Contents for July 5, 2022
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1. Fred Wilson, FF Alumn, at Columbus Park, Brooklyn
2. David Hammons, Papo Colo, FF Alumns, in new documentary film
3. Kazuko Miyamoto, FF Alumn, at Japan Society, Manhattan, July 9
4. Daze, Lady Pink, Martin Wong, FF Alumns, now online at EvergreenReview.com
5. Francheska Alcántara, FF Alumn, at Recess Art, Brooklyn, July 21-Aug. 13
6. Isabel Samaras, R. Sikoryak, FF Alumns, at City Reliquary, Brooklyn, thru December 31
7. Jeff McMahon, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place Lounge, Manhattan, July 7
8. Agnes Denes, FF Alumn, in The Wall Street Journal, June 27
9. Karen Finley, FF Alumn, at Hudson Valley Writers Center Hudson Valley, Sleepy Hollow, NY, July 10
10. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, receives Best Documentary Short Award, Santa Barbara Film Awards
11. Jeff McMahon, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, July 7
12. Barbara Kruger, FF Alumn, at MoMA, Manhattan, opening July 16
13. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Holman, FF Alumns, now online in The New York Times
14. Lynn Book, FF Alumn, at Art Stays, Ptuj, Slovenia, opening July 7
15. Roberta Allen, FF Alumn, at Mckenzie Fine Art, Manhattan, opening July 8
16. Toni Sant, Frank Moore, Annie Sprinkle, FF Alumns, now online in Revue française d’études américaines
17. Benoît Maubrey, FF Alumn, summer news
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1. Fred Wilson, FF Alumn, at Columbus Park, Brooklyn
Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds (https://moreart.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=82257df5d0434e2ba66b70853&id=3e73e1585b&e=fe04898764), Fred Wilson’s first-ever large-scale public sculpture, is now on view at Columbus Park, Brooklyn.
The installation features a 10-foot-tall sculpture, composed of layers of decorative ironwork, fencing, and statues of African figures. This project is funded in part through the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund, under New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), and is exhibited through NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program.
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2. David Hammons, Papo Colo, FF Alumns, in new documentary film
Please visit this link:
https://martincid.com/en/2022/06/17/the-melt-goes-on-forever-the-art-and-times-of-david-hammons/
Thank you.
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3. Kazuko Miyamoto, FF Alumn, at Japan Society, Manhattan, July 9
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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4. Daze, Lady Pink, Martin Wong, FF Alumns, now online at EvergreenReview.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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5. Francheska Alcántara, FF Alumn, at Recess Art, Brooklyn, July 21-Aug. 13
“Secure the Bag, Mint the Soaps and Throw the Bones”
“Secure the Bag, Mint the Soaps and Throw the Bones” is Francheska Alcántara’s art installation and site of exchange that recontextualizes and reclaims the histories of the brown paper bag, and Hispano cuaba soap while inviting the audience to play a game of dominoes. The aim is to materialize new outcomes for these artifacts and interactions given their racialized, colonial and social complexities which reverberate in the customs and dynamics of the black diasporic subjectivity and imagination. Secure the Bag, Mint the Soaps and Throw the Bones sets free personal and cultural histories that are an ever expanding constellation of re-existences.
Francheska Alcántara
Secure the Bag, Mint the Soaps and Throw the Bones
July 21 – August 13, 2022
for complete information please visit
https://www.recessart.org/francheskaalcantara/
An Afro-Caribbean-queer-person raised-by-their-grandmother and hailing from The Bronx, Francheska Alcántara explores slippages in-between memories, fragmentations and longing. Their aim is to explore the specific social meaning within the realm of domestic and public life of artifacts and interactions such as: hand-washing their underwear with cuaba soap while taking a shower, setting up buckets to catch rainwater to wash their hair, and peeling plátanos with the knife that has the right sharpness to follow the platano’s curve without cutting their hand. Francheska wants to use these subjective experiences to expand our capacity for pleasure, love and intra-connection. Alcántara graduated with a MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, a BFA in Painting from Hunter College, and a BA in Art History from Old Dominion University. Francheska has shared their work at the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Queens Museum, La Mama Theater, Grace Exhibition Space, and Longwood Art Gallery. Currently, they are a fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
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6. Isabel Samaras, R. Sikoryak, FF Alumns, at City Reliquary, Brooklyn, thru December 31
Please visit this link:
https://www.cityreliquary.org/the-city-reliquary-presents-wonder-women-nycs-heroes-of-heterodoxy/
Thank you.
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7. Jeff McMahon, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place Lounge, Manhattan, July 7
Work-in-progress reading of new performance scripts by Jeff McMahon.
Featuring former and current students Toussaint Jeanlouis, Rebekah Dawn, Chris Ignacio.
Dixon Place, 161-A Chrystie St. Manhattan.
July 7 7:30pm
$15advance / $18door
http://dixonplace.org/performances/qualified-immunity/
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8. Agnes Denes, FF Alumn, in The Wall Street Journal, June 27
The Wall Street Journal
By Kelly Crow
June 27, 2022 7:00 am ET
Major Artists Sign Up to Fill Saudi Arabian Desert Valley With Massive Art Installations
The 25-square-mile project is the Kingdom’s latest effort to become an international art hub, with art installations by artists like Michael Heizer and James Turrell
Saudi Arabia is taking a big step in its longer plan to become an international art destination by inviting major artists, including James Turrell and Michael Heizer, to permanently install monumental pieces in its northwestern desert over the next couple years.
From a mirrored installation that mimics a mirage to a labyrinth town made from adobe walls, the first five pieces will dot a 25-square-mile area dubbed Wadi AlFann, which means Valley of the Arts, according to Saudi cultural authorities. The valley is located in AlUla, a craggy desert region long known for its Petra-like rock tombs and more recently for its Desert X AlUla contemporary-art biennial.
The art valley is one part of a multi-billion-dollar nationwide push by Saudi Arabia to transform itself into a cultural hub and tourist destination. Details about the valley are emerging now as Saudi Arabia steps again into the geopolitical spotlight, spurred in part by President Biden’s upcoming trip to the country in July, its boosted oil production and lingering concerns over its human-rights violations.
Mr. Turrell acknowledged in an interview that Saudi Arabia’s “diplomatic or nationalistic tendencies” could be propelling the timing and backing of Wadi AlFann. But, he said, “I have shown in Moscow, Shanghai, Beijing—places where I doubt I could show today. It is possible for art to bridge large cultural gaps.”
James Turrell, one of the artists invited to create an installation for Wadi AlFann, said the valley’s sandstone reminds him of the rock near his other major project at Arizona’s Roden Crater, shown behind him.
Nora Aldabal, executive director of arts and creative industries for the valley’s governing Royal Commission for AlUla, said Wadi AlFann is part of a yearslong campaign to attract more cultural tourists. Already, there are signs that art is drawing people in: The second iteration of the Desert X AlUla exhibition held earlier this year attracted 24,000 visitors, up from 9,000 visitors to its inaugural event that closed just before the pandemic in early 2020, she said.
The nation’s plans include creating more than a dozen museums exploring the impact of oil, incense and the Red Sea on Saudi Arabia. There are also plans for museums to house the national art collection, including Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi.” In Riyadh, a citywide light and art festival in November will also feature more than 100 Saudi and international artists.
For Wadi AlFann, Saudi authorities added a measure of Western art-world pedigree by enlisting Iwona Blazwick, former director of London’s public Whitechapel Art Gallery, to help curate the project and chair the royal commission’s public art expert panel. Ms. Blazwick said she doesn’t think political boycotts should extend to cultural efforts, so she hasn’t focused on the human-rights debate.
Manal AlDowayan was inspired by the tightly packed mud homes in AlUla’s ancient old town, shown here, to create a stylized adobe city of her own in the valley, ‘Oasis of Stories.’
In addition to Mr. Turrell and land-art pioneer Michael Heizer, conceptual artist Agnes Denes and Saudi Arabia’s Manal AlDowayan and Ahmed Mater have agreed to install massive works at Wadi AlFann, she said. More artists will later be added to the valley’s programming, she said.
Ms. Blazwick said she believes the valley could become a pilgrimage stop for art lovers on par with Marfa, Texas, and Brazil’s jungle art park, Inhotim. (Inhotim’s curator, Allan Schwartzman, is also advising the Saudi commission.)
“I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the world featuring all these titans,” she said of the valley. “It’s going to be remarkable to see them in these surroundings.”
Mr. Turrell, a pioneer of the 1960s Light and Space movement, is known for creating colorful rooms whose ceilings often contain geometrical cut-outs that allow visitors to peer up into the open sky. For Wadi AlFann, he said he’s planning a quartet of these so-called Skyspaces—including one people encounter after first walking through a tunnel in the mountainside. He plans to create other pieces in the valley that involve objects like a sundial.
Mr. Heizer, an artist who splits his time between Nevada and New York, is known for balancing huge boulders in seemingly precarious positions and for creating vast earthwork sculptures. For the valley project, he intends to carve a series of geometric indentations high in the sandstone rock facades whose shapes may appear to alter as people pass by.
Ms. Blazwick said the artist was inspired by symbols carved into the region’s rock faces by the ancient Nabateans, the same civilization that founded Jordan’s Petra and nearby Hegra before the rise of Islam. Part of the government’s cultural push has involved paying more attention to archaeological sites that predated the birthplace of Islam.
The same carvings also inspired Ms. Denes, a Hungarian-born artist in New York best known for planting a two-acre wheatfield in lower Manhattan in 1982. Ms. Denes plans to carve her own series of pyramid shapes into the valley’s rock surroundings.
Wadi AlFann’s inaugural set of artists will also include two with local ties, including Mr. Mater, a physician-turned-artist from Riyadh. He will create “Ashab Al-Lal,” a complex piece with subterranean elements that will employ mirrors to create the optical illusion of an oasis-like mirage on the desert valley floor.
Another museum mainstay, Ms. AlDowayan, is based in London but grew up in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Her practice tends to explore ideas about invisibility and disappearance–of people, of culture.
Her piece for the valley, “Oasis of Stories,” will pay homage to the hundreds of mud-brick houses that stack into maze-like forms in the oldest part of the town of AlUla. She plans to create her own stylized version of the adobe city in the valley and adorn its walls with plaques and texts created by the local community. In researching the region, she thinks many locals are likely descendants of the ancient Nabateans who once ruled there.
“I want to be sure the people don’t feel outshined by their surroundings,” she said.
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9. Karen Finley, FF Alumn, at Hudson Valley Writers Center Hudson Valley, Sleepy Hollow, NY, July 10
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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10. Kathy Brew, FF Alumn, receives Best Documentary Short Award, Santa Barbara Film Awards
Happy to announce that I just learned that “Follow the Thread” received the Best Documentary Short award at the Santa Barbara Film Awards. https://www.santabarbarafilmawards.com/2nd
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11. Jeff McMahon, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, July 7
Please visit this link:
http://dixonplace.org/performances/qualified-immunity/
Thank you.
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12. Barbara Kruger, FF Alumn, at MoMA, Manhattan, opening July 16
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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13. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Holman, FF Alumns, now online in The New York Times
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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14. Lynn Book, FF Alumn, at Art Stays, Ptuj, Slovenia, opening July 7
#postproduction 2022
Art Stays International Festival of Contemporary Art
Opening weekend: 7 July – 10 July 2022
Exhibition Dates: 7 July – 18 September 2022
Complete program: www.artstays.si
Directors/Curators: Jernej Forbici and Marika Vicari
Organizer: KUD Art Stays, Prešernova ulica 1, 2250 Ptuj, info@artstays.si
Info Point: Festival Galerija Art Stays, Slovenski trg 1, 2250 Ptuj
By invitation to the 20th anniversary of the Art Stays International Festival of Contemporary Art, Ptuj, Slovenia, U.S. artist Lynn Book will be in residence, showing a new multimedia installation, “Instructions for Deranging” in the Ptuj City Gallery, located in a 17th Century building in the medieval core of the city. Book’s installation for the exhibition involves a large-scale, single channel video projection; a sculpture; and wall pieces that include photographs, and drawings. The artist will also perform in the installation for the opening of the exhibitions on July 8th followed by a conversation with the artist on July 9th. Book will also perform a concert for the launch of the festival on July 7th with two contemporary sound artists – Sara Korosec (SI) and Erika Vicari (IT).
“Instructions for Deranging” relates to Lynn Book’s “Unreading for Future Bodies”, a long-scale, transmedia project concerned with bodies, technologies and knowledge making in a super-saturated technosphere. Book proposes ideas of ‘derangement’ as survival tactics in a challenging world and to recuperate a threatened planet. She does this by way of ‘becoming Chimaera’ herself so that ‘they’, and others, may instigate multimodal transformation at the deepest levels. In this set of related works, the artist explores fluid identities, and material and physical alchemy to perform, critique and (re)imagine livable futures.
For more info on Lynn Book:
Short list of invited artists include: Felipe Aguila (CHL), Marko Batista (SVN), Janet Bellotto (CAN), Gabrijel Berlič (SVN), Joseph Beuys (DEU), Lynn Book (USA), Beti Bricelj (SVN), BridA (SVN), Costantino Ciervo (DEU / ITA), Riccardo Costantini (ITA), Nemanja Cvijanović (CRO), Ben Darrah (CAN), Leo Ferdinand Demetz (ITA), Maitha Demithan (UAE), Interno3 (Manuel Frara)(ITA), Jaša (SVN), Robert Jurak (SVN), Zul Mahmod (SGP) with many other artists, artist collectives and works sited across the city and in the surrounding sites.
Complete Art Stays program: www.artstays.si
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15. Roberta Allen, FF Alumn, at Mckenzie Fine Art, Manhattan, opening July 8
Dear Friends + Colleagues,
You are invited to INK, a group show, opening July 8, 6-8 pm
through August 13 at McKenzie Fine Art
55 Orchard St., New York, NY
7 Artists
Roberta Allen,
Chris Arabadjis,
Nancy Blum,
Lori Ellison,
Sky Pape,
Jessica Deane Rosner,
Eric Wolf
212 989.5467
Roberta Allen is an artist who has exhibited internationally, with work in the collections of The Met and MoMA, among others and the author of nine books.
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16. Toni Sant, Frank Moore, Annie Sprinkle, FF Alumns, now online in Revue française d’études américaines
The current issue of the Revue française d’études américaines (2022/2 – N° 171) includes an article called Nudity in Digital Performance: Reappraising the Early Online Works of Annie Sprinkle and Frank Moore
The article revisits previous insights about live art on the internet in the work of these two artists, as they originally appeared in my book Franklin Furnace & the Spirit of the Avant-Garde: A History of the Future (Intellect – University of Chicago Press, 2011)
You can find the article from the RFEA here:
https://www.cairn.info/publications-de-Toni-Sant–749476.htm
The article is in English.
All this is part of a special issue of this journal around the theme Undoing Naked Truths: Nudity on Stage / Déconstruire la vérité nue : de la nudité à la scène.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Toni
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17. Benoît Maubrey, FF Alumn, summer news
Dear friends and colleagues,
News on the latest interactive sculpture at the FUSION Festival ( just passed)
See
https://benoitmaubrey.com/leuchtturm-lighthouse/
It will be represented in the same area for the at.tension #9 Theaterfestival Festival in September.
Other News is that STREAMERS
https://benoitmaubrey.com/streamers/
will be re-installed by the ZKM (Center for Arts and Media) in Karlsruhe for the ART during the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches on the Friedrichsplatz in Karlsruhe from August 18- Sept 11 2022
and
ARENA https://benoitmaubrey.com/arena-berlin/ has opened in Quebec until mid-September during the PASSAGES INSOLITES festival.
Yours
Benoît
https://www.benoitmaubrey.com/
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Kyan Ng and Brett Olson, FF Interns, Summer 2022
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