Programmation Satellite. Cycle “Terrains de jeux” 4/4

du 01 juillet au 28 septembre 2008

Virginie Yassef crée des vidéos, des photographies et des sculptures qui semblent puiser leur source dans le monde de l’enfance. Sous le regard de l’artiste, les gestes du quotidien, des situations simples prennent une dimension nouvelle. Sollicitant régulièrement la participation du visiteur dans ses installations, Virgine Yassef interroge, pour son projet au Jeu de Paume, le rôle du corps dans l’espace d’exposition. En collaboration avec d’autres créateurs (artistes, compositeurs…), elle expérimente une collaboration scénographique.

Installé dans l’espace du foyer, un éléphant constitue le cœur du dispositif. Conçue spécifiquement pour l’exposition, cette œuvre explore les liens ambigus entre sculpture et architecture, art majeur et art populaire. Cette structure, qui semble issue d’un décor de théâtre, évoque la figure emblématique du cheval de Troie. Des sons, qui s’échappent des entrailles de l’animal, suggèrent la présence d’un possible atelier clandestin.
L’œuvre est mise en scène au sein d’une plus large installation constituée de chaises reproduisant la “Crate chair” que Gerrit Rietveld — designer, architecte et ébéniste néerlandais — dessina en 1934. Ce modèle représente un archétype de l’assise : il est conçu pour être réalisé de façon extrêmement simple avec des matériaux sommaires, des planches issues de palettes en bois. Le dialogue s’instaure ici encore entre la logique de production de masse et la création artistique.
Pensée à la fois comme un travail autonome mais aussi comme un lieu à habiter, cette installation devrait accueillir ponctuellement des performances.

Dans l’espace de la mezzanine, l’artiste réinterprète, l’œuvre intitulée Alloy. Dans ce film, un enfant manipule des éléments aimantés et les assemble de façon aléatoire, créant ainsi des édifices à l’équilibre précaire.
Faisant écho à cette vidéo, un des éléments de cet étrange jeu de construction fait éruption, à l’image d’un cerveau hypertrophié, dans l’espace de l’exposition. Dans un univers proche de celui de la science-fiction, Virginie Yassef crée une narration onirique qui s’ancre dans un réel lointain.

Exposition organisée avec le soutien de la Fondation nationale des arts graphiques
et en partenariat avec Art Press et Oui FM

Have pop culture and globalization co-opted the wonderfully expressive gestures of the black America female? This is the question that Rashaad Newsome explores in video and photography in Shade Compositions, one of two new works in an exhibition opening on Thursday June 19th at Location One.

In the second work, Untitled (study for banji cunt), Newsome brings choreography for the first time into his expressive repertoire. For this piece the artist invited one of New York’s top vogue dancers, Shayne Oliver, to his studio and recorded his demonstration. From the footage he created a choreographed piece in post-production by connecting different dance sequences. Shayne Oliver was then asked to practice and reinterpret this dance, and to perform it before a camera. The resulting video (8 minute loop) will be shown in Location One’s Project Space, along with ten photographs of specific dance moves from the initial recording session.

“The language of the body has a vocabulary all its own,” says Newsome, whose residency at Location One is sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. “Gestural language is often viewed as a cultural signifier, and I am interested in how it is formed, how it evolves as well as how it is appropriated across regional and class boundaries. I think of dance as a means of communication that can reflect a world bigger then the one I live in, one that can reflect many different people, cultures and times.”

In conjunction with the exhibition there will be a live performance of Shade Compositions,
Tuesday June 24th at 7 PM in Location One’s Performance Space (20 Greene Street).

Four black females will perform a choreographed action piece, derived from dismissive gestures often characterized as “ghetto.” The artist will utilize a hacked Nintendo Wii game controller to create a music and video composition in real-time, recording, looping, composing and editing both audio and video simultaneously to the action of the performers.

Thanks to OAK for generously lending clothing for the performance.

Born in New Orleans, Newsome received a B.A. in Art History from Tulane University before studying at Film Video Arts in New York. He has been awarded several residencies including one at Entreprise Culturelle in Paris. Most recently his work has been shown at K.U.E.L., Berlin; Glassbox Gallery, Paris; Rush Arts Gallery, NYC; Fondation Cartier, Paris; The Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans.

www.rashaadnewsome.com

June 19 – July 26 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday June 19th, 6 - 8pm (open to the public)

Location One presents And we move, an installation by New York based artist Jean Shin, which was developed during her residency at Location One. The opening will be held on Thursday June 19th from 6 to 8 pm and the exhibition will remain open to the public through Saturday July 26th, 2008.

Conceived as a site-specific installation, And we move continues Jean Shin’s investigation into the nature of music and its production. The installation utilizes the display of clothing, a video projection on fabric, unwound audio tape, embroidery, and compositional scores on prints, to explore how music is visualized and expressed through movement of the body, and how sound can be imprinted onto a surface. The result is the creation of a multimedia installation. The title And we move refers to the phrase iterated by the conductor as he begins to work with the musicians and evokes the dynamic relationship between them. It also refers to the way in which music moves its listeners.

In the video, the conductor’s back is isolated into a cropped view of his jacket as he leads the orchestra to play the lyrical score of Ma Vlast (My Country), a piece by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana, and Ibert’s Flute Concerto. The single viewpoint creates a mysterious, suggestive abstraction of something alive, pulsing, moving. As the conductor engages with each second of every orchestral part, the image of his moving jacket speaks to his essential relationship as an individual to the group of musicians and ultimately his role in both interpreting and realizing each collaborative performance.

The artist has chosen to include the structural columns of the gallery in her installation, which she equates to the structural system of a musical score, with measures and repetitive lines. Found magnetic audio tape is wrapped around and extended between the columns in a fluid and expressive manner, evoking the act of drawing, and creating a line of sound within the architectural space. The audio tape also refers to the materiality of music and its making; metaphorically it refers to the socio-economic interrelationships that lead to the production of music.

Further exploration of the themes is provided by a series of five large-scale inkjet prints on fabric. The prints are stills from the video which capture the conductor’s body in action and become moments of music frozen in time: music and movement distilled. On the bottom portion of each print, the score of Smetana’s composition is printed continuously in a long horizontal band extending through all five images while the audio levels of the video are translated into a line of embroidery that runs between the still and the score, visually suturing the distinct elements together. The artist’s intention is to create a pause in the movement of a conductor’s action and contrast it with the musical language of the compositional score as well as the sampling of the audio track that is a record of the actual performance.

The use of clothing as representation of the body is integral to Jean Shin’s practice. In this new project, the artist is also thinking about the expressiveness of fabric throughout history (such as the Baroque and Hellenistic periods) and how it became almost more important than the figure, because it revealed the imprint of the figure, something greater than a simple depiction of the body.

Jean Shin’s residency at Location One is supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Thanks to Solo Impression Inc. for producing the digital prints for this exhibition, to Richard Lanier, Joseph W. Polisi, George Stelluto and the Julliard School of Music for their invaluable help.

TONY FITZPATRICK Boeuf Gras, 2008,
Mixed media and collage on paper.
7 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.
Courtesy the artist and Pierogi, Brooklyn

March 11, 2008

Prospect.1 New Orleans

Announces Artists for its Inaugural Biennial
and Highlights of Works to be Presented

November 1, 2008 - January 18, 2009

Additional Venues Announced

http://www.prospectneworleans.org

Dan Cameron, Director and Curator of Prospect.1 New Orleans, announced today the names of the 81 local, national, and international artists selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the biennial, on view November 1, 2008, through January 18, 2009. Hailing from 36 countries and five continents, many of these artists are creating new and original works that respond both to the locations in which they will be installed and to the city of New Orleans as a whole, for the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States.

Selected artists (in alphabetical order)
ALLORA & CALZADILLA, GHADA AMER, EL ANATSUI, JANINE ANTONI, ALEXANDRE ARRECHEA, LUIS CRUZ AZACETA, JOHN BARNES, JR., SANFORD BIGGERS, WILLIE BIRCH MONICA BONVICINI, MARK BRADFORD, CANDICE BREITZ, CAI GUO-QIANG, CAO FEI, FRANCIS CAPE, CHEN CHIEH-JEN, ADAM CVIJANOVIC, JOSE DAMASCENO, ANNE DELEPORTE, LEANDRO ERLICH, SKYLAR FEIN, ROY FERDINAND, JR., TONY FITZPATRICK, GAJIN FUJITA, RICO GATSON, KATHARINA GROSSE, TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK, VICTOR HARRIS & FI YI YI, ARTURO HERRERA, JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES, ISAAC JULIEN, WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, LEE BUL, KALUP LINZY, SRDJAN LONCAR, RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER, DEBORAH LUSTER, JORGE MACCHI, SHAWNE MAJOR, NALINI MALANI, McCALLUM & TARRY, DAVE MCKENZIE, JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER, JULIE MEHRETU, AERNOUT MIK, BEATRIZ MILHAZES, TATSUO MIYAJIMA, YASUMASA MORIMURA, ZWELETHU MTHETHWA, WANGECHI MUTU, SHIRIN NESHAT, MARCEL ODENBACH, KAZ OSHIRO, MIGUEL PALMA, PEREJAUME, PIERRE ET GILLES, JOHN PILSON, SEBASTIÁN PREECE, NAVIN RAWANCHAIKUL, ROSÂNGELA RENNÓ, PEDRO REYES, ROBIN RHODE, STEPHEN G. RHODES, NADINE ROBINSON, CLARE E. ROJAS, KAY ROSEN, MALICK SIDIBÉ, AMY SILLMAN, NEDKO SOLAKOV, MONIKA SOSNOWSKA, JACKIE SUMELL and HERMAN WALLACE, SUPERFLEX, FIONA TAN, PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU, FRED TOMASELLI, JANNIS VARELAS, XAVIER VEILHAN, PAUL VILLINSKI, , NARI WARD, XU BING, HAEGUE YANG

Highlights of the Biennial
A number of biennial highlights respond to the destruction wrought on the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Region in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Mark Bradford will create a wooden Ark utilizing the shell of a destroyed house and other discarded scraps of wood in the Lower Ninth Ward. Paul Villinski, a New York-based artist known for creating work from debris who has said he found “new, urgent purpose in the disaster of Hurricane Katrina,” will create his Emergency Response Studio, a “green”-powered mobile artist’s studio, out of a discarded, now-iconic FEMA trailer. South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa, who first visited New Orleans in the more immediate wake of the hurricane, returned to the Lower Ninth Ward in late 2007 to create his first photographs outside of Africa, which will debut at Prospect.1.

Highlights of the biennial also include works by artists who have selected unique locations in which to install work. Adam Cuijanovic will paint one of his murals inside an abandoned house in the Lower Ninth Ward, and Nari Ward will convert an abandoned church in the Lower Ninth Ward into an installation. Kay Rosen will transform city billboards and benches into enigmatic word-puzzles. Navin Rawanchaikul will present his New Orleans I Love Taxi Project, similar to one created in New York in 2001 with the Public Art Fund. In New Orleans, he will interview taxi drivers and weave their tales into a comic book story that he will produce and print, then distribute in city taxis during the biennial.

A number of New Orleans-born and based artists have also been selected to participate in the biennial, among them Shawne Major, who is creating three large-scale wall hangings; Willie Birch, who will present a new series of drawings; and Croatian-born, New Orleans-based sculptor Srdjan Loncar, who will erect a sculptural pile of money in front of the Old U.S. Mint and encourage the public to carry some of it away in briefcases provided at the site.

Participating Venues
Previously Announced: Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, The Historic New Orleans Collection, L9 Center for the Arts, Louisiana Artworks, The Old U.S. Mint Louisiana State Museum, The National World War II Museum, New Orleans African American Museum, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts|Riverfront, New Orleans Museum of Art, Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

New Venues: Ashé Cultural Arts Center, The George & Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art, and Longue Vue House & Gardens.

Funding
This exhibition has been made possible with the support of Prospect.1 New Orleans Founding Benefactor Toby Devan Lewis; U.S. Biennial, Inc. Board of Directors; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.; and the Prospect.1 Kingfishers Leadership Committee.

U.S. Biennial, Inc., the nonprofit organizer of Prospect.1, continues active outreach for funds to underwrite the exhibition. To make a donation, please visit http://www.prospectneworleans.org

About Prospect.1 New Orleans:
Dan Cameron conceived Prospect.1 New Orleans to reinvigorate the city, a historic regional artistic center, following the human, civic, and economic devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The primary goal of the biennial exhibition is to redevelop the city as a cultural destination where the visual arts are celebrated and can once again thrive. New Orleans was the first U.S. city to host a recurring international art exhibition, beginning in 1887 with the Exhibition of the Art Association of New Orleans. In this tradition, Prospect.1 will provide the public with work by 81 artists conceived and developed for the city. The largest international art biennial ever held in the United States, Prospect.1 will reach an estimated audience of 100,000 visitors, half of whom will likely be Louisiana state residents.

For more information on Prospect.1 New Orleans, please visit http://www.prospectneworleans.org or contact U.S. Biennial, Inc. at (212) 686-5305 or info@prospectneworleans.org .

Benji Okuda instructing a life drawing class, an adult night school group at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Image courtesy of the National Archives, Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1941-1947.

June 16, 2008

New Museum

Night School: Public Seminar 6

Space within space within space /
Things to do while you’re alive /
Keywords School
Hu Fang, Zhang Wei & Xu Tan
June 19th - 21st, 2008

235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
212.219.1222

http://www.newmuseum.org

Night School is an artist’s project by Anton Vidokle in the form of a temporary school. A yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops, Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program.

Thursday June 19th, 7:30PM
Space within space within space

Vitamin Creative Space functions as an alternative working model specifically geared to the contemporary Chinese context. In order to operate independently from institutionalized funding, it is active both as an “independent” art space and as a “commercial” gallery. Vitamin Creative Space is actively challenging preconceptions by merging these two models, which traditionally are opposed strategies for supporting and presenting contemporary art, and is developing new Chinese contributions through research into both: the artistic practice and institutional organization within the new global context.

The seminar will look at the recent practice of Vitamin to explore how it is not merely a physical space, but is an attempt to create a new model for development and distribution of artist’s new thinking on creativity.

Friday, June 20th, 7:30 PM
Things to do while you’re alive

Accompanied by a slide show of Hu Fang’s recent pictorial collection of adverts, signs, photos from the realm of public media, Hu Fang and Zhang Wei will spontaneously generate a narration of a “life journey” and spatial transformations, outlining global surroundings we are living in and how there can be a possibility of the space for the artistic view of life: a view which proposes an alternative way of transforming reality.

Saturday, June 21st, 3 PM
Keywords School

The “Searching for Keywords” project was initialled from a series of interviews of active people in the Chinese society or people in the active Chinese area. By analyzing the content of these conversations, artist Xu Tan identified certain “keywords,” terms which shed light on values and motivations of contemporary Chinese society. “Keywords” measure the pulse of the current social climate and present an insight into the collective social consciousness of China. “Keywords” looks at connections between the individual speakers, words and the mental tendencies of the society.

In this seminar, Zhang Wei and Hu Fang will invite Xu Tan to discuss his Keywords project and introduce the idea of opening a “Keywords School,” as well as his conceptual approach, method and the larger social landscape made visible by the Keywords – a landscape of “collective consciousness” which actually frames our daily process.

Zhang Wei is director and co-founder of Vitamin Creative Space http://www.vitamincreativespace.com established in 2002, an independent art initiative exploring an alternative working mode, specifically geared to the contemporary Chinese context. Lives and works in Guangzhou and Beijing.She graduated with a MA in Creative Curating at Goldsmiths University in London, and has organized numerous exhibitions internationally. She has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and international magazines including Parkett, and curated(co-curated) and organized the show inside and outside Vitamin Creative Space include “Sprout from White Nights”(Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, 2008), “Through Popular Expression” at the Singapore Biennial (2006),ect. Zhang Wei is particularly interested in the exploration of the unique contribution from Chinese context within the international contemporary scenes, through which people can be inspired to find the new entry into life.

Hu Fang is an author and co-founder of Vitamin Creative Space. Lives and works in Guangzhou and Beijing.As a novelist and writer, Hu has published a series of novels including Shopping Utopia, Sense Training: Theory and Practise, and A Spectator. His recent publication is a collection of fictional essays called New Arcades (Survival Club, Sensation Fair, and Shansui.) His writing has appeared in Chinese and international art/culture magazines since 1996. His curatorial practices are widely engaged in different situations within Chinese and international contexts, he is coordinating editor of documenta 12 magazines, link curator of Singapore Biennial 2006 and a “player” of Lyon Biennial 2007, as well as the member of the curatorial team of Yokohama Triennale 2008.

Xu Tan was born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1957 and currently lives in Shanghai and Guangzhou. In the early 1990s he joined the “Big Tail Elephant Group” in Guangzhou with Lin Yinlin, Chen Shaoxiong and Liang Juhui. The aim of this group is to develop critical strategies for negotiating the rapidly changing economic and cultural life in China. His work has been shown around the world including the P.S.1, Biennale di Venezia, Berlin Biennial, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia, Guangzhou Triennial, Taipei Biennial, De Appel in Amsterdam. Recent solo shows were held at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin, at the Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou, at BizArt is Shanghai.

All events are free with Museum admission but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum one week before the seminar’s start; a limited number of tickets will be available one hour before each event’s start. Tickets are limited, distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis, and must be collected prior to the event’s start time. Unclaimed tickets will be released promptly at the event’s start time. Please check individual events below for tickets and more information.

For tickets see http://www.newmuseum.org/events

Night School is part of the Museum as Hub, which is made possible by the Third Millennium Foundation.

With additional generous support from the Metlife Foundation

Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.

Generous support also provided by the Charlotte and Bill Ford Artist Talks Fund.

Gallery Satori is pleased to present our first inaugural exhibition, UNREAL CITY curated by Mariko Tanaka.

UNREAL CITY focuses on artists’ portrayals of the urban metropolis with works by international artists active in North America, Europe, and Asia. With U.N. forecasts that half of the world’s population will live in “mega cities,” and that most will be city dwellers by 2050, artists in this exhibition have been challenged to interpret both the present and future of urban life. By exploring cities as dynamic products of human imagination - even arising through a sort of collective imagination, the process of a city remaking itself can be seen as a large scale parallel to the process of art making.

The exhibition considers the role of human imagination in transforming cities both from the top down, and the ground up. Examining the role of the urban developer as parallel, with that of the artist, the exhibit seeks to explore the tumultuous and transformative spirit of contemporary cities. Borrowing its title from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” the exhibition focuses on the basic unreality of contemporary cities, in the sense that they are under constant re-imagination, and often only loosely tethered to their cultural origins. This unreality inherently forces tensions between new and old. And, while never unattended by controversy, this tension is undeniably a creative force to be reckoned with.

Hands together: New York Artists Gather for China Earthquake Relief to Benefit UNICEF

(download flyer in pdf format)

June 14, 2008 @ 3pm
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal Street (between W 3rd and Minetta Lane)
Tickets: $45 / Group of Four: $125 (Promotional code is: 4UNICEF)

Tickets can be obtained through Theatermania at www.theatermania.com or call (212) 352-3101

OR click on the following link:
http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144637
OR go to www.theatermania.com and search under Matrix Music Collaborators

Proceeds to benefit U.S. Fund for UNICEF

This special presentation will feature an international line up of artists to include:

Min Xiao-Fen, pipa / Wu Na, Gu Qin / Huang Ruo, composer / Eric Siu, visual artist /
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre / Asian American Writers’ Workshop /

Members of Matrix Music Collaborators:
Yoon Kwon, violin (acoustic & electric) /
Yuri Namkung, violin (acoustic & fiddle) /
Wendy Law, cello / Justin Berrie, flute / Christa Robinson, oboe /
Rachel Calin, bass / Sheryl Lee, piano & artistic director

Puppeteers:

Deborah Hertzberg / Serra Hirsch / Daniel Irizarry / Mary Robinette Kowal /
Chris McLaughlin / Jessica Scott / Meghan Williams / Jodi Eichelberger

led by Jane Catherine Shaw and Terry O’ Reilly, co artistic-directors

Program:

Drunken Man by Jiu Kuang, based on a famous poet of the western Jin dynasty (265 -420)
Blue Pipa (inspired by Miles Davis) by Min Xiao-Fen
The North of Sunset by Thelonius Monk, arr. by Min Xiao-Fen
Mo (dedicated to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake) by Min Xiao Fen and Wu Na

Four Fragments for solo violin by Huang Ruo

Excerpts from The Joy Luck Club

a play by Susan Kim, adapted from the novel by Amy Tan
with direction & musical staging by Tisa Chang
Oblivion by Piazzolla

“Super Cop World” video installation featuring mighty Mario and Jackie Chan

designed by Eric Siu
Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 by Sergei Prokofiev - a staging with Chinese
Puppets with Matrix Music Collaborators

Involvement/ Support and special thanks to the following:
Asia Society; Asian Cultural Council; Asian American Advertising Media; Franklin Furnace Foundation; UNICEF for U.S. Fund; Chinese Consulate, NY; Chinese Mission to the United Nations; The Players Theatre; Mabou Mines; PS 122; Jeremy Klaperman; Lawrence Uy; Chinatown Ice Cream Factory; Matrix Music Collaborators; Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and Asian American Writers’ Workshop and bluepipa.org

Piano Courtesy of C.Bechstein America
Generously hosted by The Players Theatre

Co-producers: Terry O’Reilly and Sheryl Lee
Marketing Director: Barbara Okishoff
Graphic Designer: Yuan Zhou

We are pleased to present new work by Daniel Andersson (Finland) and by Tseng Yu-chin (Taiwan), participants of the International Residency Program this year.

We are pleased to present new work by Luis Nobre (Portugal) and by Eric Siu (Hong Kong), who have participated in Location One’s International Residency Program this year.

Eric Siu
Optical Handlers – eeyee, 2008

Optical Handlers – eeyee is a new interactive media project that consists of an optical goggle device constructed by the artist, which splits the vision into four channels. On May 11th the artist walked with the goggles from Location One to Union Square via Broadway by foot and subway, doing various mundane activities such as stopping into shops and having coffee. He was accompanied by a friend who was responsible for his safety and introduced him to people who want to interact with him.

The exhibition consists of a video of the street performance, a video of Eric’s vision through the goggles (namely four POV’s), a full goggle set up for use by one visitor at a time, and four little screens that allow the rest of the public to view what that person is experiencing. On display are also the Alien “eeyee” suit that Eric was wearing, as well as the Master suit worn by the friend. Both suits are meant to allow the public to “see through” him.

The artist will be available to demonstrate the workings of eeyee from 4 to 6pm when the exhibition is open.

Eric received a diploma in digital media studies at IVE in 2001 followed by a B.A. at the School of Creative Media of the City University of Hong Kong in 2005. In 2005, he made his first trip abroad when he received an honorable mention at the Media Art Biennial in Poland for his eight-minute work Sliding Whites, becoming the first Hong Kong artist to win recognition at this prestigious event.

Eric’s residency at Location One is supported by the Asian Cultural Council.

Online: www.ericsiuart.com

Luis Nobre
Hold It! 2008

Hold It! is an installation that creates a fantastical, sometimes hallucinatory vision of nature, the city and the artist’s studio. Visual play is generated by overlapping layers of drawings, ephemeral sculptures made of paper and cardboard, light wire objects, all constructed by Nobre in-situ. For the first time the artist also incorporates video into his work, with footage taken on the Williamsburg bridge, in Greenpoint, and in his native Portugal.

The coming together of all these elements whose scale, medium and density are so disparate, creates a vibration, a tension of line and meaning that feed the artist’s ongoing exploration of nature, survival and the “implications of the empty space” between the originally observed subject and its displayed rendition.
Luis Nobre graduated in 2001 from the Escola Superior de Arte e Design, Caldas da Rainha, Lisbon. Exhibitions include the 5th International Biennial of Sculpture and Drawing, Caldas da Rainha; Sub.864-873, Museu Malhoa, Caldas da Rainha; Between Heaven and Hell, Museum of Natural History, Lisbon; Year of the Dog, Ale and Porter Arts, Bradford, UK; Ohhh Naturel! Madame Lillies, London.

Online: www.luisnobre.net

Luis Nobre’s residency at Location One is supported by dgArtes, Ministerio da Cultura, Lisbon, Fundação Ilidio Pinho, & Instituto Camões

556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
tel 212.255.0719 e-mail contact@chelseaartmuseum.org
fax 212.255.2368
open Tuesday through Saturday Noon to 6pm
Thursday Noon to 8pm
closed Sunday and Monday
$8 adults, $4 students and seniors, free for members and visitors 16 and under

> Hoofers’ House
> Hosted by Jason Samuels Smith
> Featuring DJ Reborn
>
> Live Visuals by Rashaad Newsome
>
> Friday, May 23, 8pm
>
> FREE
>
> Co-Presented with The Studio Museum in Harlem
>
> Curated by Rashida Bumbray
>
>
>
>
> Hoofers’ House is an ongoing quarterly series where some of the
> best of New York City’s rhythm tap community come together to share
> and showcase their moves. Among the most unique and cutting edge tap
> jam sessions in the city, Hoofers’ House has been
> propelling a rejuvenation of the genre for the last several years
> with the addition of live and electronic music and projected
> visuals. Prominent past participants who have graced the floor
> include figures such as Fayard Nicholas, Jimmy Slyde, Tina Pratt,
> Jason Bernard and Ayodele Casel. So come enjoy the show or bring
> your shoes and join the jam!
>
> This program is made possible with generous support from Altria Group,
> Inc., The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Jerome Robbins
> Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and with public funds from
> the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York
> State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
>
>
> Photographer: Ray Llanos
>
> For more information about all
> Kitchen events, visit
> www.thekitchen.org.
> The Kitchen is located
> at 512 West 19th Street between 10th and 11th
> Avenues.
> Subway: A, C, E to 14th Street; 1 to 18th Street;
> L to 8th Avenue

avec le concours de la Ville de Brest, de Brest métrpole océane, du Conseil Général
du Finistère, du Conseil Régional de Bretagne et du Ministère de la Culture et de la
Communication (DRAC Bretagne)

http://www.cac-passerelle.com/isabelle-ferreira.html

The international residence program at SoHo’s Location One convenes to perform and screen works on 4 screens. Artists showcased tonight include:

Rob Kennedy
Nina Sobell
Eric Siu
Rashaad Newsome
Aoife Collins
Kuba Bakowski
Daniel Andersson
Katia Kameli
Luis Nobre

http://www.monkeytownhq.com/5_11_08.html

2×2: New Randy & Bob Holman w/ Vito Ricci
Friday - May 2nd, 2008
8:00 pm poetry, 9:00 pm show
tickets $15

Reservations 212.334.3347

2×2 brings together two poet/musician duos in a night of New Poetry, Old School style

New Randy is poet Holly Anderson (“density and loneliness of the City” (NYTimes)) and musician Lisa B. Burns (“my personal favorite”(Lenny Kaye)).

Bob Holman, proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club, is “Dean of the Scene” (Seventeen). Vito Ricci is “Downtown Musician Laureate #1” (World Magazine).

New Randy: Q. What happens when a blue-eyed writer and a dark-haired singer conjure Sappho drinking vodkas in a neighborhood bar? A. They start writing about The Nature of Longing and the Longing for Nature. “If you’re young and taking love too seriously, if you’re old and giving up on it, if you’re a guy who can’t figure out women, if you’re a woman who’s not sure how strange you are, you could probably learn something from New Randy. Sure, it’s home-made… all the good stuff is.” –Jennifer Kelly, Splendid Magazine.

Bob Holman w/ Vito Ricci perform from their new CD “The Awesome Whatever” (Bowery Records): Bob Holman, an originator of the Spoken Word and Slam Poetry scenes, shows how it’s done in nine tracks (plus an Easter Egg encore), produced and with music by his long-time collaborator in rhyme, master musician of Maspeth Vito Ricci. With the zipzap influence of the Hipperama of the Classics, Lord Buckley, and the on-kilter space shots of Captain Beefheart, Holman glides cross genres, boundaries and streams of consciousness like a your own personal tour guide on the road to Nirvana. “Nice work, Bob.” –Lou Reed

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The Awesome Whatever!

First CD in 9 Years from the “Dean of the Scene” (Seventeen Magazine)
(when the scene is Poetry!)

Holman’s last CD, “In With the Out Crowd” was produced by needle-drop wizard Hal Willner and released by the ahead-of-its-time, lamented Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records, a label Holman founded in the mid 90s with music vet Bill Adler and legendary poet Sekou Sundiata. THE AWESOME WHATEVER is the first release of Bowery Records, part of the amazing goings-on at the Bowery Poetry Club where Holman is proprietor.

The all-live, one-session, no overdub THE AWESOME WHATEVER is a milestone in Spoken Word. Holman’s most recent book, A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (Aperture, 2006), a gorgeous, oversize collaboration with Chuck Close, adds a new graphic dimension to his poems so they stand up and dance with Close’s lush daguerreotypes. Likewise, in TAW, Holman expands the vocabulary of spoken word by actually improvising lyrics, adding gestural sounds as oral tradition placeholders, and making poetry journeys exploring genres from Reggae to Lounge to Flamenco.

“Vito called me up one day and said he’d found a terrific studio, that’s how it all started,” says the Czar of the Spoken Word (Daily News). “Spin Studio on Astoria, how rootsy can you get? And Nic K as engineer — the guy was cracking up in my ear as I was improvising, the greatest solo audience a poet could ever have.”

“A studio is a tool for creating poetry,” Holman continues. “Just as a comfy, inspiring writing space and a great pen and paper, or a keyboard that’s weighted and clacks appropriately are conducive to getting the words down on paper, so a studio where you can really hear yourself pushes the poem out in a relaxed, adventuresome way.”

You can count Bob’s admirers on both hands, feet, and various other body parts: he and jazz violinist Billy Bang have an ongoing band, Bang Holman; he performs often with David “Pere Ubu” Thomas in his opera Mirror Man (recording available on Thirsty Ear); and in 2006 was in the original cast of Spalding Gray’s “Stories Left to Tell.” Lou Reed’s in Bob’s camp (“Bob is my kind of poet”), Ani Di Franco gives him “an A+!” and Russell Banks relates, “”Holman’s funky urban chants call back good memories of Beat collaborations between poetry and music. He’s keeping that tradition alive and well.”

The opening cut, “She Never Phoned Me Back,” has the craziest history. Bob was performing at the University of California, San Diego, in a series curated by the great jazz poet Quincy Troupe. “We always try to get Bob on the radio, “ says Troupe, “because he speaks poetry. This day the host challenged Bob to put his theories into practice by improvising a poem right on the air! Bob suggested that the engineer throw down some beats, and they had a caller call in the title: “She Never Phoned Me Back” The result was totally outta sight, and was completely off the dome!” “I had several poems spread out in front of me,” remembers Holman, “”How Kora Was Born” for my griot, the Gambian poet/musician Papa Susso and “Ornettes” for Ornette Coleman – I was spending time with Ornette then. So I mixed, matched, hitched and hatched and the beats were infections. It just happened.” Indeed.

The remainder of the tracks were all recorded at Spin Studios on April 12, 2007.

The next track is the CD’s Break Out Hit: “Love Lake.” Written for Bob’s wife, the artist Elizabeth Murray, who died in August, this poem answered Vito’s challenge: “Bob, if you can write anything, why not write a hit song?” “Love Lake,” the result, begins with one of poetry’s great couplets: “You never thought it could happen to you/ I never thought the same thing too.” In the live TAW version, Holman takes on the glottal crunch of a carny pitchman gradually evolving into a heart-rending plea for transcendent universal love. The tune is chock full of what Holman calls “oralities”: those little spoken catch phrases between verses, the “uh-huhs” and “so far away I couldn’t hear it myself” commentaries of which James Brown was the master, and for poets in the oral tradition, serve both as fillers while the next verse is being concocted, and as the true improvisational interchanges with the audience that make a poem an event. Too much theory? Give a listen, and see if you don’t gently float downriver to the unity of the species which is “Love Lake.”

The next cut, “The Meaning of Meaning,” is a totally deconstructed poem/song. It begins with Bob requesting Vito to do the Other Poem, which of course turns out to be the song they are doing right now! Confusing, you betcha, totally appropriately too: “What’s the meaning of meaning/What’s the purpose of purpose/ What’s the use – Can I use it/It feels so good to refuse it!” wails Holman. One critic called Bob and Vito’s version at the annual St Mark’s Poetry Project New Years Day Marathon, “Best of Show,” adding – “it was like hearing the individual beaten down by the implacable forces of history.”

The next poem, “January,” is an ode to a “chilly-willy of a month,” a “month that seems like a year,” that keeps losing its place, falling in love, and forgetting it’s a poem. “Pasta Mon,” a hilarious paean to a Yuppie’s inability to break into reggae, “Pasta Mon starrin on hiz own tv show/Yesterday’s menu’s already obsolete-o/ Gonna show you how to roll a pasta-filled burrito.” Things get darker by the end:

A nickel for a can & a nickel for a bottle
A trickle down sound from the nickel that bought you
America the Beautiful in quarantine
A cardboard mattress and a cardboard dream

Barbecue trashcans linin the Hudson
Dogs are howlin as you throw the spuds on
Pasta Mon’s recipes gettin kinda smelly
Rat ratatouille & vermin vermicelli

Three poems with music follow – a praise poem “For Paul and Everybody Else” written for Paul Gulielmetti, the activist tenant lawyer who died last year, segues through a long musical ramble to “Night of the Living Dead,” addressed to two of Bob’s friends, Spalding Gray, the writer/monologist, and Pedro Pietri, the dada Nuyorican poet/playwright. Though they never knew each other, they meet in the poem, as they did in death – Gray’s body washing ashore after his wintertime suicide leap from the Staten Island Ferry just days after Pietri died on March 2 or 2, 2003 (he was on a plane at midnight between time zones when he passed, which is a point in the poem) from stomach cancer. Another praise poem for Pedro, “On the Street Named Pedro Pietri,” follows, a poem that was read in celebration on the day that East Third between B & C was declared “Reverend Pedro Pietri Way.” In 1989, Holman helped reopen the Nuyorican Poets Café on this block, and the Poetry Slams he ran 1989-96, the first in the City, were landmarks in the renaissance of poetry.

“sweat&sexandpolitics,” one of Bob and Vito’s original raps from their touring show “Panic*DJ! The Plain White Rapper,” is recapitulated in a stripped-down very 07 version. The final cut is a long spoken word piece, “Picasso in Barcelona,” an ekphrastic (work of art inspired by another work of art) suite of poems based on Picasso’s teenage work as when he lived in Catalonia:
In 1900 the future
Opened up its arms
I invented the car
And Rembrandt

Take off your clothes
I will make a book cover
And put a photo of me on the back
To make sure it sells

Every morning I wake up
Give myself a big kiss
And paint a masterpiece
Then I have a coffee

Thus ends THE AWESOME WHATEVER. If you want to hear the encore (secret track), well, the CD is enclosed! On the CD, the listener is dared to “See if you can tell which of Bob’s filigrees are straight off the dome.” For Bob, working in collaboration with Vito and Nic, gave him the support to take it all the way out – to launch his improvisational poetic skills to create a new kind of poem, which is in fact, the original way poems were written, I mean spoken! It’s Awesome! Whatever.

April 24-June 14, 2008
Thursday April 24th, opening 6 -8 pm
open through Saturday June 14th

Aoife Collins (pron Ee-fa) will be showing a number of sculptural and two dimensional works for her exhibition at Location One, exploring synthetic experience and mimesis, transference and its relationship to text and historical figures and influence upon cultural legacy.

Aoife’s interdisciplinary practice is shaped by recurrent themes of permutation, multiplicity, cultural paraphernalia and mass identification. Works are made out of existing materials, substances and structures that are transferred into new forms of narration. In her attempt to open up the realm of possibility, the artist pays close attention to the ability of objects to role-play and the extent of their mutability.

In 2002. Aoife earned a B.A. from National College of Art & Design, Dublin followed in 2004 by an M.A., Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. In 2006 she completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent exhibitions include: The Devil in miss Jones, Meals & SUVs, London (2006); Eva, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick (2005) curated by Dan Cameron.

http://www.iaci-usa.org/locationone.html

Aoife’s residency at Location One is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Irish American Cultural Institute.

more >>

Artist-in-Studio As Spectacle: Internal Message Search: A Performative Installation

April 18-April 30, 2008
artist reception: Thursday, April 24, 6 - 8 pm

Nina Sobell will install her studio in Location One’s Project Gallery, which includes recent wax
sculptures, drawings, keyboard, guitar and mic.
Visitors to the gallery will be able to engage in a dialogue with the artist about this work, and may bring their own instruments to improvise with her live on the web.

Sobell pioneered the use of video, computers, and interactivity in art, as well as performance on the Web. Since 1969, when she first used video to document participants’ undirected interactions with her sculptures, she investigates the extent to which video enables her to manipulate the relation between time and space, and to create a vortex for human experience, in which the mediated event coincides with public experience, memory, and relationships. Groundbreaking projects include ParkBench and VirtuAlice, and the ongoing Interactive Encephalographic Brainwave Drawings.

Nina’s work has been shown throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. An award-winning printmaker and figurative sculptor, an avid improvisational guitarist and keyboardist, she can be seen sculpting Emily in the ParkBench Performance Archives and heard playing music there as well.

LIVESTREAM & ARTIST PAGE

related works:
http://www.cat.nyu.edu/parkbench
http://www.cat.nyu.edu/parkbench/portfolio/5/frame.html

Nina Sobell’s residency at Location One is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

http://ninasobell.com

SOLO SHOW: DANIEL ANDERSSON

Exhibition runs for six month: April 12th until October 19th 2008
Opening: April 12th, from 17.00 - 19.00
www.depaviljoens.nl

Artists: Richard Wentworth, Marjolijn Dijkman, Savage, Eric Van Hove, Melle Smets,
Maurits Hertzberger, Frank Koolen, Sara Kolster, Derek Holzer, Marc Boon,
Kristin Posehn, SoundTransit, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Julie Peeters.

“The spatial behaviours that underpin present day life are subject to a broad pattern of structural change, a silent revolution often referred to as the information society, portrayed as a new, knowledge-based and borderless world, commonly associated with a collapse of time and space. As a result, spatial planning at a variety of scales is dealing with a new economic geography, electronic-based transactions, increased mobility and accessibility, and fundamental changes in the valorisation of spatial resources and assets. This information society has implications for future patterns of spatial development, creating a need for different and sometimes radical imaginations of spatial futures. (…)”
Gordon Dabinett, Planning and spatial justice in an information society,
in Localism and the information society, Edited and compiled by Richard Berry & Dave McLaughlin, UK, 2007.

The exhibition follows a workshop hosted by the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, and partly ponder upon the area F-7, the only plot of land in the heart of Almere that hasn’t been ruler drawn yet.
New works will be developed and added throughout the duration of the show.

Amongst the works I present:
- Ecumenopolis (Worldwide, 2004-2008)
An MJPG nonlinear digital film experimenting with cinema as an apparatus of memory, a video still life of a sort. Using over 1500 short videos filmed in 60 cities, the aim of the piece is to represent the idea that in the future urban areas and megalopolises would eventually fuse and there would be a single continuous world-wide city as a progression from the current urbanization and population growth trends. As Brans Stassen, the man behind the planning of Almere said himself; such a dynamic is already occurring on a regional level in Flevoland.
- Filipino emigration series (The Philippines, 2008)
60 ID pictures in a specially designed cabinet (250×26x90cm)
- Bush’s names in Chinese (China, 2004)
Shanghaiese manufactured copper sheets (120×200cm)

Invitation
Location One presents its first ever “Virtual Residency Project” in the form of a call to artists and other creative individuals with the express purpose of fostering collaboration and creativity across geographical expanses and areas of expertise around the topic of the 2008 US Presidential Election. The goal of this residency is to find 3 participants who are not necessarily physically proximate but who are willing to collaborate with other artists, engineers, scientists, writers, musicians, poets, and activists to develop a project using such non-F2F (face to face) interfaces such as webcams, email, chat, video, blogs, Second Life, MIDI, skype, walkie-talkie, snail mail, radio or POTS (plain old telephone service), tin cans on string, or any other means of collaboration to develop a project that will be presented at Location One in the fall of 2008, in advance of the US Presidential election.

Though we will consider international residents, the theme of this inaugural residency is the 2008 Presidential Election and the buildup around this pivotal political event. The theme can be interpreted as broadly or as literally as the participants would like, the project will be developed collaboratively by the 3 individuals chosen for this residency project.

Location One will provide an area on its website where the project can develop publically through blogging, video, audio or other means.

Acceptable forms of Submission:
Please send CV, url or any materials to virtualresidency@location1.org by midnight May 15, 2008. Please include a few lines describing why you are interested in a collaborative virtual residency.

What kind of work should it be?
The project will be developed wholly by the participants. Location One can provide curatorial and technical assistance, but the final work will be created “offsite” or online. Online performance, remote music jam, streaming video, blogs, flash animations, radio transmissions, podcasts, Second Life theatre, iChat panel discussions, remote-controlled MIDI robot kittens acting out the debates are all examples of acceptable forms that the project may take. We are leaving the parameters intentionally broad in the hopes that it will elicit deeply creative responses to this topic.

I am happy to announce three events that I am going to participate in April. Hope you can join me if you will be around New York.

Best,
Eric

www.ericsiuart.com

Dorkbot Presentation
I am going to give a presention on “Optical Handlers -Quadocular” work-in-progress and “Fack Hack” in Dorkbot. If you have time, come share some ideas.
2 April, 08, 7pm
Location One, 26 Greene Street, New York
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotnyc/02.april.2008/index.shtml

Monkeytown
“Super Cop World” will be featuring in “Samson Young and Matrix Music Collaborators”.
14 April, 14, 8pm
Monkeytown, 58 N.3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
$5 Door, $10 Food/Drinks Minimun
http://www.samsonyoung.com
http://www.monkeytownhq.com

Matrix Residency @ Abrons Arts Center
“Rainy Nights” will be featuring with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1st mvt) by W.A. Mozart as a multi-media music performance.
18 April, 7:30pm / 19 April 3pm / 20 April 3pm
Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street. New York
Tickets: $10
www.theatermania.com / 212. 352.3101

Thomas Bauer / Nathan Coley / Marcelline Delbecq / Aurélien Froment /
Victor Man / David Noonan / Géraldine Pastor-Lloret / Gail Pickering /
Jimmy Robert / Virginie Yassef

Vernissage samedi 5 avril à 17h30

Parc Saint Léger – Centre d’art contemporain

————————————————————————-

NAVETTE GRATUITE DE PARIS / INSCRIPTION AU 03 86 90 96 60

14h15 Départ de Paris - RDV place de la République, devant le restaurant McDonald’s (arrêt pour les cars)
17h30 Arrivée à Pougues-les-Eaux, vernissage au Parc Saint Léger
19h Buffet
21h Départ de Pougues-les-Eaux (arrivée à Paris vers minuit)

Visuel : Gail Pickering

Exposition ouverte du 6 avril au 8 juin 2008, du mercredi au dimanche,
de 14h à 18h et sur rendez-vous - Ouvert les jours fériés - Entrée libre

bises
virginie

Jani Ruscica: ”Batbox / Beatbox”

Batbox / Beatbox by Jani Ruscica is a work consisting of two experimental short films. Batbox / Beatbox reveals the limitations of human sight both in nature and in a cultural context. This work parallels two very opposed environments: nature depicted through bats’ nightly echolocation and the urban metropolis navigated by hip-hop artists.

“The films focus on two different ways to use sound and movement as tools to navigate and identify one’s environment. In Batbox sound and movement is portrayed as a biological phenomenon, in Beatbox as a cultural one. The dialogue between the two short films is skilfully realised on a structural, aural and contextual level”, says curator Marita Muukkonen from FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange.

Ruscica has realised Batbox in collaboration with bat bioacoustics researcher Jon Flanders from Bristol University in England. Shot in a bat research laboratory and at night-time in the woodlands in Dorset, Batbox is a poetic depiction of bats’ capacity to use sound as a tool to locate themselves geographically. The searchlight used in the dark woods reveals human’s inability to see.

The leading roles in Beatbox are played by New York beatboxers Kid Lucky and Shockwave as well as Spoken Word artist Vocab. The spotlight used to highlight the suburban streets, basketball courts and subway tracks reveals the urban space a stage. Beatboxing is often called the fifth element of hip-hop; it was created in the South Bronx in the late 1970’s. With the lack of instruments and decks hip-hoppers started to emulate the sound of turntables, beats and drums with their voice. In the process Ruscica gave free rein to the beatboxers. Artistic collaboration and dialogue became central, the idea of creating together.

The work reflects on cultural processes, and on different ways to comprehend one’s living environment as well as on the aim to see without prejudice.

Jani Ruscica (b. 1978, Savonlinna, Finland) has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London and is currently finishing his Master of Arts (Art and Design) degree at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. Ruscica has worked as artist-in-residence in New York, Amsterdam and the Faroe Islands, and his video works have been exhibited in various international exhibitions, for example in London, Copenhagen, Berlin, St Petersburg, Barcelona and New York

Batbox / Beatbox will be on show at the Digital & Video Art Fair, The Streets in one of the twenty shipping containers brought to the gallery district in West Chelsea, New York for this event, from March 25 to March 30, 2008 with a preview on Saturday March 22, 2008 from 4 pm to 8 pm.

Batbox / Beatbox is being organized in collaboration with FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange and the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.

Further information:
Jani Ruscica: ”Batbox / Beatbox”: http://www.galleriahuuto.net/2006/etusivu/text_ruscica/engl.html

Gallery Side 2
Booth 680

Pier 94
Twelfth Avenue at 55th Street
New York City

The Armory Show 2008 Opening Day takes place Wednesday, March 26th for invited guests.

Opening Hours:
Thursday, March 27 - Saturday, March 29 Noon to 8 pm
Sunday, March 30 Noon to 7 pm
Tickets prices:

General Admission US$30

《Submerging blue》　2003　digital photography

Name：Wu Dar-Kuen
Participating project： Taipei - Tokyo Exchange Residency Program
Period：January 4th, 2008 – March 31st, 2008
Genre：Visual Art
Country (activity based)： Taiwan
For further information of the project, click here.

*Note: The visual aspect of this interview was the result of an unexplained technical mishap, one which pleased everyone involved.

Glen Rumsey Dance Project returns to Location One with this reprise of “ignored in my heaven…” a suite of surreal and magical dances inspired by dream and travel journals

Glen Rumsey Dance Project, ignored in my heaven…
Originally commissioned by Location One in 2005. (Please note that the current exhibition Social Edit by Tracey Moffatt will be CLOSED the following days, Thursday, Friday Saturday, April 3, 4 and 5.
Tickets $15, members free.

Originally performed September 15-17 & September 22-24, 2005.

press articles from the 2005 performances:
Gay City News
Village Voice
Village Voice “Don’t Call it ‘Project Runway, the Art Exhibit” by Corina Zappia
Dance Review Times

http://newspapertree.com/culture/2221-my-life-at-the-border-arts-residency

Snake Alley is part of Asian Contemporary Art Week which connects leading New York City galleries and museums in a citywide event comprising of public programs such as exhibitions, receptions, lectures and performances. The Week focuses on the broad spectrum of artworks produced by Asian contemporary artists working in their home countries and abroad. Please see details from http://www.acaw.net/ACAW2008/aboutacaw/

Snake Alley is a two-venue group exhibition of cutting-edge Taiwanese contemporary art at The Taipei Cultural Center and The Gabarron Foundation Carriage House Center for the Arts—Curated by Eric C. Shiner

Deep in the midst of Taiwan’s capital Taipei lies the Wanhua District, the city’s most historic area and home to Longshan Temple, the city’s oldest religious structure. The area was also home to Taipei’s red light district and a tourist attraction called Snake Alley where live animals including snakes and turtles were displayed in small cages—and often publicly killed for the extraction of their blood which could be consumed on site for good health and sexual prowess— until animal rights activists successfully brought the practice to a stop in the 1990s, or, more likely, pushed these activities behind closed doors, and thus ending this spectacle that was interweaved with tradition and hucksterism writ large. Today, it is a place filled with restaurants, night markets and shops, reflective of the bustling hub of the gleaming modern city that surrounds it. Yet, at the heart of Wanhua lie the secrets of Taipei’s past, a conceptual and shared history that artists from Taiwan have looked to again and again for subject matter that so often plays out in their work. In SNAKE ALLEY, the work of many of Taiwan’s most prominent contemporary artists shows how they are negotiating the epic changes that have occurred over the last two decades in Taiwan as the nation has exploded economically, and how they rectify those changes with an at times troubling past.

All of the artists in the exhibition examine the secrets, shadows and growing pains of contemporary Taiwanese culture. By no means pessimistic, their works smartly analyze the underground aspects of a specific site bound in the throes of unprecedented growth and informed by the binary of stability versus uncertainty that comes along with it. These artists look at the themes of identity, sexuality, politics and the environment (both built and natural) frequently, making critically-aware art that engages rather than condemns the ever-changing face of Taiwan.

Photojournalist and artist Chang Chien-Chi, for example, often turns his camera’s lens on the unspoken. His best known project comprised portraits of psychiatric patients whose families deeded them over to a temple complex known for taking in the unwanted. In SNAKE ALLEY, Chang again focuses on a topic of current debate in Taiwan: the growing number of older Taiwanese men who are traveling to Vietnam to use a service that matches them with a wife. Chang documents the process from start to finish in his “Double Happiness” series, showing the young women being interviewed, documented and eventually married (in a group ceremony) to their new mates from the other side of Asia. The portraits show resignation and excitement in not only the brides, but the nervous grooms as well, and document the simple fact that due to demographics, there simply aren’t enough women of marriageable age available for every potential husband back in Taiwan.

Twin brothers Chang Keng-Hua and Chang Geng-Hwa collaborate on projects revolving around technology and violence, and the fine line between the two. Here, the brothers display works from their “Shotgun Blue” series, sumptuous imagery of machine guns wrapped in black nylons and set against a rich blue ground. By encasing these lethal weapons in a product used in the construction of beauty—and the occasional bank heist—the Changs attempt to put a soft edge on the hard core realities of a world marred by war and violence, while at the same time critically addressing the media’s fixation on packaging war as a consumer product in and of itself. Young artist Chang Ling also looks at the meeting point of media and culture in his eerie paintings that combine traditional Chinese motifs, such as imagery of animals and nature, with such contemporary subject matter as war planes and mutated bodies. His fleshy and mysterious beasts populate a world riddled with violence, suggesting that Armageddon is upon us, or that it has already come to pass. Painter Wu Tien-Chang also depicts alternate bodies in his work, most often in the form of a strange clown-like character who appears again and again in the artist’s oeuvre. Whether riding a bicycle built for two or rowing in a boat, Wu’s strange and slightly menacing clowns, like Chang Ling’s animals, allow us to imagine a world populated by the completely bizarre.

Contemporary dance wunderkind Chou Shuyi not only pushes into uncharted territory in his choreography and dance performances, but also goes so far as to create installation art within which he stages dance happenings. Seemingly impromptu in nature, his jolting recitals are in actuality very much planned and rehearsed; their manic movements and seizure-like vibrations standing in for the real bodies which navigate the space of a radically-shifting Taiwanese landscape, both actual and psychological. Photographer and performance artist Hou I-Ting also looks at the topic of changing bodies in space by using herself as the primary subject of her work. Hou uses costuming and make-up to create alternate personalities, for example a sexy—yet faceless—figure in Day-Glo fishnets and a neon yellow wig in an early video work, while using a projector in other photo-based work to literally screen other possible selves onto her actual face and body. In so doing, Hou melds fantasy and reality, making us question the limits of both.

Painter Hua Chien-Chiang also creates fantasy environments, often using mythic animals and technologically-enhanced bodies as the main characters in his vivid canvases. In Hua’s world, birds sprouting earphones or USB cables as plumage are the norm, as are human beings with recharger attachment portals and futuristic jetpacks. Here, the past and the future become one, exactly mimicking the actual conditions of society in flux that so defines contemporary Taiwan. Sculptor and installation artist Huang Shih-Chieh also works within this vocabulary, but in radically different—and often large-scale—ways. A representative of Taiwan at the 2007 Venice Biennale, Huang is known for using junk technology as the primary material in his work. Highlighter fluid, cheap plastic shopping bags, remote control toy motors and other odd elements all come together in Huang’s flashing and whirring contraptions as if to bring a sense of optimism to the patchwork nature of life in the here-and-now. For SNAKE ALLEY, Huang installs his massive work Organic Concept in the carriage house of the Gabarron Foundation at 149 East 38th Street. Consisting of just a few box fans and meter-upon-meter of reconstituted plastic bags, the billowing snake form that results inhabits the entire space and is both menacing and tranquil in equal measure. Sculptor Wong Yuh-Shioh also uses the detritus of life—polystyrene foam, marbles, bricks—to piece together fantasy realms based in the realm of nature. Her Jellyfish Lamp sends out a bright light that seems to expose the cheap materials from which it is made, making us question the concept of truth and beauty, and indeed of life itself.

Carrying on with this theme, artist Ku Shih-Yung presents a video work, The Astonishment of What I Have Been Through Abolishes the Aureola of Experience, that features an animated skeleton cavorting on the screen. Part of a larger installation that was presented at the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art, the work looks at the underpinnings of life and how something as simple as our own biological framework can be construed in a variety of ways, while at the same time charting the course of time on our physical containers. And it is those very containers that photographer Kuo Hui-Chan takes as her subject matter, often times using her own body as the canvas upon which she depicts alternate beings or fantasy environments. Literally painting aspects of architecture, nature and urban views over her skin and clothes, Kuo becomes a chameleon that perfectly blends into her surroundings, whether against a back alley wall in downtown Taipei, or standing in a rice paddy in the countryside. By becoming one with the diverse landscapes of Taiwan, Kuo charts her lived environment by fusing herself to its very make-up.

The youngest artist in the show, Lan Yuan-Hung, also manipulates the body, however does so not to blend in, but to stand out. His grotesque digital manipulations feature men across a variety of age groups and body types lying in their beds in contorted poses and sprouting additional appendages such as an extra leg here or a third arm there. Seemingly depicting the after effects of a toxic spill or nuclear disaster, Lan’s mutants both repulse and attract thanks to their focus on the flexibility of the human form, whether through digital or actual means. Video artist and photographer Lin Hsin-I also features mutants in her animated films and enhanced photography. Here, the artist plays the role of a futuristic nymph with cyber eyes and sockets embedded into her flesh, no doubt a site for the implantation of nourishment, energy or data. Lin’s work often features this cyborg character in lush tropical environments, an effect that makes her robot-like form appear even further distanced from nature. She questions the role of the human corpus as technology gradually overtakes it, positing that at some point in the not-too-distant future we may all begin to morph into hybrid bodies that straddle the binary of nature versus technology. Video pioneer Yuan Goang-Ming also explores this divide in his new series of videos and C-prints composed of endless thickets of lush green leaves, all without life-giving veins below their glistening surfaces. Through using technology to erase an important element of his natural subject, Yuan takes on the role of creator, editor and fabricator in one fell swoop, producing a faux nature that can never exist in real life.

For sculptor Shyu Ruey-Shiann, this same binary has always infused his work with a hard-edged grit and witty sense of humor. Known for his large-scale sculptural works made from old machine parts, working motors, fan belts and gears, Hsu seems to utilize the detritus of industry as the primary building blocks of his elaborate works. Referencing Taiwan’s own loss of industrial jobs due to rising production costs and the migration of factories to mainland China in the 1990s, Hsu’s work gives the past’s mechanical ghosts a new lease on life. Here, his new sculpture Between comprises two standard kitchen garbage cans in metal. When guests use the foot pedal to open the can, they are confronted with a most unexpected barrage: lion roars exploding from the speakers set within. As with his massive churning sculptures, Hsu here too seamlessly blends the natural with the man-made, forcing us to question where the line of distinction between the two truly lies.

Video artist Tseng Yu-Chin also confronts the “man-made” in his work, but not via industrial or technological means. Tseng is much more concerned with the production of identity as it develops in childhood and how the fears, dreams and secrets of our youth remain with us for a lifetime. Perhaps Taiwan’s most celebrated young artist, with a showing at Documenta in 2007 and the recent receipt of China’s most celebrated art prize, the ACCC Award, Tseng has created an entire aesthetic vocabulary based on diverted glances, childhood uncertainty and a sense of longing for something just outside the camera’s frame. Haunting in its loneliness, Tseng’s work takes us back to the universal time of feeling out of place and prompts us to think about the influence these memories have on us today. Novelist and photographer Seven U also takes us back in time, whether through a literary passage about the glories of youth, or through his stark black and white photography that documents the abandoned or hidden space of cities around the world. In his “Low” series, U snaps pictures in old factories and empty buildings throughout Taipei, showing that even in the face of unprecedented development and economic growth, unwanted and unkempt spaces still exist. Indeed, all of the artists in SNAKE ALLEY turn to the secrets and fantasies of a society in flux for inspiration, and in so doing, create works of art that capture the uncertainty, aspirations and realities of life in Taiwan today.

tpecc.org

Détourned Menu: Food in the Form of Activism
March 07 - April 25, 2008

555 Broadway, 10012, New York, Ny
Opening Reception & Performance by Cori Crowley & Bert Bergen
Friday, March 7, 6pm - 8pm.

Artist by Erik Carver & Howard Huang, The Center for Tactical Magic, Cori Crowley & Bert Bergen, DoEAT, Bessma Khalaf, Alessandro Nassiri, Chris Sollars & Jerome Waag, Eva Strohmeier, and Adam Zaretsky.

Curated by Brianna Toth

The term “détournement” comes from the political and artistic movement Situationist International, which became known for the reuse of existing elements within well-known media in order to create new work with a different message.Détourned Menu: Food in the Form of Activismbrings together a group of artists who investigate issues raised by the proliferation of biotechnology, perceived scarcity, and the weakening of standards that devalue terms such as “organic” and “all natural.” The performing, visual and collaborative artists included within this exhibition use food as a basis for their art and public education efforts. In so doing, they explore the ways in which food is intertwined with the interactions and decisions of our everyday lives. Providing food for thought, as well as something to fill one’s belly, the artists disrupt the visual and spatial codes of everyday life in order to render legible the relationship between food and the economic, social, ethical, and political realms.

If you have any questions about this exhibition, please contact:
suzuki@iseny.org

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
alessandro nassiri tabibzadeh

http://www.alessandronassiri.it
http://www.alessandronassiri.net

OPENING RECEPTION; Monday, March 10. 2008 at 6 pm

EXHIBITION OPEN FROM 11.03  till 20.04.2008, everyday  except for Mondays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friadys to 9 p.m.

Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle
Al. Ujazdowskie 6, 00-461 Warsaw
Tel. (48 22) 628 12 71/3
www.csw.art.pl

February 26 - April 19, 2008
curated by Eric C. Shiner

Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 12, 6-8 pm
Artist-Curator talk and book signing: Tuesday, March 25 at 7 pm free

Location One is pleased to present three important films by Australian video pioneer Tracey Moffatt, perhaps one of the most revolutionary women artists to have ever worked in that medium. Known for her enchantingly beautiful yet often times dark portrayals of the role of subaltern “others” in both her native Australia and from cultures around the world, Moffatt’s narrative films offer the viewer a penetrative gaze into the realities and implicit fantasies that subjugation based on race and gender churns out. In her dual role as cultural critic and maker of art, Moffatt combines hard-edged life experiences with the technologies of video and photography to seam together pastiche-like vignettes that open a window onto the lives of her characters, whether that be an Australian aborigine or an African-American woman. In so doing, Moffatt not only presents the voice of “the other,” but perhaps more importantly provides a way out of the oft-times inescapable confines of racism, sexism and homophobia found in all corners of the globe. By granting her characters and viewers their own voice, Moffatt becomes champion of the subjugated and mediator between the lived here-and-now and the utopian world that many of us fantasize about one day realizing.

In the suite of videos on view in Social Edit, Moffatt, in collaboration with film editor Gary Hillberg, uses a strategy much different from her more well-known narrative films. Here, she utilizes montage and fracturing to literally excavate and mine the history of Hollywood films to create short movies that address the horrors of racism, Armageddon and destruction of things beautiful. Each work, culled from snippets of both early and contemporary films, some readily familiar and others completely unknown, becomes a thought-provoking journey into the collective memory of humankind, marked by the institutionalized-on-film traces of ill will that have been both opaquely and directly presented to us over the course of our lifetimes. By exposing the moments of subjugation found in Hollywood movies over the decades, whether in the form of racist rhetoric, visual depictions of the end of the world, or the creation and destruction of works of art, Moffatt allows us to rethink and reposition the implicit meaning of these brief filmic moments that might seem innocent one-by-one, but which produce a most ominous threat when bundled together one after another in a nonstop sequence that shocks and awakens in equal measure.

In LIP from 1999, Moffatt pieces together clips focusing on the African-American maid and her white employer to address the ever-present reality of racism and the ghosts of slavery that haunt contemporary America to this day. Through presenting the Hollywood depictions of these otherwise strong women as victim, comedic buffer or sassy troublemaker, Moffatt presents us with a seeming blueprint for the ways in which racism are promulgated in mainstream society, here in the form of popular entertainments that are often more influential on our thought-patterns than any other medium. Likewise, in ARTIST from 2000, Moffatt creates a sequence of film sequences that show artists working intensely on their masterworks, followed by a momentous climax in which chaos rules and the artists or others seemingly explode and destroy works of art in a near-orgiastic crescendo of rage and destructive force. In making such a work, Moffatt attempts to imbue the destroyed masterpieces on the celluloid with a new life, here in the form of a stand-alone work of art that reveals and questions Hollywood’s proclivity for depicting the artist as madman, dilettante or social outcast. Finally, in her recent work DOOMED from 2007, Moffatt analyzes world destruction imagery found in blockbuster movies to form a film brimming over with explosions, natural disasters and terroristic attacks to make a comment on our contemporary world’s fixation on terrorism and natural disasters, and perhaps more importantly, their omnipresence in mainstream media, and thus the front of our minds. By grouping together one disaster—and indeed one social ill or act of destruction—after another, Moffatt forces us to question that which we see on a daily basis, indeed to reevaluate the imagery and messages we are fed through Hollywood, television and news media day in and day out. For Tracey Moffatt, the fractures of film are a most ripe field from which one’s voice, identity and import can be recaptured, and from whence one can find comfort knowing that, once exposed for the social ills that they are, the depictions of subjugation from which these films are made can be turned into the very tools that will defeat them in the end. (ECS)

glass painted white on backside and black on front side with roofing paper.

Luis Nobre graduated in 2001 from the Escola Superior de Arte e Design, Caldas da Rainha, Lisbon. Exhibitions include the 5th International Biennial of Sculpture and Drawing, Caldas da Rainha; Sub.864-873, Museu Malhoa, Caldas da Rainha; Between Heaven and Hell, Museum of Natural History, Lisbon; Year of the Dog, Ale and Porter Arts, Bradford, UK; Ohhh Naturel! Madame Lillies, London.

At Location One , Luis Nobre’s residency is supported by dgArtes,Ministerio da Cultura, Lisbon www.dgartes.pt, Fundação Ilidio Pinho, & Instituto Camões

Online: http://www.luisnobre.net/

http://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme.html?section=view&event_id=70

Events & Exhibitions

Eric Siu & Luis Nobre
May 21, 2008

The filmaker Robert Adanto will be present at the screening. His documentary The Rising Tide [link] “investigates China’s meteoric march toward the future through the work of some of its most talented emerging artists, whose work reflects the country’s rising influence as an economic, political and cultural force in the global arena.” The film includes an interview with Xu Tan.

You are cordially invited to join Chinese artist Xu Tan and Nathalie Anglès, Director of Location One’s International Residency Program, for a special screening of the video Concert Hall of Zhen Daoxing  which premieres next week at the contemporary arts festival, ArtSheffield08, and for a viewing of Xu Tan’s installation Keywords  in our main gallery. more information

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the artist. This is also your last chance to see Xu Tan’s installation

In his video Concert Hall of Zheng Daoxing, Xu Tan presents the documentation of a concert performance of Mr Zheng Daoxing, of Yangjiang County, China, which he organized. Accompanying himself on a self-built electric guitar, Mr Zheng sings songs about his life, mixing his own tunes with revolutionary songs and traditional Chinese motifs. The story of his life is a convoluted tale about work: he has been a farmer, soldier, and truck driver. During the Chinese economic reforms of the 1980s, he established his own transportation company which went bankrupt during the 1997 economic crisis, whereupon he became a singer, touring the country at the age of 60. It has often been observed that under the ‘flexible’ and precarious working conditions imposed by current forms of turbo-capitalism, professional careers have become disjointed.

Since the life-long employment that used to provide the connecting thread in people’s biography is no longer the norm, the stories of their lives come to sound like an arbitrary collage of fragments.

The story of Mr Zheng’s life on the one hand seems to be precisely such a fragmented biography. On the other hand, however, it is through his very particular performance that he strings the fragments together again in his songs. Taking matters into his own hands, Mr Zheng creates a revolutionary form of new folklore, merging the tunes of the past with the improvised songs of the present into a hybrid form that, even and especially in its most bizarre moments, seems perfectly suited for telling the story of contemporary working biographies. In presenting Mr Zheng as an example, Xu Tan seems to suggest that it is from his songwriting that we could learn how to, now and in the future, tell the story of our lives.

February 10, 2008 - May 4, 2008

One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now, a traveling exhibition organized by the Asia Society, brings together seventeen artists from across the United States who challenge and extend the category of Asian American art. The title of the exhibition, drawn from the 1978 Blondie hit song, suggests a non-formulaic way of making or seeing art. The artists and their works characterize the freedom to choose, manipulate and reinvent different kinds of languages and issues, whether formal, conceptual, or political. Together, they defy a definitive conception of Asian American art.

The exhibition features painting, sculpture, video and installation art by contemporary Asian American artists who—with a strong sense of being American and an acute critical consciousness of world matters—grapple with issues of self in a way that sets them apart from their predecessors.

Curated by Melissa Chiu, Director and Curator of Contemporary Asian Art at the Asia Society Museum in New York, Karin Higa, Adjunct Senior Curator of Art at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, and Susette S. Min, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and Art History at the University of California, Davis.

Featured artists: Michael Arcega, Xavier Cha, Patty Chang, Binh Danh, Mari Eastman, Ala Ebtekar, Chitra Ganesh, Glenn Kaino, Geraldine Lau, Jiha Moon, Laurel Nakadate, Kaz Oshiro, Anna Sew Hoy, Jean Shin, Indigo Som, Mika Tajima, and Saira Wasim.

Contact Information
JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
369 East First Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
phone: 213.625.0414
fax: 213.625.1770
http://www.janm.org/

Where Are You From? Contemporary Art from Portugal
De Onde Vens? Arte Contemporânea de Portugal
February 1 - April 20, 2008

An exhibition of work by 21 Portuguese artists who draw on culture,
place, art, history, family, and theory in order to express where they are from
in photographs, video, sculpture, and works of new media.
Curated by Lesley Wright.

Panel Discussion
Friday, February 1, 2008
4:15 -5:45
Curator and critic Miguel Amado and exhibiting artists will discuss the nature of contemporary Portuguese art.
(Snow Date: Saturday, February 2, 4:15 pm)

Opening Reception
Friday, February 1, 2008
5:30 to 6:30 pm
(Snow Date: Saturday, February 2, 5:15 to 6:30 pm)

Community Day “Where are you from?”
Saturday, February 2, 1:00-3:00 pm
Bucksbaum Rotunda
Hands-on activities for people of all ages, tours of the exhibition. Make a book, write and illustrate your history, share your story.

Faulconer Gallery : Grinnell College
Bucksbaum Center for the Arts
Sixth Avenue and Park Street
Grinnell, Iowa 50112
641 / 269.4660

www.grinnell.edu/faulconergallery

“Proposal for Bagman & Straight Ladies” spoken word transformed into media. A work for two beamers & a cutter”. 2008

is addressed to New York.
Its footage is found on the street through accidental meetings and observations.
Text and title are illusive, both material and immaterial.
They exist in, on and through wall and exhibition space.
While giving ‘Bagman’ a shelter in an Art Gallery, a driving force will not be stopped to carve or scratch the wall.
Different possible self’s reveal vulnerability and aggression depending on the point of view.

In hundreds of very small, or very large drawings Hermelinde explores human hopes and fears, with relentless humour and ambiguity. Her writings, films and installations in public space (video/billboard)
analyse the connection between these anxieties in private and how they occur in the arena of everyday life (media/advertisement). She described her approach as of a “critical nearness”.

With special thanks to Vicky, Howard and a nameless person, who discovered me, hh, in NY, January, 2008.” Hermelinde Hergenhahn.

Rob Kennedy lives and works in Glasgow. His work shifts between sculpture, video and live video manipulation. Rob studied BA (hons) Fine Art at Brighton Polytechnic from 1987-1990.

Recent exhibitions include: Video Installation, Threshold Space, Perth, UK curated by Iliyana Nedkova December 2007. Live in Montreal’ installation & video, Studio Cormier, Montreal 2007. Sapphire Season’ Waygood Gallery, Newcastle, UK 2007. Something is wrong here…’ Solo show, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, UK 2007

Rob Kennedy’s residency at Location One is supported by The Scottish Arts Council

more info here..

Events & Exhibitions

Rob K