Unread items (10)

Wooster Collective

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  Ethos in Sydney, Australia

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 6:00am EDT

  

  

  Ethos sent us some great shots while out in Sydney, Australia for his solo show at 19 Karen Gallery. We love his characters!

we make money not art

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  The Fish Bone Chapel

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 12:14pm EDT by Regine

  

  An interview with Haseeb Ahmed, one of the winners bio-art contest DA4GA, about his project to erect a hybrid building made of the bones of fish altered after exposition to toxins. Can mutation be generative of new forms instead of considered to be simply dangerous? continue

  

  

VernissageTV art tv

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  Valie Export: Images of Contingence / Zak Branicka, Berlin

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 3:02am EDT by contact@vernissage.tv (VernissageTV)

  Archivo adjunto [Descargar]

  Bilder der Berührung (Images of Contingence) at the gallery Zak Branicka in Berlin presents works by Valie Export that deal with expressions of physical contact and its implications. The title of the show is derived from Valie Export’s installation work Fragmente der Bilder einer Berührung (Fragments of Images of Contingence) of 1994, in which light bulbs are rhythmically immersed into cylinders filled with milk, used oil, or water. This major work of the exhibition is complemented by video works and drawings, and various photographs and archive material that documents Valie Exports long-standing artistic career. In this video, Asia Zak walks us through the exhibition. The show runs until June 15, 2013.

  Valie Export: Images of Contingence (Bilder der Berührung) / Zak Branicka, Berlin. Interview with Asia Zak. April 28, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

  PS: Watch also:

  • VALIE EXPORT / Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York
  • VALIE EXPORT / Charim Galerie, Vienna / Art Cologne 2006

  More info via VTV contemporary art search
  Valie Export: Links | Videos | Images | More Images | Books

  > Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file.
  > On YouTube:

  expander_hide('#te1991689985');

  Excerpt from the press release:

  ?AK | BRANICKA is delighted to present Bilder der Berührung [Images of Contingence], an exhibition of works by VALIE EXPORT to be shown during the Gallery Weekend Berlin 2013. The exhibition highlights the artist?s groundbreaking expressions of physical contact and its implications in various media, including installation, drawing, photography, film and archival materials. The title of the exhibition is rooted in VALIE EXPORT?s installation work Fragmente der Bilder einer Berührung [Fragments of Images of Contingence] of 1994, in which pole- and wire-hung light bulbs are rhythmically immersed into cylinders filled with milk, used oil, or water. These liquids are fundamental sources of our existence. At the same time, their physical fusion with electricity implies a life-threatening danger?a contradictory, yet also mutually conditioned state of joining and repelling. The rhythmic movement in this work is repeated in a second installation of the exhibition, Die un-endliche/-ähnliche Melodie der Stränge [The un-ending/-ique melody of cords] of 1998, a recording of a threadless sewing machine and its sound.

  «
  Contingency, liminality, and sensual experience likewise permeate the artist?s video works as themes, a selection of which will also be shown, including one of her most famous works, TAPP- und TASTKINO [TOUCH CINEMA] (the Munich performance of 1969). During this performance, the artist wore an aluminium box around her naked chest, allowing passersby to enter her miniature cinema as visitors with their hands. ?To see the film, that is, in this case, to touch and feel it, the viewer (user) has to guide his hands through the entrance into the screening hall. With this, the curtain, previously only raised for the eyes, is now finally raised for both hands. The tactile reception takes a stand against the deception of voyeurism. For, as long as the citizen satisfies himself with the reproduced copy of sexual freedom, the state remains spared from the sexual revolution?, EXPORT states. In its confrontation and appropriation of the male gaze, this iconic performance has become a symbol of feminist art.

  The motif of touch reappears in VALIE EXPORT?s series of drawings dating from the beginning of the 1970s. Depicting hands that protect or caress, hands that suffer, and hands that create suffering, these works, as all others, configure an iconographic index of the human body, and particularly a woman?s body; the individual parts of which inscribe and are inscribed with meaning. Its capacity for ?touch? is most telling: It is testimony not only to sensuality, intimacy, and carnality, but also to aggression and violence. As EXPORT says: ?For me, contingence is how and where you perceive borders, and how and where and when borders explode.?

  Aside from the aforementioned works, various photographs and display cases showing archive material and documentation from EXPORT?s long-standing artistic career (specifically compiled for the exhibition VALIE EXPORT ? Archive at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2011) will complement the exhibition.

  

  

  

  

the making of

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  The Hirshhorn Is A Special Venue In Search Of Events

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 12:59am EDT

  DAY AFTER UPDATE: Whoa, well, then. The Hirshhorn board split and Koshalek announced his resignation by year-end. What a way to go.

  While designer Liz Diller made her politico-architectural case for The Hirshhorn Bubble in her 2012 TED talk, the Museum's own justification for the project has been unclear and uncompelling.

  Explanations center on making the Hirshhorn "an agent for cultural diplomacy." In February director Richard Koshalek told Kriston Capps, "This institution should be the leader in terms of setting arts and cultural dialogue. Cultural policy is set in Washington, D.C." This is debatable enough, as both mission and content.

  The programming that's always discussed, though, a "Center for Creative Dialogue," involves conferences and discussions created by the Council on Foreign Relations and outside staff, not the Hirshhorn itself, or even the Smithsonian. Critics of the Bubble vision like Tyler Green note this disconnect, and that the Museum doesn't need a bubble to host such policy-flavored forums and events; they could do it right now, in the existing auditorium. And in fact, they did just that last Fall, where a capacity crowd watched TV journalist Judy Woodruff moderate a panel on "Art and Social Change" during to the Ai Weiwei exhibition.

  No, The Bubble is a thing apart, apparently, from the programming that would inhabit it. Its absurdist form on this symbolic site, and the transgressive gesture towards Gordon Bunshaft's concrete donut, are meant to be self-justifying. Capps calls it "a public art stunt," and the Washington Post suggests it could "break DC from stagnation." It's starchitecture as spectacle and a catalyst for attention and, eventually, one hopes, the holy grail of Washington existence: relevance.

  Meanwhile, it's amazing that until Capps' reconsideration of the project last winter in the City Paper, there was no mention of what would be, for lack of a better term, the business model: The Bubble would be a for-hire event space.

  Koshalek swears the Inflatable will engage the Hirshhorn's curators, too. When the Bubble is inflated, part of its programming will correspond with whatever's lining the gallery walls of the museum. The rest of the timeshare will go to whichever universities, think tanks, and corporations rent it out--a money-making proposition for the Hirshhorn which could lead to exclusive uses not quite in keeping with Diller's civic scheme. (And certainly not with the museum's artistic mission.)

Rhizome.org

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  Performance GIFs 4: Jaakko Pallasvuo

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 11:41am EDT by Jesse Darling

  This is the latest in an ongoing series of performance GIFs curated by Jesse Darling. Previously: Maja Cule, Legacy Russell. 

  

  Still frame from Conan O'Brien Finger Wave (reaction GIF).

  

  Jaakko Pallasvuo:

  I asked Jake to mimic a bunch of reaction gifs I found online. This one turned out the best. I like functional gifs that can be injected into conversations and gossip blog comment sections. This is a gesture you can copy+paste into interactions that require sass. You can forget about this gif's brief foray into art territory. No glitch. No new media. 

  I've often asked Jake to be in my work because he is a tragic beauty. I've never met him IRL. I like sending people directions and seeing how they execute them. It's never what I think it will be, which is the reason to do it. I don't want to have control over images. I want to have transatlantic sporadic virtual working relationships. 

  He looks focused and slightly concerned. His accessories are sassy but he doesn't exude sass. The gesture is not backed up by the corresponding emotion. There is a distance between who you are and who you want to be. The GIF exists in the space between those things. 

  Click here to view work. 

  

  

PORT

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  Interview with Critical Art Ensemble

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 3:16am EDT by Tori Abernathy

  
  Critical Art Ensemble's Acceptable Losses (detail) at PNCA's Feldman Gallery
  
  On March 15th around Noon, I spoke with Critical Art Ensemble members Steve Kurtz and Lucia Sommer.
  
  
  Tori Abernathy: You've been in the planning stages for Acceptable Losses over the past four years now, but the show seems strangely appropriate in light of recent happenings. What led to focusing on themes of death and suicide in this location, Portland, or in the Feldman Gallery?
  
  Steve Kurtz: Current events. The original idea was to talk about human sacrifice in relation to war-what's acceptable and not acceptable. It took years to get this show organized (mostly due to funding problems). Fortunately, by the time the show was finally possible and the budget appeared, it seemed even more appropriate in spite of one of the wars being "technically" over. Newtown had just happened, and the VA announced that the military was facing its most significant public health crisis ever, given the soaring suicide rate among veterans. For the first time we are losing more combat vets to suicide than we are to the enemy. Just presenting the numbers related to suicide gave us an avenue to talk about the war, to talk about military service, and in some ways to talk about the political economy of war. So all the elements just fell into place. We took the edge off with the block party, though.
  
  
  CAE block party sign
  
  TA: Which is hopefully going to be a lot of fun... When dealing with hard data, there are many different strategies that one might employ in order to display that information, or make that information public. The way the data is presented here is sort of cold, liminal, but also comical in its juxtapositions. I'm wondering what motivated your aesthetic choices.
  
  Lucia Sommer: We were inspired by the Guerrilla Girls' early, very minimalist use of statistics to talk about gender inequity in the art world. Part of what we're trying to do with this show is encourage people to think about the way statistics are presented, particularly statistics involving human sacrifice and death. Statistics always, in a sense, demand narratives by the way they are selected and by the context in which they are presented. The minimalist presentation hopefully allows people maximal space to insert their own narratives and begin to ask questions.
  
  
  Acceptable Losses at PNCA
  
  SK: The other thing, in this case, is that showing in a white cube or a gray cube somewhat determines the aesthetic for you. What goes in that space and what blends with that space? It's modern minimalism-it's what it's always been, and it's what you always get. It's clean and cold like the space itself. So both the context and the content of the presentation took us to minimalism.
  
  TA: I like what you were saying about letting viewers build their own narratives around this information. Putting the data out there lends itself to filling in the holes and gaps, in a way. I'm curious whether you're worried about whether the narratives that come out of those statistics might not be the narratives that you had considered or hoped to champion? There's a chance that someone might see the work and not leave concerned about authoritarian governments, let's say. They might instead just be interested in the fact that so many people are not dying right now from lawn darts.
  
  [SK laughs]
  
  SK: Lawn dart deaths...
  
  TA: When you leave a narrative so open, there's a chance that the narrative could move in directions that you hadn't considered. With your own particular subjectivity in mind, it's hard to gauge what others might see.
  
  SK: That's very true, and that's the chance you take. In this case, the deck is kind of stacked. We're in an art school; it's in an art school gallery. I think we've got a pretty decent idea of how people are going to make links. I don't think too many of them are going to find themselves in a narrative that's actually contrary to ours. This social sphere fosters a disposition that connects to the critical trajectories that are interesting to us. It's not like we are trying to do this at the CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] or some place where people are coming from a completely different perspective involving narrative possibilities that we would likely find incomprehensible or dangerous. However, even in that circumstance, I wouldn't be troubled by it. Say it's only ten percent that see the numbers outside of their normative interpretive grid, we're ahead!
  
  LS: When we say we're constructing a narrative, which of course we are-anytime you present a fact, you're already constructing a narrative?we try to keep the narrative that we're presenting porous and open. It's not totalizing like on Fox News or a didactic exercise. There is no "This is the data and this is the only way you can read this data." It's more of a conversation starter. We present these different statistics next to one another, for example, lawn darts: 1 death, which leads to them being banned in the US and Canada; and motor vehicles: 30 thousand deaths, which is basically accepted. We all more or less accept that allowing people to drive cars means there will be car accidents. And yet, on an existential level, when we get into our cars, we do not think, "I could die today in this machine" (although cyclists might have being killed by a car on their minds). The car remains normalized and practical, while the lawn dart is transformed into an abject object, one that is existentially associated with death. This is why they are banned, even though only one death was associated with them. It's that contrast that we're after. How you read that contrast, or how you start to think about it, or question it, is pretty open. Luckily, the ideology of death is not that well developed; how death is viewed is really ruled more by affect than by politics.
  
  TA: What brings you to the types of social ills you focus on in your work? It seems to me that they are impressively encompassing and applicable to a lot of different people - especially in North American and European contexts. Is that something that you specifically hope to accomplish? What might it look like if you were to focus on more local or specific concerns in the spaces where you perform your work or present your projects?
  
  SK: Sometimes we do; it all depends. Here we're doing something kind of generic, a gallery show, so you?re going to get a more or less generic project. When we're brought somewhere for an interventionist workshop, where we have the knowledge resources of a local group that is invested in a particular area, we can do a project that addresses local concerns and that could only exist in that particular place. Again, these things are context driven. We don't come in with a set method, we have to look at who are we talking to, and where are we talking to them. Once we figure out the sociology of the situation, then we can decide what kind of project we can make.
  
  TA: [In that vein] "Flesh Machine" had been exhibited in many different locations and contexts. Did people have different responses in different spaces?
  
  SK: [laughs] It was remarkably reliable in the manner that people reacted to it. It produced this realization of how eugenics is still a part of Western culture. It was never really purged; it was simply latent. It went underground, and now it's emerging again. You couldn't go through the performative process and not get that. The kind of conversations, concerns, and anxieties that it produced were very much the same wherever we did it.
  
  TA: It would be nice to talk a little bit about what it is like for you all to work as a group. Working collectively can be a really powerful strategy, but at the same time, it can be difficult to sustain...
  
  SK: Yeah, other people.
  
  ?[all laugh]
  
  SK: In a word, there are other people involved in the process.
  
  TA: Right, and they have their own schedules or commitments, or maybe other points of view, or other strategies that they're interested in exploring. I'm curious how you resolve some of those tensions.
  
  LS: Well, we pretty much agree...
  
  [Steve and Tori laugh]
  
  LS: ...on the subject matter that we want to tackle. I think Steve could talk about that more as one of the founding members of Critical Art Ensemble. They specifically started working together because they all had a very strong anti­-authoritarian...
  
  SK: Streak.
  
  [LS laughs]
  
  LS: Yeah. When you look at other groups?and we know a lot of people who work collectively?there are many different reasons why they fall apart. Sometimes it's the subject matter that they want to tackle, but CAE already has that figured out. However, the main thing that seems to get in the way are the nonrational elements of working with other people.
  
  SK: I think that's true, and I think that's what destroys collectives more than anything else. That's why so many groups can't function long term, they can only exist project by project. Many people have a hard time dealing with the affect that is produced when working side-by-side over time in such an intimate way. You have to love your fellow members, and you have to trust your fellow members. If you don't have those two things, it's just not going to continue for very long. That's what needs to be at the foundation of the group.
  
  LS: And you have to enjoy the process.
  
  SK: That's another thing, we've always been very big on pleasure. We'll do a more depressing and pessimistic show like the statistics show, but we'll then couple it with something like the "Keep Hope Alive Block Party" where we can be much more lighthearted. Even if it is kind of a gallows humor, we still get to have an approach that's a lot more playful, and that creates existential territories that mobilize so many varieties of encounters, conversations, and relationships that are counter to the limited sources of pleasure and sociability allowed by capitalism. Dancing in the streets has always been an emergent resistant form of behavior disturbing to authority.
  
  TA: Something that really struck me about the talk yesterday was the way you addressed "self-censorship." When discussing "Target Deception," you said that all of the self- induced micro-fascisms ended up being the greatest enemy of the project. I'm wondering what advice you might have for emerging artists who want to take risks or tackle certain political issues in which they might be confronted with self-censorship. When you are starting, you're just working things out. You're exploring. At that point, you might not have the same institutional support that CAE has to back you up. What are your thoughts?
  
  SK: Well, we didn't really start out with that institutional backing. That was something that came in the latter half of our experience. You could say that this is one of the really great things about working in a collective. You have each other to embolden one another. We can say to each other: "We shouldn't be frightened. We can do this together, and regardless of what happens, we're in it together." Just like being in affinity groups, that solidarity really helps a great deal in battling self-censorship-especially if you're doing provocations and interventions. It's better to be in a group than to try to do things on your own. As for the lone artists, I don't know what advice I have for them, because I've never really worked that way. CAE is the only way I've ever worked.
  
  LS: No one wants to censor themselves, but avoiding it is easier said than done. At least if you stay mindful of the problem, you can continually reflect on the process and ask, "Am I censoring myself out of fear, or because of a belief that something isn't possible?"
  
  SK: Also, always try to determine the difference between false barriers and an actual risk. For example, thinking "Oh, well, I can't work on a molecular level because I?m not a scientist" is a good example of a false barrier. Why? Because the equipment is available, and it's perfectly legal to have. It's fairly easy to use. Most of the processes are optimized. It's your own thinking that science is such a specialized domain that no one else can enter it that stops you from doing it. Those are the ones you've really got to watch out for. As opposed to, "If we go into this building and do 'x' we could be arrested." That's a real risk and you have to think about those in a much different way. When you're assessing a possibility or potential, it can be difficult to separate self-censorship from self-preservation.
  
  TA: Speaking of working in science and biotechnology, it seems like you all really embrace the prospect of working as amateur scientists...
  
  SK: As amateur everything. In some ways I think we're still amateur artists, because we just float around and do what interests us until it doesn't any more.
  
  TA: I think it's great. My feeling is that we should be treating our art practices as, well, a practice rather than...
  
  SK: A professionalized standard, yeah.
  
  TA: Definitely. Can you say more about the idea of the artist as amateur everything. Certainly, not everyone feels the same way...
  
  SK: I have no trouble with people who want to be specialists in order to turn out a certain product that has a certain quality to it. We need them, particularly in research-saturated endeavors. We support a plurality of methods, but specialization wouldn't work for me. I can't be an artist who finds a niche and produces different iterations of that same thing throughout their entire career. That would be really boring. One privilege artists have is that we're allowed to be kooky. We get a lot of license to behave in ways others can't. We're the only discipline that has speech authority for no reason. We're allowed to comment on anything. This is one of the few good holdovers from modernism. We get to keep the privilege, but can jettison the "genius" part (the original legitimizer of this privilege).
  
  TA: It's exciting.
  
  SK: Molecular biologists have to talk about molecular biology (and probably only some subcomponent at that). They can hardly talk about anything other than their small part of the universe with any authority. I just embrace this privilege that artists have been given. You can comment on anything and say "it's an artistic expression." To my mind, why wouldn't you do that? If you want to enrich consciousness and your life, you do that through the differentiation of experience. You do it by creating contrast, not by creating sameness. So take that amateur standard, and run with it wherever you want to go.
  
  LS: For me, also, it's what makes life interesting and fun, to always be learning something new. It gives you that license to embrace a subject or something that you want to explore and just learn.
  
  SK: I just want to emphasize that because we advocate this and think it's good for us does not mean that we are speaking against other methods for acting as a cultural producer.
  
  TA: I agree that its awesome to act as the playful amateur. However, some people take a lot of issue with that in terms of deviating from existing IRB (Institutional Review Board) sanctioned methods and strategies in fields like sociology, anthropology, and the hard sciences that were put in place to protect people [well, possibly in order to control information...]. Some people feel that going through human subjects boards, for example, is important in order to protect the individuals involved. Something you mentioned in the lecture yesterday that struck me was that most people don't care about transgenics, but when you put it into their world, they have to think about it, and they have to reckon with it. I think that's an interesting stance that resonates with me deeply. What about the people that don't get included in that framework? What about those that don't end up thinking about it deeply or creatively in the way that you had anticipated? In the case of "Target Deception" for example, in this theatre of the absurd, it seems like people could be harmed by interpreting that work in a different way. The gesture might just reproduce or reinforce the ills of the same regime that you intended to criticize.
  
  
  Target Deception, Germany 2012
  
  LS: It could reinforce the spectacle of fear?
  
  TA: Right.
  
  LS: That's always the risk that you take. When you make a theatre that is presenting a certain face of authoritarian culture, in order to critique it, there is always the possibility that the critique won't come through, and the presentation of the authoritarian ideology or voice will dominate.
  
  SK: That's why you set the parameters in a manner that keeps people in a dialogic atmosphere so that you can undo that perception. I think that if the piece is working right, misperception is not a great danger- "Flesh Machine" was very reliable. The greater fear for me is that an authoritarian agency can take what we've done, recontextualize it on Fox News or some other media and say, "This is why we can't have amateurs. This is why no one should do science but scientists, otherwise you get these nuts running around spraying bacteria everywhere, and it could kill people." The recontextualization is not true, but they can say it in an authoritative tone and show pictures of us spraying bacteria. That's the scarier danger of what we do, but cooptation is always going to happen. That is what we must consider when assessing a project. How do you make it so that it is less interesting for the opposition to take, but still functions as critique? No formula exists, so you do the best you can. I would rather do an action that may fail, than embrace inaction, which always fails.
  
  TA: What other words of advice do you have for artists interested in working with your strategies?
  
  SK: My advice is to always make sure that when you engage a public you have a mechanism in the project that shows that public (whatever that public might be) what their stake is in what you're talking about. You have to qualitatively and personally connect them to the issue. If you fail to do that, they're not going to care, or it's just going to look like a bunch of didactic dribble. The other thing to remember when doing public projects is that operationally there is no such thing as free speech. You only have the rights that agents of authority allow you to have. Any action in public is illegal if police or other enforcement agents say it is. They have numerous laws to book people for completely arbitrary reasons such as disorderly conduct, loitering, blocking public pathways, public nuisance, public mischief, as well as very serious ones such as inciting a riot, vandalism, or causing a false public emergency. The Bill of Rights is not a guarantor of free speech. The closest thing to that is your lawyer. Free speech only exists in struggle.
  
  TA: Thanks.
  
  
  
  Acceptable Losses is on view at PNCA's Feldman Gallery through June 2, 2013
• 

  Openings & Events | May 23rd - 25th

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 3:01pm EDT by Emily Cappa

  Join Cinema Project at the Experimental Film Festival Portland for their curated program of 16mm surreal cartoons. From Sally Cruikshank's Quasi at the Quakadero whose main character Anita has been described as "Betty Boop with a New Wave wardrobe," to Amy Lockhart's Walk for Walk with its bubbling nursery of tear drops and googly-eyed hamburgers. Cinema Project is excited to present Weird Worlds as part of the 2nd annual Experimental Film Festival Portland. Click to buy tickets.

  
  Weird Worlds: Experiments in Animation | Cinema Project | Experimental Film Festival Portland
  May 23rd | doors at 6:30 . screening at 7.
  Studio Two | 810 SE Belmont. Portland, Oregon
  Admission $7

  
  
  [www.falsefrontstudio.com]

  
  In the Bathroom with Barry, An Introduction

  The walls of the hall that I stood in were white.
  The ceiling was white, and the floor was white.
  The Christmas lights strung along the hall and the sink at the end were white.
  On the sink was a white candle inside of a red jar in front of a mirror.
  I was waiting by the sink for the bathroom.
  I was first in line and under the impression that the door with the lightcoming from underneath was the bathroom.
  That the door with no light coming from underneath was the closet.
  The man who was soon to be second in line tested the door with the light and found it to be locked.
  He declared that it must be a closet.
  I posited that the light suggested an occupant locked in the bathroom.
  He tested the door with no light and found it locked.
  We had reached a stalemate.
  That is until we heard the flush of a toilet and the lock clack.
  I offered to let the other man go first and he locked the door behind him.
  Two more joined the line and the man in the bathroom opened the door.
  "Would you like to come in? There's two in here."
  I stepped past the other man and the urinal, past the small wall to the bowl next to the window in a white room.
  He locks the door, and we both begin our independent study of the porcelain forms before us.
  "Hello, I'm Barry."
  "I'm Justyn."
  "Are you an artist?"
  I had been thinking, lately, about the need to work on my elevator speech.
  The one where in a couple of sentences I neatly encapsulate a description of my work that is both accurate and, with any luck, interesting.
  Here was a captive audience, but all I could say was that, "I am a painter, are you an artist."
  "No, I am a writer. What kind of painter?"
  Another chance and it was a good question.I have been trying to figure this out for myself.
  At the best of times I am sitting at home with books and tea considering the ideas of other artists.
  Provisional, Casual Abstraction, these are the shorthand signifiers that reduce my approach within critical discourse.
  I wanted to say that I was an "abstract genre painter."
  But this felt clunky and like it needed explaining.
  It also made me think about how the term "genre painting" was considered demeaning when it was first used. So why not Casual Abstraction?
  All this while pondering the appropriate duration for a conversation that involves two men holding their penises, divided by a wall.
  "Small/abstract. What kind of writing do you do?"
  "Non-Fiction. Where did you go to school?"
  "I didn't."
  "Good."
  "What about you?"
  "I teach."
  There was a pause, I imagine, as we both attempted to determine,from either side of our wall, whether the other was done.
  The door rattled and I anticipated the faces of those in line as the lock turned and the door opened in.

  Justyn Hegreberg creates small paintings as quiet disruptions, breaks in the noise of life and daily thought. They allow space for one to pause and step outside one's self, to follow the material trajectory of another person.

  
  Authentic Travel | Justyn Hegreberg
  Opening Reception | May 25th | 7-10 PM
  May 25 - June 16 | Saturdays and Sundays | 12-3 PM
  FalseFront | 4518 NE 32nd Ave. | Portland, OR 97211

  
  [cal.pnca.edu]

  
  In a special exhibition at Vigor Industrial on Swan Island the MFA in Visual Studies proudly graduates 15 students and presents their thesis work, the culmination of two years of multi-disciplinary and mentor-based study. PNCA's Master of Fine Arts in Visual Studies encourages cross disciplinary studies, allowing students to work within a singular discipline or to pursue a combined practice that bridges disciplines and media.

  The exhibition will feature work by Christina Bailey, Terri Bradley, Erin Dengerink, Kiel Fletcher, Linden How, Timothy Janchar, John Knight, Matthew Leavitt, Daniel Long, Andrew Lorish, Cristin Norine, Justin Schwab, Edward Trover, Lindsay Williams, Takahiro Yamamoto.

  
  MFA Visual Studies Thesis Exhibition | PNCA
  Opening Reception | May 24th | 6-9 PM
  May 25th | 12-5 PM | June 3rd - June 9th | 12-5 PM
  Vigor Industrial | Building 10. 5555 N Channel Ave. Portland, Oregon, 97217

MoMA: Current Exhibitions

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  : Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 1:01pm EDT

  
  May 23–September 8, 2013
  
  

Inside/Out

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  My Friends Immersed in their Brilliant Work: Cross-Museum Collective Teens X Ryan McNamara

  Posted: 23-May-2013, 10:00am EDT by Calder Zwicky

  

  Alya Albert and Ryan McNamara holding hands as part of her performance

  Alya Albert, 19, is an alumnus of our In the Making teen arts program and a second-year Cross-Museum Collective member. On Sunday May 19, she and the other CMC teens, under the guidance of artist Ryan McNamara, created a series of in-gallery performances and provocations at MoMA PS1. In the following post, Alya describes the feelings and fears she experienced getting ready for her big performance art debut. ?Calder Zwicky, Associate Educator of Teen and Community Programs 

  I?ve been doing this for over two years now and I have never in my time as a MoMA Teen been as panic-stricken as I was this past Sunday. We were 12 kids crowded around in a pre-performance huddle in our “green room” at MoMA PS1: our teachers Mark Epstein and Matthew Evans giving us a pep talk, artist Ryan McNamara holding our hands, and for the first time ever at MoMA I thought, there?s no way I can do this. And then it was go time.

  The first time I met performance artist Ryan McNamara he asked if we were all artists. We gave the signature shrug and mumble that can be found in any teen art class. ?Kind of.? ?I want to be.? ?Not really.? The next time we met with him we presented our original ideas for our debut at PS1. We had each created an intervention plan to be performed in the museum. Our goal was to intervene with a visitor?s experience, using our own bodies and minimal props. So of course Otis decided to serve homemade sausages on a silver platter in the bathroom, obviously Julia knew she would shave her legs in a bathing suit on the entry steps, and John was clearly going to realize his dream of a urinal-side Britney Spears sing-along.

  

  From left: Otis carries his sausages to the bathroom; Julia shaves her legs for one hour in the MoMA PS1 courtyard; John sings Britney Spears songs for an hour at the urinal

  This should not be taken lightly. Just the chance to perform at MoMA PS1 is insane, but Bianca pushed it even further and tied herself up in electrical cords and laid on the hallway floor for an hour as museumgoers assembled around her, taking pictures and interpreting her piece. She told me afterwards that she had to close her eyes because the feeling of being tied up and stared at was too intense. Christian, who had stripped down to his underwear and socks, screaming and dancing, surprised us all with his bravery and fervor.

  

  From left:Bianca, bound and laying on the hallway floor; Christian dances and yells in the MoMA PS1 hallway

  I had decided that I would walk around the museum barefoot and, without notice, hold hands with visitors. So there we were leaving the conference room, each of us going our separate way, and all I could think of was how sweaty my hands where. I walked slowly through the galleries, at first to ensure I would not vomit on an Ansel Adams photograph, but eventually and naturally a slow glide became part of my performance. It took me five minutes of fierce inner dialogue to rally the courage to quietly approach a stranger and take her hand.

  

  Alya holding hands with an unknown visitor

  Her name was Rajeed and she did hold my hand. We chatted as we walked to the end of a long hall where I thanked her and we unclasped. As soon as our fingers touched the barrier was broken for me, I saw the force fields around each stranger dissolve and just like that the fear was gone. I went on to hold between 30 and 40 hands in that hour. Very few were like Rajeed. The first rejection stung, but I soon grew excited when I saw an empty hand dangling by an unknowing visitor’s side. I would swoop in and hope for a smile, or, if I was lucky, a conversation, but even with the brush-offs, each hand was a connection. I think the concentration of intimacy in just a few square inches of our hands was humbling for both the stranger and for me, that I did not want to stop; it was so lovely, and all I could do was smile.

  I was not alone in this. My piece gave me the unique ability to walk around the whole museum and see all of my friends immersed in their brilliant work. Katy, who had recreated her bedroom in a corner near an elevator, never once lifted her head from her book; after all, she was alone in her room. Stephanie devotedly applied makeup to her face for an entire hour as visitors came within inches of her. Skylar handed out red balloons filled with only one exhale, in the stairwell, encouraging people to “take a breath.” I could hear John belting out Britney as I passed the second-floor bathroom, and Zoe?s camera clicking as she boldly and blatantly snapped pictures of visitors. We had taken over the museum absolutely and unapologetically.

  

  From left: Katy?s recreated bedroom scene, near the elevators; Stephanie applying makeup for an hour in the galleries, with young spectators

  

  From left: Skylar reminds people to ?take a breath? in the stairwell; Zoe takes pictures of the MoMA PS1 visitors from her spot in the corner

  

  Betzy’s banana peel “Z,” as arranged on the ground of the MoMA PS1 steps

  When our hour was up and we receded back into the conference room, the energy of success was unmistakable. Ryan told us we were undoubtedly artists and we believe him. What started out as another fun project from the Cross-Museum Collective, culminated in a practice of guts and glory. As I said, I?ve done a quite a few projects with MoMA Teens and have worked with several artists, but on Sunday with Ryan things were different. Ryan gave us this incredible freedom and confidence to conceptualize and execute a new facet of our creativity. The thing is that he never doubted us, leaving our own doubt to melt away under his influence. So when it was go time and Ryan, Mark, and Matthew led us out into the wilds of MoMA PS1, we performed our hearts out and didn?t look back. My name is Alya Albert and I?m a performance artist.
   
  The Cross-Museum Collective is a free 16-week program, created in conjunction between MoMA and MoMA PS1, and open to all alumni of our In the Making teen art courses. More info on Summer 2013 In the Making courses can be found at MoMA.org/MoMAteens. Special thanks to everyone at MoMA PS1, Ryan McNamara, Matthew Evans, Mark Joshua Epstein, and especially the 2013 Cross-Museum Collective: Betzy, Alya, Otis, John, Christian, Stephanie, Bianca, Julia, Zoe, Emily, Skylar, and Katy!

e-flux shows

• 

  Richard Mosse

  Fetched: 23-May-2013, 6:33pm EDT

  Richard Mosse represents Ireland with The Enclave, a major new multimedia installation at the 55th International Art Exhibition ? La Biennale di Venezia. The Commissioner and Curator is Anna O'Sullivan, Director of the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland. Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.  Throughout 2012, Richard Mosse and his collaborators Trevor Tweeten (cinematographer and editor) and Ben Frost (composer and sound designer) travelled in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, infiltrating armed rebel groups in a war zone plagued by frequent ambushes, massacres and systematic sexual violence.