Franklin Furnace’s Goings On
November 23, 2004
CONTENTS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Franklin Furnace panel discussion at The Nathan Cummings Foundation, NY, December 1, 2004, 6-8 pm
2. John Malpede, FF Alumn, at Cleveland Public Theatre, Nov 24-28
3. Natalie Bookchin, Hans Hacke, Brooke Singer, Jaime Schulte, FF Alumns, at Banff Center, Canada, http://databaseimaginary.banff.org
4. Julia Mandle, FF Alumn, extended show at Van Alen Institute, NYC, thru Dec 10
5. Paul McMahon, FF Alumn, at Sidewalk Café, NY, at midnite, Dec 10
6. Rev. Billy, FF Alumn, announces Buy Nothing Day, NYC, 1 pm, Nov 26, 2004
7. Simone Forti, FF Alumn, at Bowery Poetry Club, NY, Dec 4, 4pm, and more
8. Vito Acconci, Coco Fusco, Les Levine, Dominic McGill, Javier Tellez, Raul Zamudio, FF Alumns, at White Box, NY, thru Dec 11
9. Todd Alcott, R. Sikoryak, Kriota Willberg, FF Alumn, on Independent Film Channel, Nov 29, 9 pm
10. Announcing a new funding program from the Ford Foundation – Artography.
11. Slutty Puppets at CB’s 313 Gallery, NY, Dec 4, 10 pm
12. Alan Sondheim, FF Alumn, at Millennium, NY, Nov 27, 8 pm
13. Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Nicole Eisenman, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Lawler, Bruce Nauman, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, FF Alumns, at ICA, London, England, thru Jan 9, 2005
14. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, featured article at www.gastronomica.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TOP
1. Franklin Furnace panel discussion at The Nathan Cummings Foundation, NY, December 1, 2004, 6-8 pm
A Panel in conjunction with “The C Series, Artists’ Books and Collective Action” exhibition at The Nathan Cummings Foundation. 475 Tenth Avenue (between 36th and 37th Streets) 14th Floor, will be held on December 1, 2004, Day Without Art from 6 to 8 PM. RSVP (646) 485-1284.
“The C Series” exhibition continues through January 14, 2005. For private viewing, call Karen Garrett at 212-787-7300 x 206.
Curated by Courtney J. Martin, this exhibition of artists’ books created by artists’ collectives, community-based groups, or individual artists working within ideological stances of political, social or community activism and organization, is drawn from Franklin Furnace’s artists’ book collection.
Exhibitions at the Nathan Cummings Foundation exemplify the values and traditions that inform the Foundation’s grantmaking. They should embody the basic themes of all of the Foundation’s programs which are: concern for the poor, disadvantaged, and underserved; respect for diversity; promotion of understanding across cultures; and empowerment of communities in need. The Nathan Cummings Foundation supports efforts that lead to social and economic justice for all people.
Panelist Bios:
Conrad Gleber is an artist, professor of theory and critical issues of art and design. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida. In the 1970’s he helped to establish Chicago Books as an artists’ offset printing workshop. The press relocated to downtown Manhattan near Franklin Furnace in 1981. During its operation, Chicago Books, with support from public and private arts foundations, used the press as a tool for collaboration and publishing artists’ books.
Jon Hendricks is an artist and curator. He is a member of Guerilla Art
Action Group, the Artists’ Poster Committee, and the Committee for Artistic Freedom. He is the curator of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit, and of Yoko Ono Exhibitions. Publications include GAAG with Jean Toche, published by Printed Matter, Fluxus CODEX, published by Harry N. Abrams and the Silverman Fluxus Collection, and YES YOKO ONO with Alexandra Munroe, published by Harry N. Abrams and the Japan Society.
Edmonia Lewis (of GuerrillaGirlsBroadBand) was born on July 14, 1845 in the village of Greenbush in Rensselaer County, New York. Her father was African-American, and her mother was part Native American from the Mississauga Tribe of the Chippewa Nation. When her parents died early on in her life, she was raised as a Mississauga Indian with the culture and values of the Chippewa Nation. By 1858, Lewis left her Native American environment for a life at the preparatory department at Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin College was the Mecca for staunch abolitionists and Christian advocates. Lewis was a live-in boarder with the Reverend John Keep, a theologian at Oberlin. She was also there when, on October 1859, John Brown and two African-Americans from Oberlin were involved in the Harper’s Ferry arsenal raid. While continuing her studies at Oberlin, young Lewis was falsely accused in two cases involving students linking her to college infractions. She was forced to leave Oberlin, but she was never expelled. Her talents were already recognizable; determined to become a sculptor, she moved to Boston and started her first lessons in modeling clay under the tutelage of Edward Brackett. Success came when, upon the death of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the leader of the all black Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, she completed a marble bust from her memory and his photograph. Lewis, who now worked near the inspirational black artist Edward M. Bannister, also sold plaster reproductions of Shaw, with the consent of his family, to help raise funds for the underpaid black Union Soldiers. At the end of the Civil War, Lewis went to Italy to study and work with other sculptors and artists involved in the purist reproduction of the Neoclassical art forms. In Rome, Lewis was able to meet many prominent American writers, among them Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lewis, now destitute, was determined to produce works of art in marble. After two years of work in Rome, she completed “Forever Free” in marble (1867-68) and shipped it to America and had to literally beg for the cost of the marble and shipping fees from her American friends. Lewis was determined to buck the odds as a woman and a black artist and endure. Lewis’ greatest fear was that people would say she did not create those works of art, and so she drew curious onlookers to her studio as she did all the physical, heavy work as a woman sculptor. Edmonia Lewis’ last known exhibition was in the UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION in Philadelphia in 1876 and Chicago in 1878. No record of her death was ever recorded.
Clarissa T. Sligh is the recipient of awards including Anonymous Was a Woman, 2001, Andrea Frank Foundation Grant, 2000, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Photography, 2000. She is the author of artists’ books Voyage(r): Tourist Map to Japan, 2000, Nexus Press and Wrongly Bodied Two, 2004, Women’s Studio Workshop. Recent exhibitions include: GLORIOUS HARVEST: Photographs from the Michael E. Hoffman Tribute Collection, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2004 and TRIENNAL 9 FORM AND CONTENTS: Corporal Identity-Body Language, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (with the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach) and the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, 2003. Her work is in numerous books including The Black Female Body: A Photographic History, by Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, Temple University Press, 2002, The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past, by Lisa Collins, Rutgers University Press, 2002, Different: Contemporary Photographers and Black Identity, by Stuart Hall and Mark Sealy, Phaidon Press, 2001, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, by Deborah Willis, W.W. Norton, 2000. Sligh’s work is in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., the International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She teaches in the graduate photography department at the School of Visual Arts.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2. John Malpede, FF Alumn, at Cleveland Public Theatre, Nov 24-28
Presidential End Run Around The Constitution
And Congress Exposed in Agents and Assets
Cleveland Public Theatre and The Los Angeles Poverty Department
Dramatize a Congressional Hearing
Agents and Assets
November 24, 26-28 at Orthodox
Post-performance Discussions on Drug Policy
Cleveland, OH — The Los Angeles Poverty Department and Cleveland Public Theater’s Education Department present Agents and Assets for four performances only at Orthodox on Wednesday, November 24 at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, November 26 and 27 at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, November 28 at 3:00 p.m. CPTs Orthodox space is located at located at 6203 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland. Tickets are a suggested $5 donation. For reservations and information call 216-631-2727.
LAPD is an award-winning performance company based in skid row Los Angeles. “The Los Angeles Poverty Department, despite the homeless status of many of its members, has thrived for years from it’s downtown outpost and continues to offer theater that’s often stunning in its honesty and lacking in pretension.” Stated L.A. Weekly in its Pick of
the Week section. Founded 17 years ago in L.A., The Los Angeles Poverty Department has become one of the country’s most outspoken and profound theater troupes, Hadded Real Detroit.
Agents and Assets, acclaimed in its Los Angeles performances in January 2001,and in 2002 in Detroit, is remounted with a combined cast of Los Angeles and Cleveland residents, from communities that have been severely impacted by drugs and drug policy. LAPD members will be in residence in Cleveland in November rehearsing with local cast members, conducting community workshops, outreach activities, and post-performance discussions with panelists and audience .
With Agents and Assets, LAPD and CPT address the U.S. government’s escalating war on drugs. The text is a hearing transcript from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee charged with the oversight of the government’s intelligence agencies. The occasion of the March 18, 1998 hearing is the CIA Inspector General’s report denying allegations of CIA involvement in crack cocaine trafficking to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, at a time when such activities had been expressly forbidden by Congress. At the heart of the issues addressed by Agents and Assets is the misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies by the executive branch of the government. These events resonate loudly in current events, as we try to comprehend the rush to war in Iraq.
The entire Agents and Assets script is taken from the hearing transcript. Congressmen / women and the CIA Inspector General, are played by on- the-ground veterans of the crack epidemic. The lives of the cast members have been radically impacted by crack, either because they are formerly addicted, or simply because they live in communities that have been devastated by drugs and the drug war. “… A theater piece born out of detailed transcripts might be somewhat dry — hardly the stuff of high drama. With Malpede at the helm, however, provocative seems more the operative word, stated Victoria Looseleaf of Los Angeles’ Downtown News, January 8, 2001.
Each performance of Agents & Assets is followed by public discussion. Discussions topics have included: treatment vs. incarceration,, arts and recovery, and the rhetoric of war. Agents and Assets director John Malpede says, “The ‘War on Drugs’, as the name clearly states, imposes a military solution on a public health and social problem, and in doing so, turns our own citizens into ‘the enemy’ and then proceeds to victimize our citizens and their communities.” Agents and Assets invites its audience to consider the actions of the U.S. Government, whether it is in a distant country or in Cleveland.
Performance & Post-Show Public Discussions Schedule
Wednesday, November 24
7:30 PM Agents and Assets, Performed by combined cast of LAPD and Cleveland residents. Directed by John Malpede Post performance discussion with Ed Orlett, 2002 campaign manager for Proposition 1, the treatment not jail initiative on the Ohio ballot. Brian Stefan-Szittai, director the Inter Religious Task Force, the impact of the war on drugs in Central America and Columbia.
Friday, November 26
8:00 PM Agents and Assets performance Post performance discussion with Journalist Dan Forbes. Dan Forbes report on state and federal political malfeasance geared to defeat treatment rather than incarceration ballot initiatives was published by the Institute for Policy Studies. Cleveland Attorney Maria Smith, Tony Vento, Director Inter-Faith Council, the impact of the war on drugs in Central America and Columbia. Alfred McCoy, historian, University of Wisconsin, author of The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, will address the current drug trade in Afghanistan.
Saturday, November 27
8:00 PM Agents and Assets performance Post performance discussion with Journalist Dan Forbes. Dan Forbes Salon articles led to his testimony before both the Senate and the House. Brian Davis, director, Northeast Ohio coalition for the Homeless. Other panelists: TBA
Sunday, November 28
3:00 PM Agents and Assets performance Post performance discussion with Journalist Dan Forbes. Attorney Maria Smith. Cleveland Attorney Maria Smith, Tony Vento, Director Inter-Faith Council, the impact of the war on drugs in Central America and Columbia
Members of the Cleveland end of the cast are part of Y-Haven. With its two locations on Cleveland’s East and West sides, Y-Haven offers a continuum of care, beginning with primary treatment for drug/alcohol dependency. When residents graduate from the primary counseling phase, case managers focus their treatment plan on continuing care, relapse prevention and appropriate education and employment programs. When residents complete the necessary training, they are placed in jobs or sheltered workshops. The final phase of the treatment plan is finding suitable permanent housing for the residents. Y-Haven is unique in that residents can stay for up to two years. Many of the residents have experienced such severe physical, mental and spiritual trauma that they need adequate time to heal. To be considered for admission into the Y-Haven program, candidates must be homeless males, 18 years or older who agree to participate in primary treatment as well as mental health treatment if deemed necessary.
LAPD ‘s mission is to create performance work that connects lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and communities of people living in poverty. The Poverty Department is committed to creating high-quality, challenging performance works. LAPD is dedicated to building community and to the artistic and personal development of its members. This production is supported by funding from The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Old Stories: New Lives, and The California Community Foundation.
The mission of Cleveland Public Theatre is to foster a more conscious and compassionate community through the arts.
Cleveland Public Theatre and its artistic and education programs are funded in part by The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, Greater Cleveland Community Shares, Jakprints, The Free Times, D.H. Ellison Architects, Forest City Enterprises, Theatre Communications Group, CoolCleveland.com, National Endowment for the Arts, Nord Family Foundation, John P. Murphy Foundation, Kulas Foundation, Bruening Foundation, Codrington Foundation, Giant Eagle Foundation, Thomas White Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Lorain, Family Foundations of Jewish Community Federation, The Dolphin Trust, Saint Ann Foundation, William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation, Stocker Foundation, Key Foundation, Nordson Foundation, Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, The Heartland Arts Fund, Wolf Family Foundation, The Gerson Foundation, The Meisel Family Foundation, The Doll Family Foundation, Raymond John Wean Foundation, The Ellie Fund, Cyrus Eaton Foundation, Greater Cleveland Community Shares, Alcoa Foundation, Capezio/Ballet Makers Foundation, Nathan and Regina Herman Foundation, Hankins Foundation, Wolpert Fund of the Cleveland Foundation, The Cleveland Browns Foundation, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, City Architecture, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan, & Aronoff LPA, Ron and Deborah Ratner, Joan Horvitz, Roe Green Foundation, Fifth Third Bank, Huntington National Bank, National City Bank, Marous Brothers Construction, Stewart and Donna Kohl, and other corporate and individual contributors.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3. Natalie Bookchin, Hans Hacke, Brooke Singer, Jaime Schulte, FF Alumns, at Banff Center, Canada, http://databaseimaginary.banff.org
“Database Imaginary” opens Saturday, November 13 at the Walter Phillips
Gallery, Banff Center.
http://databaseimaginary.banff.org – website
http://www.banffcentre.ca/wpg/exhibits/2004/2004-10-14_database_imaginary/default.htm – press release
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind0411&L=new-media-curating -crumb discussion list “data art”
Artists:
Cory Arcangel, Julian Bleecker, Natalie Bookchin, Kayle Brandon, Heath Bunting, Alan Currall, Beatriz da Costa, Hans Haacke, Harwood/Mongrel, Agnes Hegedus, Axel Heide, Pablo Helguera, Lisa Jevbratt/C5, George Legrady, Lev Manovich, Jennifer + Kevin McCoy, Muntadas, onesandzeros, Scott Paterson, Philip Pocock, Edward Poitras, David Rokeby, Warren Sack, Jamie Schulte, Thomson&Craighead, Brooke Singer, Gregor Stehle, University of Openess, Angie Waller, Cheryl L’Hirondelle Waynohtew, Marina Zurkow
Database Imaginary
Curated by Sarah Cook, Steve Dietz, Anthony Kiendl
“If [with] the arrival of the Web the world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts, and other data records, it is only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database. But it is also appropriate that we would want to develop poetics, aesthetics and ethics of this database.”
Lev Manovich (1)
Database Imaginary presents 23 works made by 33 artists between 1971 and 2004. The art projects in this exhibition span a period almost as long as the word database has been in use. It is really only with the rise of computing and widespread access to vast quantities of organized information that the term has come to the fore in the popular imagination. The urge to organize, however, is a longstanding trait of human civilization. In this sense, Database Imaginary is less about databases than about this cultural
moment when they have become ever-present.
Databases structure our economy, our knowledge systems, our security. Yet these structures serve and are subject to multiple goals and agendas. Our practical experience of databases in westernized societies suggest access not just to information about the world, but the world’s access to information about us. We are the objects of databases: a phone number to market to, a credit risk, a questionable border-crosser.
As artist and theorist Lev Manovich suggests, for such an ubiquitous cultural form – just as was the case with the automobile, skyscrapers, even perspective – we need to imagine the possibilities of databases; to actively shape them and participate in how they are used to organize the world we live in. The artists and artworks in Database Imaginary warn, astound, and challenge us to understand database culture as a pervasive aspect of our contemporary environment and our lived experience. Databases present us with a series of choices. Artist Edward Poitras suggests such choices involve negotiating missing information, misinformation and new information. It is up to us to choose whether or not and how to engage.
All the artists in Database Imaginary engage imaginatively with the organization of data through their use of aesthetic, conceptual, social and political strategies. As artists Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead say, “By placing the viewer centrally, she joins the pieces together that are often un-related…Our interest is in visualizing things about our experience of such a huge networked space like the web. It’s about bringing some sense of order to a tumbling database for a moment and then seeing it fall back t disarray.”
i)Lev Manovich (1998) “Database As a Symbolic Form”
www.manovich.net/DOCS/database.rtf
This exhibition was co-organized by the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina Public Library, and made possible with funding from The Canada Council for the Arts, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, Canadian Heritage (Museums Assistance Program), and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4. Julia Mandle, FF Alumn, extended show at Van Alen Institute, NYC, thru Dec 10
Dear Friends,
I am very happy to announce the extension of our solo exhibition “Variable City” to December 10 (Monday- Friday) at the Van Alen Institute.
The show is a rare opportunity to see our URBAN-SCALE performance up close and in detail. The exhibit design is also not-to-be-missed. Hope you get a chance to see it,
Julia Mandle, FF Alumn
WHEN: now through Friday December 10 (M – F 12:00-6:00pm)
WHERE: Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture – 30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor, NYC
(N/R to 23rd Street at Fifth Avenue; F/V to 23rd Street at Sixth Avenue; or 1/9 to 23rd Street at Seventh
Avenue)
T: 212 924 7000
Special Honor Received from Brooklyn’s Borough President with a special citation:
“Whereas on behalf of all Brooklynites, I salute J Mandle Performance, the Van Alen, and all of the artists and designers who collaborated to make this fascinating exploration of the intersection of Fulton and Flatbush possible; Now, I do hereby proclaim Tuesday September 28, 2004 Variable City: Fox Square opening day.”
More Reactions:
“Variable City: Fox Square has revealed itself as a project that speaks volumes for the
importance of multi-disciplinary approaches to urban regeneration.” – Zoe Ryan, Curator
“Combining her training as visual artist with her work and study under architect Steven Holl and theatrical wiz Robert Wilson, Julia Mandle creates performances that unexpectedly confront audiences in their own environment. Last October the performers of Variable City, smartly choreographed by Mark Jarecke and strikingly cloaked by Mandle, occupied Fox Square in Brooklyn with precision and grace, in the hopes of rekindling the once-thriving theater district there. A hi-tech installation [at Van Alen] examines the design process and project development via photo and video documentation, costumes, props and an analysis of the original site.”
– Paul Laster, Flavorpill
“There is a resonant, spiritual message in the exhibit: be present. Your elaborate, thorough, multi-perspectived, artistic bight on this place encourages the experience of it in the present.”
-Paul Lazar, exhibition visitor
Artists:
Julia Mandle: Director/Designer/Costume Designer
Ariel Krasnow: Urban Designer
Mark Jarecke: Choreographer
Bethany Koby and Sidney Blank: Exhibition Design
Paul Geluso: Composer
Emily Drazen: Photography
Hope Hall: Video Editor
Zoë Ryan: Exhibition Curator
For more information: visit www.jmandleperformance.org or www.vanalen.org
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. Paul McMahon, FF Alumn, at Sidewalk Café, NY, at midnite, Dec 10
paul mcmahon will appear playing lead guitar in Army of Love at midnight on Dec 10 at the Sidewalk Cafe at Ave A and 6th St.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6. Rev. Billy, FF Alumn, announces Buy Nothing Day, NYC, 1 pm, Nov 26, 2004
Happy Buy Nothing Day
On Buy Nothing Day, the day after Thanksgiving, our Church will join Greene Dragon to launch a Reformation in Times Square against Corporate Tyranny. Reverend Billy lookalikes will simultaneously exorcise cash registers throughout the neighborhood, and at 1pm the Church and Greene Dragon will post 9 Theses Against Corporate Rule on the threshold of the Times Square McDonalds, a neon cathedral of perpetual consumption.
Bring agit-prop to slam your favorite corporate predators, brush up on your retail intervention theater and join our Church of Stop Shopping discussion list for more ways to make November 26 a very Merry Buy Nothing Day!
Buy Nothing Day Flyers
9 Theses Against Corporate Rule
Buy Nothing Day Wiki with Pics and Times Square Map
Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping With Greene Dragon Present:
Buy Nothing Day Reformation with 9 Theses Against Corporate Rule
Friday, November 26 | 1pm | 46th St and 7th Ave median across from Virgin Megastore
www.revbilly.com
www.greenedragon.org
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7. Simone Forti, FF Alumn, at Bowery Poetry Club, NY, Dec 4, 4pm, and more
Simone Forti, FF Alumn, 3 dates in December in New York City
Bowery Poetry Club
Saturday, Dec. 4th, 4pm
308 Bowery, 212 614-0505
performing, and reading from her new book Oh, Tongue.
St.Marks Church/Danspace Project
Sunday Dec.5th, 8:30pm, 131 East 10th St.
performing in Movement Research Improvisation Festival: Improvisation is Hard
post-performance benifit honoring Simone
Movement Research, 212 598-0551 / performance and benifit, workshop
Danspace Project, 212 674-8194 / performance only
Printed Matter, Inc.
Saturday, Dec.11, 5pm
535 West 22nd St., 212 925-0325
Book signing / reading from Oh, Tongue
Simone Forti
siforti@earthlink.net
EarthLink Revolves Around You.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
8. Vito Acconci, Coco Fusco, Les Levine, Dominic McGill, Javier Tellez, Raul Zamudio, FF Alumns, at White Box, NY, thru Dec 11
DEMOCRACY WAS FUN
thru December 11, 2004
Curated by Juan Puntes and Raul Zamudio
Vito Acconci / Carlos Amorales / Robert Boyd / Tania Candiani / Michael Estabroook / Solange Fabiao/ Coco Fusco/ Rainer Ganahl / Kendell Geers / Mariam Ghani / Zhang Huan / Les Levine / Scott Lifshutz / Dominic McGill / Arnoldo Morales / El Perro / Rikko Sakkinen / Eduardo Sarabia / Seric Shoba / Ray Smith / Javier Tellez / Momoyo Torimitsu / David Wakstein / Hans Winkler and others
Democracy Was Fun is an exhibition that addresses the myriad contexts of democracy and the public discourse. This realm consists of diverse circuits where discourse is articulated including, for instance, the media, the community, “the town hall,” as well as the streets. Democracy Was Fun investigates forms of public engagement that rub against accepted conventions as to what is or what is not democracy. For example, in El Perro¹s video that tropes TV sports advertisement a young woman in a designer jogging suit lights a Molotov cocktail and throws it. Before it reaches its intended target, the frame freezes and a text appears that states “what is important is participation.” Participation, which is the bedrock of democracy, is contextualized in this work in ways that interrogate the limits of democratic discourse. Some artists take a different approach in appropriating the media in order to highlight the undemocratic and ideological nature of what is purportedly a neutral avenue of information dissemination, while others investigate democracy and the socio-psychological mechanisms that are deployed to work against it: the cult of personality, the oedipal link between leaders and their followers, as well as what the philosopher Theodor Adorno called the “Authoritarian Personality.” Democracy Was Fun explores the culture of complacency and the complacency of culture that fosters blind allegiance and an uncritical spirit; and sees these elements of the American social fabric as norms that foreclose democracy by cultivating the antithesis of the democratic ethos.
White Box is a 501[c][3] not-for-profit arts organization. Donations are Tax Deductible to
the Full Extent of the Law.
WHITE BOX
525 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
Tel 212-714-2347
www.whiteboxny.org
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9. Todd Alcott, R. Sikoryak, Kriota Willberg, FF Alumn, on Independent Film Channel, Nov 29, 9 pm
Hey Everybody,
This Monday November 29 at 9pm, Kriota Willberg will be dancing in the short film, Grasshopper, on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) on cable television.
Grasshopper is a retelling of a story by Chekhov written and directed by Todd Alcott, produced by Patricia Mc Guire.
This film features a number of downtown artists of all stripes including: Thomas Jay Ryan, Heather Reardon, James Urbaniak, R. Sikoryak, Sean Runnette, Gary Schwartz, Anne Shapiro, Chelsea Bacon, Sherri Graubert, Julie Anderson, Paul Boocock, and more, with paintings by Elizabeth Castanga, music by Wharton Tiers, and a dance number danced and choreographed by Kriota Willberg.
Premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival May 2003
PS – Grasshopper will be shown as a short between programming, so don’t be late! Check listings under “shorts”.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10. Announcing a new funding program from the Ford Foundation – Artography
Dear Colleague:
We wish to announce the launching of a new funding program – ARTOGRAPHY: Arts in a Changing America, a pilot program being incubated by Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) with a grant from the Ford Foundation. We encourage you to share information about this program with your colleagues and/or constituents.
ARTOGRAPHY’s goal is to support exemplary art making as seen through a lens of the changing demographics of the U.S. and its expanding realm of cultural aesthetics. The program seeks organizations that are recognized as artistic leaders and have demonstrated a commitment to diversity through the composition of their leadership, staff, and decision-making processes. ARTOGRAPHY also seeks to build a learning community of peer practitioners through its activities.
ARTOGRAPHY will award 8-12 organizations two-year general operating support grants of $25,000-$50,000 a year, with additional funds made available to grantees for targeted purposes on a competitive basis. There is a two-step application process. The preliminary application is due on January 14, 2005. The applications will be reviewed by professionals from the field of arts and culture. Decisions to invite full proposals will be made by March 21, 2005.
Please click www.lincnet.net/artography for on-line access to ARTOGRAPHY’s grant guidelines. To request a hard copy of the program guidelines, please email jjung@lincnet.net.
You may direct questions about ARTOGRAPHY to Program Director Vanessa Whang at vmwhang@lincnet.net or Program Coordinator Edwin Torres at etorres@lincnet.net. We may both be reached at 212-229-1735. Program FAQs will be posted on the Web site by late November.
Thank you for any help you may give in sharing information with the field about this new program.
Sincerely,
Eddie Torres
Program Coordinator
ARTOGRAPHY: Arts in a Changing America
Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC)
212-279-1735
etorres@lincnet.net
Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to enhance the capacity of artists to create work, build social capital and contribute to democratic values. For more information about LINC and its programs, click www.lincnet.net.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
11. Slutty Puppets at CB’s 313 Gallery, NY, Dec 4, 10 pm
SLUTTY PUPPETS!!!
CB’s 313 Gallery, NYC
Saturday, December 4th, 2004
10:00 p.m. Cover $7
212.677.0455
We at imnotlost are pleased to admit that SLUTTY PUPPETS has reared its ugly head once again in the form of Seriously Slutty Art Puppets. We welcome you to partake in the disastrous, yet perversely appealing evening that will produce. Thank you. www.imnotlost.net/slutty/slut8/
Including the likes of DJ RAT, puppet on wheels! A new piece of Freudian Puppet Love from RAISE PLOW; The ever present and marvelous spirit of BOB ROSS; The lusciously compelling, burlesque star NASTY CANASTA, giving nooky to the puppets; The FINGER DIALOGUES, all you wanted to know about finger puppets with vaginas; The famous piece of bucolic puppetry, THE VERY ANGRY BABY! And an illegitimate puppet show couldn’t be complete without some words from KEN, our plastic idol.
Come on out to drink beer! and WATCH PUPPETS! (we all like them when we are drunk.) Thank you.
p.s. RAISE PLOW continues to host the evening and impart you secret philosophical statements obvious in the designs of her skimpy attire.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
12. Alan Sondheim, FF Alumn, at Millennium, NY, Nov 27, 8 pm
LESLIE THORNTON and ALAN SONDHEIM screening of new work
NOVEMBER 27th (Saturday) at 8 p.m.
at MILLENNIUM
66 East Fourth Street, New York
Please come!
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: MINUS 10, 9, 8, 7 (20 min., 2004) by LESLIE THORNTON. “LET ME COUNT THE WAYS is an ongoing serial about violent terror and its aftermath. In episodes Minus 10, 9,8, and 7, personal reminiscence is mixed with archival and new footage in an exploration of the interior of fear. From footage of the artist, a father on the way to Hiroshima, through reference to 9/11, the phenomenology of horror and the echo of its rupture are presented with an intensity which moves the viewer from history to the present and beyond.” (Leslie Thornton)
WORLD PREMIER (length and presentation mode variable, 2004+), by ALAN SONDHEIM. “I usually work with laptop performance; this time we’ll try DVD + voiceover. It’s more monolithic, maybe more intense.” “Sondheim produced many of these works through creative mis-use and adaptation of the motion capture technologies at the VEL (Virtual Environments Laboratory). Using the technology against the grain, Sondheim disrupted and redistributed built-in assumptions about the imaging and integrity of the human body and the capture of the ‘real.’ The results are beautiful and moving, both alien and very human, enigmatic and intimate.” (Sandy Baldwin, West Virginia University)
Admission $7 / $5 member
Telephone 212-673-0090 for further information.
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
13. Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Nicole Eisenman, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Lawler, Bruce Nauman, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, FF Alumns, at ICA, London, England, thru Jan 9, 2005
100 Artists See God
thru 9 January, 2005
12 – 7.30pm daily
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
The Mall,
London SW1
England
Phone: +44 (0)20 7930 3647
Fax: +44 (0)20 7306 0122
Email: info@ica.org.uk
http://www.ica.org.uk
100 Artists See God is a travelling exhibition organised and circulated by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, and guest curated by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston.
http://www.ici-exhibitions.org
Reverend Ethan Acres, Terry Allen, Jo Harvey Allen, Eleanor Antin, Brienne Arrington, David Askevold, Lillian Ball, Cindy Bernard, Andrea Bowers, Delia Brown, Edgar Bryan, Angela Bulloch, Chris Burden, Mary Ellen Carroll, Erin Cosgrove, Michael Craig-Martin, Jeremy Deller, Sam Durant, Jimmie Durham, Nicole Eisenman, Katharina Fritsch, Jonathan Furmanski, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Liam Gillick, James Gobel, Jack Goldstein, Scott Grieger, Andreas Gursky, James Hayward, Micol Hebron, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn, Darcy Huebler, Christian Jankowski, Larry Johnson, Mike Kelley, Mary Kelly, Martin Kersels, Nicholas Kersulis, Martin Kippenberger, Rachel Lachowicz, Norm Laich, Liz Larner, Louise Lawler, William Leavitt, Barry Le Va, Roy Lichtenstein, Jen Liu, Thomas Locher, Daria Martin, T. Kelly Mason, Rita McBride, Paul McCarthy, Carlos Mollura, JP Munro, Bruce Nauman, Jennifer Nelson, Eric Niebuhr, Leonard Nimoy, Albert Oehlen, Catherine Opie, Tony Oursler, Jorge Pardo, Simon Patterson, Hirsch Perlman, Luciano Perna, Renee Petropoulos, Raymond Pettibon, Paul Pfeiffer, NicolettePot, Richard Prince, Rob Pruitt and Jonathan Horowitz, David Reed, Victoria Reynolds, Gerhard Richter, Susan Rothenberg, Nancy Rubins, Glen Walter Rubsamen, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Ruscha, Pauline Stella Sanchez, Kim Schoenstadt, Jim Shaw, Gary Simmons, Alexis Smith, Yutaka Sone, Thaddeus Strode, Diana Thater, Mungo Thomson, Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson (in collaboration with Helena Jonsdottir), Jeffrey Vallance, John Waters, Marnie Weber, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, Benjamin Weissman, James Welling, Eric Wesley, John Wesley, Franz West, Chris Wilder, Christopher Williams, Steven Wong, Mans Wrange (in collaboration with Igor Isaksson), Mario Ybarra, Jr.
Regardless of one’s point of view-theist, agnostic, atheist, or even anti-theist-we all live in a world that is profoundly influenced by concepts of God and notions of “divine authority.” Curated by US artists John Baldessari and Meg Cranston, 100 Artists See God is a unique and powerful exhibition that brings together works by 100 artists exploring different notions of God, spiritual power and religion. The emphasis is on representation rather than beliefs and reflects the response of individuals who have risen to the challenge of illustrating ‘the divine’ in a single artwork.
100 Artists See God continues the ICA’s investigation into new exhibition models that confront issues relevant to the wider concerns of today’s world. In a time where major belief systems clash against each other, often resulting in violent and tragic conflict, the ICA presents this exhibition as a response to Western society’s seemingly unquestionable belief in a rational understanding of the world. 100 Artists See God proposes an open ended contemplation of highly complex belief systems, religion and, ultimately, perceptions of God – a concept that appears outdated, even irrelevant in most Western societies but one that is still immensely valid. The exhibition does not present conventional illustrations of established creeds, but subjective interpretations of spirituality, which collectively reflect the pervasive, often ambiguous way that God exists in and affects our culture.
All artists were asked to contribute a work to the exhibition that in some way deals with their concept of God. Some works represent the artists’ own beliefs, others deal with faith as a subject but do not necessarily reflect the doctrines to which the artists subscribe.
The works, produced by several generations of artists – many in direct response to the curators’ call for participation – and created in a variety of mediums, displays a broad range of perspectives and an eclectic mix of irreverence and sincerity. While the artworks often reveal idiosyncratic, unexpected viewpoints, the exhibition allows viewers to formulate their own thoughts and concerns by simultaneously revealing and questioning the place of God today and showing how issues of spirituality thread their way through the entire fabric of international culture.
John Baldessari and Meg Cranston in conversation with Jens Hoffmann, ICA Director of Exhibitions, Monday 29 November 2004, 7pm, Cinema 1, ICA
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
14. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, featured article at www.gastronomica.org
Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, has written a story about Chinese-American restaurant/night clubs of the 1940s. Titled “Late Night in the Lion’s Den,” this social and cultural history is the featured article on Gastronomica magazine’s web site www.gastronomica.org
Gastronomica just won the Prix d’Or, top honors in the food magazine category at Gourmet Voice, the Gourmet World Media Festival in Cannes, France. Other food-related writing by Harley Spiller can be found at www.flavorandfortune.com
TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~end~~
Goings On are compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
Click http://www.franklinfurnace.org/goings_on.html
to visit ‘This Month’s World Wide Events’.
—————————————–
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or for information
send an email to info@franklinfurnace.org
—————————————–
Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.
80 Arts – The James E. Davis Arts Building
80 Hanson Place #301
Brooklyn NY 11217-1506 U.S.A.
Tel: 718-398-7255
Fax: 718-398-7256
http://www.franklinfurnace.org
mail@franklinfurnace.org
Martha Wilson, Founding Director
Michael Katchen, Senior Archivist
Harley Spiller, Administrator
Dolores Zorreguieta, Program Coordinator
