Goings on: posted week of March 19, 2018
CONTENTS:
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1. Martha Wilson, FF Alumn, receives New York City Council Citation
2. Rachel Frank, FF Alumn, at Arete Venue and Gallery, Brooklyn, thru April 29, and more
3. Julie Atlas Muz, Pamela Enz, FF Alumns, at Theater for the New City, Manhattan, March 22-April 8
4. John Held, Jr., FF Alumn, at Archives of American Art, now online
5. Stephanie Bernheim, FF Alumn, at Hudson Hall, Hudson, NY, opening March 24
6. Linda Mary Montano, FF Alumn, at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, April 5-6
7. Yvonne Rainer, FF Alumn, at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, May 12-13
8. Marisa Morán Jahn, FF Alumn, at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, April 2, and more
9. Doug Ashford, Terry Berkowitz, Nancy Chunn, Michelle Handelman, Nora Ligorano & Marshall Reese, Ann Messner, Laura Parnes, Martha Rosler, Dread Scott, Martha Wilson, Nina Yankowitz, FF Alumns, at Bowery & Prince Streets, Manhattan, March 22
10. Jim Costanzo, FF Alumn, at Bluestockings Bookstore, Café & Activist Center, Manhattan, March 26
11. Pamela Enz, Julie Atlas Muz, FF Alumns, at Theater for the New City, Manhattan, March 25
12. Betty Tompkins, FF Alumn, at Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland, opening March 22
13. Roberta Allen, FF Alumn, on Bookworm, KCRW Radio live and online, Los Angeles, CA, March 22
14. Dahn Hiuni, FF Alumn, at The Blank’s 2nd Stage Theatre, Hollywood, CA, April 9
15. Paul McMahon, FF Alumn, at 9 Herkimer Place, Brooklyn, opening March 20
16. Chin Chih Yang, FF Alumn, at Chiayi International Art Documentary Film Festival, Chiayi City, Taiwan, March 23
17. Brendan Fernandes, FF Alumn, selected as Graham Foundation Fellow
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1. Martha Wilson, FF Alumn, receives New York City Council Citation
Whereas, a great city is only as great as those persons who give exemplary service to their communities, whether through unique personal achievement in their professional or other endeavors or simply through a lifetime of philanthropy and community service; and
Whereas such service, which is truly the lifeblood of the community and the city, so often goes unrecognized and unrewarded; now, therefore be it
Resolved, that as a duly elected member of the New York City Council, I recognize that in
MARTHA WILSON
Founder of Franklin Furnace; Over Four Decades of Major Contributions
We have an outstanding citizen, one whom is worthy of the esteem of both our community and the great City of New York.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand. Council Member Jumaane D. Williams, March 14, 2018
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2. Rachel Frank, FF Alumn, at Arete Venue and Gallery, Brooklyn, thru April 29, and more
Hi friends,
Hope you are well and surviving this ever-shifting weather! Nice to see many of you at Spring/Break this year. I have several group exhibitions, benefits, and curatorial events to share with you.
Art of the Protest
Curated by Elizabeth Cooper
I’ll have some works from my Rewilding series in this group show.
March 16th – April 29th, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, March 16th, 6:00 – 10:00 pm
Arete Venue and Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY
AIR Exhibition
The Erph Gallery, The Catskill Center
My Auguring Hawk from my video Vessels will be in this exhibition.
March 17 – April 28, 2018
Reception: Saturday, April, 28th, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
43355 Route 28, Arkville, NY
SOUND AND VISION
Courtney Puckett + Jessica Slaven
Curated by Rachel Frank
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 22nd, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
March 22 – April 21, 2018
Field Projects
526 W 26th Street, #807, New York, NY
Music & Art Benefit for New Sanctuary Coalition NYC
Organized by Ben Lee
Thursday, March 29th, 7:30 – 11:30 pm
Threes Brewing
333 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY
More info.
Transactional Days
Curated by Justin Baker
I’ll have some masks, photos and will be performing and lecturing as part of my Rewilding series in this performance-based group show.
Opening Reception: Friday, March 30, 5:00 – 8:00 pm
March 23 – April 28, 2018
Artist Talks April 27th, 6:00 pm with Ed Atkeson, Lionel Cruet, Valery Jung Estabrook, Rachel Frank, Hana van der Kolk, and Jack Magai.
Rewilding Performance by Rachel Frank. April 28th, 2:00 pm, Location TBD
Collar Works
621 River Street, Troy, NY
Artshack Brooklyn Benefit Auction + Dinner
I made a special rhyton-esque ceramic place setting for this dinner benefiting Bedford Academy High School’s brand new partnership with Artshack Brooklyn
Saturday April 14th, 2018
Tickets at Artshack Brooklyn
1131 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Best wishes,
Rachel
http://www.rachelfrank.com
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3. Julie Atlas Muz, Pamela Enz, FF Alumns, at Theater for the New City, Manhattan, March 22-April 8
Crystal Field, Executive Producer Theater for the New City Theater, presents:
“City Girls & Desperadoes”
starring Franklin Furnace Alumn Julie Atlas Muz
by Franklin Furnace Alumn Pamela Enz
directed by Marina McClure
“My cake…my cake… there’s blood all over my cake”
Community Theater. Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (at E. 10th Street)
March 22-April 8, 2018
Thursday – Saturday 8:00 PM
Sunday 3:00 PM
General Admission: $18.00
Student & Senior: $12.00
95 Min Runtime
(1) 10 Minute Intermission
**Not Appropriate for Children**
Show contains drug use, nudity, and violence
Tix & Info: https://tinyurl.com/y9da6o6j
“City Girls & Desperadoes” – a dramedy – 1977 NYC, a ragtag band of accidental outlaws at war with their pasts ignite high rolling relationships that must explode, as the altered state that love in its most extreme form engenders is a dangerous intoxication as mind altering as any pharmaceutical.
Triple threat Austin Pendleton & Julie Atlas Muz, named New Yorker of the Year 2017 by the New York Times for her holiday panto “Jack & the Beanstalk” star with OBIE winner Meg MacCary, oh so talented George Olesky, Maria Fontanals & Vania Mendez. Stage Managed by Robert Neapolitan.
Resident Director at the flea theater Marina McClure helms this multi faceted production utilizing Isadora Video Projections designed with choreographer & Video Projectionist Julie Petrusak one of 12 artist chosen for BRIC’s 2018 Residency program.
Sound Design: Alex Santullo
Lighting Design: Alexander Bartenieff
ALL INQUIRIES: badreptheater@gmail.com 347 765-5645
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4. John Held, Jr., FF Alumn, at Archives of American Art, now online
I’m pleased to announce the posting of an interview I did with Dr. Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art. Both audio and written transcript are available. It can be accessed at:
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-john-held-17514
Oral history interview with John Held, 2017 September 28-October 3
Contact Information:
Reference Department, Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with John Held, Jr. on September 28 and October 3, 2017. The interview took place at the home of Paul Karlstrom in San Francisco, CA, and was conduct ed by Paul Karlstrom for t he Archives of American Art , Smithsonian Institution.
John Held, Jr. and Paul Karlstrom have reviewed this transcript. Their corrections and emendations appear below in brackets with initials. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art . T he reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.
Interview
PAUL KARLSTROM: Okay, this is it, John. We’ve waited a long time for this interview. Many obstacles, but we have been sort of patient and surmounted them. This is an interview for the Archives of American Art , Smithsonian Institution, my former employer. And I’m now working as a government contract interviewer interviewing my friend, the artist John Held, Jr. The date is September 28, 2017, and we’re located at my dining room table in San Francisco.
I would like to start out with a question, I guess I now know the answer to. But it’s an interesting story, and somehow I think it has relevance by way of introduction. So, you were actually born, according to this, Jonathan Norton Held in Brooklyn. And we’ll get into Brooklyn and so forth very shortly, but I’ve always wondered how you decided to appropriate the name of the wonderful old ’20s series, I guess, cartoonist John Held, Jr. What’s the story?
JOHN HELD: Well, before I answer that I have to say that I’m mindful of your interviewing history and what you’ve done for the Archives in the past. And I researched you before I, undertook this, and the Archives of American Art has 129 interviews that you’ve done over the years-[00:02:04 ]
PAUL KARLSTROM: Oh.
JOHN HELD: -with such people as Imogen Cunningham and Bruce Conner, Jay Defeo, Wally Hedrick. I mean, it’s an eventful record, a distinguished record, which I say, I am mindful of. And I’m honored to be included and to take you out of retirement, t oo-because I know that you’re doing this kind of as this favor to me as we are friends and everything. But to get you out of retirement to do one more interview for the Archives is a great honor for me, and something I’m very graeful for. As to John Held, Jr. –
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5. Stephanie Bernheim, FF Alumn, at Hudson Hall, Hudson, NY, opening March 24
HUDSON HALL PRESENTS
Stephanie Bernheim: Pixels and Particulates
MARCH 24 to MAY 13, 2018
at
Hudson Hall at the historic Hudson Opera House
327 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534
hudsonhall.org
Exhibition Opening with the Artist: Saturday, March 24, 5-7pm
Stephanie Bernheim, Wed5, 2016, 40 x 52″
High-res images available here
Hudson, NY – February 28, 2018: Hudson Hall presents Stephanie Bernheim: Pixels and Particulates, an exhibition that embraces and challenges the use of everyday technology in art while wrestling with our 21st century obsession with seeing and responding to images. On view from March 24 to May 13, 2018 in Hudson Hall’s Center Hall Gallery and newly restored Common Council Room, the exhibition follows the release of a new hardbound art book, Stephanie Bernheim: From Paint to Pixels (FoliArt Publishers, 2017). The book will be available for purchase at the opening reception with the artist on March 24 from 5-7pm. For more information, visit hudsonhall.org or phone (518) 822-1438.
Using glass windows, Pine Plains oilcloth, simple mechanical devices, printers and camera phones, and even discarded awnings from Sausbiers in Hudson, Bernheim has for many years explored the limits of common materials and simple mechanical devices through her work. Since 2008, her PalmPilot camera phone has been her sketchbook. As Bernheim explains about the work in Pixels and Particulates, “With a limited ability to vary line size and color, I draw on photographs using a basic “draw on” program in my PalmPilot,” she says. “The applied marks appear as strings of pixels creating constant changes in scale. Interventions are painterly. However, the painting is a photograph. Sometimes the marks annihilate the photograph; other times, they serve as a passage into it. Notions of gesture are deflated. After drawing on the photograph I send the image from phone to home. Blurring the lines between human subjectivity and technological objectivity, I try to grapple with today’s accelerated frenzy of seeing and responding to images.”
Published in 2017 by FoliArt Publishers, Stephanie Bernheim: From Paint to Pixels features Brooklyn-based artist and critic Kara L. Rooney’s detailed essay, Marking Material, which traces Bernheim’s career from 1978 to 2016 in four parts: Material, Process, Glass and Place. This hardbound art book includes 80 plates and 46 figures referenced in the essay, as well as a short text by Richard Milazzo.
Stephanie Bernheim, a native New Yorker, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College (B.A.) and New York University (M.A.) where she studied with Milton Resnick and Ad Reinhardt. Her exhibitions in numerous galleries and museums include: Andre Zarre Gallery, Trisha Collin’s Grand Salon, Barbara Mathes Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery, The Arts Club of Chicago, P.S.1 Museum in Long Island City, Franklin Furnace, Art Resources Transfer, Inc., The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, and The Milwaukee Museum, in addition to being held in many private, public and corporate collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bernheim retains strong ties with the Hudson Valley, having owned a farm in Ancramdale since 1982.
To take a picture is no big deal, to take one with your mobile phone is the ordinary squared.
The phone has become the most basic component of its composite self – now outfitted with cameras, programs, tools and Internet. I tease out the ambiguous space of these technologies and their capacity to create pictures wholly their own. My PalmPilot camera/phone captures traces of travel, architecture and other ordinary moments. They slip easily between familiar textures of the photographic and the associative. Like picking up the phone when someone has mistakenly dialed your number we hear only fragments, a sense of time and mood.”
— Stephanie Bernheim, 2018
About Hudson Hall
hudsonhall.org
Hudson Hall is a cultural beacon in the Hudson Valley, offering a dynamic year-round schedule of music, theater, dance, literature, workshops for youth and adults, as well as family programs and large-scale community events such as Winter Walk. Located in a historic landmark that houses New York State’s oldest surviving theater, Hudson Hall underwent a full restoration and reopened to the public in April 2017 for the first time in over 55 years. The newly restored Hudson Hall reflects Hudson’s rich history in a modern facility that welcomes residents and visitors from throughout our local community, across the nation, and around the globe.
Programs at Hudson Hall are funded, in part, by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
For further information, additional images or to arrange interviews, please contact Hudson Hall Development & Marketing Manager Caroline Lee at (518) 822-1438 or caroline@hudsonhall.org
Copyright (c) Hudson Hall at the historic Hudson Opera House, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
327 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534
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6. Linda Mary Montano, FF Alumn, at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, April 5-6
Linda Mary Montano: At the University of Virginia for Ed Woodham’s: Art In Odd Places. Montano will perform WE ARE ALL HUNGRY April 5 and April 6. Time: 11-1pm. Two “nurses” feed blindfolded Montano in this Meditation on Aging/Interdependence.
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7. Yvonne Rainer, FF Alumn, at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, May 12-13
Yvonne Rainer
Selected Works
Live performances, talks & film screenings
May 12-13, 2018
Performance & talks: May 12-13
IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art
Kilmainham
Royal Hospital, Military Road
Dublin
Ireland
T +353 1 612 9900
www.imma.ie
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
IMMA is delighted to present the work of world-class dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and writer Yvonne Rainer-one of the most influential artistic figures of the last 50 years. Rainer’s work has been foundational across multiple disciplines and movements including dance, cinema, feminism, minimalism, conceptual art, and postmodernism. IMMA will present a selection of Rainer’s iconic early film and dance works and will bring the legendary artist to Dublin for a historic conversation about her career.
One of Rainer’s most renowned dance pieces, Trio A with Flag (1966), will be performed live at IMMA with her works Talking Solo from Terrain (1963) and Chair/Pillow (1969). A series of talks and conversations will accompany this programme featuring, amongst others; a lecture by Yvonne Rainer, a conversation between Liz Roche (Liz Roche Company) and Rachael Thomas (Senior Curator, IMMA), and a talk by Chris Dercon (Director, Volksbühne, Berlin) about dance and performance invading the space of the museum, past and present. A series of screenings will also be shown at IMMA from May 2018, featuring the acclaimed film-works Lives of Performers (1972), Privilege (1990) and MURDER and Murder (1996).
Evoking responses that are at once theoretical, political and deeply personal, the work of Yvonne Rainer continues to resonate with today’s shifting world. In the words of the artist Robert Rauschenberg, “Yvonne’s multi-media expertise and her dynamic exposure has shaken the world for years. I have known her through the years of the development. To assist in the continuation is a gift to culture.”
Endeavouring to reflect the many facets of Yvonne Rainer’s practice, IMMA presents the work of Yvonne Rainer using a cross-disciplinary approach working in association with Dublin Dance Festival; the leading dance event on the Irish arts calendar. Each year in May, the Festival brings together dance artists and choreographers from across the world to share vibrant contemporary dance with audiences in Ireland.
All of the early dance works will be taught by choreographer Pat Catterson, Yvonne Rainer’s long-time assistant, performer, and transmitter of her dance-work.
Performance details:
Venue: IMMA, Great Hall
Times: Saturday & Sunday, May 12 & 13, 7:30pm; Matinee Sunday, May 13, 3:30pm
Duration: 60mins approx. (includes pre-performance talk)
Please note that these performances contain nudity.
Limited tickets for these performances are now available at www.imma.ie. Admission includes complimentary O’Hara’s Irish Craft Beer after the event.
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8. Marisa Morán Jahn, FF Alumn, at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, April 2, and more
Film premiere by Marisa Morán Jahn, FF Alumn
FILM | ART | MUSIC | CONVERSATION
Mon April 2, 6:30-8: Bowdoin College, Maine
Wed April 17: UC Berkeley Law School
with MacArthur Genius and domestic worker leader Ai-jen Poo
ABOUT THE FILM
A humorous and touching road tale, the CareForce One Travelogues is a Sundance-supported film series for PBS/ITVS featuring the artist Marisa Morán Jahn, her son Choco, and their buddy Anjum Asharia as they travel from their homes in NYC to Miami in a fifty-year old station wagon, the CareForce One. Meeting up with nannies, housekeepers, caregivers, and allies along the way, this series explores how care intersects with some of today’s most pressing issues – immigration, the legacies of slavery, racial discrimination, and more. The series is part of the CareForce, a public art project that amplifies the voices of America’s fastest growing workforce, caregivers.
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9. Doug Ashford, Terry Berkowitz, Nancy Chunn, Michelle Handelman, Nora Ligorano & Marshall Reese, Ann Messner, Laura Parnes, Martha Rosler, Dread Scott, Martha Wilson, Nina Yankowitz, FF Alumns, at Bowery & Prince Streets, Manhattan, March 22
Save the Date – March 22nd
The moral and political climate has not changed. Therefore we are screening STATE OF EMERGENCY for a second time.
Curated by Nina Felshin and Lenore Malen
Projection Design: Eamonn Farrell
Projection: The Illuminator
A live projection event at the corner of Bowery and Prince Street featuring the work of 60+ video artists and filmmakers
Thursday, March 22, 2018 • 7:30 – 9 pm
Rain Date March 23
state of emergency 1. A situation of national danger or disaster in which a government suspends normal constitutional procedures in order to retain control
with – Doug Ashford, Aziz + Cucher, Perry Bard, Z Behl, Robin Bell, Zoe Beloff, Terry Berkowitz, Janet Biggs, Robert Boyd, Rebecca Centeno, Myrel Chernick, Chinatown Art Brigade / Betty Yu, Nancy Chunn / David McDevitt, The Cluster Project, Nancy Davidson, Deep Dish TV, Sam Fleischner, Hope Ginsburg, Neil Goldberg, Deedee Halleck, Michelle Handelman, Marisa Holmes, The Illuminator, Gary Indiana, Deborah Jack, Jesal Kapadia, Nina Katchadourian, Ellen Kozak / Scott D. Miller, Ellen K. Levy, Nora Ligorano / Marshall Reese, Mary Lucier, Julie Ludwig, Cynthia Madansky, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Susan Meiselas, Ann Messner, Sherry Millner / Ernie Larsen, Eve Mosher, Erik Moskowitz / Amanda Trager, Jung Hee Mun, Zishun Ning, Lorie Novak, Julia Oldham, Laura Parnes, Pussy Riot, Tomas Rafa, Ilana Rein, Martha Rosler, Nicole Salazar / Pacho Velez, Begonia Santa-Cecila / Luis Moreno-Caballud, Dread Scott, Patricia Silva, Shelly Silver, Nick Tobier, Hong-An Truong, Martha Wilson, Nina Yankowitz, The Yes Lab, Yannis Ziogas / Yiorgos Drosos
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10. Jim Costanzo, FF Alumn, at Bluestockings Bookstore, Café & Activist Center, Manhattan, March 26
photography book launch of wall street in black & white
Bluestockings Bookstore, Café, & Activist Center
172 Allen St, New York, NY 10002
Monday March 26
7 to 9pm
wall street in black & white: fotos & text of an occupier
jim costanzo, aaron burr society
published by Autonomedia
The Aaron Burr Society believes it should be obvious that the People, not corporations, and not billionaires, must redefine the Common Good and decide how to use our Commonwealth to address the humanitarian and environmental crisis of the 21st Century. These prose-poem rants and striking photos by Jim Costanzo of the Aaron Burr Society document his participation in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and seek to further the Society’s aims: bottom-up economics for social justice, local cooperative economies and environmental sustainability.
jim costanzo
http://aaronburrsociety.tumblr.com/
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11. Pamela Enz, Julie Atlas Muz, FF Alumns, at Theater for the New City, Manhattan, March 25
A Pamela Enz Julie Atlas Muz project:
Still Reeling – Elliott Randall Appears!
Jamming Seminar – premiere week of Pamela Enz”s “City Girls & Desperadoes”*
Theater for the New City 155 1st Ave, NYC
Questions & Musical Magick!
March 25th 4:30 pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/568682973512251/
“It’s so very exciting to find myself once again in the “art for art’s sake” realm. Having been recently asked to score the production of ” City Girls & Desperadoes”, all I can say is that it’s creative heaven. It’s true multimedia – cutting edge, daring, imaginative, and an absolute pleasure to be involved.” Elliott Randall Show Score
To attend: donate to BAD REP’s ‘season of social justice’ campaign:
http://tinyurl.com/yccnkhbg
First make a donation of $25 or more – Seniors + Artists/Students $15
Then just show up OR email badreptheater@gmail.com requesting different name to be put on LIST @door
Invited Guests:
Marina McClure – flea theater Resident Director
Julie Petrusak – Video Projection Designer
PLUS – Surprise Guests NOT TBA!
* starring Julie Atlas Muz and Austin Pendleton
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12. Betty Tompkins, FF Alumn, at Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland, opening March 22
RIBORDY CONTEMPORARY, GENEVA
http://www.ribordycontemporary.com/exhibitions-upcoming.html
BETTY TOMPKINS & JEAN-BAPTISTE BERNADET
Opening March 22, 2018, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition March 23 – May 4, 2018
Betty Tompkins was born in 1945. From the end of the 1960s onward she has devoted herself to visual arts, embarking after some experiments that were close to Abstract Expressionism on the Fuck Paintings series (until 1974 when it was interrupted, then started anew after 2003), which are now famous but were overall ignored until they were exhibited in New York in 2002. These paintings, inspired by photorealism and devoid of any moralizing assertions, represent genitals or erotic gestures which also include penetration scenes. They emerged in the artistic context of the 1970s avant-garde, when art history was still establishing itself as a sort of path where everyone would advance with new exploratory aesthetic propositions amid the perfect indifference of the art market, yet triggering violent intellectual and political debates among the handful of aficionados (that is to say, art critics, art dealers and mostly artists) who had chosen, one way or another, to dedicate themselves to the discipline. Betty Tompkins’s painting exceeded the discipline’s boundaries: decried by feminists, condemned by censors, it was and is still faced with various forms of protest that weren’t met with any kind of compromise on Tompkins’s part.
The work of Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, who was born in 1978 and has devoted himself to painting since the beginning of the 21st century, arises in a context that is naturally different from Tompkins’s; a context where, curiously, the idea of the end of the avant-gardes is readily accepted, where there is an aggressive, sprawling art market, where art criticism is replaced with Instagram “likes” and where in the field of visual arts itself, the political and aesthetic debate has been classified as an “endangered species”, spectacular charity auctions with avowed ambitions to save the planet notwithstanding. His painting is no more photorealist than it is realist or even figurative, at least in the classical meaning of these terms, for it could also be considered that his canvases represent painting itself, and that painting is their subject. Now, his paintings seem however to have for ambition to establish a dialogue with the history of painting, rather than with desktop images.
With Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, it is necessary to see in this a choice to approach the question of pictorial activity that isn’t of an “intimate” nature, as he says. “I don’t care especially about painting, even if this is what I’m doing and even if I like a lot of painting as a viewer like any other. There’s no position in what I’m doing, I’m not defending or advertising anything. I didn’t choose painting versus something else, I just probably found myself comfortable doing it in order to say what I have to say.” This painting, which doesn’t generate debates outside of the visual arts field, doesn’t elicit them either inside this very field, where its uninhibited relationship with seduction is a first-rate weapon.
When the context of their appearing and the reality of the discipline of visual arts within that same context are taken into account, very few things bring together the respective authors of these works. Thirty-five years separate them-much more than the nevertheless much-discussed age difference that distinguishes some current Presidents and their wives in France and in the United States. During these few decades, their discipline has evolved in such a way that it could henceforth seem to form two distinctive ones.
That everything a priori opposes them is not enough of an argument to dissuade an exhibition curator from displaying these two paintings side by side. By doing so, it seemed to me that the disparity between the context of their production, the respective generations of their authors, the diversity of their aspirations; all of these disappeared to benefit and even reveal all that what was left, before anything else: two manners of painting, two distinct ways of dialoguing with the history of the medium. To brutally show the difference in their craftsmanship was the best way for me to precisely underline the importance of craftsmanship; and with both artists their manner of painting is decisive. Bernadet for example hasn’t chosen the classical weapons in use for painting nowadays, which is all too readily understood as being assisted with silkscreens and laser printing. In the era when it appeared, Tompkins’s painting too was the product of an aesthetic choice that ran against the tide. In their formal aspects the paintings she produces today could have been made thirty years ago, and vice-versa; they even seem more contemporary than Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s. Each of the artists’ paintings sustains a relationship with time that seems pacified, establishing themselves in a sort of timelessness even, or, in any case, an aspiration to be timeless.
Evidently, the blurry aspect of Betty Tompkins’s paintings finds an equal counterpart in the “retinal” attacks of Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s works: each of them inflicts a specific, technical exercise on the eye. The softness in the shaping of bodies, a consequence of the blurry image in Tompkins’s, may also meet in Bernadet’s painting a type of glaring sensuality exacerbated by the all over composition and its lack of apparent structure. In truth, it is difficult to say which of the two is the most erotic, or in any case voluptuous. These are paintings that transform softness into an assault weapon; they both turn this softness into a varnish under which the image rapidly imposes its violence.
Eric Troncy
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13. Roberta Allen, FF Alumn, on Bookworm, KCRW Radio live and online, Los Angeles, CA, March 22
Dear Friends + Colleagues,
I am thrilled to be Michael Silverblatt’s guest on Bookworm at KCRW Radio
which airs live in L.A. on Thursday, March 22 at 2:30 pm.
The Princess of Herself (Pelekinesis)
praised by Laurie Anderson, Chris Kraus, Lynne Tillman, Siri Hustvedt and others.
https://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm
You can also listen to the audio podcast.
Best,
Roberta
www.robertaallen.com
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14. Dahn Hiuni, FF Alumn, at The Blank’s 2nd Stage Theatre, Hollywood, CA, April 9
Monday April 9th
MURMURS & INCANTATIONS
Written by DAHN HIUNI
Original Music Composed by YUVAL RON
All performances begin at 8:00pm and take place at
The Blank’s 2nd Stage Theatre
6500 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood
MURMURS AND INCANTATIONS tells the story of Ben Levitts, a New York performance artist whose difficult past has left him with an extended case of creative block. In a reluctant, last-ditch attempt to revive his career, Ben fatefully accepts an offer to perform in Poland, the country his family fled many decades earlier. Intermittent visitations by the ghosts of his feisty grandfather and unrelenting boyfriend, finally enable Ben to recognize his painful past and his still-viable creative powers.
Harrowing, poignant and irreverently funny, MURMURS AND INCANTATIONS juxtaposes the histories of the Holocaust and AIDS in a startling inter-generational conversation about the anguish and ethics of being an artist.
$10 tickets. More info at https://www.theblank.com/livingroomseries/ or www.murmursplay.com
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15. Paul McMahon, FF Alumn, at 9 Herkimer Place, Brooklyn, opening March 20
Paul McMahon Opening Tuesday March 20 6-9 pm; 9 Herkimer Place, Brooklyn, a block and a half from the Nostrand Ave stop on the A train. Opening 6-9 Tuesday 3/20
Paul McMahon at Bedstock March 20-April 22
(I love U…nicorns), a solo exhibition by Paul McMahon, will take place at Helene Winer’s garage space (AKA “Bedstock,” by the artist) in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. This is his second solo show in Brooklyn, NY.
The work in this wide-ranging ‘everything’ show includes study pods, book projects, postcards, prints, photographs of babies drawn on by McMahon’s daughter, wallpaper samples, clocks, hanging lamps, buttons, stickers, and ashtrays. In the early 1970s, McMahon began organizing exhibitions, parties, and rock shows in Cambridge, MA and New York City, playing a vital role in bringing together artists in the post-Conceptual and pre-Pictures generation. During the 1970s, McMahon created a diverse body of work addressing corruption in government, the art world, and pictures themselves. In later decades, he continued producing work as live performances and video, satirizing politicians and the advertising world, often from a shamanic orientation.
Paul McMahon (b. 1950, San Diego, CA) is a musician, artist, writer, producer, curator, minister, and part-time mailman. From 1972-75, he organized over 30 conceptual and performance art shows at Project Inc., his independently run temporary art space in Cambridge, MA. He has played in bands such as Daily Life and A Band, performed parodic routines in shows such as I’m With Stupid at the Kitchen (NYC, 1977), and duelled one-liner jokes dressed as a giant potato on national TV against Soupy Sales. McMahon’s work has been shown in select group and solo exhibitions including Me at 3A Gallery (NYC, 2015); 44 at 321 Gallery (Brooklyn, NY, 2015); The White Room at White Columns (NYC, 1987); The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984 curated by Douglas Eklund at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC, 2009); All Suffering Soon To End! at Callicoon Fine Arts Gallery (Callicoon, NY, 2009); Stairway to Heaven at Susan Inglett Gallery (NYC, 2010); and Made in Rosendale at Roos Arts (Rosendale, NY, 2011). McMahon has released ten albums of original music, published two books of humor, and performed as the Rock’n’Roll Therapist since 1980. He received a fellowship in New Genres from the National Endowment for the arts in 1990 and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College acquired the Project Inc. archive in 2010. McMahon graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Pomona College in 1972 and received an MS in Art Education from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 1975. He had a Kundalini rising experience in 1988, and in 1993 the Goddess spoke inside his head and told him that he is King of the Universe. He is the proprietor of the Mothership, an everything center in Woodstock. NY, where he lives and works with his twin girls.
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16. Chin Chih Yang, FF Alumn, at Chiayi International Art Documentary Film Festival, Chiayi City, Taiwan, March 23
CHIN CHIH YANG: FACE THE EARTH
by
Ming Chuan Huang
a new feature-length documentary of the multidisciplinary artist Chin Chih Yang
Chiayi International Art Documentary Film Festival Taiwan CIADFF
March 23, 2:20 pm
Screening Room, 1F. Chiayi Municipal Museum
275-1 Zhongxiao Road
East District, Chiayi City
Taiwan 600
https://2018.chiayi.film/schedule/
Renowned Taiwanese filmmaker Ming-Chuan Huang partners with Taiwanese American performance artist Chin Chih Yang to explore the artist’s lifelong focus on the culture of waste. CHIN CHIH YANG: FACE THE EARTH puts viewers right next to Yang as 30,000 aluminum cans are dumped on his head to call our attention to the vast amount of waste each of us creates – the average person uses and discards 30,000 cans in their lifetime! Sit alongside Chin Chih and passersby in New York City’s storied Union Square, on a giant block of ice and ponder the possibility that the polar ice cap will be gone by 2050. Watch the public participate with the artist to help him create his Giant Can Family at the Contemporary Art Museum of Taipei. Learn how he makes sturdy whole cloth out of discarded potato chip bags and gain insight into how each of us can CHIN CHIH YANG: FACE THE EARTH and contribute to her resuscitation.
This 85-minute documentary film intersperses scenes of the artist at work with in-depth interviews with Tom Finkelpearl, The Commissioner of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York; Dr. Martha Wilson, Founding Director of Franklin Furnace Archive; Michael L. Royce, Executive Director of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Robert C. Morgan, Ph.D. – Artist/Art Critic, Steve Cannon – A Gathering of the Tribes, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful – artist, Jeffrey Grunthaner – writer, James Leonard – Artist, John Downing Bonafede – Artist, John Ahearn – Artist, Manfred Kirchheimer – film maker / professor of film at SVA, Heidi Jain – photography teacher and others. Directed and Produced by Huang Mingchuan, and produced by Formosa Filmedia Company, FACE THE EARTH includes footage by Annie Berman, Wang Yi Chang, Ray Huang, Liu Kuanting, Wang Shau-gung, Nick McGovern, Sen-I Yu, Doll Chao, Johanna Naukkarinen, Jing Wang, Susan L Yung and others. Photography by Rodrigo Salazar, John Bonafede, John Ahearn, Justen Ladda, Tom Otterness, Julie Lemberger and others.
Organizations which have presented and supported Chin Chih Yang’s work include Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Asian American Art Alliance, Bronx Art Council, Queens Art Council, FiveMyles, State Island Art Council, Brooklyn Art Council, Flux Factory, Figment NYC, Panoply Performance Labs, Exit Art, CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Art Omi, Franklin Furnace Archive, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts. Byrdcliffe Art Colony, Crystal Foundation, Taiwan Center, Taiwan National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan Cultural Center of New York, Queens Media Arts Development, Taiwanese Association of America, Passport to Taiwan, Chungyu Institute of Technology, National Taiwan University of the Arts, Environmental Protection Department of New Taipei City, Taiwanese American Arts Council, International Chinese Fine Arts Council, NY Biennial, Art Asia Pacific, School of Visual Arts, and General Electric.
CHIN CHIH YANG: FACE THE EARTH is sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Taiwan, and copyrighted 2017 by Ming-Chuan Huang and Chin Chih Yang
About Chin Chih Yang
Multidisciplinary artist Chin Chih Yang was born in Taiwan, and has resided for many years in New York City. He holds degrees from Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design. Among other honors, he has been awarded grants by The New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Franklin Furnace Archive, MacDowell Colony and more. Yang’s interests in ecology and constructed environments have resulted in interactive performances and installations in the United States, Poland, Finland, Austria, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. He has exhibited/performed at Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, Union Square Park, The Queens Museum, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Exit Art, Flux Factory and in 2016 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei hosted a major retrospective. All told, Yang strives to lead audiences to a more direct awareness of the effects of contemporary technology and engender compassion for all humanity.
About Ming-Chuan Huan
Born in Chiayi, Taiwan in 1955, Huang Ming-Chuan lives now in Taipei. Graduating from the Department of Law of National Taiwan University, he left Taiwan to study Lithographic Printmaking in Art Students League of New York and Fine Arts and Photography at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Huan’s feature film THE MAN FROM ISLAND WEST claimed an Excellent Cinematography Award at Hawaii international Film Festival and a Silver Screen Award at Singapore international Film Festival in 1990. In 1998 his FLAT TYRE was awarded Best film in the non-commercial category at Taipei Film Festival and Jury Award at the Golden Horse Festival, Taiwan. As a documentary director, Huang has made numerous documentaries on art subjects and won the first Taishin Arts Award’s Visual Arts Prize in 2003. He has served as a board member of Taiwan’s National Culture and Arts Foundation (2000-03), National Film Archive Foundation (2002-05), Public Television System Foundation (2005) and CTV (2008-present). Huang was chairman of international jury of Taishin Arts Award’s Visual Arts Prize (2005), and feature length competition juror of Taiwan International Documentary Festival (2008). He was elected as Chairman of the National Culture and Arts Foundation in early 2008. Ming-Chuan has been the artistic director of the Chiayi City International Art Doc Film Festival since 2014.
For more information please contact Harley Spiller, 917-553-4831
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17. Brendan Fernandes, FF Alumn, selected as Graham Foundation Fellow
Brendan Fernandes, Torkwase Dyson, Martine Syms, Mark Wasiuta, and David Hartt named Fellows in new Fellowship program
Graham Foundation
4 West Burton Place
Madlener House
Chicago, Illinois 60610
USA
www.grahamfoundation.org
The Graham Foundation is pleased to announce its inaugural Fellows as part of the organization’s new Graham Foundation Fellowship program: Brendan Fernandes, Torkwase Dyson, Martine Syms, Mark Wasuita, and David Hartt. Integrating the Foundation’s grantmaking and exhibition programs, the new Fellowship provides monetary support for the development and production of new and challenging works and the opportunity to present these projects in an exhibition at the Foundation’s Madlener House galleries in Chicago. Artist David Hartt piloted the new program with his new body of work in the forest, which premiered at the Graham in the fall of 2017.
The Fellowship program extends the legacy of the Foundation’s first awards, made in 1957 and 1958. These initial fellowships provided a diverse group of practitioners a platform to pursue experimental ideas in the field, and they included alumni such as Pritzker Prize winning architects Balkrishna V. Doshi and Fumihiko Maki, designer Harry Bertoia, photographer Harry M. Callahan, sculptor Eduardo Chillida, experimental architect Frederick J. Kiesler, and painter Wilfredo Lam, among others. The 2018 Fellows will continue this tradition of exploring new perspectives on spatial practices and design culture.
Brendan Fernandes
The Master and Form
Installation in Collaboration with Norman Kelley
January 25-April 7, 2018
The Master and Form, a new installation and performance series by Brendan Fernandes commissioned by the Graham Foundation, investigates themes of mastery and discipline within the pursuit of form in the practice of ballet. Using objects and an installation designed in collaboration with architecture and design collaborative Norman Kelley, the project responds directly to the Graham’s Madlener House. Classically trained ballet dancers activate the objects and space of the galleries making a new site for performance and a dynamic interplay between audience and dancer.
Brendan Fernandes is a Chicago-based Canadian artist of Kenyan and Indian descent. Fernandes has exhibited widely domestically and abroad, including exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the National Gallery of Canada, Ontario; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; and the Studio
Museum in Harlem, New York. He is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
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Goings On is compiled weekly by Harley Spiller
