Contents for August 24, 2021
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1. Verónica Peña, FF Fund Recipient 2017, live online at The Franklin Furnace Loft and live at NARS Foundation, Aug. 27
2. Jodie Lynn-Kee-Chow, FF Alumn, at Granja Paraiso, Germantown, NY, Aug. 27-29
3. Joseph Nechvatal, FF Alumn, now online at Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
4. Robin Tewes, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, FF Alumni, at Tethys Art, Southampton, NY, thru Sept. 6
5. RT Livingston, FF Alumn, at University of California Santa Barbara Library, thru June 1
6. Nancy Buchanan, Maggie Ens, FF Alumns, at New Jersey City University, Jersey City, September 2 thru Oct. 15
7. Beverly Naidus, FF Alumn, live online with TextileArtsLA, CA, Sept. 1
8. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo, FF Alumn, live online at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Sept. 2
9. Galinsky, Pamela Sneed, FF Alumns, at Book Club Bar, Manhattan, September 16
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1. Verónica Peña, FF Fund Recipient 2017, live online at The Franklin Furnace Loft and live at NARS Foundation, Aug. 27
“The Body In The Substance” is a process-based ongoing performance art, and science project that Verónica Peña started in 2015, in pursuing to confine the human body as a means to achieving communion with others—either present or absent. For her first live enactment of the project, until now only performed privately and online, Peña will fully submerge herself in a liquid altered to coagulate. In her words: “The search for peace is an endless human endeavor. When the substance coagulates, I am confined in the most beautiful stillness: as vulnerable as the ones still in the womb—unable to move, talk, or see, unable to hurt others. Submersion is a search for harmony, an act of resistance to counteract violence, fear, and injustice. Confined, the self grows, the female body reveals strength, the immigrant body defies distance and separation, the alive search for the absent. Submerged, each inhalation becomes an act of hope, an inquiry of the unknown, a balm for the pain of loss.”
To register for the digital performance, please visit: https://franklinfurnaceloft.org/the-body-in-the-substance/
Thank you
Artist: Verónica Peña
Performance Assistant: Hae Won Sohn
Sound with: Tara Gladden
Artist Bio
Verónica Peña (Spain/USA) is an interdisciplinary performance artist, curator, and international-community advocate. Her work explores absence, separation, and the search for human harmony through Performance Art. Her performance installations combine underwater submersion, visual metamorphosis, and audience participation to address global issues of migration, cross-cultural dialogue, peaceful resistance, public liberation, fluidity, and women’s empowerment. Peña has exhibited/performed primarily in Europe and America. In the US: Coaxial Arts Foundation (2021), Pioneer Works (*2020 postponed due to Covid-19), Grace Exhibition Space (2020), Smack Mellon, Triskelion Arts, Queens Museum, Hemispheric Institute, SAIC (Visiting Artist), Times Square Alliance, Armory Show, Defibrillator Art Gallery, Gabarron Foundation, Dumbo Arts Festival, among others. She is currently an artist-in-residence at NARS Foundation, was selected for Creative Capital NYC Taller 19-20, and received a Franklin Furnace Fund 17- 18. She published “The Presence Of The Absent”, was reviewed by Donald Kuspit, and on Hyperallergic. Peña leads Performance Art Open Call, an 18,000 members FB Community. Peña is a 2017 Franklin Furnace Fund Recipient.
To attend to the live event, please register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-body-in-the-substance-tickets-166963954683
Thank you
Due to COVID concerns, we’ve decided to limit the number of visitors to the gallery for the live performance on the 27th.
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2. Jodie Lynn-Kee-Chow, FF Alumn, at Granja Paraiso, Germantown, NY, Aug. 27-29
Big Paradise is pleased to announce the sensorial program and exhibition ROOTS @ Granja Paraiso
August 27, 28 & 29, 2021
Germantown, NY
in participation with Upstate Art Weekend
Opening: Friday, August 27, 4pm
Celebration: Saturday, August 28, 7pm with a collaborative performance and libations
Please visit https://www.bigparadise.org/projects/roots
Thank you
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3. Joseph Nechvatal, FF Alumn, now online at Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
Joseph Nechvatal’s visit to the Dream King’s dream machine ~ Venus Grotto ~ at Linderhof Palace in Bavaria ~ has been published at Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.
Please visit this link: https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/venus-grotto-linderhof-palace-bavaria/5109
Thank you
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4. Robin Tewes, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, FF Alumni, at Tethys Art, Southampton, NY, thru Sept. 6
LES FEMMES
Tethys Art, August 21 – September 6, 2021
71 Hill Street in Southampton, New York
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm, Sunday 10am-4pm.
+1631-259-2635
Info@tethys.art.
August 21- September 6, 2021
Tethys Art is pleased to present Les Femmes, a group show curated by Indira Cesarine, opening on August 21st and on view through September 6th at 71 Hill Street in Southampton, New York. The 3rd and closing Summer exhibition presents the vision of several notable female artists including legendary artists Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger, pioneering feminists Robin Tewes and Grace Graupe-Pillard, and social media sensation Leah Schrager, as well as emerging voices including Fahren Feingold, Alexandra Rubinstein and Loren Erdrich. Les Femmes explores the contemporary narrative of the female gaze, while addressing the representation of women in contemporary culture and art.
Featured artists include Alexandra Rubinstein, Alison Jackson, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Dana Schutz, Fahren Feingold, Grace Graupe-Pillard, Kat Toronto aka Miss Meatface, Katya Zvereva, Leah Schrager, Loren Erdrich, Michele Pred, Natasha Law, Robin Tewes, Sylvia Maier and Tara Lewis.
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5. RT Livingston, FF Alumn, at University of California Santa Barbara Library, thru June 1
The 9/11 RENEWAL/REBIRTH project is RT Livingston’s eyewitness account of the year following the tragic events of September 11, 2001 that jolted our nation into the new millennium.
Below find the link to the UCSB Library Special Collections online exhibit 911 RENEWAL / REBIRTH commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9.11.
Please visit:
https://spotlight.library.ucsb.edu/starlight/911-renewal-rebirth
Thank you
Once you read the opening page, scroll back to the top to see the menu:
Home [GENESIS]
911 RENEWAL / REBIRTH
You’ll see 100 photo thumbnails with descriptions plus the video. The photo section can be challenging. If you get lost, just go back to the menu or the back arrows at the top of the site.
One hundred photos and a 5min 35 sec video show the transformation of the World Trade Centers site and its Lower Manhattan neighborhood from destruction to renewal. My video soundtrack echoes the year-long cacophonous noise that became a constant part of daily lives.
I’ve come to see all this grainy imagery as a metaphor for that gritty grueling time.
FOCUS REST IN PEACE BIO
This section consists of 2 short essays and a bio.
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6. Nancy Buchanan, Maggie Ens, FF Alumns, at New Jersey City University, Jersey City, Sept. 2 – Oct. 15
Too Much! Overconsumption and our Relationship to Stuff
September 2 – October 15, 2021
Artist’s Reception, Friday September 10, 4 – 7pm
Artists: Nancy Buchanan, Donna Conklin King, Maggie Ens, Vandana Jain, Robert Lach, Poramit Thantapalit, Mollie Thonneson
What is the environmental impact of a global economy built on the need to buy more stuff? How does one individual’s personal shopping contribute to the waste produced by excess consumerism? Where do we each fit into a society built on materialism, and how do we change it? ‘Too Much!’ calls attention to the effect of overconsumption on both people and the planet. Each of the artists in this exhibit contemplate various effects of consumerism in culture and society. The show is composed of a wide range of media including sculpture, photography, fiber art, collage and site-specific installations. Themes include plastic pollution, recycling, fast fashion, capitalism, advertising and desire.
NJCU Visual Arts Gallery
Visual Arts Building, Lower Level
100 Culver Ave
Jersey City, NJ 07305
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Thursday 12-5pm, and by appointment by emailing gallery@njcu.edu
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7. Beverly Naidus, FF Alumn, live online with TextileArtsLA, CA, Sept. 1
STITCHING OURSELVES TOGETHER IN AN UNRAVELING WORLD
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
5:00 PM- 6:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
online via Zoom, please visit:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stitching-ourselves-together-in-an-unraveling-world-tickets-167679360481
Thank you
This talk is for all the trickster creatives who are trying to find navigation strategies for this threshold time.
Despite the many perils we are encountering, there’s some rich medicine to harvest. Beverly Naidus will discuss aspects of how her own art practice as well as tools from other realms have proven useful at providing some buoyancy.
Much of her art practice has had a camouflage or trickster character, appearing as one thing, while offering up unexpected perspectives for participants. Hopefully some of the strategies she plans to share will be useful to the imaginations of those in attendance and inspire new ways of reframing this challenging chapter.
ABOUT BEVERLY
Beverly Naidus’s art life has straddled the socially engaged margins of the art world, artful activism collaborations, and community-based art projects. Her audience participatory installations, artists books, photo-text and multi-media projects have dealt with the anxieties of being unemployed, nightmares about nuclear war, ways to transform body hate, anti-consumerist strategies, weaving grief and gratitude during the climate emergency, the epigenetic trauma of living under white oppression and religious hegemony, and the joyful resilience of the marginalized. She often collaborates to develop creative strategies that might heal trauma, to plant seeds of activism, and imagine different outcomes. Early on, she discovered that her vulnerable story telling could generate stories from others, sometimes catalyzing positive actions. She has shared her work in city streets, alternative spaces, public parks, university galleries, community centers, and major museums. Her work has been written about in many books and journals and has developed an international following. After vibrant chapters in the New York City and Los Angeles art worlds, including fruitful periods in other parts of North America, she has made a home in the Pacific Northwest since 2003.
Naidus received her BA from Carleton College, and an MFA with a full teaching fellowship from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. She taught art as a subversive activity at several NYC museums, the Institute for Social Ecology, California State University, Long Beach where she had tenure, Goddard College, Hampshire College and Carleton College. From 2003 until 2020, she was the only tenured artist on the UW Tacoma faculty where she shaped an innovative, interdisciplinary studio arts curriculum in art for social change and healing. She is the author of Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame (a book that helped to shift studio arts curriculum in many places).
She has written & published many essays on eco-art and social practice as well as a few works of speculative fiction, and is currently writing, Rewilding Our Muses: Creative Strategies for Navigating the “End of the World” and is looking for a publisher. While co-directing the non-profit, SEEDS (Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School) with her husband, Dr. Bob Spivey, they are leading workshops online with a focus on art that deals with climate and racial justice and have formed an international collective. They are currently facilitating an in-person “story hive project” with neighbors and are planning more “pandemic processing and dreaming into the future we want” art workshops to happen in coming months. Her solo show, “The Dead Ocean Scrolls and other Possible Futures” will be on exhibit at the Tacoma Community College Gallery in November 2021.
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8. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo, FF Alumn, live online at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Sept. 2
Het Nieuwe Instituut and The One Minutes present ‘Akarani Bono Awowa’ curated by Manuwi C Tokai, a series of 20 one-minute videos on what home feels like.
What makes your home? How responsible do we feel to secure other people’s homes?
The online premiere is on Thursday 2 September at 8pm CEST.
For more information, please visit: https://thursdaynight.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/activities/akarani-bono-awowa
Thank you
Please register for free to participate here: https://thursdaynight.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/activities/akarani-bono-awowa
Thank you
Akarani bono awowa? (Where is the place where you see the sun rise and set?) is the Kali’na way of asking: Where are you from? Where is your home?
Artists from all over the world will be present to introduce their films and open discussion with the public is encouraged. We will have a short presentation on the people losing their homes in Afghanistan and Manuwi C Tokai will perform.
Manuwi C Tokai invited everyone to submit a one-minute video in response to the question: Akarani bono awowa? Manuwi also gave an online masterclass to help people make films. The 20 selected videos were submitted from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Laos, Lebanon, Netherlands, Russia, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.
On our social feeds, we jump from happy dogs to war scenes. Both can refer to someone’s home. What makes your home? How responsible do you feel to secure other people’s homes? Do we still understand the writings and whispers of our environment or are there languages we need to relearn? This series of one-minute films features intimate scenes from communities around the world. Many of them bravely face various challenges to secure their homes from invasions. Some scenes allow us to be enchanted by the mystical movement of nature. You are invited to take it all in. Both true vision and sound or just sound or vision, whatever your body allows you to experience. Take this time and space to revisit memories of house and home and take a journey into a future of what home could be.
“All the places where the sun shines is our home.” What if we could really feel that every day? Would you live the same way? Would your routine be the same? Would you show the same in your social account timelines and feeds?
Manuwi C Tokai (Akarani, Suriname, 1989) is a singer, artist and human rights activist. She investigates the contemporary relevance of Indigenous knowledge and traditions. And the importance of indigenous peoples taking ownership of their own stories and histories. Singing is a form of action. Together with her aunts she stands up for the original culture of the Ka’lina Terewuyu people from the Amazon and for the stories of others that go unheard.
Participating artists:
Snow Sheng Jie
Inge Pierre
Lin Li
Boaz Mout
Linda Phommavang
Furgil Mattatoula
Shareen Mahabeer
Barbara Marcel
Tucan Weyu
Elif Satanaya Özbay
Éluk
Marina Fomenko
Andrea Bordoli
Lara Baksu
Rafael Raila
Felix Klee
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo, Anna Recasens, and Laia Solé
Matteo Rosa
Dario Ricciardi
Guilliano Zaalman
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9. Galinsky, Pamela Sneed, FF Alumns, at Book Club Bar, Manhattan, September 16
Galinsky hosts a monthly poetry reading “POETRY IN NEW YORK” at the new wonderful East Village venue Book Club Bar on Thursday September 16th, 8-10pm (3rd Thursday of every month). Featured on the 16th is Pamela Sneed reading various works and reading from her book: Funeral Diva. Funeral Diva is the Winner of the Lambda Award for Lesbian Poetry! A poetic memoir about coming-of-age in the AIDS era, and its effects on life and art. “Sneed is an acclaimed reader of her own poetry, and the book has the feeling of live performance. . . . Its strength is in its abundance, its desire for language to stir the body as well as mind.” Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book Review. Also performing are Majesty DaRebel (Lower East Side Hip Hop artist) and Galinsky.
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
