Contents for April 18, 2017
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1. Martha Wilson, Alicia Grullón, Gregory Sholette, FF Alumns, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, April 26
2. Carolee Schneemann, FF Alumn, receives Venice Biennale Golden Lion Award 2017
3. Lorraine O’Grady, FF Alumn, at The Brooklyn Museum, April 21
4. Barbara Rosenthal, FF Alumn, at Printed Matter, Manhattan, April 28, and more
5. Hector Canonge, FF Alumn, at FIAP, Martinique, May 16-23
6. Tomislav Gotovac, FF Alumn, in Documenta 14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany
7. D. Hải Phú Daedalus, j.c. Lenochan, FF Alumns, at Center for Book Arts, Manhattan, April 21-July 17, and more
8. Peter Downsbrough, FF Alumn, at galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France, opening April 25
9. Bob Goldberg, FF Alumn, at Greenwood Cemetery, May 7, Brooklyn, June 4, and more
10. Mark Bloch, FF Alumn, now online
11. Stephanie Skura, FF Alumn, at Roulette, Brooklyn, April 18-19
12. Rebekah Benson, FF Alumn, now online
13. Stephen Korns, FF Alumn, now online
14. Fiona Templeton, FF Alumn, at La Mama, Manhattan, May 18-21
15. Barbara Bloom, FF Alumn, at David Lewis Gallery, Manhattan, opening May 5
16. Franc Palaia, FF Alumn, in Tribeca Film Festival, Manhattan, April 22
17. Marlon Riggs, James Romberger, David Wojnarowicz, FF Alumns, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, opening June 15
18. Sally Greenhouse, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, April 22
19. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, at MCLA Design Lab, N. Adams, MA, opening April 27
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Below please find the text of Franklin Furnace at 40 – for the complete illustrated online article please visit this link:
Franklin Furnace at 40: Still Radical After All These Years
For Martha Wilson and her collaborators at the Franklin Furnace Archive in New York, the avant-garde spirit is alive and well, and as relevant as ever.
by Edward M. Gómez
The avant-garde is dead – isn’t it?
Rooted in a French military term referring to an army’s front-line “advance guard,” in the context of art history, “avant-garde” came to mean “trailblazing,” “rule-breaking,” and “forward-looking.” With regard to modern art, whose origins are generally traced back to the latter half of the 19th century, numerous avant-gardes, routinely emerging with tradition-busting fervor, contributed to the momentum of the modernist impulse.
Now though, from an early-21st-century vantage point, is it accurate to say that such movements have become art-historical artifacts – completed past chapters of a story that ended with paint-flinging Abstract Expressionism? Or with cool-detached Pop? Or perhaps still later, with the final elimination of the physical art object itself by a certain strain of Conceptual Art?
For Martha Wilson – artist, free-speech activist, and veteran arts administrator – and her collaborators at the Franklin Furnace Archive in New York, the avant-garde spirit is alive and well, and as relevant as ever; together, they’re committed to making sure it has the support it needs to continue shaking things up for years to come.
Since last spring, the organization has been celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding in 1976. Its program of commemorative events will soon culminate in a benefit art auction, in which bidding has already begun on the Paddle8 website; it will end in a live auction at Metro Pictures in Chelsea next Saturday, April 22. Various artists and galleries have donated works to the sale, which will include pieces by John Ahearn, Judith Bernstein, Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneemann, David Wojnarowicz, and Wilson herself.
Franklin Furnace’s mission might sound like something of a contradiction – providing institutional support to artistic-activist forces whose purpose, implicit or explicit, is to tear down social-cultural institutions while proposing new ways of looking at, thinking about and engaging with the world.
Still, the organization’s history offers a persuasive and often colorful argument in favor of self-styled avant-gardistes charging ahead as well as shoring up their own rear guard by documenting and, in effect, taking the lead in historicizing their accomplishments. Now, as Franklin Furnace celebrates its big anniversary against a backdrop of a money-obsessed art establishment and a vehemently anti-culture federal government, the meaning and value of its mission have been thrown into sharp relief.
Wilson studied at a small college in Ohio and then earned a master’s degree in English literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She stayed in Canada following her graduation and, in the early 1970s, taught English at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. With so-called second-wave feminism (which linked the social-cultural and political inequality of women) and the sexual revolution well under way, Wilson became inspired by the language-based conceptual art for which NSCAD had become a laboratory, with artists and critics associated with the new “idea art” passing through Halifax to present their work at the school.
By 1976, Wilson had moved to New York. Intrigued by the diversity of experimental art forms that were flourishing on the fringes of the art-world mainstream, she continued developing her own performance-oriented work, in which, through costume, speech, and behavior, augmented by self-portrait photography, she examined women’s social roles and the idea of self-identity as it was shaped by class-, race- and gender-based values and assumptions.
In that same year, along with a group of artist collaborators, she established Franklin Furnace as an exhibition-and-performance space in the street-front loft of an Italianate, cast-iron building at 112 Franklin Street in TriBeCa. New genres, such as artists’ books or performance art, which were time-based, ephemeral or not easily classified became the focus of the organization’s programming.
Just a few years earlier, in 1973, the American art historian Lucy R. Lippard’s landmark book, Six years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, had been published. It chronicled the rise of the new, often immaterial, idea-based art that had effectively led to the critical demise of familiar, physical, handcrafted art objects.
Wilson had also been following this new art’s evolution, along with that of performance art, which many feminist artists had embraced. (“After all,” as she once noted in a past interview, “as women, performance came naturally to us; we were all keenly aware that we were performing society’s defined roles for us all the time.”)
She was also very interested in the fresh, quickly mutating genre known as the artist’s book. “I was interested in the page as a kind of performance space,” she said. “At the time, lots of artists were publishing their work in various forms themselves, but it seemed that no established institutions were paying close attention to this phenomenon. Apparently, this material was not perceived of as art, or at least not as valuable art. I could see that there was a vacuum that needed to be filled.”
Artists’ books were often related to performance art, whose practitioners understood that if they did not photograph, videotape, film, or otherwise document their performances, they would have no lasting record of such events. And so they would often turn to making imaginative, one-of-a-kind or limited-edition books to serve these documentary purposes.
Performance artist Laurie Anderson in an early-career appearance on stage at Franklin Furnace, circa 1970s (photo courtesy of Franklin Furnace Archive)
From the start, Franklin Furnace began amassing a collection of such books, along with related videotapes, photographs, films, and booklets, and all sorts of artist-produced, performance-associated or stand-alone ephemera, which entered its permanent collection. Franklin Furnace became one of the world’s first “alternative-space” museums, whose thematic exhibitions were often largely culled from materials in its unusual collection. Other pioneering, independent arts organizations were sprouting up in New York around the same time, each with a distinct mission in the service of emerging art forms, including Printed Matter, Artists Space, the Kitchen, and Exit Art. Wilson recalled, “In those early years, as Laurie Anderson used to say, ‘The same 300 people went to everything.’ But then things grew and took off.”
The writer-actor Eric Bogosian, who presented his earliest monologues at Franklin Furnace, recently noted by e-mail, “Performance in the late 1970s was totally focused on the artists’ community. It was a way of talking to one another, of trading ideas. The emphasis was on originality. Franklin Furnace was the venue where an important facet of my work began. Martha and curator Jacki Apple encouraged experimentation.”
Performance artist Paul Zaloom on stage at Franklin Furnace in his “Opus No. 39: New and Used Works,” February 1983 (photo courtesy of Franklin Furnace Archive)
The Los Angeles-based performance artist Paul Zaloom, who also got his start at Franklin Furnace during its early years, told me in a recent interview, “I remember the lively, full houses and raucous reactions of the audiences.” Zaloom became known for his political satire and goofy-provocative performances involving puppets made from found objects. He added, “In the late 1970s, there was a paucity of humor in performance art; political content was also rare. Obscurity was rampant. As the culture wars, the AIDS crisis, and the Reagan nightmare erupted, a lot more queer, radical, and compelling work began to surface – even some funny stuff. Franklin Furnace was key to this new, much-needed trend, giving voice to lots of artists, like myself, whose work was explicitly political.”
In December 1978, Franklin Furnace hung a poster in its street-front window. It bore a list of the artist Jenny Holzer’s “Truisms,” matter-of-fact but edgy-sounding pronouncements printed in plain block letters. Their collective cri de coeur signaled that this new, downtown arts outpost would not shy away from the political. “You must disagree with authority figures,” one “Truism” advised. Another declared, “You are responsible for constituting the meaning of things.”
As the AIDS crisis tore through the Reagan ’80s, followed by the heated “culture wars” of the early 1990s, Franklin Furnace became both a showcase and a clubhouse for artists with political messages aplenty, even as it pursued more conventional curatorial projects. “We did shows the uptown museums wouldn’t touch, about subjects in which they weren’t interested,” Wilson recalled.
With the assistance of specialist guest curators, her organization mounted revealing exhibitions on such subjects as artists’ books from Japan (in a show assembled by the influential Japanese critic Yoshiako Tono). Its Cubist Prints/Cubist Books show broke new ground in its field and traveled to other museums in the United States. Along with exhibition-making, Franklin Furnace launched its Fund for Performance Art, whose grants enabled emerging artists to produce and present new works in New York. (Its grants-for-artists program still exists today.) Franklin Furnace also developed an education program, sending book artists, performers, photographers, filmmakers, animators, and videographers to work with children in New York’s public schools.
Challenging censorship, Franklin Furnace courted controversial topics. In 1984, it was reprimanded by the National Endowment for the Arts for presenting Carnival Knowledge, an exhibition and performance art series that examined, with punchy humor, the notion of “feminist pornography.” In time, Franklin Furnace also became a key player in what the conservative commentator-turned-Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan called in 1992 “a religious war […] for the soul of America.”
Political pressure may have played a part in an episode in May 1990, when New York’s fire department dubiously forced the organization to close its basement performance space in response to a call claiming the arts outlet was an “illegal social club.” The shutdown prompted Wilson’s team to present performances and events “in exile.” Their first, off-site venue: Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, whose arts-related ministry had made it a censorship-free center for experimental dance, art, theater, and music since the 1950s.
As the 1990s unfolded, Franklin Furnace became embroiled in the so-called NEA Four case, in which performance artists whose works it had sponsored – Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller – saw their proposed grants from the NEA vetoed by the agency’s director, John Frohnmayer, an appointee of President George H. W. Bush. Ultimately, the NEA settled with the four artists out of court and gave them the grants they had been denied. Still, they decided to litigate against the NEA’s congressionally approved “decency clause,” which had required the arts agency to judge grant-seekers’ proposals not only on their artistic merits but also according to “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs of the American public.”
“Although the NEA Four finally won their grants,” Wilson recalled, “in the end, sadly, the arts agency stopped funding individual visual artists.” She added, “In a way, avant-garde artists both won and lost the culture wars. Certainly they often took the lead, through their art, in examining topics they felt were urgent but were not embraced right away by the general society. Eventually, though, those subjects became the ones everybody was talking and concerned about.”
Wilson noted that, ironically, far-right activists learned to employ techniques avant-garde artists themselves had developed. “There was the time that a group of conservative activists calling for the death of the NEA tried to haul two coffins up the Capitol steps in Washington, DC,” Wilson said. “That one was straight out of the performance art playbook!”
In 1997, after winding down its on-site programming and selling its TriBeCa loft, Franklin Furnace launched a website and became an Internet-based presenter of performance art and, in time, an online archive of material documenting its past events. It sold its collection of artists’ books and related research files to the Museum of Modern Art. More recently, the organization became an independently functioning entity under the administrative umbrella of and in collaboration with Pratt Institute. Its offices are located on Pratt’s Brooklyn campus, where the organization, drawing on its archive and considerable research resources, has been developing study programs in performance art and other areas, as well as helping to organize exhibitions.
Wilson said, “Now, after forty years, we find ourselves playing a Janus role: We still serve as an aid to avant-garde artists, which means we’re always looking ahead, and as custodians of decades of the recent avant-garde’s history, both with our physical and our online archives, we find ourselves looking back in time, too. These are big responsibilities, and we take them seriously.”
Art historian Lippard, reminiscing by e-mail from her home in New Mexico, recalled her own past collaborations with Franklin Furnace, back in the days when, with limited resources – homemade vitrines, clip-on lamps – it mounted many a ground-breaking exhibition. “It has always been a haven for book artists, performance artists and political artists way outside the mainstream. Mike Glier and I curated Vigilance, an artists’ book show there in the early 1980s, with a banner quoting Antonio Gramsci overlooking card tables; the books were tied by string to their legs, and, remarkably, none disappeared.”
As long as artists continue calling for radical change in the art world, a position that, in the broadest sense, is inherently political, maybe there will always be an active avant-garde. Looking back over the past four decades, Lippard observed, “We thought it was bad in the 1980s, but the Furnace’s history has a special resonance today, when things are worse than we could ever have imagined.”
Franklin Furnace @ 40 Benefit Art Sale and Auction will take place at Metro Pictures (519 West 24th Street, Chelsea) on Saturday, April 22, from 5 to 7pm. Pre-event online bidding is now under way at Paddle8.
Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today. Founded in 2009, Hyperallergic is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.
(c)2017 Hyperallergic Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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1. Martha Wilson, Alicia Grullón, Gregory Sholette, FF Alumns, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, April 26
Please Join Us at The 8th Floor
Wednesday, April 26
from 6 to 9pm for
Martha Wilson: Activist History Teach-in
Location: 17 West 17th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
RSVP: media@sdrubin.org
Performance artist Martha Wilson, founder of Franklin Furnace, will lead a “teach-in” with a selection of activist artists from the 1960s to the present, looking at the history of performance art as protest to consider which methods and strategies remain effective in today’s political climate. Wilson, known for her political drag performances as first ladies Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan, will perform her recent work Martha Does Donald, in which she impersonates Donald Trump. In addition, the event will include presentations by artists Ann Agee, Rehan Ansari, Tomie Arai (Chinatown Art Brigade), Todd Ayoung (REPOhistory), Avram Finkelstein (ACT UP and Gran Fury), Alicia Grullón (Percent for Green), Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon (MTL), Taja Lindley (Harriet’s Apothecary), Katherine Perk, Gregory Sholette (Gulf Labor Artists Coalition), Lise Soskolne (W.A.G.E.), and Barbara Zucker (A.I.R. Gallery), among others.
For more information on the event and its participants, please click here.
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2. Carolee Schneemann, FF Alumn, receives Venice Biennale Golden Lion Award 2017
Carolee Schneemann Wins Coveted Venice Biennale Golden Lion
BY NICHOLAS FORREST
APRIL 13, 2017
Carolee Schneemann has been announced as the winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – VIVA ARTE VIVA. The American artist was recommended for the award by the curator of the 57th International Art Exhibition, Christine Macel. She will receive the accolade on May 13 at Ca’ Giustinian, the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia, during the awards ceremony and inauguration of the 2017 exhibition.
Commenting on the award, Christine Macel stated that Schneemann has been one of the most important figures in the development of performance and Body Art “She has used her own body as the prevalent material of her art,” said Macel. “In so doing, she situates women as both the creator and an active part of the creation itself. In opposition to traditional representation of women merely as nude object, she has used the naked body as a primal, archaic force which could unify energies.”
Carolee Schneemann’s career spans more than 60 years during which she has worked in a wide range of mediums including in painting, photography, performance film, video, mixed media, and installations, but she is best known as a pioneer of feminist performance. Her most famous performance is “Interior Scroll” 1975 during which the artist, standing naked on a table, slowly pulled a narrow scroll of paper from her vagina while reading aloud from it.
According to Macel, Schneemann is an artist with a direct, sexual, liberating, and autobiographical style who champions the importance of women’s sensual pleasure and examines the possibilities of political and personal emancipation from predominant social and aesthetic conventions. “Through the exploration of a large range of media . . . Schneemann re-writes her personal history of art, refusing the idea of an “his-tory” narrated exclusively from the male point of view,” said Macel.
Please visit this link for the complete illustrated article:
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3. Lorraine O’Grady, FF Alumn, at The Brooklyn Museum, April 21
We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985, will be on view in the Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Contemporary Galleries from April 21 to September 17, 2017. The landmark exhibition will investigate the experiences of women of color during the emergence of second wave feminism.
In celebration of the exhibition opening, there will be a symposium held at the Museum on April 21, from 11:30am to 6:00pm in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium. The daylong symposium will consist of panel discussions, talks and performances addressing black revolutionary art practices, many of which are highlighted in We Wanted A Revolution. Participants include Lorraine O’Grady, Alison Saar, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson and other renowned artists and activists featured in the exhibition. Distinguished scholars will also be a part of the conversation, including Catherine Morris and Rujeko Hockley, the exhibition’s co-curators; Aruna D’Souza, art historian and critic; Kellie Jones, Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology at the Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University; and Uri McMillan, Associate Professor of English at UCLA.
If you are interested in attending the symposium, please register on the Eventbrite page that has been created for the event, which can be accessed using this link – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/symposium-we-wanted-a-revolution-tickets-33343166308. The event is free with Museum admission, but your RSVP is required.
I look forward to seeing you at the symposium and other related programs coordinated to acknowledge the opening of this incredibly important and timely exhibition.
If you have any further questions about the program, please email wewar@brookylnmuseum.org.
Kind regards,
Meghan Slater
Public Programs
Brooklyn Museum
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4. Barbara Rosenthal, FF Alumn, at Printed Matter, Manhattan, April 28
On Fri, April 28, Printed Matter is pleased to invite you to an evening of Media Poetry Videos and Readings to celebrate the dual event of two small NYC presses featuring Barbara Rosenthal, who will introduce several artist-writers working in this interdisciplinary trend.
Rosenthal’s novel WISH FOR AMNESIA has just been published by DEADLY CHAPS PRESS, with 58 Surreal Photographs between the chapters, after a 38-year gestation period. As she speaks about this life-long project, and how it relates to the other 70 of her works at this bookshop since 1980 when she first founded the genre “Media Poetry,” she will introduce the new XANADU PRESS, which she has launched with image-text books in collaboration with Bonny Finberg, Prudence Groube and Jeffrey Cyphers Wright.
Media Poetry: An Evening with Barbara Rosenthal and Friends
PRINTED MATTER
231 11th Ave (at W. 26th St. C/E to 23rd St.)
Chelsea / NYC
212-989-9319
https://www.facebook.com/events/239499883124326/
ChelseaNow.com:
http://chelseanow.com/calendar/#/event/6341563-media-poetry-an-evening-with-barbara-rosenthal-and-friends?radius_miles=10&location=10014-new-york§ions=all&date=2017-04-28
Fri, April 28, 2017. 6PM
and
Barbara Rosenthal was interviewed by Paul DeRienzo on his live show “Let Them Talk,” Manhattan Neighborhood Network TV this week. The interview is also now on line
http://www.nhltv.net/video/barbara-rosenthal-author-of-wish-for-amnesia/TlN941ugp08+5LXZLIqmwfM The subject of the interview is her new novel, WISH FOR AMNESIA, published by Deadly Chaps Press. (deadlychaps.com/novel). The novel is pivots around Jack Rubin, the son of Holocaust resistance workers, who develops a Messianic Complex. During this half-hour cable interview, DeRienzo converses with Rosenthal about the concept of “perfection,” and how it plays out differently in each character, and what it means in her own life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Rosenthal
http://www.barbararosenthal.org/
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5. Hector Canonge, FF Alumn, at FIAP, Martinique, May 16-23
Hector Canonge, FF Alumn will be participating as guest artist in the first International Performance Art of Martinique, FIAP 2017, May 16-23.
Canonge will present two new works: TROPICALIA and INCONNU (DesConocido) exploring the relations of the island to the Western Hemisphere and the position of individuals under colonialism. Based on Frantz Fanon “Black Skins, White Masks” and Albert Camus “The Stranger” the works treat notions of race, identity and otherness.
More information: www.facebook.com/HectorCanonge
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6. Tomislav Gotovac, FF Alumn, in Documenta 14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany
Tomislav Gotovac Institute proudly announce that works of Tomislav Gotovac are part of Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.
Documents, propos and photographs of action Cleaning of public spaces (1981) are on display at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, while Begging (Alms Please. Thank You. Begging Artist) (1980) will be present at the Neue Galerie in Kassel.
For additional information feel free to contact me.
Best regards,
Darko Šimičić
Tomislav Gotovac Institute
Krajiška 29
10000 Zagreb, Croatia
+385 91 51 42 317
tomislav.gotovac.institute@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/TomislavGotovacInstitute
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7. D. Hải Phú Daedalus, j.c. Lenochan, FF Alumns, at Center for Book Arts, Manhattan, April 21-July 17, and more
D. Hải Phú Daedalus in group show, “En Masse: Books Orchestrated”
Books, foremost agents of intellectual and visual stimuli, pose as objects of desire and forms of aesthetic due to their psychical precision that stems from their geometric formations and mysterious potential. When loosely arranged together through a conceptual or aesthetic vision–whether piled or adjoined– books adopt further narratives distinct in their structure, yet still original in their intellectual content. En Masse: Books Orchestrated, organized by Osman Can Yerebakan, contemplates various possibilities on intellectual thinking and collective culture, bringing together various artists that utilize book arrangement in their practice, while suggesting an alternative perspective on analyzing and interpreting materials beyond their physicality and content.
Complex and profound in their pristine forms, books endure as agents of both subjective specification and individualistic expression. Embedded with certain connotations, each book transfers an aura via its outer case. Authors, titles or artwork covering their layers convey the content of a book, while dictating assumptions on its subject matter. The exhibition aims to investigate cultural, historical, and emotional attributions on books as phenomenons while analyzing the dialogue between every individual edition with one another and their audience. The artists include Louis Zoeller Bickett, Jordan Buschur, Emilio Chapela, Özgür Demirci, Donald Daedalus, Leor Grady, Katarina Jerinic, Nina Katchadourian, j.c. lenochan, Liz Linden, Michael Mandiberg, Phil Shaw, Ward Shelley & Douglas Paulson, Yinka Shonibare MBE, and Julia Weist.
Center for Book Arts
28 West 27th Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
and
D. Hải Phú Daedalus releases epub:
Exploring The Dangerous Trades
by Dr. Alice Hamilton
306 pages with photographs by DHP Daedalus, 2017
The autobiography by the pioneer of occupational medicine that covers many of the most important historical events of the first half of the 20th Century, told in stunning clarity and resounding prose. This work is historically relevant to ecologists, activist, historians, chemists, biologist and anyone looking back into American history. The themes are relevant today and elucidate the ongoing struggles of our societal balance between work and living. This edition has been masterfully re-created for iPad and iBooks and includes never before seen photographs by artist Donald Hải Phú Daedalus.
$3.06 available for digital download at http://www.donalddaedalus.com/tienda/
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8. Peter Downsbrough, FF Alumn, at galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France, opening April 25
PETER DOWNSBROUGH
april 25th – june 17th, 2017
A major figure in contemporary art, Peter Downsbrough started working in the
wake of minimalism, at the intersection of conceptual and concrete art. An artist
of minimalist simplicity, his works offer a sense of both strength and silence.
Using a reduced visual vocabulary of words, lines and geometric figures, his
works offer a reflection on the surrounding space without physically invading it.
The works offer the viewer a rare moment where sense emerges and eclipses
what is known, where language and orientation puzzle and excite.
His work is based primarily on the notion of positioning and framing. Within
these complex structures the position of each element plays a decisive role, and
this goes for language as well as architecture.
For his fifth solo exhibition at Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Peter Downsbrough
chooses to show wall pieces. Discrete in size and volume yet clearly visible, they
restructure the space while amplifying it through their position. Taking into
account the limitations imposed by the gallery’s architecture, the artist plays
literally on form and words. A large wall piece is situated on one of the large
walls of the gallery. Another uses the angles and symmetry of the room. Finally,
a third wall piece, this time with color, discreetely occupies a smaller and more
intimate space.
Peter Downsbrough was born in 1940 in New Brunswick, USA. He lives and
works in Brussels.
galerie martine aboucaya
5 rue sainte anastase
75003 paris
www.martineaboucaya.com
PETER DOWNSBROUGH
25 avril – 17 juin 2017
Vernissage le mardi 25 avril de 18h à 21h
Figure majeure de l’art contemporain, Peter Downsbrough opère dans le sillage du minimalisme, au croisement de l’art conceptuel et de l’art concret. Artiste de la simplicité et du dénuement, il nous offre ici des oeuvres fortes et silencieuses.
A l’aide d’un vocabulaire restreint et épuré composé de lignes, de formes géométriques simples et de surfaces peintes ainsi que de conjonctions, d’adverbes et de larges concepts, ses oeuvres réfléchissent et interrogent l’espace sans l’envahir physiquement. Elles entraînent le spectateur dans un moment rare où l’acquis se perd et le sens s’acquiert, où le langage et l’orientation nous échappent.
Son travail est prioritairement fondé sur la notion de position et de cadrage. Dans les structures complexes, la position de chaque élément est déterminante : c’est vrai du langage comme de l’architecture.
Pour sa cinquième exposi¬tion personnelle à la galerie Martine Aboucaya, Peter Downsbrough a choisi de montrer principalement des pièces murales. Avec des volumes discrets mais clairement visibles, il structure encore une fois l’espace et l’amplifie par le positionnement des oeuvres. Incluant les paramètres imposés par l’architecture du lieu, l’artiste joue littéralement sur la forme et les mots.
Une grande Wall Piece frontale et magistrale se déploie sur un des murs du grand espace de la galerie. Une autre utilise comme souvent l’angle, la symétrie et le retournement. Une autre encore, en couleur cette fois, occupe généreusement un espace plus intime.
Peter Downsbrough est né en 1940 à New Brunswick, USA. Il vit et travaille à Bruxelles.
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9. Bob Goldberg, FF Alumn, at Greenwood Cemetery, May 7, Brooklyn, June 4, and more
Hi Everyone:
I wanted to let you know about a couple of upcoming gigs by the Famous Accordion Orchestra:
On Sunday May 7, and Sunday June 4, Moonlight Tours of Green-Wood Cemetery, with historian Jeff Richman, music by Bob and Melissa – for tickets/information: http://www.green-wood.com/event/moonlight-tour/
Sunday May 21, in the afternoon, at the BWAC Waterfront Arts Show in Red Hook – time/details to be confirmed.
Come and listen!
Bob
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10. Mark Bloch, FF Alumn, now online
Mark Bloch article “Territories of Complexities” about Guillaume Paturel at
artistorganizedart.org/commons/2017/04/bloch-paturel-whitebox.html
“My pieces are cities, territories, urban landscapes either deserted or under construction,” he says. “My city of choice is geometry and chaos, order and disorder, verticality and stratification.”
The 3 dimensional horizontal piece in the middle of the room was fabricated with the help of some architectural colleagues from one of the paintings in the show. They turned it into a digital photo and then into software that extrapolates information into 3D to create “tool paths”
which tell a machine how to carve in 3 directions, at 5 different pivot points, ultimately directing a “CNC router” to carve away designated areas of the 4″ thick slab of wood that stretches out as wide as the paintings on the wall do-again, 5 or 6 feet rectangles. Form burrowed away in concentric irregular rings around elevated surfaces look like tiny islands in vast oceans. To these surfaces and large areas of wood where the color in the original painting was converted to raised land masses, the artist added new layers of color, different from its topographical doppelganger, hanging on the wall behind it.
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11. Stephanie Skura, FF Alumn, at Roulette, Brooklyn, April 18-19
There is splendor in older movers who are still at it & able.
There is splendor in embracing alternatives to unison, to illuminate dance relationships & structure.
There is splendor in the co-existence of specificity & improvisation, & in vulnerabilities evoked by doing two seemingly contradictory things at once.
There is splendor in unearthing the subconscious
Hello friends,
Our performances approach: April 18 & 19, Tuesday & Wednesday, 8 pm at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY. If in town, we welcome your astute presences!
Tickets & info: http://roulette.org/genre/dance
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12. Rebekah Benson, FF Alumn, now online
Please visit this link to a video:
thank you
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13. Stephen Korns, FF Alumn, now online
Hi All,
The City of Houston has announced the downtown public art work we’ve been working on since 2014, and we’ve gotten our first write-up. YAY!
More will come, presumably, and I’m finishing a website of past Houston and other projects including the videos from The Houston Oracle in Two Parts. I’ll send a note when it’s all online.
My best to you and Happy Spring from NYC !
Stephen
http://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/press/multisensory-experience-artwork.html
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/houston-underpass-oracle
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14. Fiona Templeton, FF Alumn, at La Mama, Manhattan, May 18-21
SAVE THE DATES
FOR FIONA TEMPLETON’S NEWEST WORK
THE BLUE
PREMIERING MAY 18-21 AT LA MAMA IN NYC
4 shows only
also ANNOUNCING
THE FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN
to help pay cast and crew
About The Blue:
A man and a woman speak in their own voices, as well as in the imagined thoughts of the other, even ventriloquising each other until the almost-bare stage seems populated with voices. A tale without caution, caught in several acts. Gender and power shift and subvert. Language flows, cadences, crystallizes, and shatters.
Award-winning director and poet Fiona Templeton’s first new work since The Medead in 2012.
Please make a donation today to help support the cast and crew of the upcoming performance and support New York City’s community of artists. We are very low on the budget for this piece – every dollar would help. More info on perks, including signed scripts and invitation to the opening reception, can be found on our Indiegogo page. If you have already contributed, your perks will be waiting.
And don’t forget to reserve your ticket today from our friends at La Mama!
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15. Barbara Bloom, FF Alumn, at David Lewis Gallery, Manhattan, opening May 5
Barbara Bloom
A Picture, A Thousand Words
May 5 – June 18, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5th, 6 – 9 PM
David Lewis
88 Eldridge Street, Fifth floor
New York, NY 10002
David Lewis Gallery, 88 Eldridge Street, 5th Floor, left side, New York, NY 10002
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16. Franc Palaia, FF Alumn, in Tribeca Film Festival, Manhattan, April 22
Hi Everyone,
I am pleased to announce my inclusion in the Tribeca Film Festival
I have 30 photographs included in a new documentary film entitled, “Shadowman” about the black silhouette wall paintings of Richard Hambleton painted on NYC walls from 1981-85. The oscar nominated director/producer, Oren Jacoby will screen his new film on April 22 at the Regal Cinema 4 in Battery Park, Tribeca, 2 blocks from the WTC. My photo book called “NightLife” contains 75 color photographs of this series available through my website, local stores and by email. See attachd poster and a couple samples from my NightLife book. NightLife is also included in the permanent collection of MoMA.
For more info: tribecafilmfestival.org
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17. Marlon Riggs, James Romberger, David Wojnarowicz, FF Alumns, at The 8th Floor, Manhattan, opening June 15
THE SHELLEY & DONALD RUBIN FOUNDATION
PRESENTS A VISUAL AIDS EXHIBITION
VOICE = SURVIVAL
Opening Reception, Thursday, June 15
from 6 to 8pm
On View June 15 to August 11, 2017
The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street, New York City
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and Visual AIDS are pleased to announce
VOICE = SURVIVAL, an exhibition curated by Claudia Maria Carrera and Adrian Geraldo Saldaña for Visual AIDS, opening June 15, 2017 at The 8th Floor.
VOICE = SURVIVAL examines voice as a medium and a metaphor used by artists and activists confronting oppression amid the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The multidisciplinary exhibition features work and archival materials by ACT UP, Jordan Arseneault and PosterVirus, yann beauvais, Adinah Dancyger, Chloe Dzubilo, Gran Fury, Andrea Geyer and Sharon Hayes, Shan Kelley, Audre Lorde, Donald Moffett, Pat Parker, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Marlon Riggs, LJ Roberts, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook, Ultra-red, Rosa von Praunheim, James Wentzy and Diva TV, David Wojnarowicz, and others. The exhibition will be on view from June 15 through August 11, 2017 at The 8th Floor.
About Visual AIDS
Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual art projects, while supporting artists living with HIV/AIDS. Visual AIDS is committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement. Capturing critical and audience acclaim, Visual AIDS’ art exhibitions examine the deep cultural history of the AIDS crisis and contemporary issues around HIV/AIDS today. Exhibitions are organized by guest curators and feature a range of emerging, international and HIV+ artists. VOICE=SURVIVAL was selected for The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation exhibition from a competitive call for proposals.
For more information on Visual AIDS, contact us at info@visualaids.org or join us on Facebook (Visual AIDS), Instagram (@visual_AIDS), Twitter (@visual_AIDS), and www.visualAIDS.org
About The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
The Foundation believes in art as a cornerstone of cohesive, resilient communities and greater participation in civic life. In its mission to make art available to the broader public, in particular to underserved communities, the Foundation provides direct support to, and facilitates partnerships between, cultural organizations and advocates of social justice across the public and private sectors. Through grantmaking, the Foundation supports cross-disciplinary work connecting art with social justice via experimental collaborations, as well as extending cultural
resources to organizations and areas of New York City in need. sdrubin.org
About The 8th Floor
The 8th Floor is an independent exhibition and event space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin to promote artistic and cultural initiatives. Inspired by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the gallery is committed to broadening the access and availability of art to New York audiences. Seeking further cultural exchange, The 8th Floor explores the potential of art as an instrument for social change in the 21st century, through an annual program of innovative, contemporary art exhibitions and an events program comprised of performances, salon-style discussions, and those organized by external partners. the8thfloor.org
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, 17 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011
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18. Sally Greenhouse, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, April 22
Sally Greenhouse, esteemed FF Alumn, is taking a break from being in a stupor due to her discovery of straight French porn online which is very sexy because these Frenchmen do things American men never do and Parisienne women wear elegant frilly lingerie that’s not sleazy while engaging in their captivating activities with these sensual French men……. to revive THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT with her series of astonishing revelations regarding miraculously recuperating from paralysis and returning to the NYC performance art scene after her neck was broken. Admission is FREE, but bartenders wants you all to buy beer, wine, or cocktails. It’s a bar lounge.
April 22nd @7:30pm 161 Chrystie Street Dixon Place IN THE LOUNGE–
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19. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, at MCLA Design Lab, N. Adams, MA, opening April 27
MCLA’s Berkshire Cultural Resource Center presents
CRITICAL MASS: From the Collection of Harley Spiller
April 27-May 1, 2017
Opening reception April 27, 5-7 pm
MCLA Design Lab
49 Main Street
North Adams, MA
Organized by Laura Thompson’s Advanced Museum Studies class
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
