Friday, October 30, 2015
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Gentle Assault on the Senses [ARTICLE]
By KELSEY BOSCH
From Walker Art Center Crosscuts
OCTOBER 28, 2015
Five years after winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul returns with the surreal Cemetery of Splendor (Rak ti Khon Kaen), transporting us across time and reality. Instead of displacing the viewer through special effects, quick camera movements, and cuts, Weerasethakul takes a simpler approach: confusing the real and the dream with a passive camera. The compositions in his film are more often than not distant, still, and slow. As viewers of a media abundant world this stillness is arresting—allowing us to fully perceive each shot and contemplate each interaction. Cemetery of Splendor is a meditation on the fluidity of history, memory, identity, and relationships.
Weerasethakul spoke with us about the making of the film, his use of subtlety and minimal use of flashy film techniques, Thai culture, and censorship. Cemetery of Splendor will screen at Walker cinema on October 30–November 1.
What inspired Cemetery of Splendor—Rak Ti Khon Kaen?
The film is a search for old spirits I knew as a child: the school, the hospital, the cinema. The film is a merging of these places. I haven’t lived in my home town for almost 20 years. The city has changed so much, but when I went back I only saw old memories on top of the new buildings. One of my favorite spots, the Khon Kaen lake, remains the same.
In Cemetery of Splendor, the past haunts the present: there are layers of history in a single place. What about this layering is significant for you?
That’s how we operate—with layers of history and memory. I feel, as a Thai, that my identity is still shifting from different information—historical research, propaganda machine, myths, and tales. At times it is confusing to search for “reality.”
Illness, death, and medical centers have emerged in more than one of your films. Is this a recurrent entry point into the surreal or dream world?
My parents were doctors, and we lived in one of the hospital housing units. Growing up I was always interested in sickness. Living in Thailand for the past decade has been like one continuous sickness.
The vast majority of camera shots in Cemetery of Splendor are long and still, allowing the viewer time to meditate on the composition. Can you talk a bit about your use of duration and stillness? Is this a narrative structure you use to confuse reality and surrealism, or is your aim to introduce the past into the present?
I try not to impose on the audience’s freedom to look and to listen. It feels almost rude to cut when the characters are in conversation, for example. The same can be said about the treatment of surrealism. I want this film to be a gentle assault on the senses, rather than load it with special effects.
The first camera movement we see is the pan over the escalator that fades out as the hospital ward fades in, why did you opt for this moment in particular to introduce movement?
I think this is the proper time to synchronize the audience with the character Jenjira (Jenjira Pongpas). It’s an excursion to town and to the mind. For me, it is when she merges with Itt (Banlop Lomnoi) and the audience.
Itt mentions to Jen his desire to quit the army then suddenly falls asleep. Is the sleeping soldier a metaphor?
Can be.
In the past you’ve run into censorship issues with the Thai Censorship Board. What is the current landscape of Thai cinema and censorship? Do you see Cemetery of Splendor as provocative of censorship by the board?
In the past you’ve run into censorship issues with the Thai Censorship Board. What is the current landscape of Thai cinema and censorship? Do you see Cemetery of Splendor as provocative of censorship by the board?
It’s tricky because the censorship law is used arbitrarily. A silly comedy can be banned if some elements are not in tune with the authorities. The elements don’t even have to be in the film. For example, if you are independent, not pro-army, etc., these traits can play a role in how the board treats you.
Early on in the film we see signs of western culture: a soldier requests minced meat, bamboo shoot soup, and a Coke for dinner. Do you embrace the fluidity of culture, or are you more critical of the potential loss or diluting of eastern culture?
Minced meat and bamboo shoot are very local northeastern dishes. We tried to not have subtitles that would be too confusing for foreign audiences. Anyway, Thai culture is mainly about appropriating other cultures. I am happy with this fluidity.
What is on the horizon for you? Are you working on another film or project?
I am planning something about ancient healing, maybe in South America. But I want to approach it from a scientific angle. I hope that there will be more elements of science fiction than the previous films.
LINK
From Walker Art Center Crosscuts
OCTOBER 28, 2015
Five years after winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul returns with the surreal Cemetery of Splendor (Rak ti Khon Kaen), transporting us across time and reality. Instead of displacing the viewer through special effects, quick camera movements, and cuts, Weerasethakul takes a simpler approach: confusing the real and the dream with a passive camera. The compositions in his film are more often than not distant, still, and slow. As viewers of a media abundant world this stillness is arresting—allowing us to fully perceive each shot and contemplate each interaction. Cemetery of Splendor is a meditation on the fluidity of history, memory, identity, and relationships.
Weerasethakul spoke with us about the making of the film, his use of subtlety and minimal use of flashy film techniques, Thai culture, and censorship. Cemetery of Splendor will screen at Walker cinema on October 30–November 1.
What inspired Cemetery of Splendor—Rak Ti Khon Kaen?
The film is a search for old spirits I knew as a child: the school, the hospital, the cinema. The film is a merging of these places. I haven’t lived in my home town for almost 20 years. The city has changed so much, but when I went back I only saw old memories on top of the new buildings. One of my favorite spots, the Khon Kaen lake, remains the same.
In Cemetery of Splendor, the past haunts the present: there are layers of history in a single place. What about this layering is significant for you?
That’s how we operate—with layers of history and memory. I feel, as a Thai, that my identity is still shifting from different information—historical research, propaganda machine, myths, and tales. At times it is confusing to search for “reality.”
Illness, death, and medical centers have emerged in more than one of your films. Is this a recurrent entry point into the surreal or dream world?
My parents were doctors, and we lived in one of the hospital housing units. Growing up I was always interested in sickness. Living in Thailand for the past decade has been like one continuous sickness.
The vast majority of camera shots in Cemetery of Splendor are long and still, allowing the viewer time to meditate on the composition. Can you talk a bit about your use of duration and stillness? Is this a narrative structure you use to confuse reality and surrealism, or is your aim to introduce the past into the present?
I try not to impose on the audience’s freedom to look and to listen. It feels almost rude to cut when the characters are in conversation, for example. The same can be said about the treatment of surrealism. I want this film to be a gentle assault on the senses, rather than load it with special effects.
The first camera movement we see is the pan over the escalator that fades out as the hospital ward fades in, why did you opt for this moment in particular to introduce movement?
I think this is the proper time to synchronize the audience with the character Jenjira (Jenjira Pongpas). It’s an excursion to town and to the mind. For me, it is when she merges with Itt (Banlop Lomnoi) and the audience.
Itt mentions to Jen his desire to quit the army then suddenly falls asleep. Is the sleeping soldier a metaphor?
Can be.
In the past you’ve run into censorship issues with the Thai Censorship Board. What is the current landscape of Thai cinema and censorship? Do you see Cemetery of Splendor as provocative of censorship by the board?
In the past you’ve run into censorship issues with the Thai Censorship Board. What is the current landscape of Thai cinema and censorship? Do you see Cemetery of Splendor as provocative of censorship by the board?
It’s tricky because the censorship law is used arbitrarily. A silly comedy can be banned if some elements are not in tune with the authorities. The elements don’t even have to be in the film. For example, if you are independent, not pro-army, etc., these traits can play a role in how the board treats you.
Early on in the film we see signs of western culture: a soldier requests minced meat, bamboo shoot soup, and a Coke for dinner. Do you embrace the fluidity of culture, or are you more critical of the potential loss or diluting of eastern culture?
Minced meat and bamboo shoot are very local northeastern dishes. We tried to not have subtitles that would be too confusing for foreign audiences. Anyway, Thai culture is mainly about appropriating other cultures. I am happy with this fluidity.
What is on the horizon for you? Are you working on another film or project?
I am planning something about ancient healing, maybe in South America. But I want to approach it from a scientific angle. I hope that there will be more elements of science fiction than the previous films.
LINK
Thursday, October 29, 2015
'HARD WORK 1: Joiri Minaya / Marisa Williamson' @ Skowhegan [NYC/USA]
Friday, October 30, 2015
7:30pm 8:30pm
136 West 22nd Street New York, NY, 10011 United States
JOIRI MINAYA
SUNSET SLIT
In Sunset slit Joiri Minaya will emulate the image of a woman emerging from water and whipping her hair back. Usually presented in a still or slowed down form, this pop-culture image carries a tired narrative that builds fantasies of leisure and pleasure from the cliché pairing of women and idyllic landscapes. By reproducing this idealized gesture over and over again in the incongruous, almost opposite context of a NYC basement, Minaya attempts to create a space where meaning can be transformed through the absurd and the pointlessly laborious.
Sunset slit is part of a body of work that deals generally with otherness, self-consciousness and displacement, and specifically addresses how the people and environments of the tropical regions have been historically idealized by others, and the subsequent internalization and re-performing of those fantasies by the subjects in which they originate in the first place.
The performance involves a moderate amount of dark ink that will be splattered in one direction. Consider wearing black to avoid staining or keeping a safe distance from the space directly behind the performer.
Joiri Minaya (A ’13) was born in New York, U.S, in 1990, growing up in the Dominican Republic. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales(ENAV) in Santo Domingo, D.R. (2009), the Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, D.R. (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013).
Exhibitions include a solo show at the Centro de la Imagen in Santo Domingo, and group shows at Rush Arts Gallery, MoCADA, Grace Exhibition Space, Trestle Gallery, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery and ARC Magazine’s New Media Exhibition at the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival 13.
Minaya is the recipient of both the Great Prize and the Audience Award in the XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes at the Centro León in Santiago, D.R., the Great Prize of the XXVII National Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, and the Bluhdorn and Parsons Scholarships in 2011. She has participated in the 2015 NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, the 2014 L-EST European Performing Arts and TRansmedia Lab at MA Scène Nationale, Montbéliard, France and will begin a residency at Guttemberg Arts this winter.
MARISA WILLIAMSON
WORKOUT WITH SALLY HEMINGS
In WORKOUT with Sally Hemings, Marisa Williamson’s perennial persona—the slave and mistress of Thomas Jefferson—will lead audience members in an energizing and enlightening workout. Join Hemings and her SolidaritySquad (Jesus Benavente [A ‘12] and Kathy Cho) in a realistic, full-body, and fun routine, focusing on strength, endurance, affect, and labor. Tone that butt! Flatten those abs! Whittle away or build up you body! Your socioeconomic mobility depends on it! Together we’ll explore work and the embodiment of fitness in our culture and over time.
With this routine,
Marisa Williamson (A '12) is an New York-based performance and video artist. She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.F.A. from CalArts. She was a participant in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in 2014-2015. She attended ACRE Summer Residency in 2014 and Shandaken Project at Storm King this Fall. She is currently participating in the New Museum Seminars program. Her work has been shown in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and Chicago.
LINK
7:30pm 8:30pm
136 West 22nd Street New York, NY, 10011 United States
JOIRI MINAYA
SUNSET SLIT
In Sunset slit Joiri Minaya will emulate the image of a woman emerging from water and whipping her hair back. Usually presented in a still or slowed down form, this pop-culture image carries a tired narrative that builds fantasies of leisure and pleasure from the cliché pairing of women and idyllic landscapes. By reproducing this idealized gesture over and over again in the incongruous, almost opposite context of a NYC basement, Minaya attempts to create a space where meaning can be transformed through the absurd and the pointlessly laborious.
Sunset slit is part of a body of work that deals generally with otherness, self-consciousness and displacement, and specifically addresses how the people and environments of the tropical regions have been historically idealized by others, and the subsequent internalization and re-performing of those fantasies by the subjects in which they originate in the first place.
The performance involves a moderate amount of dark ink that will be splattered in one direction. Consider wearing black to avoid staining or keeping a safe distance from the space directly behind the performer.
Joiri Minaya (A ’13) was born in New York, U.S, in 1990, growing up in the Dominican Republic. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales(ENAV) in Santo Domingo, D.R. (2009), the Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, D.R. (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013).
Exhibitions include a solo show at the Centro de la Imagen in Santo Domingo, and group shows at Rush Arts Gallery, MoCADA, Grace Exhibition Space, Trestle Gallery, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery and ARC Magazine’s New Media Exhibition at the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival 13.
Minaya is the recipient of both the Great Prize and the Audience Award in the XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes at the Centro León in Santiago, D.R., the Great Prize of the XXVII National Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, and the Bluhdorn and Parsons Scholarships in 2011. She has participated in the 2015 NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, the 2014 L-EST European Performing Arts and TRansmedia Lab at MA Scène Nationale, Montbéliard, France and will begin a residency at Guttemberg Arts this winter.
MARISA WILLIAMSON
WORKOUT WITH SALLY HEMINGS
In WORKOUT with Sally Hemings, Marisa Williamson’s perennial persona—the slave and mistress of Thomas Jefferson—will lead audience members in an energizing and enlightening workout. Join Hemings and her SolidaritySquad (Jesus Benavente [A ‘12] and Kathy Cho) in a realistic, full-body, and fun routine, focusing on strength, endurance, affect, and labor. Tone that butt! Flatten those abs! Whittle away or build up you body! Your socioeconomic mobility depends on it! Together we’ll explore work and the embodiment of fitness in our culture and over time.
With this routine,
...tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.—Thomas Jefferson
Marisa Williamson (A '12) is an New York-based performance and video artist. She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.F.A. from CalArts. She was a participant in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in 2014-2015. She attended ACRE Summer Residency in 2014 and Shandaken Project at Storm King this Fall. She is currently participating in the New Museum Seminars program. Her work has been shown in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and Chicago.
LINK
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Amanda Horowitz and Nandi Loaf @ Springsteen Gallery [BALTIMORE/USA]
October 17 – November 21
Springsteen presents I <3 My Emergency,; featuring work by Nandi Loaf and Amanda Horowitz. Each artist presents work through a performative lens, including both videos and objects. Nandi Loaf’s work explores fandom, celebrity, and troll culture through social media. For this exhibition, she presents her Slipknot Collection consisting of handmade and appropriated Slipknot memorabilia. “Slipknot is my favorite band. This is the beginnings of my Slipknot collection. My collection consists of licensed Slipknot music memorabilia and objects made by me as an artist and a fan of the band. I am Nandi Loaf the amateur Slipknot mask-maker & fan.” In Horowitz’s video, Revenge Poem, the female is constantly being addressed, accounted for, rewritten, and repurposed. Like a JPEG she has become pure data traveling through cyberspace, losing sharpness and becoming a lo-fi, genderless image. In addition, she includes work from Eracer Girl, a multifaceted hyperobject of her experiences of 9/11.
Loaf and Horowitz address social and political structures through complex, obsessive worlds. Loaf’s work is satirical and embodies a laid back, casual attitude. She makes work about things she loves often paired with referential pop culture narratives and self awareness, creating a body of work that defies categorization. Horowitz confronts social constructs through a layering of virtual and physical materials. The work searches for a female subject through confounding theatrical techniques and prop-like objects, acknowledging their constructed and impossible statures. They are both assured, yet elusive.
Nandi Loaf (b. 1991, Brooklyn, NY) is an artist working in New York. Nandi Loaf graduated from Cooper Union in 2014, and has recently participated in the BHQFU artist residency program. Nandi Loaf’s favorite band is Slipknot. Nandi Loaf is the most important artist of the 21st century. Follow Nandi Loaf on Instagram (@nandi_loaf), follow her on Twitter (@nandiloaf), add her on Facebook (Nandi Loaf) and subscribe to her YouTube channel (ya2usabe).
Amanda Horowitz (b. 1991, Washington, DC) is a Baltimore based artist. Her video and performance work casts possible subjects who can reach towards unknowable political futures. She has exhibited and presented her videos, writing, and collaborations, including a one-act play that she co-wrote and directed (Shy World, 2014) and a solo exhibition at Terrault Contemporary (We Are Lesion, 2014). An essay from her ongoing project “Horizontal Ideas for Open-Ended Bodies” was presented at the 2014 Society for Literature Science and Art’s conference on the panel “Activism Performed: Fluidity of Genre in Text and Performance.” She received her BFA in sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2014).
LINK
Springsteen presents I <3 My Emergency,; featuring work by Nandi Loaf and Amanda Horowitz. Each artist presents work through a performative lens, including both videos and objects. Nandi Loaf’s work explores fandom, celebrity, and troll culture through social media. For this exhibition, she presents her Slipknot Collection consisting of handmade and appropriated Slipknot memorabilia. “Slipknot is my favorite band. This is the beginnings of my Slipknot collection. My collection consists of licensed Slipknot music memorabilia and objects made by me as an artist and a fan of the band. I am Nandi Loaf the amateur Slipknot mask-maker & fan.” In Horowitz’s video, Revenge Poem, the female is constantly being addressed, accounted for, rewritten, and repurposed. Like a JPEG she has become pure data traveling through cyberspace, losing sharpness and becoming a lo-fi, genderless image. In addition, she includes work from Eracer Girl, a multifaceted hyperobject of her experiences of 9/11.
Loaf and Horowitz address social and political structures through complex, obsessive worlds. Loaf’s work is satirical and embodies a laid back, casual attitude. She makes work about things she loves often paired with referential pop culture narratives and self awareness, creating a body of work that defies categorization. Horowitz confronts social constructs through a layering of virtual and physical materials. The work searches for a female subject through confounding theatrical techniques and prop-like objects, acknowledging their constructed and impossible statures. They are both assured, yet elusive.
Nandi Loaf (b. 1991, Brooklyn, NY) is an artist working in New York. Nandi Loaf graduated from Cooper Union in 2014, and has recently participated in the BHQFU artist residency program. Nandi Loaf’s favorite band is Slipknot. Nandi Loaf is the most important artist of the 21st century. Follow Nandi Loaf on Instagram (@nandi_loaf), follow her on Twitter (@nandiloaf), add her on Facebook (Nandi Loaf) and subscribe to her YouTube channel (ya2usabe).
Amanda Horowitz (b. 1991, Washington, DC) is a Baltimore based artist. Her video and performance work casts possible subjects who can reach towards unknowable political futures. She has exhibited and presented her videos, writing, and collaborations, including a one-act play that she co-wrote and directed (Shy World, 2014) and a solo exhibition at Terrault Contemporary (We Are Lesion, 2014). An essay from her ongoing project “Horizontal Ideas for Open-Ended Bodies” was presented at the 2014 Society for Literature Science and Art’s conference on the panel “Activism Performed: Fluidity of Genre in Text and Performance.” She received her BFA in sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2014).
LINK
If you’re lucky enough to earn a living from your art, you’re probably white [ARTICLE]
By ROBERTO A. FERDMAN
From The Washington Post
OCTOBER 21, 2014
The thing about racial diversity among working artists in America is that it pretty much doesn't exist.
Nearly four out of every five people who make a living in the arts in this country are white, according to an analysis of 2012 Census Bureau data by BFAMFAPhD, a collective of artists dedicated to understanding the rising cost of artistry. The study, which used the American Community Survey to find that there are some 1.4 million people whose primary earnings come from working as an artist, represents a broad population of creative types in the country, and reveals a number of troubling truths.
The lack of diversity is, for instance, even more pronounced for those with art school degrees — more than 80 percent of people with undergraduate art school degrees are white, according to the analysis. And it's most severe among art school graduates who go on to make it (or, at the very least, a living) in the art world — more than 83 percent of working artists with an art school degree are white.
The racial gap among artists in America isn't, of course, a question of desire, talent, or ability. Despite growing minority populations, the United States is still predominantly white — about 60 percent. Naturally then most artists are likely to be, too. But there's something else at play here that explains the jump from just over half (the percentage of the population that is white) to almost four fifths (the percentage of artists who are white). And that's money.
Racial inequality is both very real and very severe in the United States. It's also, as my colleague Emily Badger noted earlier this year, growing. In 2000, white households had a net worth 10.6 times greater than black households; by 2011 it had grown to 17.5. The gap is similarly large between whites and Hispanics.
Art schools, meanwhile, are really expensive institutions — 11 out of the 15 most expensive universities in the country are art schools, according to The Wall Street Journal. Art schools, as it happens, are also anything but a bridge to gainful employment in the art world: only one out of every 10 art school graduates goes on to earn his or her living as an artist. So spending, say, $120,000 on an art education is often more of an extended luxury than an investment in an adolescent's future. It's of little coincidence that most other top liberal arts institutions have much larger minority presences (at Ivy League schools, for instance, the percentage of the study body that is white ranges from about 41 to 58 percent).
"The fantasy of arts graduates’ future earnings in the arts should be discredited," the study says.
That isn't merely true because art school graduates rarely go on to become full-time artists. It's also likely the case because artists rarely make a decent wage, even when they manage to practice art and have it be their main source of income.
An analysis of nearly 1.5 million working artists, which included writers, visual artists, actors, photographers, musicians, singers, producers, directors, performers, and dancers, among others, by BFAMFAPhD found that those with an art school degree earned a median salary of just over $36,100 a year, while those without one earned just over $30,600. A separate survey in 2011, which, unlike BFAMFAPhD's, included architects and designers, for whom salaries tend to be more lucrative, put the median salary at just over $43,200. Neither ranks all that highly in the spectrum of salaried jobs in the country. And both are top heavy — meaning that, like with the general populace, the biggest earners earn a disproportionately large chunk of the dough being paid to artists (take the music industry, where the top 1 percent earns almost 80 percent of the money, according to Digital Music News).
LINK
From The Washington Post
OCTOBER 21, 2014
The thing about racial diversity among working artists in America is that it pretty much doesn't exist.
Nearly four out of every five people who make a living in the arts in this country are white, according to an analysis of 2012 Census Bureau data by BFAMFAPhD, a collective of artists dedicated to understanding the rising cost of artistry. The study, which used the American Community Survey to find that there are some 1.4 million people whose primary earnings come from working as an artist, represents a broad population of creative types in the country, and reveals a number of troubling truths.
The lack of diversity is, for instance, even more pronounced for those with art school degrees — more than 80 percent of people with undergraduate art school degrees are white, according to the analysis. And it's most severe among art school graduates who go on to make it (or, at the very least, a living) in the art world — more than 83 percent of working artists with an art school degree are white.
The racial gap among artists in America isn't, of course, a question of desire, talent, or ability. Despite growing minority populations, the United States is still predominantly white — about 60 percent. Naturally then most artists are likely to be, too. But there's something else at play here that explains the jump from just over half (the percentage of the population that is white) to almost four fifths (the percentage of artists who are white). And that's money.
Racial inequality is both very real and very severe in the United States. It's also, as my colleague Emily Badger noted earlier this year, growing. In 2000, white households had a net worth 10.6 times greater than black households; by 2011 it had grown to 17.5. The gap is similarly large between whites and Hispanics.
Art schools, meanwhile, are really expensive institutions — 11 out of the 15 most expensive universities in the country are art schools, according to The Wall Street Journal. Art schools, as it happens, are also anything but a bridge to gainful employment in the art world: only one out of every 10 art school graduates goes on to earn his or her living as an artist. So spending, say, $120,000 on an art education is often more of an extended luxury than an investment in an adolescent's future. It's of little coincidence that most other top liberal arts institutions have much larger minority presences (at Ivy League schools, for instance, the percentage of the study body that is white ranges from about 41 to 58 percent).
"The fantasy of arts graduates’ future earnings in the arts should be discredited," the study says.
That isn't merely true because art school graduates rarely go on to become full-time artists. It's also likely the case because artists rarely make a decent wage, even when they manage to practice art and have it be their main source of income.
An analysis of nearly 1.5 million working artists, which included writers, visual artists, actors, photographers, musicians, singers, producers, directors, performers, and dancers, among others, by BFAMFAPhD found that those with an art school degree earned a median salary of just over $36,100 a year, while those without one earned just over $30,600. A separate survey in 2011, which, unlike BFAMFAPhD's, included architects and designers, for whom salaries tend to be more lucrative, put the median salary at just over $43,200. Neither ranks all that highly in the spectrum of salaried jobs in the country. And both are top heavy — meaning that, like with the general populace, the biggest earners earn a disproportionately large chunk of the dough being paid to artists (take the music industry, where the top 1 percent earns almost 80 percent of the money, according to Digital Music News).
LINK
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Tala Madani
I. The Coming, 2015 [oil on linen; 20 x 17 1/8 x 7/8 inches (50.8 x 43.5 x 2.2 cm)]
II. Window Pane, 2015 [oil on linen; 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 x 1 5/8 inches (41 x 30.8 x 4.1 cm)]
III. The XX, 2015 [oil on linen; 16 x 14 x 1 1/8 inches (40.6 x 35.6 x 2.9 cm)]
II. Window Pane, 2015 [oil on linen; 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 x 1 5/8 inches (41 x 30.8 x 4.1 cm)]
III. The XX, 2015 [oil on linen; 16 x 14 x 1 1/8 inches (40.6 x 35.6 x 2.9 cm)]
'Plan for a Pond: Lagoon,' 2015 by Carson Fisk-Vittori
[artificial flora, water purification filters, survival tools, beauty products, other artifacts]
LINK
LINK
Wein Prize Is Awarded to a Nigerian-born Artist [ARTICLE]
By RANDY KENNEDY
From The New York Times
OCTOBER 26, 2015
The Studio Museum in Harlem announced Monday that it was bestowing its Wein Prize – a $50,000 award won in the past by esteemed artists like Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon and Trenton Doyle Hancock – to Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a Nigerian-born painter who has lived and worked in the United States for many years.
The prize – established by George Wein, a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his wife, Joyce Alexander Wein, a trustee of the museum who died in 2005 – has been given every year since 2006 to established or emerging African-American artists.
Ms. Crosby, 32, who recently moved to Los Angeles, has become known for large-scale paintings that depict African and American domestic scenes. The scenes are visually complicated with collage elements drawn from Nigerian lifestyle magazines, her own photo albums and the Internet, works that, as Smithsonian Magazine wrote, “explore a complex topic – the tug she feels between her adopted home in America and her native country.”
Ms. Crosby’s work has recently been featured in a solo show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and was included in the New Museum’s 2015 Triennial. The prestigious Victoria Miro gallery in London began to represent Ms. Crosby earlier this year, and her work is now the subject of an exhibition at the gallery, organized by the critic Hilton Als.
Thelma Golden, the Studio Museum’s director, said Ms. Crosby was chosen because of her work’s “great innovation and promise” and also because she “truly represents the global nature of the Studio Museum’s mission and reach.”
LINK
From The New York Times
OCTOBER 26, 2015
The Studio Museum in Harlem announced Monday that it was bestowing its Wein Prize – a $50,000 award won in the past by esteemed artists like Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon and Trenton Doyle Hancock – to Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a Nigerian-born painter who has lived and worked in the United States for many years.
The prize – established by George Wein, a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his wife, Joyce Alexander Wein, a trustee of the museum who died in 2005 – has been given every year since 2006 to established or emerging African-American artists.
Ms. Crosby, 32, who recently moved to Los Angeles, has become known for large-scale paintings that depict African and American domestic scenes. The scenes are visually complicated with collage elements drawn from Nigerian lifestyle magazines, her own photo albums and the Internet, works that, as Smithsonian Magazine wrote, “explore a complex topic – the tug she feels between her adopted home in America and her native country.”
Ms. Crosby’s work has recently been featured in a solo show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and was included in the New Museum’s 2015 Triennial. The prestigious Victoria Miro gallery in London began to represent Ms. Crosby earlier this year, and her work is now the subject of an exhibition at the gallery, organized by the critic Hilton Als.
Thelma Golden, the Studio Museum’s director, said Ms. Crosby was chosen because of her work’s “great innovation and promise” and also because she “truly represents the global nature of the Studio Museum’s mission and reach.”
LINK
Monday, October 26, 2015
Joe Roberts
I. wandering the halls of the tryptamine palace, 2015 [acrylic on canvas; 20 x 24 inches]
II. The experiment at grizzly creek, 2015 [acrylic on canvas; 20 x 24 inches]
LINK
II. The experiment at grizzly creek, 2015 [acrylic on canvas; 20 x 24 inches]
LINK
'1-800-BAD-DRUG' @ Three Four Three Four [NYC/USA]
1-800-BAD-DRUG
Bobby Burke, Pearl Green, Ed Heisev, Toby Lobin, Geoffrey O'Toole
August 22nd - September 16th MMXV
1. Gather supplies; a pressure cooker, copper tubing, a drill with at least a 1/4” bit, a 15gallon metal pot, a large plastic bucket, cheesecloth, 10 pounds of cornmeal, 10 pounds of sugar and 1/2 ounce of yeast.
2. Build a still; drill a hole in the lid of the pressure cooker and thread it to snugly receive a 1/4" copper tubing. Insert the end of the 1/4" copper tubing into the hole, being careful that it does not project through more than an inch. This is your condensing tube.
3. Boil 10 gallons of water.
4. Cook the cornmeal; add the 10 pound of cornmeal to the water.
5. Add the sugar and yeast; stir in 10 pounds of sugar and 1/2 ounce of yeast.
6. Ferment the mash; loosely cover the bucket with cheesecloth and place it in a cool, dark place, such as in your cellar or basement, to allow fermentation to take place.
7. Strain the sour mash through a cheesecloth; place the cloth over the bucket, then tip the bucket over a clean bucket or pot.
8. Pour the strained mash liquid into the pressure cooker; clamp down the lid and place it on a stovetop burner.
9. Position the copper tubing to create a condenser; run the copper tubing run from the lid (or vent) of the pressure cooker to a sink filled with cold water | coil the middle of the copper tubing in the cold water, then run the other end of the tube over the edge of the sink to a clean container on the floor.
10. Turn the stove on under the pressure cooker; let the contents heat to exactly 177 degrees F (80
Celsius) and no more.
11. Transfer to jars.
1-800-BAD-DRUG is the number for legal help for victims of dangerous drugs & defective medical devices. Named for being appropriately ten digits long, this show is not an infomercial. There will not be any ads during this exhibition. This show will last longer than 90 to 120 seconds.
You left your stove on, this is not a drill. The dew point reached the temperature and you forgot your umbrella. Your next big business is failing. Today's the day your car breaks down, your transit card expires. You fall and throw your tray and all the glasses on the floor. The NSA won't know where to classify this one.
Bobby Burke, Pearl Green, Ed Heisev, Toby Lobin, Geoffrey O'Toole
August 22nd - September 16th MMXV
1. Gather supplies; a pressure cooker, copper tubing, a drill with at least a 1/4” bit, a 15gallon metal pot, a large plastic bucket, cheesecloth, 10 pounds of cornmeal, 10 pounds of sugar and 1/2 ounce of yeast.
2. Build a still; drill a hole in the lid of the pressure cooker and thread it to snugly receive a 1/4" copper tubing. Insert the end of the 1/4" copper tubing into the hole, being careful that it does not project through more than an inch. This is your condensing tube.
3. Boil 10 gallons of water.
4. Cook the cornmeal; add the 10 pound of cornmeal to the water.
5. Add the sugar and yeast; stir in 10 pounds of sugar and 1/2 ounce of yeast.
6. Ferment the mash; loosely cover the bucket with cheesecloth and place it in a cool, dark place, such as in your cellar or basement, to allow fermentation to take place.
7. Strain the sour mash through a cheesecloth; place the cloth over the bucket, then tip the bucket over a clean bucket or pot.
8. Pour the strained mash liquid into the pressure cooker; clamp down the lid and place it on a stovetop burner.
9. Position the copper tubing to create a condenser; run the copper tubing run from the lid (or vent) of the pressure cooker to a sink filled with cold water | coil the middle of the copper tubing in the cold water, then run the other end of the tube over the edge of the sink to a clean container on the floor.
10. Turn the stove on under the pressure cooker; let the contents heat to exactly 177 degrees F (80
Celsius) and no more.
11. Transfer to jars.
1-800-BAD-DRUG is the number for legal help for victims of dangerous drugs & defective medical devices. Named for being appropriately ten digits long, this show is not an infomercial. There will not be any ads during this exhibition. This show will last longer than 90 to 120 seconds.
You left your stove on, this is not a drill. The dew point reached the temperature and you forgot your umbrella. Your next big business is failing. Today's the day your car breaks down, your transit card expires. You fall and throw your tray and all the glasses on the floor. The NSA won't know where to classify this one.
I. Ed Heisiv, That Championship Season, 2009 [latex paint, Fathead on foam insulation; 72 x 48”]
II. Pearl Green, Untitled (Walking on a Cloud), 1984 [oil on canvas; 11 x 14”]
III. Geoffrey O'Toole, Nudes in the Night, 2015 [oil on canvas; 10.25 x 8.25”]
IV. Toby Lobin, Untitled (Trees), 2014 [ink on wood; 9.25 x 14”]
V. Toby Lobin, Stabbin' in the Cabin, 2014 [acrylic on canvas and wood; 20 x 16”]
VI. Pearl Green, Flemish Beauty, 1965 [clay, paint, lacquer; 16 x 10 x 10”]
VII. Ed Heisiv, Untitled (The Poisonous Snake in the World), 2011 [latex paint, Fathead on foam insulation, 24 x 30”]
VIII. Toby Lobin, John's Amazon, 2015 [acrylic on wood; 28 x 25.375”]
IX. Pearl Green, Untitled (Bounty Hunter), 2009 [oil on canvas; 11 x 14”]
X. Geoffrey O'Toole, Seifer, 2015 [oil on canvas; 18.25 x 14.25”]
XI. Bobby Burke, Shiloh, 2015 [acrylic on canvas; 20 x 16”]
XII. Installation View
XIII. Installation View
XIV. Installation View
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