel Moortgat – Filliers – Group Hugo Ceusters-SCMS n.v. – Houthandel Lecoutere – Jet Import – Mobull Art Packers and Shippers – Pentacon bvba – Stone – Van Den Weghe – Westmalle Media sponsor Klara
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10. Natalie Bookchin, FF Alumn, in The New York Times, June 23
A link to the complete illustrated article follows the text only version below
The New York Times
ART & DESIGN | ART REVIEW
Photography’s Shifting Identity in an Insta-World
By HOLLAND COTTER
JUNE 23, 2016
The International Center of Photography is back, and welcome. Two years after losing its Midtown Manhattan quarters, the center has reopened on the Bowery, across from the New Museum. The duplex galleries, on street and basement levels, are, technically, larger than the old ones, though they feel boxy and closed-in, at least for the opening show, “Public, Private, Secret.” As if to offset this impression, the show gives evidence that the center’s view of photography itself has expanded.
In its 2014 Triennial, the center made a serious move toward embracing digital media, and now it has fully done so. Photography no longer means pictures printed and framed. It also means images, infinite in number, flowing in real-time data streams and captured on webcams, video blogs, Twitter and Instagram. This institutional shift in emphasis from hard objects to the broad field of visual culture will make old-style connoisseurs crazy, but it is in line with the center’s history.
It was founded in 1974 largely as a showcase for street photography, war photography and other socially committed and essentially journalistic genres: Content was as important as form. The inclusion of digital media maintains that interest, with the internet now functioning as both boulevard and battlefield, and – this really is new – where photographers were once a distinctive and specialized crew, now almost everyone is armed, for better and worse, with picture-taking devices and the means to distribute images.
The defining of better and worse forms the basis for a stimulating and unsettling exhibition. Its digital orientation is established right at the start with a projected video based on borrowings from social media. The piece, by Natalie Bookchin, is divided into thematic sections, each a visual patchwork of talking heads, mostly of young, English-speaking men and women gathered from online video diaries. In one sequence, all the heads speak of their experience with psychiatric medications, in another with losing jobs.
Ms. Bookchin’s editing is inventive and revealing. Every time a word or phrase common to all the diaries occurs, all the heads say it in unison, interrupting film’s otherwise random-seeming this-speaker-then-that-speaker flow. The overall effect is twofold: You get a sense of the existence of a digitally connected community of suffering, one with a shared vocabulary and set of emotions. You also begin to wonder, as you do when you overhear public cellphone conversations: How is it possible that so many people are living such clichéd lives?
The raw material for a 2012 video by Doug Rickard is also digital, but of a different kind: found images of American crime scenes and police actions uploaded from cellphones and posted on YouTube. Mr. Rickard collages excerpts from various postings into fictional narratives, notable less for their plotlines than for the atmosphere of danger they project. That atmosphere is similar to one generated by news media and the film industry, an adrenalin-fueled mood of fear, suspicion and emergency, encouraging violence.
In one way or another, much of the show – assembled by Charlotte Cotton, the center’s first curator in residence, working with Pauline Vermare, associate curator, and Marina Chao, assistant curator – is built around the basic elements of Mr. Rickard’s work: surveillance crossing into voyeurism, visual fiction standing in for truth. But then, hasn’t photography always had a predatory streak, an eye for existential dirt, an impulse to lie if that will grab attention? Sure, and there are plenty of predigital demonstrations of that here.
Among them are old French and Mexican mug shots of criminal suspects, and a 1942 shot by the Bowery habitué Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee, of two drunk-and-disorderly swells cowering behind face-hiding hats in a paddy wagon. Far more complicated are four mug-shot-style portraits of Berber or Muslim women taken in 1960 by Marc Garanger in Algeria, when he was working for the French Army. The women, confined to a concentration camp, were forced to unveil for the sittings and stare at the camera with undisguised, level-eyed fury.
These are images of violation. There are others, several associated with celebrity culture. In a 1971 photograph we see Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dashing across a lawn in Central Park, apparently fleeing the photographer, Ron Galella, who had been stalking her for years. Two internet-savvy contemporary artists, Ann Hirsch and Marisa Olson, turn the humiliation of losing highly visible competitions – a reality dating show, an “American Idol” audition – into triumphs of self-engineered failure. And in a flawless win-win power move, the media star Kim Kardashian assumes the role of auto-stalker, publishing a book consisting entirely of her own selfies.
I can’t speak for Ms. Kardashian, but many of the show’s younger participants are clearly well aware that they, and we, are being observed, photographed, biometrically tracked and profiled whether we want to be or not, and that this is a problem. And at least one artist, Zach Blas, is doing something about it. He has designed a blobby pink plastic mask to thwart facial recognition scanning, a technology with the potential, possibly already realized, of using racial and sexual stereotyping to isolate groups of social undesirables.
Racial stereotyping has, of course, a long history and artists have tried all kinds of ways to deal with it. A decade or so ago, the intriguing Chicago-based photographer and filmmaker Barbara DeGenevieve (1947-2014) hired five homeless men, all African-American, to pose nude for her in a hotel room. When she exhibited the results as “The Panhandler Project,” she took serious critical heat, with many viewers calling the work exploitive. Some will still find it so, though as the mechanics of American economic privilege grow starker, her attempt to confuse roles usually dictated by ethnicity, class and gender looks more and more useful.
Ms. Cotton includes only a single photograph from Ms. DeGenevieve’s project, and it’s hard to get much from that. But another meditation on race, and specifically on blackness, Martine Syms’s video installation “Lessons I-LXVIII,” is the show’s most substantial piece in terms of length. It’s composed in 10-minute units, each made up of randomly sorted 30-second clips related to African-American life, lifted from online videos and visual blogs, including home movies, video diaries, police webcams and advertisements. Many of the fragments are hard to grasp on their own, but together they turn the black presence, still marginalized in mainstream American art and culture, into something substantial, integral and self-sustaining, a whole and sufficient cloth.
Ms. Syms’s ambitious work, dated 2014-16, brings us again into the digital realm, which can be uneven ground to visit. A set of flat screens streaming real-time data from Twitter and other social media sources keeps the show in the 24/7 now, where it should be. And the information, organized by Mark Ghuneim, an internet entrepreneur, and students from the center’s New Media Narratives program and sometimes presented in the form of online addresses, gives a good sense of the pervasive influence of digital technology on daily life, whether in police surveillance or assignment of pop star status. At the same time, the piece offers few visual rewards, and demands smartphone finger work to access its information.
And if Ms. Bookchin’s conglomerate snapshot of a video diary culture hints at a condition of passive narcissism as the dominant malady of life inside the digital bubble, Jon Rafman’s short, composite 2014 video “Mainsqueeze” is infinitely more damning. Its seven-minute sequence of found Google Street View images drops you into a deep pit of physical and psychological cruelty, and cracks the door on a dark side of the social media age that this exhibition otherwise barely hints at. No wonder 21st-century karma is in such horrendous shape.
The visual content of this piece is a far cry from the museum quality images usually associated with the center as a collecting institution. And the exhibition itself, with its mirrored walls and jumble of unalike works, has a looseness that most museums, intent on writing clear narratives, would clean up. At this point, though, visual culture – digital production, including photography – is so abundant and changing so fast that no clear narrative is possible. Photography fans hoping that the return of the center will mean a return of its vintage collection may have to wait awhile. This institution, so often ahead of the curve, has other, challenging ideas on its mind, and the less it acts like a museum the better.
“Public, Private, Secret” runs through January at the International Center of Photography (I.C.P.), 250 Bowery, Manhattan; icp.org. A related exhibition, “Weegee’s Bowery,” is at MANA in Jersey City, which houses the I.C.P. archives, staff offices and exhibition space.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
11. Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, in The New York Times, June 23
The New York Times
ART & DESIGN
The Museum of the City of New York to Examine a Gay Underground
Inside Art
By ROBIN POGREBIN
JUNE 23, 2016
The Museum of the City of New York could not have predicted how timely it would be to mount an exhibition exploring how creativity became both an outlet and a refuge for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists in New York.
Now, after the shootings in Orlando, Fla., the show, “Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York,” which opens this fall, seems prescient in that it “celebrates the creativity and the richness of the L.G.B.T. community,” said Whitney W. Donhauser, the museum’s director.
The show looks at queer networks that grew in the city around 10 artistic figures: the composer Leonard Bernstein; the photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and George Platt Lynes; the visual artists Andy Warhol, Richard Bruce Nugent, Harmony Hammond and Greer Lankton; the playwright, poet and novelist Mercedes de Acosta; the impresario Lincoln Kirstein; and the dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones.
“Marginalized people – in the ’20s through the early ’90s, especially – formed these communities of like-minded individuals that sustained their lives personally and advanced their careers professionally,” said Donald Albrecht, the museum’s curator of architecture and design, who worked on the show. “Out of that oppression and marginalization came a lot of creativity.”
Among the artifacts will be the original designs for “West Side Story,” which Mr. Albrecht said he included because the creators were all gay: Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Arthur Laurents (libretto), Jerome Robbins (choreography), Oliver Smith (scenery) and Irene Sharaff (costumes).
Also in the exhibition will be Bernstein’s copy of “Romeo and Juliet” – the basis for the musical – in which he writes a plea for racial tolerance. At the time, Mr. Bernstein had yet to come out. “One wonders,” Mr. Albrecht said, “if it’s not a plea for tolerance of other types of relationships.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
12. Allan Kaprow, Robert Mapplethorpe, Claes Oldenburg, Cindy Sherman, FF Alumns, in The New York Times, June 23
The New York Times
What to See in New York
Art Galleries This Week
Art in review, from Times critics. JUNE 23, 2016
Lucas Samaras, ‘AutoPolaroids, 1969-71’
By ROBERTA SMITH
When Lucas Samaras acquired a Polaroid 360 camera in December 1969, a few months after his 23rd birthday, he was a veteran of the Happenings of Allan Kaprow, Robert Whitman and Claes Oldenburg. But his own work at the time was small and private. He was known for transforming boxes into intense self-contained worlds using pins, glitter, knives, images, paint and anything else that caught his gimlet eye. He compressed great feeling into small self-portraits in bright pastels, some of which are in an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum (through Aug. 21).
The camera enabled Mr. Samaras to stage private Happenings in his small apartment. Home alone, he presided over the Polaroid’s tiny proscenium as star, stage manager and resident magician, and became a pioneer of body art, staged-photography division.
The results, which he named AutoPolaroids, are the subject of a revelatory exhibition at the Craig F. Starr Gallery. In most he is naked, and his body is often contorted in confusing poses, sometimes on a bed, sometimes on white seamless paper. He helmeted his head with tinfoil and wrapped it in string to grotesque effect. He put his bathtub and sink to imaginative uses, experimented with double exposure and may have invented what we now know as scatter art. He selectively added expanses of colorful dots, lines and paisley designs to the images, creating the impression that he was performing on wrapping paper, drifting in a fantastic, abstract realm or lost in deepening shadows.
The AutoPolaroids were precedents for the photographs of Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and, especially, Jimmy DeSana in the early 1980s, but are no less resonant today in their transgressive inventiveness. Mr. Samaras unveiled 405 of them at the Pace Gallery in 1971, and the Starr exhibition is their first solo presentation since then.
Craig F. Starr Gallery
5 East 73rd Street, Manhattan
Through Aug. 12
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
13. Frank Moore, FF Alumn, in The Live Art Almanac Volume 4, now online
Frank Moore is featured in a new book, The Live Art Almanac Volume 4. The Live Art Almanac has republished Dr. Susan Block’s piece about Frank Moore: “R.I.P. Frank Moore June 25 1946 – October 14, 2013: American Hero, Revolutionary Artist, Shaman, Poet, Wounded Healer & Great LUVeR”
Dr. Susan Block’s piece appears on pgs. 344-347, in a section of the book entitled, “Dearly Departed”.
http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/publishing/the-live-art-almanac-volume-4/
The Live Art Almanac Volume 4 is a collection of ‘found’ writings about and around Live Art that were originally published, shared, sent, spread and read between January 2012 and December 2014. Selected through recommendations and an open call for submissions, Volume 4 reflects the dynamic, international contexts that Live Art and radical performance-based practices occupy.
An excerpt from Dr. Susan Block’s piece:
Born with severe cerebral palsy that rendered him unable to walk or talk, Frank conquered what some might call his extreme “disabilities” to become one of world’s foremost performance artists, deep thinkers, political leaders and inspirational teachers. The Steven Hawkings of Erotic Theater, Frank coined the term “chero,” combining “chi” and “eros” to express the physical energy of life. He also created the word “eroplay” to describe the physical interaction between adults released from the linear goals of typical sexual intercourse, often in the context of long, 5-48 hour ritualistic performances. These performances, which I was privileged to participate in when he and his wonderful family were my guests here in Bonoboville, were transformative experiences that melted the barriers between participants, performers and audience. As such, Frank Moore was the ultimate wounded healer, a differently-shaped medicine man, a spastic magician, a wild shaman and a trickster lover, inspiring so many people, from performance artist Annie Sprinkle to Berkeley councilman Kriss Worthington. Of course, some folks feared his tremendous power, especially certain old-guard Republicans. In the early 90s, he rose to national fame as one of the NEA-funded artists targeted by then U.S. Congressman Jesse Helms for doing art that was labeled “obscene.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
14. EIDIA House, FF Alumns, at 14 Dunham Place, Brooklyn, thru July 2
Plato’s Cave at EIDIA House
14 Dunham Place
Brooklyn, NY 11249
646 945 3830
eidiahouse@earthlink.net
PLATO’S CAVE @ EIDIA House presents William N. Copley’s S.M.S. “SHIT MUST STOP”
Exhibition extended to: July 2, 2016
Hours 1-6pm, Wednesday – Saturday (or by appointment)
For the next Plato’s Cave exhibition (#24) EIDIA – Melissa P. Wolf and Paul Lamarre present a special exhibition of S.M.S., William N. Copley’s “Shit Must Stop.” The S.M.S. Portfolio was published and assembled by Copley aka CPLY and the artist Dimitri Petrov (assisted by numerous volunteers) in a factory loft space on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, above Zabar’s. Containing the total output of 73 artists’ contributions, the six S.M.S. portfolios were mailed to subscribers, in two-month intervals, between February and December 1968.
“As you will see it is a mixture of many things. We are not trying to push any kind of art but rather to suggest how many different ways ideas can go. So we include the old and the new in a context that is meant above all to surprise and make of the box itself a sort of adult joy.”
William N. Copley speaking of his S.M.S. “SHIT MUST STOP” Portfolio, Joseph Cornell papers, 1804-1986, bulk 1939-1972. [General Correspondence, Box 2, Folder 3] in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
EIDIA suggests that if you cannot make the trip to Houston Texas to visit the Menil Collection retrospective exhibition “William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY” (including S.M.S.) then Plato’s Cave is your next destination of choice to view up close these compelling and marvelous portfolio editions. (With white gloves provided, some limited handling inspection will be permitted.)
EIDIA and Plato’s Cave feels a strong affinity to CPLY given his predilection for; the merger of art and life, the use of acronyms and his life long collaboration with other artists. We feel that S.M.S. is actually more appreciated by artists, as these works are objects of wit, poignancy-highly tuned and charged with an agency that for the most part demands a developed acuity to appreciate.
Note that the exhibition run is just for two weeks from June 11 to 25th so mark your calendar. Also by appointment, Wednesday-Sunday, 1-6pm.
“Susan Reinhold…thinks Copley and his collaborators were ahead of their time. “They didn’t like…the art market becoming so commercialized,” [Reinhold] says. “They didn’t like what art galleries were doing. So they were going to do it direct,” [Reinhold] says, “Shit Must Stop” was their protest against what they perceived was too much power in the hands of gallery owners and museums and not enough power for the artists.”
Object Focus The Book Guidebook, 2010, Sharon Mizota, “Shit Must Stop, The under-known precedent of William Copley’s experimental”, pp.32.
The agenda of Copley’s “SHIT MUST STOP” portfolio still resonates today just as vibrant as it did in 1968. The phrase “SHIT MUST STOP” also rang out across the US during the escalation of the Vietnam War-a war for military and corporate world dominance. Not much has changed.
The following is the original Copley invitation and statement of S.M.S.
The Letter Edged in Black Press Inc. has been established by William Copley, President and Provocateur and Dimitri Petrov, Vice-President and Henchman.
The first production of the press will be the bi-monthly portfolio, S.M.S., containing in each issue seven or eight intensely personal manifestations by the new as well as established artists in all media. The most advanced technical and production methods will be used whenever necessary to make the artists’ statements as complete as possible. The face size of the portfolio, when closed is 7″ x 11″ with sufficient thickness to accommodate a variety of objects. The publishers compete sympathy with the artists’ objectives will make available expanded use of new materials in every category (for the composer, choreographer, sculptor, poet, painter, writer, filmmaker, all inventors) and the fresh application of conventional means. We welcome the artist who, until now has had no publisher for three-dimensional works and will expect to make the presentation of his work possible.
The primary concern of the publishers is to realize the poetic statement in review form and to liberate the artist from the restrictions of format.
It is the presence of the artist’s personality in the vocabulary and form of his own choosing that is desired, not an exercise in conformity.
Artists will be paid for each contribution used and a copyrighting method has been developed to favor and project the artist and his work. Inclusion will be generally by invitation but unsolicited material is welcome and will be returned quickly if not found useful.
Bi-monthly issues will appear in an edition of 2500 copies. The major portion of each edition will be sold as individual copies or by annual subscription, the remaining reserved copies to be made available as deluxe sets of the year’s production, signed by the participating artists and suitably boxed. An additional plan is being developed in order that special copies with be easily available to artists.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15. Bob Connolly, FF Alumn, at Writers’ Corner, London, UK, July 2
FF Alumn Bob Connolly will be signing copies of his book Over Your Dead Body: The History and Future of How We Deal with the Dead http://www.amazon.co.uk/Over-Your-Dead-Body-history/dp/1517763630 at Writers’ Corner as part of the Kensal Green Cemetery Open Day in London, England on Saturday 2nd July https://www.facebook.com/events/459259924263849
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
16. Rachel Frank, FF Alumn, at Zurcher Gallery, Manhattan, opening June 29, and more
Hi friends,
Happy summer! I am getting ready to leave for my residency in Innoko National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but wanted to share some upcoming exhibitions with you.
Stages
Curated by Matt Bollinger
Taylor Baldwin
Matt Bollinger
Angela Dufresne
Rachel Frank, FF Alumn
Meena Hasan
Amanda Lechner
Sangram Majumdar
Katharina Ziemke
Zürcher Gallery
June 29th — July 29th, 2016
Opening Reception: June 29th, 6 – 8 pm
33 Bleecker Street, NYC
I will have two of my bison heads and a photograph from my Rewilding project in this group exhibition.
and
Field Studies
Curated by Andrew Prayzner & Naomi Reis
Terry Adkins
Emilie Clark
Zachary Fabri, FF Alumn
Rachel Frank, FF Alumn
Matthew Jensen
Julia Oldham
Lina Puerta
Tiger Strikes Asteroid
July 8th — August 7th, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday, July 8th, 6 – 9 pm
1329 Willoughby Ave. #2A
Brooklyn, NY
I will have my Mylodon Ground Sloth mask and video of The Traveler in this exhibition.
And two of my Pattern for a Yurt pieces are still on view:
Common Threads
Curated by Brent Auxier
Danese/Corey
June 3rd — July 29, 2016
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 2nd, 6 – 8 pm
511 West 22nd Street, NYC
Best wishes,
Rachel Frank
http://www.rachelfrank.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
17. Ann Hamilton, Howardena Pindell, FF Alumns, at Alexander Gray Associates, Manhattan, opening July 7
Haptic
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 7, 2016, 6-8 PM
Exhibition Dates: July 7 – August 12, 2016
Artwork details by: Sheila Hicks, Alexandre da Cunha, Leonardo Drew, Hassan Sharif.
Haptic: of or relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception.
Alexander Gray Associates presents Haptic, featuring work by artists Polly Apfelbaum, Amy Bessone, Alexandre da Cunha, Leonardo Drew, Melvin Edwards, Ann Hamilton, Harmony Hammond, Sheila Hicks, William J. O’Brien, Howardena Pindell, Norbert Prangenberg, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hassan Sharif, and Betty Woodman. Together, they simultaneously expand and question traditional craft practices within the context of contemporary art.
Spanning media, including ceramic, textile, sculpture and video art, the works on view evoke the haptic through irregular or tactile surfaces with the presence of handiwork. As art historian and curator Helen Molesworth notes in Imaginary Landscape from the exhibition catalogue Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College: 1933-1975, “while the dictionary may define haptic as ‘relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception’, the word, when used in reference to works of art, denotes those works that engage visuality through an appeal to tactility. Haptic objects intertwine visuality and tactility so thoroughly that they are inextricable from each other.”
In addition to the variety of media, the artists also represent a diversity of cultures and generations, highlighting the omnipresence of craft modalities across geographies and ages. Alexandre da Cunha, Sheila Hicks and Hassan Sharif refer to global traditions in their woven compositions which simultaneously recall geographically-situated histories and ingrained understandings of gender roles. Harmony Hammond and Howardena Pindell, collage and paint built-up surfaces which evoke abstracted female bodies. Amy Bessone, William J. O’Brien, Norbert Prangenberg and Betty Woodman render fragmented portions of the human body in clay, to create both functional and decorative art objects that retain visual traces of the maker’s touch. Polly Apfelbaum utilizes saturated color and abstract forms in her wall-based ceramics, and implies human presence through her use of peoples’ names as titles. Ann Hamilton and Jacolby Satterwhite use the aesthetics of aggregation to mine memory, both communal and personal. Leonardo Drew and Melvin Edwards employ assemblage to create sculptural objects that indicate the links between craft and craftsmanship. As a group, these artists subvert traditional modes of making (craft) by imbuing their work with personal perspective while commenting on social or political realities.
About the Artists
Polly Apfelbaum (b.1955) was born in Abington, PA and lives and works in New York. Amy Bessone (b.1970) was born in New York and lives and works in Los Angeles. Alexandre da Cunha (b.1969) was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and lives and works in London. Leonardo Drew (b.1961) was born in Tallahassee, FL, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Melvin Edwards (b.1937) was born in Houston, TX, and lives and works in New York, and Dakar, Senegal. Ann Hamilton (b.1956) was born, and continues to live and work in Ohio. Harmony Hammond (b.1944) was born in Illinois and lives and works in Galisteo, NM. Sheila Hicks (b.1934) was born in Hastings, NE, and lives and works in Paris. William J. O’Brien (b.1975) was born in Eastlake, OH, and lives and works in Chicago, IL. Howardena Pindell (b.1943) was born in Philadelphia, PA, and lives and works in New York. Norbert Prangenberg (b.1949- d.2012) was born in Rheinland, Germany, and died in Krefeld, Germany. Jacolby Satterwhite (b.1986) was born in Columbia, SC, and lives and works in New York. Hassan Sharif (b.1951) was born, and continues to live and work in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Betty Woodman (b.1930) was born in Norwalk, CT, and lives and works in New York.
For a slideshow preview of the exhibition please click here.
Press Inquires
press@alexandergray.com
Alexander Gray Associates
Alexander Gray Associates is a contemporary art gallery in New York. Through exhibitions, research, and artist representation, the Gallery spotlights artistic movements and artists who emerged in the mid- to late-Twentieth Century. Influential in cultural, social, and political spheres, these artists are notable for creating work that crosses geographic borders, generational contexts and artistic disciplines. Alexander Gray Associates is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America.
Alexander Gray Associates
510 West 26 Street, New York NY 10001 United States
Telephone: +1 212 399 2636
Summer hours: Tuesday – Friday, 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
info@alexandergray.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
18. Jaroslav Andel, Hans Haacke, Suzanne Lacy, Krzysztof Wodiczko, FF Alumns, now online at artseverywhere.ca, and more
Please visit these three links to recent projects by Jaroslav Andel, FF Alumn. The first link contains work by Hans Haacke, Suzanne Lacy, and Krysztof Wodiczko, FF Alumns.
Thank you.
Back to the Sandbox: Art and Radical Pedagogy (21:41) https://vimeo.com/158328848
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Goings On is compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
