Daata Editions presents
The Daata Editions Sound Room at CHART Art Fair, Copenhagen.
The Sound Room will host newly launched works by
Sofie Alsbo, Thora Dolven Balke, John Skoog.
CHART Art Fair
26 – 28 August
Kunsthal Charlottenburg
Copenhagen
Friday 26 August, 4 – 8pm
Saturday 27 August, 12 – 6pm
Sunday 28 August, 12 – 5pm
More info:
chartartfair.com
Howardina Pindell, Free, White and 21, 1980. Garth Greenan Gallery
Our Hidden Futures
Film at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2015
The Artists Surround Sound Project
Curated by David Gryn of Daata Editions and Artprojx
SoundScape Park, New World Center, Miami Beach
December 2-5, 2015 from 6pm
https://www.artbasel.com/miami-beach/
FREE
Dates and Schedule:
Wed, Dec 2
9am New World Symphony Insights Talk with David Gryn and artists Sofie Alsbo, Alice Jacobs, Jillian Mayer, Mariele Neudecker and moderated by Dennis Scholl.
6pm Surround sound work by artist Mariele Neudecker
Artist Film program
8pm Fairy Doll; 58 mins. Artists: Rineke Dijkstra, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Carla Chaim, Anna K.E. & Florian Meisenberg, Anna Maria Maiolino, Howardena Pindell.
9pm Speak Easy; 78 mins. Artists: Simone Leigh & Liz Magic Laser with Alicia Hall Moran, Jumana Manna, JoAnn Verburg, Melanie Smith with Rafael Ortega, Marinella Senatore, Catherine Sullivan, Ann-Sofi Sidén in collaboration with Jonathan Bepler.
Thurs Dec 3
6pm Surround sound work by artist Sofie Alsbo
Artist Film program
9pm Afterward via Fantasia; 60 mins. Artists: Catherine Sullivan with George Lewis and Sean Griffin,
10pm Sea of Silence; 56 mins. Artists: Marnie Weber, Camille Henrot, Shirazeh Houshiary, Cauleen Smith, Minnette Vári, Tracey Emin, Nikki S. Lee.
Fri, Dec 4
6pm Surround sound work by artist Camille Norment
Artist Film program
8pm Duet; 45 mins. Artists: Janet Biggs, Zanele Muholi, Nicola Thomas, Talia Chetrit, Sue de Beer.
9pm Snow Job; 62 mins. Artists: Berna Reale, Shana Moulton, Mary Reid Kelley, Barbara Hammer, Diana Thater, Chloe Wise & Claire Christerson, Ida Applebroog, Breda Beban, Judith Hopf.
Sat, Dec 5
2pm Salon talk – The Artists Surround Sound Project
Moderator: David Gryn, artists: Sofie Alsbo, Alice Jacobs, Mariele Neudecker, Camille Norment
6pm Surround sound work by artist Alice Jacobs
Artist Film program
8pm Vanishing Point; 58 mins; Artist: Breda Beban, María Fernanda Cardoso, Janet Biggs, Fritzia Irizar, Suzanne Harris, Anna Barham, Guan Xiao, Susanne M. Winterling, Pia Camil, Cornelia Parker.
9pm Bikini Carwash; 52 mins; the seven works in this program will explore the great outdoors, capturing urban and rural encounters. Artists: Liz Cohen, Marnie Weber, Jaki Irvine, Micol Assaël, Kristin Oppenheim, Cauleen Smith, Milena Bonilla.
LINKS
Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2015 http://artbasel.com/miami-beach
David Gryn / Artprojx blog https://davidgryn.wordpress.com/
New World Symphony http://www.nws.edu/events-tickets/concerts/insights-artists-film-and-sound-with-david-gryn/
Takeshi Murata and Robert Beatty, OM Rider, 2013, 11’39”, Salon 94, Ratio 3
The creative harvest at Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) is so colossal that picking one stand-out event is an exercise in impossibility. However, despite the enormity of the art showcase, certain sectors of the ABMB — from nine that it has been sectioned into — always reap more audience mindshare than most others. The film sector is one of those hallowed events.
The film program of the ABMB 2014 is expectedly humungous in scale with over 80 films and videos to be screened. The films and video works have been selected by David Gryn, director of London’s Artprojx, who has culled out work from ABMB’s participating galleries. The showcase also includes a tribute to Harun Farocki, the Indian-origin German filmmaker who passed away recently.
Gryn speaks to Blouin Artinfo about the films being screened at ABMB 2014.
BA. Why did you choose ‘Playfulness’ as the theme of the film section for ABMB 2014?
DG: This year, my selection for the 4th edition of Film section has been driven by the notion of ‘Playfulness’: the playfulness of Internet gaming, online action, art making, dance and performing, color, sound and music. Most art making is playful by its very nature, however I have always designed the film program to consider audience engagement; the films selected reflect an exciting range of artist works that stimulate, enliven and rivet the audience, with captivating color, sound and process. This is not about showing art that is just easy to digest, but about showing art that is inherently engaging and encourages audiences to stay for an hour or three.
BA. Could you explain the selection process in detail?
DG: We have approximately 200 artist submissions from about 150 galleries at the fair. I work closely with many galleries to encourage their submissions of their artists. Galleries are usually the experts in their artists’ outputs. I see my role as a facilitator and enabler. Some galleries submit many entries and others, very few. My challenges are the galleries who do not submit at all, although some just do not represent any artists who use moving image. But my pleasure is the galleries who send me plenty.
Usually galleries who have seen the vast scale, brilliant sound and huge and receptive crowds are very happy to reapply each year. There are some galleries that I request artists from and some emerging artists that I introduce into the program.
BA. What are the most popular subjects that artists today are making films on?
DG: The internet and the multifarious worlds it intersects is an obvious subject. Art making remains at best when it is about making art but speaks to us about the essence of the human condition, without using a sledgehammer to make its point. True artists are constantly striving for a newness in their work and with the ever growing demands of making commodities, seek to turn to areas of art practice which have a difficult relationship with finance and demand an audience that actually looks, interrogates and digests their artworks.
BA. Is there a fundamental difference in the way artists approach the art of filmmaking today than it was about two decades back?
DG: The big change is the evolution over the last 20 years of digital technology. But the great artists remain few. There is a language of the internet that didn’t exist, but it is inherently about communication and it obsessively feeds our innate appetite for information and that is all about our need to co-exist with each other. Artists are now growing up with the online world as their natural language.
BA. Somehow, films by artists largely remain in the realm of documentary. Why is it so?
DG: Film and video by artists are another distinct artist medium like painting and sculpture. Filmmakers have often other concerns, however filmmakers like John Waters, Sophia Coppola, Ingmar Bergman are great artists whose art is film.
BA. At ABMB 2014, you are also going to give the talk — ‘Playfulness: Artists as Online Gamers, Surfers, and Armchair Digital Revolutionaries’. Could you explain?
DG: The title of the talk was central to my initial thinking for this year’s film programming, with a goal to have Tabor Robak speak, as he was one of my starting points. He curated the program that includes his work and that of Oliver Laric and Jon Rafman, they are leading lights amongst artists working in the digital art making sphere. I included Harun Farocki — whom I would have added anyway, but he sadly died in the process, so his inclusion is now a tribute to such a great artist, whom I spent much time with recently at the Loop Video Art Fair in Barcelona. Rachel Rose is the other artist on the panel, and her work had been introduced to me by Chrissie Iles, the brilliant curator of ‘Film and Beyond’ at the Whitney, and I am delighted she had agreed to be the moderator.
BA. Do films by artists find patrons with deep pockets just as visual arts do or is there still a financial divide between the two?
DG: The positive financial world of artists’ films is still an evolving process. My role in doing this work with Art Basel evolved from the belief by the art fair that we still need to encourage galleries to show artists’ moving image, even if the market is very limited. It is an ever growing practice by artists — which has yet to fully find its commercial feet. This is indeed work in progress.
BA. What films would you suggest to a lay admirer of art who wants to educate himself on the subject? What is your personal all-time favourite film in the genre?
RACHEL ROSE, Palisades in Palisades, 2014
DG: There is a shot in a recent Rachel Rose film ‘Palisades in Palisades’, where the camera pans in on the flesh and v-neck part of a sweater, and you see the goosebumps next to the weave and texture of the sweater, and it is just a brilliant moment of human encounter in an artists’ work. That is currently my favourite moment by an artist film.
My advice is to regard us art organisers, curators, galleries as generally a good level of quality assurance, decision making conduits and filters to often really great work. To name any one artist would be disingenuous to others. However, to give you an answer, if Philip Guston was alive and could make films like his paintings then I would be truly happy with that, perhaps with the additional choreography of dancer Michael Clark and the melancholic balletic piano sounds of Chopin.
https://davidgryn.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/film-art-basel-in-miami-beach-2014-overview/
What’s Wrong With Art ?
Wednesday 10th September
7.30pm
rosenfeld porcini gallery, 37 rathbone street, London, W1T 1NZ
Following a string of articles on Video Art initiated by art critic Tabish Khan and published on FADwebsite, invited guest speakers including David Gryn, Ian Rosenfeld, and Khan himself will give their views on the topic in a panel discussion chaired by Mark Westall at rosenfeld porcini gallery on Wednesday 10 September 2014. The panel will discuss what constitutes great video art, how it can go wrong and the commercial viability of the medium. The panel will start at 7:30pm. RSVP is required; please book tickets in advance on Eventbrite. Rosenfeld porcini gallery is currently showing a series of 4 video pieces by Korean artist Bongsu Park.
When: WEDNESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2014
Time: 19:30
Where: rosenfeld porcini, 37 rathbone street, London, w1t 1nz
Tickets: £4
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/panel-discussion-whats-wrong-with-video-art-tickets-12665174879
About:
David Gryn
Curator, Film Art Basel Miami Beach
Director, Artprojx | www.artprojx.com
David Gryn is the founding director of Artprojx, which screens, curates and promotes artists’ moving image projects, working with international contemporary art galleries, art fairs, institutes, film festivals, websites and artists. Gryn also regularly lectures in European universities and art schools on curating, arts marketing, art world machinations and protocols, event management and general self-empowerment.
Upcoming: Artprojx presents ‘The Miami and Moscow Film Selections Artist Sound of Film’ ; 12 September 8.30pm at Bermondsey Project.
Tabish Khan
Art Critic, FAD & Londonist | http://londonist.com/contributors/tabish-khan
Tabish Khan has been art critic and visual arts editor for Londonist since 2012. He is a regular contributor to FAD including reviews, opinion pieces and a weekly top 5 exhibitions to see in London. He has chaired gallery panel discussions and has written a piece entitled ‘what’s wrong with video art?’
Ian Rosenfeld
Director, rosenfeld porcini gallery
www.rosenfeldporcini.com
Director Ian Rosenfeld was initially a photographer and film director. He founded rosenfeld porcini in June 2011 with Dario Porcini who has an extensive arts background in Italy. rosenfeld porcini is committed to showing contemporary artists from around the world with an innovative exhibitions programme.
Current exhibition: Sound and Vision | Keita Miyazaki & Bongsu Park (ends 30 Sept.)
Upcoming exhibition: Nicola Samorí | L’Âge Mûr (10 Oct – 20 Nov)
Mark Westall
Founder/Editor in Chief FAD | www.fadwebsite.com
Following his passion for art, Mark Westall founded FADwebsite in 2008. Focused on emerging and contemporary art, FAD aims to promote as well as develop our understanding of new and established talents. In addition to leading FAD, Mark is a director of fad.agency; a columnist for City and Canary Wharf Magazines; and expert advisor to bi-annual art fair Strarta.
From the FAD discussion http://www.fadwebsite.com/2013/09/27/whats-wrong-with-video-art-an-answer-from-david-gryn/
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David Gryn’s notes for/from the talk – added 12-09-14
Video Art notes by David Gryn 11-09-14
Thinking about being on the panel for “What’s Wrong With Video Art” felt like I had entered into therapy for the last few weeks thinking all about what’s wrong with video art, i.e. what is wrong with the art form I have been dedicated to working with for at least the last 15 years !!!
I’ve spent so long being involved in artists moving image – so either I’m an idiot or I’m an oracle – I prefer to think that I am the latter.
I came to this art form, as someone who cares about marketing, engagement and audience for contemporary art events. I am a facilitator, enabler, event deliverer, a middle man – I always aim to make things happen with simple means.
I believe that artists digital moving image is a very strong candidate for a medium that will become more dominant in artists work and therefore in the market place too. But it needs attention, work to make this happen and investment.
So much is so right with ‘video art’ …
However, we can’t sell it, its a bit noisy, its always moving, its often very dull, people loop it, show it in strange situations, it’s very hard to focus on …
What’s right about it: it’s part of our natural language, almost all of us use or observe moving image in someway all of the time, more and more artists work with it, it is engaging, challenging and like any great art medium, it is constantly evolving, shifting and developing.
How can we improve it’s status: we need more dialogues/communication, action, multi processes to exhibit it, marketing, belief in its inherent value and function.
Video Art in my context is the same as Film, Moving Image, Digital Art – it means it is an art process made by artists. I had issues with the name, as I had a cousin who studied video art at RCA in the 70’s and my family all thought he was such a geek. Now (if he was alive), I would probably be revering him. So I have personally always associated the two words Video Art, as something rather outdated and vintage. However, to give it its dues – it explains what we are talking about very easily.
Video Art, Artist’s Film, Artist’s Moving Image etc whatever the terms – is part of the Contemporary Art world pantheon of artist processes, but this is art within this area. This is not TV, Hollywood Film, Amateur Youtube enthusiasts – we are discussing artists from within the framework of the the Contemporary Art world and no further.
In my view Video Art and Film are synonymous. I had my programme in Miami called Art Video for several years and I worked with and on Art Basel to change it to ‘Film’. As somehow it makes more sense to me. As is is being shown at ‘Art Basel’ – that word Art does not have to appear. In the same way that I never show actual videos, I rarely show film, as now most materials I receive are digital files.
It would be great if there was a definitive term for artists moving image (that is far too many words). My favourite word is ‘Art’ – which I use for anything that is really good. Art is when I just believe it the work, when I feel compelled to give it terms – it is usually not good enough.
What interests me about Video Art is that is an art form that moves and has a duration, power, engages. Watching an audience transfixed in front of a work of ‘art’ for a few minutes upto hours is fantastic and always thrills me. I often think that the program I show in Miami is sometimes the only time during an art fair, that people really view and interrogate works of art.
I am passionate about audiences and the viewer. I have observed audiences closely over 20 years with regards to ‘video art’ and my own spin on it, is that sound is key. I generally watch with my ears. The aesthetic experience is vital, but my senses are usually over taken by audio and my engagement is therefore determined.
My view is that to make video commercially viable that we need to show it more and consistently and build its presence and marketing. There needs to be an understanding of its potential value by the galleries and museums. It needs to be centre of the art experience and not a side show or lure to non video art sales or just simply entertainment. Audiences pay for access to art, and want to posses art when they believe in its truth as viewable and/or collectable.
I am directly involved in a new technology platform for showing video, sound and emerging technology moving image forms and have been advisory in several other new digital technology entities dedicated to showing artists moving image. I believe that there needs to many of these, like we have a competitive art market due to the vast numbers of galleries, but often digital platforms like to have market dominance – which I think is unhelpful.
I came to my project with the belief that to enable, encourage, empower an art market we need to motivate the collecting and purchasing of artists moving image (which rubs against my usual instincts for egalitarianism), as I have observed that everyone in the art world eco system takes an art form more seriously when is has a commodification value.
I believe from experience that art venues, organisations, galleries, event organisers, collectors will invest more in promoting, owning and supporting ‘video art’ – when they see it clearly in parity will the easier commodity art forms. However, it doesn’t need to be compromised and I believe it can be both free to all and have a collectable value.
However, part of my joy with ‘video art’, sound and some performance – is that it is not easy to commodify, it isn’t instantly attractive to all audiences and the works are not always instantly digestible with sound bites or able to be seen by everyone as art easily.
I do believe that art can be entertaining and the best art should be a language unto itself
There is often an overriding-emphasis on the remarkableness of history and the past in contemporary art and that experimentation is key, with knowledge of technology being paramount. I see art as unrelated to these concerns. If, for instance, someone was to tell me that the impressionist movement in painting was the greatest, due in part to its economic power over such a long period or due to its innovative qualities when it was being made, I would argue that it was simply not the case, as in my view most impressionist art is just not very good. The same applies to digital/video art processes. The fact that they are digital or ‘video art’ does not inherently make the art good.
There are at any given moment in time very very few great artists and that goes for whatever process they are using be that paint, form, digital/video etc. A second tier of artists – veer towards the medium as paramount, as opposed to the message or the overriding aesthetic or quality of the art work, as though being an expert or dominant in a technology is a subtext for being a great artist in using that medium, which is just not the case.
Great art comes from simple means, truth, passion, commitment, engagement and ultimately the charisma of the artist. This is very hard to template to prescribe – but its rudiments are there to be observed and understood.
Charisma is in my view a quality that really shifts the works from being just art to being great or at least potentially great art. There are ground-breaking artists, artists of all types, but only the ones who either have a charisma and/or their work is imbued with charisma, that can ride through the waves of mediocrity, and the sometimes very fine mediocrity, that is most art.
David Gryn
Curator, Film Art Basel Miami Beach
Director, Artprojx | www.artprojx.com https://davidgryn.wordpress.com
07711127848
David Gryn is the founding director of Artprojx, which screens, curates and promotes artists’ moving image projects, working with international contemporary art galleries, art fairs, institutes, film festivals, websites and artists. Gryn also regularly lectures at universities and art schools on curating, arts marketing, art world machinations and protocols, event management and general self-empowerment. Current projects include Curating Film, Art Basel in Miami Beach 2014, Sound projects with Max Reinhardt and The School of Sound, curating at The Royal College of Psychiatrists, co-director/curator of the inaugural Strangelove Film Festival at Central Saint Martins 2015 and a digital art editions project launching in 2015.
Artprojx Cinema presents…
After/Hours/Drop/Box:
Oliver Sutherland // HENGE
10-11pm
Thursday 29th May 2014
Screen One
Hackney Picturehouse. 270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Hackney_Picturehouse/
Tickets: £9 standard, £8 concessions and £7 Picturehouse members.
For this one-off live event artist Oliver Sutherland has produced brand new CGI and moving image work to be projected in Hackney Picturehouse’s large Screen One space during a full live set by HENGE.
HENGE (London) play reflective, slow, burning, heavy punk rock. http://hengepumprot.bandcamp.com/
Oliver Sutherland (b.1985, UK) graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2012. Recent exhibitions include Home Theatre, Baró Galeria, Sao Paulo, Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship, Carroll/Fletcher, London, Chimera Q.T.E, Cell Projects, London and Sound Spill, Seventeen Gallery, London.
After/Hours/Drop/Box is a roaming platform for video and performance artwork which investigates the influence of the music video on contemporary art. www.afterhoursdropbox.com
Artprojx Cinema screens, curates and promotes artists’ moving image, working with contemporary art galleries, museums, art fairs and artists worldwide.
Contact: David Gryn david@artprojx.com +447711127848 www.artprojx.com
Still: Jennifer Reeder – A Million Miles Away
More of a list and dates for your diary than a newsletter …
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Made in Art London talk – April 14
Promoting and Selling New Media, Moving Image, Performance and Installation.
MiAL Panel Discussion with David Blandy, Anna Gritz, David Gryn, Gil Leung, Tyler Woolcott. https://davidgryn.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/promoting-selling-new-media-moving-image-performance-and-installation-mial-panel-discussion-14-april-2pm/
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Royal College of Psychiatrists artists film commission talk with artists David Blandy, Levack and Lewandowski, Terry Smith and curator David Gryn – April 15
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“a little patch of yellow wall …” curated by Jane Bustin at The Lion and Lamb Gallery – April 25. Artists include: Peter Abrahams, boyleANDshaw, Fran Burden, John Carter, Maria Chevska, Rose Davey, Tess Jaray, Natasha Kidd, Edwina Leapman, Mary Mathieson, Avis Newman, Bernardo Ortiz, Paul Rosenbloom, Martin Richman, Yuko Shiraishi, Susan Sluglett, Jeffrey Steele , Jo Volley, Wallace & Seymour, Cathy Ward, Ian Whittlesea
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Francis Alys – ‘The Patriotic Fable’ and ‘When faith moves mountains’ featuring in the Artists Focus Series, courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery at ZARYA Center for Contemporary Art in Vladivostok. http://lnkd.in/d-4wKP7
Artprojx presents films by Rashaad Newsome and Shezad Dawood http://zaryavladivostok.ru/ru/homepage April-May 2014
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The Estonian Artists Film Club Society NYC – May 7
Artists: Flo Kasearu, Marko Mäetamm, Ben Rivers & Ben Russell, Ene-Liis Semper, Jaan Toomik
A Frieze NY VIP event https://davidgryn.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/artprojx-presents-the-estonian-artists-film-club-society-nyc-7-may/
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Still: Nathalie Djurberg with Hans Berg – I wasn’t made to play the son
Artprojx presents Artist Sound of Film at Moscow Museum Nights with artist sound and music by DJ Max Reinhardt – May 17 … more info coming very soon
Artists include: Nick Abrahams, Cory Arcangel, Dara Birnbaum, Pierre Bismuth, Martin Creed, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Kota Ezawa, Dara Friedman, Leo Gabin, Theaster Gates, William Kentridge and Philip Miller, Lina Lapelyte, Ryan MacGinley, Ari Marcopoulos, Takeshi Murata, Laurel Nakadate, Rashaad Newsome, Nicola Thomas
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Artprojx Cinema presents…
After/Hours/Drop/Box:
Oliver Sutherland // HENGE
Hackney Picturehouse Cinema – Screen 1
10pm Thursday May 29th
Artist Oliver Sutherland has produced brand new CGI video work to be screened during a full live set by London based ‘pump rot’ band HENGE.
After/Hours/Drop/Box is a roaming platform for video and performance artwork which investigates the influence of the music video on contemporary art. For Hackney Picturehouse’s Screen 1 space in association with Artprojx – A/H/D/B has developed a sporadic programme of one-off live events which pair up bands with artists working with moving image.
http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Hackney_Picturehouse/
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LOOP Barcelona, Artprojx and David Gryn in talks/discussions on a market and audience for Moving Image/Digital Art – June 4-6
http://loop-barcelona.com/2013/fair/loop-2014/
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still: Jessica Ann Peavy – Jive Turkey
Artprojx Cinema presents Teen and Keen at The Voice and the Lens – 14 June
part of the Spitalfields Music Festival. Voice and the Lens is organised by Sam Belinfante and Ed McKeon
Artists: David Blandy and Larry Achiampong, Leo Gabin, Rashaad Newsome Tameka Norris, Jessica Ann Peavy, Jennifer Reeder
http://www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk/whats-on/summer-festival-2014/the-voice-and-the-lens/
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The Astonishing by Jane Bustin at Austin Forum – opening June 26. Solo exhibition. details to be announced very soon
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Lions & Tigers & Bears by Nick Abrahams at The Horse Hospital – opening June 27
https://davidgryn.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/nick_abrahams/
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Jane Bustin in John Moores Painting Prize 2014 – July 5
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2014/exhibitors.aspx
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Contact/information:
David Gryn david@artprojx.com http://www.artprojx.com +447711127848
Arabesque by Dara Birnbaum. New World Center, SoundScape Park, Art Basel Miami Beach 2013
Dara Birnbaum and David Gryn in conversation at the Salon at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2013.
In the preceding months in advance of our talk at the Art Fair, we emailed various questions and answers to each other.
The talk will be online via Art Basel soon.
These questions and answers are probably more detailed than those in the live talk.
Image: Dara Birnbaum, PM Magazine/Acid Rock, Marian Goodman Gallery
DB = Dara Birnbaum
DG = David Gryn
DB: Since you invited me and my work to ABMB 2013, I would be very curious as to the reasons behind your curating it in at this specific time.
DG: I had been thinking of works that I knew that would be ideal to play in the New World (Symphony) Center location, Arabesque was rooted in my thoughts, but stayed in the margins, due to its 4 screens (as seen at the South London Gallery), so your willingness to create a single screen version filled me with delight.
DG: How does the single verses the 4 screen work for you ?
DB: But, I was willing to try and see if the component parts actually could be re-organized into the singular film frame. Of course, that frame is purposefully broken up and each of the constituent images perform in slightly different ways.
I very much had in mind this particular screening (its premiere) – of a incredibly large outdoor projection surface and the way people would be placed in relation to that screen image. I chose to make the appropriated film section larger, without being completely dominant – but regaining a declaration of “film” space. The quotations from YouTube run alongside, in their alternating pattern. When the Clara Schumann work is played, the frame is basically split in two – with the piano work composed by her via YouTube, alongside quotations from her diary.
DB: What issues and/or visual/audio enticements spurred you on, precisely now?
DG: I too am fascinated by the internet and how it and we are evolving with each other and all of its inherent languages. When I first discovered Clara Schumann, I thought I had discovered and unearthed a great mystery, as I thought her music was as or more magical than Robert Schumann’s. So I have always carried a torch for her and was always aware of the imbalance of the male/female relationship. What is it about Clara Schumann that inspires/inspired you ?
DB: I see the internet and YouTube, carried by the Internet, as two different, but interwoven, things/phenomenon. YouTube mainly being postings of performative works that people wish to have seen and/or remarkable documents, from performances to real life situations, etc.
I have respected Clara Schumann’s original musical compositions throughout the years, although they are not that well-known, or played in repertoire, etc. When I looked for the work by Clara Schumann, which I utilized in “Arabesque” I found, at the time, only one live recording of it on YouTube, yet it is a magnificent composition. Whereas, for the works of Robert Schumann there are hundreds of recordings that were made. I also “carried a torch” for Clara Schumann as she was a gifted pianist, who introduced the work of Robert Schumann to widening European audiences and fought for that music to be heard and known. Then, she had to balance a family of eight children and keep it all going while her husband was prone to mental illness, eventually taking his own life. When reading her diaries, I had mixed feelings about Clara, thinking that this maybe a woman I might not have “liked” (a nature toward an upper-class snobbery), but I definitely more than admired her strength and gifts.
DB: Of course, I know you are very supportive of “Arabesque” and its potential connection to this site-specific outdoor screening area, connected to, I believe, the Symphony Center in Miami Beach?
DG: I always try and think about the space, the place and the connections between places. So in Miami, I think about the New World Center, the Art Fair and the City of Miami and how they all relate and interact. I have a sense of broadcasting out of the wall from the music center to the art center/fair/festival.
DB: “Arabesque” was originaly made as a large-scale installation – some 40+ feet in length and more than 6 ft. in height for the projections. The audio is treated in a most seriously and there are stereo channels/speakers for each of the 4 video channels of the work. So, you would enter into a darkened chamber of image and sound. It was meant to be an acoustical chamber as much as a visual art work. Now it is important to see how the work will respond to a different environment, one that puts it in-situ with a well established place for musical performance, The New World Center. It is like turning the inside out and directing a symbolic core out to an audience under the night sky. It will probably be like a – hopefully effective – “broadcast” but as with a broadcast, you get a secondary feeling from it. It brings you closer (through the enlarged and exaggerated image) but is still regulated to being a singular very large frame, like perhaps getting infinitely close to a painting, but without really being able to see the brushstrokes – just a large gestalt of the real.
DG: I have been fascinated by the relationship of the NWC to the Art Fair and the spaces inbetween, how audience react to the two and how one brings a city together for projects. I also see the wall of the NWC as a monitor to what goes on inside (ie the making of music) – so when I made the request to you for a single screen version of Arabesque – it was because I couldn’t imagine anything more appropriate, the focus on Clara Schumann. The projection of the inside to the outside. There is also the image of Kathryn Hepburn which brings along a Hollywood favourite too – which also has a resonance to our audience here. How did you see this all working ? and did/does it work as you hoped ?
DB: When asked to perform the work as a single-channel video, I very much had in mind the scope of the 7,000 square foot screen. Thereby, I thought to allow the film/movie image of, for example, Kathryn Hepburn, to reign larger than in the installation version of “Arabesque.” It seemed appropriate to let the captioned film segments loom slightly larger, yet not allow them to take over.
DG: As a result of thinking about you and your work and selecting older works too, I have realised that I have the hugest resource for programming film at an Art Fair … the last 40 years of moving image making by artists. The new is often limited and the old often neglected in lieu of venerating the fresh and exciting and not the experienced and acknowledged. The audience here and probably everywhere has seen so little.
Which artists would you show and why?
DB: Let me think about this more. I would probably show a combination of early works and recent contemporary work. I like that combination. It is sometimes hard to capture a general audience with work that is “difficult,” but very exceptional and worthwhile. That is always hard to do with large audiences and continuous programs within the context of art fairs, where usually art work is looked at very quickly and then one moves on, unless they almost “trip” upon something that is profoundly to their liking (or that has gained advance publicity through the press.) Perhaps the screenings will command a necessary reparation from the fragmentation of the art fairs. It is sometimes very good to have a place to sit and allow for moving image works, in their entirety, to be absorbed, after a day of utter fragmentation.
DB: Are you also interested, culturally, as to when these works were formulated – what surrounding atmosphere and sphere of activity helped propel them forward ?
DG: With regards to gender/feminism – what were the conditions that shaped you at the launch of your career ?. It seems that performance and video were fairly new areas to explore in the 70‘s and thus not already dominated by men – so was it that the timing was just right ? or ? It is interesting to know what made you feel the need to make Arabesque and the current status of gender balance (and hierarchies) in the art world and the wider world ?
DB: There has been much speculation that since video was a fairly new area to explore in the 70s, it was not already dominated by men. There is some truth to that, although I felt that many male artists were – and still are – seen as a predominant force. I know that I was, at first, most affected by a number of male artists using video – such as Nauman, Acconci, and Graham. Then, the grandfather of video was seen as Nam June Paik. “Radical Software,” an exceptional early magazine/journal on video was male dominated (such as Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, and Paul Ryan.) I was less aware of the work of Joan Jonas or Carolee Schneemann, for example. I was aware of Simon Forti, or others oriented in performance and movement, such as Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. But, the real use and exploration of video remained somewhat with male artists – such as Bill Viola and Gary Hill. However, the equipment started to be readily available through small post-production studios funded by grants, etc. When I first encountered video, in Florence, Italy, through the gallery, Centro Diffusione dell Grafica, many well-known artists came through and were encouraged to do video works (around 1974) by the gallery’s owner/director Maria Gloria Bicocchi. Then there were artists such as Vito Acconci, Charlemagne Palestine, and Joan Jonas. That is how I was first exposed to video as an art form. However, the main control was in the hands of a few young men, Italian and primarily studying architecture. I thought I would never get my hands on the equipment. So, I returned to NYC, where several artists coming through Florence, told me it was very active in the arts (mid-70s.) Someone lent me a portapak and my first works were made (1975.)
“Arabesque” like many of my works from early on concentrates on the representation of women, or their stereotyping or lost identity. This begins with “Technology/ Transformation: Wonder Woman” in 1978/9 and goes through more contemporary works, such as “Erwartung” (2001), and now “Arabesque” (2011.)
Even the “Damnation of Faust Trilogy” (1983-1987) brings significance to the role of the woman (who is seen taking both the identity of “Faust” and “Marguerite/Gretchen.”) At the end of that work, social and political identity supplant singular female identity. “Canon: Taking to the Street” (1990) also delves into individual identity (especially, but not limited to, violence perpetrated on women – but also extended to men.) It relates individual identity and victimization through the strength to be found in group/societal relations.
We can, of course, talk about the need for a feminist practice in the art world – and in the world-at-large.
DG: The show curated at Wilkinson by Karen Archey, with artists such Cory Arcangel – was a celebration of your role at the helm of appropriation from TV and the internet. How was this for you ? Which younger artists to you admire and why ?
DB: Unfortunately, I was not offered to be brought over for the show by Karen Archey at Wilkinson Gallery. So, I have no real idea how it came across, although I felt honored to be put in that position. I know Cory Arcangel. We were put together by “Artforum” several years ago to do the cover story for one issue – a dialogue between us. I think you can still find it online. Not sure. I can see Cory as the next generation to me and had a great time conversing with him, as well as getting to know his work on a deeper level of understanding. Most of the artists in the show curated by Karen Archey I did not know. Nor, unfortunately have I gotten a chance to know them. I find this true of a lot of work by younger artists today. In all honesty it is hard for me to keep up. I can keep up with a generation following me, like Cory, whom I have admiration for. Other artists are the ones I know through colleagues, or people I have worked with – for example – at Electronic Arts Intermix. I know, through EAI’s collection, artists like Ryan Trecartin, Seth Price, Shana Moulton, Kalup Linzy, Antoine Catala, Michael Bell-Smith, etc. I follow at a distance the work of people like Isaac Julien. Through the Marian Goodman Gallery I know Steve McQueen’s and William Kentridge’s work in-depth. But of course they are both advanced in their careers and not younger artists. I don’t follow artists working with the internet, or that Karen Archey feels are affected by the internet.
DG: What are your current influences and driving thoughts ?
DB: I am most affected by historical positions – such as I was with the installation work “Erwartung” (re-examining a moment in time, in that case the beginning of the 20th c. and “the woman” as portrayed by Marie Pappenheim in her libretto for Schoenberg’s opera.) I have been traumatized by our political positions in the U.S., especially in relation to the wars we have carried out in the Mideast and our treatment of the environment. So, I seem to have (perhaps retreated) turned my attention on gender politics – with works such as “Tapestry: An Elergy for Donna” (2005, lesser known installation), or lately with “Arabesque” (2011.) I was recently attempting to work on another opera “La Sonnabula” by Bellini, whose main character is a woman who sleepwalks. I hit a wall and am trying to knock it down, or go around it. I seem more affected by incredible historical works than by most of the art that is happening today. The current political positions of the U.S. and the trauma of the bombing of the “World Trade Center,” which I was an eye witness to, have left a part of me speechless.
DG: Are there any outstanding events that have significantly shaped you as an artist ?
DB: I felt that I “grew up” during the years I lived in Berkeley, California – from 1970-1974. It was a hotbed of political activity in the U.S. Those years and the philosophies of the continuance of the New Left movements from that crucible greatly affected me and are the core of what all my early works were derived from, along with a strong attention to the role of women, as portrayed through mass media. So, the earliest works like “Lesson Plans: To Keep the Revolution Alive” (1977) where from this foundation and my increasing interest in the role of dominant media (as television) within our culture. From Berkeley, as well, I became aware of the women’s movement. Then other events greatly affected me along the way – the first bombing of the World Trade Center (producing the work on terrorism, entitled “Hostage,” 1994), or the events of “Tiananmen Square” (“Tiananmen Square: Break-In Transmission,” 1990.) The Gulf War greatly affected me (“Transmission Tower: Sentinel,” 1992, commissioned by documenta IX.) Then, I let my politics emerge more through an active position with various groups (rather than through my art), such as “Care 2,” “Move On,” and many environmental and animal rights groups. I continued with my desire to investigate and re-portray the role of women within technocratic cultures, but I haven’t been able to directly take-on the vast and extraordinarily complex political situation of today. In other words, I have been “terrorized.”
DG: How has the art world environment changed since you started ? How do you see the art environment now ? My environment has changed by there being more art fairs and their dominance reigns, and over the growth of the Art Fair phenomenon, there has been incrementally less and less galleries showing video/film at Art Fairs. My view is that it remains a relative non-commodity, thus not deemed appropriate for Art Fairs, but needs to be seen by the Art (Fair) appreciating audience, which now focusses their art viewing attention on Art Fair seasons.
DB: I feel a bit lost in the corporate values of today’s art world, from my point-of-reference. I had great admiration for the arts developed the generation before me.
I had been affected by “conceptual art” and the early works of Daniel Buren and Michael Asher, for example. Then of course by both the Pop Art movement, in my years growing up in NYC (like Warhol and Lichtenstein), and also the minimalists (like LeWitt), along with Flavin, Andre, etc. Then it was the work of Acconci and Graham that influenced me.
Unfortunately, you can see that I am only naming male artists! The women I was drawn to were more along the line of performance art – especially Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti. There is a great discrepancy in relation to the “value” of the work of art in what Lippard determined as “the dematerialization of the art object” and the value placed on “works” of art today. I was more interested in process than product. In video I thought that my work would be more along the lines of unlimited editions (such as with the single-channel video work, as distributed through organizations and non-profits such as EAI) and was more involved with video distribution than I was with “collection.” Now there is an attempt to control everything, in light of the edition and marketing of art works, along with the terrible concern of “ownership” (as shown through the need for proper releases and concern with copyright, etc.) I also don’t like the engagement and cross-over with the fashion industry, the entertainment industry, and the arts.
DG: How do you see the relationship between art and the commodity ? and can they really exist together ?
DB: This has been a question throughout much of our Western European-American history, especially since the Renaissance. The two have been endlessly entangled in Western European culture (and now throughout other cultures in the world, as the MidEast, Qatar, for example.) Art becomes commodified, beyond its essential existence or “soul.” Some of the best work of our culture – performances by Trisha Brown and Company are, in essence, non-commodified or not as easily commodified. Commodification limits the ability to concentrate on process and brings down the essence of the work to object nature and product. I am more a believer in the authenticity of the artistic statement, which becomes more removed the more commodification takes place. Of course there are artists who play on this edge, such as Jeff Koons and Damian Hirst.
DG: What would your advice be to a young artist with a view to empowering them ?
DB: It is hard to give great advice to younger artists. Patti Smith has tried to tell younger artists to get out of New York City, that it can no longer support the position of a real artist. David Byrne has recently done the same. When rents and living necessities are sky-high, it is hard to think clearly about one’s art. However, NYC and London, for example still service as hubs for young artists. The resources of NYC, for example, are priceless – such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, and MoMA, amongst so much else. I like for younger artists to stay as independent as possible of “the hype” and to progress at their own rate. A hard thing to do now-in-days with so much pressure on them. When I came back to NYC (from Europe) in 1975, specifically to engage in the arts, my rent was $125/month for a full floor small loft in the downtown area. I was able to waitress three days a week, make my rent, and also do my art.
DG: How do you relate to our ever evolving space of the internet and the gadgets that we use to explore and utilise it ?
I use the internet for communication and for research. I haven’t been able to make art work directly inspired by it, or on it, other than using the voices of YouTube, as with “Arabesque.” I used to never use FaceBook and now find myself checking it – ever so rapidly (like speed reading) – at the end of each day. I find many postings of worthwhile articles, along with death notices that hit there before they are announced in newspapers, etc. I rapidly scan it and find what I am most interested in and need. I have about 5,000 friends and that seems to do it.
I am usually against “gadgets,” but can see things as working tools. For example, I own a iPad mini that goes almost everywhere with me. However, I still don’t own a smart phone! When I am waiting for someone, or for a meal, or in a doctor’s office I do research now. I love the instantaneous access to information and the wide breathe of it. But, one must be aware that every action is now under surveillance and that even our email is being read (such as Google looking for which ads are to be directed at us, based upon our communication.) Uncensored access to information is most important to me.
Copyright: David Gryn and Dara Birnbaum
TONIGHT – FRIDAY 6 DECEMBER
ART BASEL IN MIAMI BEACH 2013
SELECTED AND CURATED BY DAVID GRYN / ARTPROJX
AT THE
NEW WORLD CENTER
–
Friday, December 6, 8pm
An Elegy for Voice and Silence
The program looks at themes such as communication, self-reflection, introspection and the sense of belonging.
Kehinde Wiley, The World Stage: Jamaica, 2013, 6’57′, Stephen Friedman Gallery
Cevdet Erek, Studio, 2005-2007, 12”, mor charpentier
Ari Marcopoulos, Anything, 2012, 59”, Kavi Gupta Gallery
Chris Johanson, Encinitas Realization, 1999, 3′, Altman Siegel
Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, My Mouth is a Temple, 2009, 3’51”, Luciana Brito Galeria
My Barbarian, The Cassandra, 2013, 13’30”, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
Luz María Bedoya, Dirección, 2006, 4’48”, 80M2 Livia Benavides
Christian Jankowski, Orientación, 2012, 8’25”, Proyectos Monclova
JR, Women are Heroes, 2010, 9’11”, Galerie Perrotin
Nicola Thomas, Imitation 34/59, 2013, 3’20”, courtesy of the artist
Cheng Ran, The Last Sentence, 2013, 12’34”, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing – Lucerne
Stanya Kahn, Who do you Think you Are, 2012, 8’05”, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
–
Friday, December 6, 9pm
Farewell to the Past: Yinka Shonibare MBE
Yinka Shonibare MBE – known for work exploring cultural identity, colonialism and post- colonialism within the contemporary context of globalization – uses music and dance to captivate and engage the viewer by mirroring our world in a regal, beautiful and unexpected way.
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), 2004, 34′, Stephen Friedman Gallery, James Cohan Gallery
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Addio del Passato, 2011, 16’52”, Stephen Friedman Gallery, James Cohan Gallery
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Odile and Odette, 2005, 14′ 28”, Stephen Friedman Gallery, James Cohan Gallery
–
Friday, December 6, 10pm
Prelude to a Syncopation
Artists connect sound, choreography and social media – the results reveal diverse relationships between the visual, music and the meditative repetition of the ordinary and urban.
Leo Gabin, Stackin, 2010, 2’38”, Peres Projects, Elizabeth Dee
Rashaad Newsome, Dance of Succubus, 2011, 4’04”, Marlborough Gallery
Leo Gabin, Girls Room Dance, 2010 4’15”, Peres Projects, Elizabeth Dee
Shezad Dawood with Mukul Deora, The Body Electric, 2008, 3′, Chemould Prescott Road
Rashaad Newsome, Painting Opponents Red, 2011, 3’14”, Marlborough Gallery
Leo Gabin, Hair Long, 2013, 1’53”, Peres Projects, Elizabeth Dee
Rashaad Newsome, Grand Duchess of Gainesville, 2011, 2’34”, Marlborough Gallery
Leo Gabin, Cleaning, 2012, 2’32”, Peres Projects, Elizabeth Dee
Rashaad Newsome, Devices, 2011, 3’03”, Marlborough Gallery
Leo Gabin, With Me, 2012, 2’43”, Peres Projects, Elizabeth Dee
Kemang Wa Lehulere, Behave or You Jump, 2010, 1’34”, Stevenson
Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski, Chic, 2012, 3’34”, courtesy of the artist
Tango at the Edge of the Fair
and
Arabesque and Reanimation: Dara Birnbaum and Joan Jonas
at
ART BASEL IN MIAMI BEACH 2013
SELECTED AND CURATED BY DAVID GRYN / ARTPROJX
AT THE
NEW WORLD CENTER
THURSDAY NIGHT SCREENINGS AT SOUNDSCAPE PARK
Rineke Dijkstra, The Krazyhouse (Nicky), Marian Goodman Gallery
Thursday, December 5, 9pm
Tango at the Edge of the Fair
The program focuses on works that incorporate elements of dance and look at movement as an abstract narrative.
Rineke Dijkstra, The Krazyhouse (Nicky), 2009, 6’15”, Marian Goodman Gallery
Linder, The Ultimate Form, 2013, 31’19”, Blum & Poe
Nevin Aladağ, Top View 29,53 ft, 2012, 2’48”, Wentrup
Jeremy Shaw, Best Minds Part One (excerpt), 2007, 5’40”, Johann König
Rineke Dijkstra, The Krazyhouse (Phillip), 2009, 10’06”, Marian Goodman Gallery
William Kentridge with Philip Miller, Tango for Page Turning, 2013, 2’48”, Goodman Gallery
–
Dara Birnbaum, Arabesque, Marian Goodman Gallery
Thursday, December 5, 10pm
Arabesque and Reanimation: Dara Birnbaum and Joan Jonas
Dara Birnbaum and Joan Jonas have transformed our way of seeing and responding to the world. Dara Birnbaum’s ‘Arabesque’ (2011/2013) was specifically re-edited for the program.
Dara Birnbaum, Arabesque, 2011/2013, 6’37”, Marian Goodman Gallery
Joan Jonas, Reanimation, 2010, 19’11”, Yvon Lambert
Dara Birnbaum, Fire! Hendrix, 1982, 3’13”, Marian Goodman Gallery
Dara Birnbaum, Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry, 1979, 6’50”, Marian Goodman Gallery
Dara Birnbaum, PM Magazine/Acid Rock, 1982, 4’09”, Marian Goodman Gallery
Dara Birnbaum, General Hospital/Olympic Women Speed Skating, 1980, 6′, Marian Goodman Gallery
Dara Birnbaum, Kojak/Wang, 1980, 3′, Marian Goodman Gallery
Dara Birnbaum, Remy/Grand Central: Trains and Boats and Planes, 1980, 4’18”, Marian Goodman Gallery
–
David Gryn
david@artprojx.com
+447711127848
Artprojx presents
the poetics of mountains, their mutations and multifarious things
Selected by David Gryn
A Screening in Verbier, Switzerland 27 July 2013
Verbier 3-D, as part of its ‘Mutations’ programme
Darren Almond, Sanford Biggers, Janet Biggs, Ulu Braun, Louise Camrass, Eli Cortinas, Shezad Dawood, Kota Ezawa, Clare Langan, Melanie Manchot, Paul D. Miler aka DJ Spooky, Takeshi Murata and Billy Grant, Mariele Neudecker, Johanna Reich, Jaan Toomik, Fabian Weber | Aubert Vanderlinden | Paul Gladstone-Reid.
Artists and Work Information
DARREN ALMOND
ARCTIC PULL
‘Arctic Pull’ (2003), shows the artist pulling a sled on which the camera is bound, across the arctic during the dead of night.
Darren Almond was born in 1971 in Wigan, UK. He lives and works in London. His solo exhibitions include Frac Haute-Normandie, Rouen and FRAC Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand (2011), Parasol Unit (2008), SITE Santa Fe (2007), Museum Folkwang, Essen (2006), K21, Düsseldorf (2005), Kunsthalle Zürich (2001), Tate Britain (2001), De Appel (2001) and The Renaissance Society, Chicago (1999). He has also participated in numerous important group exhibitions including Helmhaus, Zurich, 6th Biennale da Curitiba and Miami Art Museum (2011), MAC/VAL, Vitry-sûr-Seine, (2010), the Tate Triennial, Tate Britain and Frac Lorraine, Metz (2009), Moscow Biennale (2007), The Turner Prize, Tate Britain (2005), The Busan Biennale (2004), Venice Biennale (2003), Berlin Biennale (2001), ‘Sensation’ (1997-1999). Almond is represented by White Cube Gallery.
SANFORD BIGGERS
SHUFFLE
2009 Video. Two channel HD color video installation with sound component, 4:47 min., Courtesy the Artist and Michael Klein Arts, New York, NY
A 2-channel video about the struggle between our own perception of self vs. others’ projections onto us. Shuffle also examines how we matriculate through society, often masking our insecurities, pain, longing and the internal schizophrenia of our id. Original soundtrack composed from the artist’s field recordings made in Indonesia.
Sanford Biggers (born 1970) is an interdisciplinary artist who works in film/video, installation, sculpture, music, and performance. An L.A. native, he has lived and worked in New York City since 1999. He received a BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1998.
JANET BIGGS
IN THE COLD EDGE
In the Cold Edge examines an individual’s search for meaning at the end of the earth. Opening with a lone figure descending into an ice cave, we follow his path as he explores the crevasses and below-ground chambers formed by an ever moving glacier. Crawling through claustrophobic ice tunnels and lit solely by the headlamps of the climber and artist, the viewer discovers shimmering ice stalactites and immense, gravity-defying frozen formations. Ascending above ground with the climber, the viewer is thrust into the vastness of Arctic space. Isolated and vulnerable, the characters in Biggs’ video struggle to define and defend their sense of self in an extreme environment. Challenged by the elements and the unknown, Biggs’ subjects (one of which is herself) find a kind of sublimity in which social time is destabilized by the power of nature, resulting in both awe and terror. The piece ends with Biggs herself shooting off a flare into an archetypal image of the frozen north. This act is both an aggressive assertion of power and a cry for help in a landscape where assumptions about self and reality are radically altered.
Janet Biggs is known primarily for her work in video, photography and performance. Her work has been exhibited internationally at museums, film festivals, and art galleries including the Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Tampa Museum of Art; Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art; Mint Museum of Art; Everson Museum of Art; Gibbes Museum of Art; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Vantaa Art Museum, Finland; Linkopings Konsthall, Passagen, Sweden; the Oberosterreichisches Landesmuseum, Austria; and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia, among others. Reviews of her work have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, ArtForum, ARTNews, Art in America, Flash Art, Artnet.com, and many others. Janet Biggs is represented by CONNERSMITH., Washington, DC, and Winkleman Gallery, New York City.
ULU BRAUN
VERTIKALE
VERTIKALE is created out of hundreds of crane shots from films and documentaries that were mounted and animated like a filmstrip. The video mediates a journey from the deep sea until the peaks of human civilisation and by that plays with our linear viewing patterns and causes a physical cinema experience. Life and its ambition of survival is reflected along a geographical and media referential, rising line.
Ulu Braun, working in Berlin, produces an especially effulgent kind of hyper-video, designed for installational – indeed, room-size – projection and based on a voracious comprehension of filmic culture, classic and contemporary. Marco Brambilla exhibits a similar sensibility, but Brambilla is a clear and dogged formalist, avoiding narrative in favor of citation; by contrast, it is the very sense of pictorial drama unfolding over time with which Braun plays time and again, inserting his manifold quotations into far larger, unfolding, often picaresque schemata (albeit ones that can ultimately loop around on themselves). Braun’s projections are mesmerizing first because of their stunning vividness (as well, of course, as their walk-in scale); but they keep us riveted less through incantatory repetition than through the promise of surprise, of absurd spatial juxtapositions and lunatic sequencing. Braun thinks big, even panoramically, and exploits the expansive potential of the latest video technologies to their utmost; but his is not a stentorian voice, but an orchestral one, coordinating a vast array of detail into a coherent whole.
LOUISE CAMRASS
ON BECOMING A MOTHER
A film shot on a train from London to Switzerland. Lake Geneva, the mist, trees and snow pass by, while a woman travels with her one year old and reflects on her own wondrous journey from singledom into motherhood.
Louise is a London born artist and film maker. Her work is largely autobiographical. She uses video, drawing and painting and is concerned with light, life, love and atmosphere. Her perspective is of course a female one.
ELI CORTINAS
FIN
The single channel video FIN is a short fragment from the end credits of François Truffaut’s La Sirène du Mississipi. The excerpt features a couple walking hand-in-hand in a bleak, snowy landscape away from the viewer, who can hear their footsteps and a wind that suggests suspense. At one point the female trips but beyond that little else happens, the end is delayed; FIN is slowed down so that the end is never suspended. The work plays with the expectations of cinematic and linear time and offers suspense and unfulfilled expectation as opposed to narrations usual completion.
Eli Cortiñas was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and currently lives and works in Berlin. Having studied at the European Film College in Denmark the artist attended the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Her work was most recently included in Videonale 14, the festival for contemporary video at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, The Latino Video Art Festival of New York, video_dumbo NY, From Madonna to Madonna at Domus Artium (DA2), Salamanca, Spain. Towards the end of 2013 Dial M for Mother will be presented at Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwighafen, Germany. The artist’s most recent exhibition was at ROKEBY, London, where she will have a further solo exhibition having been selected for the Spain Now! festival in OCtober 2013. Eli Cortiñas has just been awarded the 2014 Villa Massimo fellowship.
SHEZAD DAWOOD
A MYSTERY PLAY
For “A Mystery Play”, Dawood reprises his interest in Buster Keaton as well as his connection to Harry Houdini, via the Vaudeville Circuit of the 1920s, which coincidentally included Winnipeg, with both performers having performed at the Pantages Playhouse, which is still in use as the Playhouse Theatre. The new work was staged and filmed between the Playhouse, the Manitoba Legislative Building, the Winnipeg Zoo’s lion cage, and various outdoor locations. Drawing on research into the Masonic symbolism inherent in the Legislative Building, parallel ideas of magic, or visual sleight-of-hand encompassed in the work of both Keaton and Houdini, the film also maps out various other histories and narratives contained within Winnipeg and Canada. Historic figures are introduced, for example, Mademoiselle Adgie, the burlesque dancer who performed with lions for the opening gala of the Pantages Playhouse and Canadian magician, Dai Vernon, known as “the man who fooled Houdini.”
The film itself is an atmospheric black and white short, of thirteen minutes in length, with the action (a lyrical interweaving of the plausible connections between the various characters and the city), intercut with the various stages of initiation incorporated into the architecture of the Legislative Building. The film builds to a final climactic scene, restaging one of the key stunts from Keaton’s classic 1928 Steamboat Bill Jr., where a house appears to spiral down to the ground in a storm, and Keaton steps through the door, thus bringing together the strands of architecture and screen magic.
Shezad Dawood was born in London in 1974 and trained at Central St Martin’s and the Royal College of Art before undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University. Dawood works across many different forms of media, and much of his practice involves curating and collaboration, frequently working with other artists to build on and create unique networks of critically engaged discursive circles. His collaborative Feature film (2008) relocated the action of a traditional western to the English country-side, slipping into other sub-genres such as the zombie-flick, and Wagnerian opera (and features cameos from artists Jimmie Durham and David Medalla). Insha’allah 2009 restaged Beckett within Islamic immigrant communities in Milan. Dawood’s work has been exhibited internationally. He currently lives and works in London, where he is Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in Experimental Media at the University of Westminster.
KOTA EZAWA
CITY OF NATURE
City of Nature, weaves together excerpts from popular films, ranging from Fitzcarraldo to Twin Peaks in which nature is the only character featured onscreen. These short clips are edited together to form what the artist calls a “video collage” or seamless montage, before being translated through freehand, computer assisted digital animation. The resulting animated video stands as a visually striking and original work containing subtle, but deliberate echoes of iconic cultural moments embedded in our collective unconscious. In much the same way that Madison Square Park presents a cultivated and aestheticized side of nature, wildlife and green space amidst the urban landscape of central Manhattan, City of Nature examines the ways in which popular culture presents aestheticized images of the natural work, “unnatural” visions of nature that embed themselves in our cultural memory and media landscape more deeply than we may consciously know.
Kota Ezawa is a German-born, San Fransisco-based video artist and illustrator who creates simple, graphic illustrations over film footage to produce short, witty narrative videos. Kota Ezawa has had numerous solo shows in museums across America, including Medley, Wexner Center for the Arts, 2009; Lennon Sontag Beuys, St. Louis Art Museum, 2008, Artpace, San Antonio, 2006 and Matrix 154, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, 2005. Ezawa has been included in group exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art New York, Berkeley Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the 5th Seoul International Biennale of Media Art and the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. His recent publications include Odessa Staircase Redux, (ECU Press/JRP Ringier, 2010), and The History of Photography Remix, (Nazraeli Press, 2006). He received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2003, a SECA Art Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2006 and a Eureka Fellowship in 2010. Ezawa lives and works in San Francisco. He is represented by the Haines Gallery, San Franciso and Murray Guy Gallery, New York.
CLARE LANGAN
THE FLOATING WORLD
The Floating World | HDV | 15 minutes. Premiered on the 26 April 2013 at Kino der Kunst, Berlin. The film was shot in collaboration with award winning cinematographer Robbie Ryan BSC. Music for The Floating World is composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson and sounds works by Jana Winderen.
Clare Langan studied Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and with a Fulbright Scholarship, completed a film workshop at New York University in 1992. Her most recent film The Floating World premiered on 26th April 2013 at Kino Der Kunst Munich – the prestigious international jury included artists Cindy Sherman and Issac Julien, Amira Casar and Defne Ayas.
Vardeldur, 2012 was made as part of Icelandic band Sigur Ros’ – Valtari Mystery Film Experiment, and premiered at the BFI as part of the London Film Festival in October 2012
State of Suspension, 2012 was shown in Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt, and The Rubicon Gallery, Dublin. Her film Metamorphosis, 2007 won the Principle Prize at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Germany. In 2007 it was exhibited at the Lyon Biennale; Houldsworth Gallery, London; Loop, Barcelona; NCA Gallery, Tokyo; Pratt Art Gallery New York and the Miguel Marcos Gallery, Barcelona. In 2008 her work was exhibited in the Singapore Biennial, curated by Fumio Nanjo, and toured to Dojima River Biennal 2009, Osaka Japan.
In 2003 Langan presented A Film Trilogy at MoMA in New York and at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. In 2002 she represented Ireland in the 25th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil where Too dark for night was exhibited. The trilogy was exhibited together for the first time at The International 2002, Tate Liverpool for The Liverpool Biennial. She participated in the Glen Dimplex Artists’ Award 2000 at The Irish Museum of Modern Art. Langan represented Ireland at Sounds and Visions, Art Film and Video from Europe, Museum of Modern Art , Tel Aviv in February 2009. I Gaer (Yesterday) 2007, was created for Becks’ Fusions curated by the ICA London. It incorporated the music of Sigur Ros and is touring internationally through 2009 -2010. The Wilderness, Part 1, 2010 was in the Busan Biennale 2010, South Korea and in the RHA Gallery, Dublin, in September 2010.
Her films are in a number of international public and private collections including The Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Tony Podesta Private Collection, Washington, and the Hugo and Carla Brown Collection, UK.
MELANIE MANCHOT
PERFECT MOUNTAIN
LEAP AFTER THE GREAT ECSTACY
Both Perfect Mountain and Leap after The Great Ecstasy are filmed in the same alpine village, Engelberg, where Manchot is working on an extended body of work. Both works look at the relation between the natural and artifice in our human search for a brief moment of perfection.
Melanie Manchot is a London-based artist who explores portraiture as a performative and participatory practice. Working with photography, film and video, her projects often propose constructed events or situations in public spaces and form engaging explorations into our individual and collective identities. Manchot’s work has been exhibited internationally, with solo presentations at Haus Am Waldsee, Berlin; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Focalpoint Gallery, Southend-on-Sea; Kunsthaus Mettmann, Duesseldorf; and Cornerhouse, Manchester. She has contributed to numerous group exhibitions, including the 52nd Venice Biennale and the first Moscow Biennale.
TAKESHI MURATA & BILLY GRANT
NIGHTMOVES
Night Moves, 2012 Pro REs digital video with sound 6:01 (looped) Edition of 5. In Murata’s new video, a collaboration with Billy Grant, computer generated scans are utilized to recreate his every day environment in high tech 3D. The video starts in his studio, where his computer, desk and chair are “haunted” – dissolving and reforming in a myriad of mirrored shapes, going from recognizable to abstract to obliterated. The scans blend with Murata’s own computer rendered fragments, further emphasizing the high and low, real and unreal. The result can be seen as an homage to both Walt Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Bruce Nauman’s Mapping the Studio.
Takeshi Murata produces extraordinary digital works—videos, loops, installations, and electronic music—that refigure the experience of animation. His innovative practice and constantly evolving processes range from intricate computer-aided, hand-drawn animations to exacting manipulations of the flaws, defects, and broken code in digital video technology. Whether altering appropriated footage from cinema (B movies, vintage horror films), or creating Rorschach-like fields of seething color, form, and motion, Murata produces visions that redefine the boundaries between abstraction and recognition. Sinuous, sensual, and sometimes violent, Murata’s synaesthetic experiments in hypnotic perception appear at once seductively organic and totally digital.
Murata was born in 1974 in Chicago. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997 with a BFA in Film/Video/Animation. Murata has exhibited at the MoMA, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, among others. In 2007, he had a solo exhibition, Black Box: Takeshi Murata, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Other recent solo exhibitions were held at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, and Ratio 3, San Francisco. Murata lives in Saugerties, New York.
MARIELE NEUDECKER
WINTERREISE (A WINTER’S JOURNEY) SONG 24
In Mariele Neudecker’s ‘Winterreise’ Schubert’s song cycle has been used as a basis for a film-project using locations along the 60th parallel north. It is a compilation of 24 short films that exists as a live performance version and a gallery version. We have selected one area.
Mariele Neudecker is known for creating atmospheric alternative realities in glass vitrines. She uses a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, installation and film. Neudecker addresses sublime, romantic views of landscape and the human interest in, and relationship to it. She presented her solo show Over and Over, Again and Again at Tate St Ives in 2004. Her international exhibitions include creating a permanent museum installation This Thing Called Darkness, in 2008, at Arts Towanda, Towanda, Japan. In 2009, she undertook her first visual artist residency at Alderburgh Music and participated in the GSK Contemporary 2009 – Earth: Art of a Changing World, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. She was shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth 2010 with ‘It’s Never Too Late And You Can’t Go Back’ a fictional mountain landscape which flipped and reversed the shape of Britain and in 2011 she was invited to spend three month at the Headlands Centre for the Arts, San Francisco (USA).
JOHANNA REICH
BLACK HOLE
An overhead shot of a snowy landscape. A figure in black removes the snow until it merges with the surface beneath the snow. The figure before the camera vanishes. Escaping in front of the cinemas audience into another space. DLP video projectors often used in recent cinemas reproduce black while sending no light. The black parts of the video turn off the light of the projector – a vanishing image.
Johanna Reich works in the field of video art. It focuses on the tension between the objectivity of the digitally processed image and the emergence of sensuality and poetry. Their compositions are independent sculptures and engage by editing the soundtrack in the room. Johanna Reich studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Münster with Guillaume Bijl, Andreas Köpnick and Peter Schumbrutzki, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg with Gerd Roscher and Wim Wenders, and at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona. She is a master student of Andreas Köpnick and a member of the artist group treibeis. Johanna Reich lives and works in Cologne.
PAUL D. MILLER AKA DJ SPOOKY
OF WATER AND ICE
Of Water and Ice is a composition for string quartet and video that evolved out of Paul D. Miller’s large-scale multimedia work Sinfonia Antarctica. Of Water and Ice is a music/video exploration of the composition of ice and water and our relationship to the vanishing environment of the arctic poles.
Paul D. Miller (born 1970), known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as “illbient” or “trip hop”. He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author. He borrowed his stage name from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express by William S. Burroughs. He is a Professor of Music Mediated Art at the European Graduate School and is the Executive Editor of Origin Magazine.
JAAN TOOMIK
FATHER AND SON
Jaan Toomik (born 2 October 1961 in Tartu) is an Estonian video artist, painter and award-winning filmmaker. In the Estonian art world Toomik received recognition as a painter from the late 1980s and from the early 1990s as an installation and video artist. The critics often refer to him internationally as the most well-known contemporary artist from Estonia mainly due to his short video works that have received wide international acclaim (e.g. Father and Son, 1998). He has participated at the São Paulo Biennale (1994), ARS ‘95 (1995), Manifesta 1 (1996), Venice Biennale (1997; 2003), 4th berlin biennial of contemporary art (2006), Ostalgia (New Museum, NY, 2011) etc
FABIAN WEBER | AUBERT VANDERLINDEN | PAUL GLADSTONE-REID
LUMINESCENCE ORIGINS’ PART 1
“an emission of light that shines from the darkness, having special significants as metaphor and allegory in the philosophy of life…”
The art film “Luminescence origins” is the first draft shot of Luminescence. It is a different piece from “Luminescence”, it is to be considered like the piece at the origin of the full scale “Luminescence” which is under development.
The collaborative poise between the artists approximates a kind of collective synesthesia, where each artist is able to create, express and design with a sense of image, motion, colour and sound, in ways that enhance the creative partnership. Luminescence and the invocations of meaning and experience are felt implicitly through the frequency, energy and vibration that each actions emits and evokes. The correspondence of their trajectories are enabled and mobilized through the creation and performance of art; being at once conceptual and representational at the same time.
This work opens portals in the imagination through artistic expression which interprets the working of consciousness and sensual mindfulness through the language of art.
Aubert Vanderlinden: Choreography, Visual & Dance
Paul Gladstone-Reid: Music
Fabian Weber; Cinematography, Photography & Visual
Aubert Vanderlinden is an international award winning dancer/choreographer; he has performed among the greatest ballet companies such as Paris Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet or even Het national Ballet. He has been choreographing for nearly 10 years. Fascinated by creativity and art, he naturally dives in all forms of art.
Paul Gladstone Reid, MBE, is a versatile composer of concert music, dance, theatre, and contemporary crossover work, performed by his own ensembles and orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, and London Musici. No stranger to the artworld, he enjoys a long-standing collaborative relationship with artist and filmmaker, Isaac Julien.
Fabian Weber is world renowned for his epic landscape features for sport and extreme physical performance. As a former top athlete, Weber knows and understands the fine art of motion. His cinematographer and fine art photography encompasses large-scale productions, adverts and award-winning motion pictures. With Luminescence, he is expanding his creative practice to art with multiscreen video installation, large-scale photography and live visual art performance.
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