Video of September’s Galit Eilat and Reem Fadda Talk

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have the video of the talk at the New School that we co-presented with the Vera List Center for Art & Politics. Much editing and compression has happened between September 15 and now, and we still had to break it up into two parts!

I hope you enjoy, it was a very interesting talk.

Part 1, 58:08

More “Erratic Anthropologies” Artist Interviews

A little reminder, if you have been in New York and haven’t made it out to see the current exhibition your time is running short! The galleries will be closed from December 20 to January 4 for winter break so you’ve only got this week and the first full week of January left!

Whether or not you’re in New York you can still enjoy a peek inside the artists minds here on Art Production Notes or, to skip the middle-interface, our Vimeo page

Guy Benfield talks about the inspirations behind his Night Store project:

Shana Moulton talks about the history of her Whispering Pines series (The Undiscovered Antique is part 9):

For pictures of the installations, Performa 09 events, and previous works by the artists check out the Erratic Anthropologies collection on our Flickr stream.

Rancourt/Yatsuk Discuss

Check out our new video interview with Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk, where they reveal how they met and what their influences and inspiration have been for Phase IV, opening in one week!

Stay tuned for interviews with the other Erratic Anthropologies artists Guy Benfield and Shana Moulton. If you’re in the Art in General neighborhood on October 29 we’ll be celebrating the new exhibition from 6-8!

Are You Ready for Phase IV?

Phase IV
Rancourt/Yatsuk

Part of “Erratic Anthropologies”
October 29, 2009-January 9, 2010
Opening reception Thursday, October 29, from 6-8 pm.
Performance events at 7 pm on November 11 and November 18.

Presented by Art in General for Performa 09.

Performa 09 (November 1-22, 2009) is the third edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. www.performa-arts.org

Underground Up: Fall Party 2009 with Chris Stain, Cake, & Cern

Chris Stain

Originally uploaded by charles le brigand

An example of Chris Stain’s work. He will be one of three artists creating one-night-only pieces for Art in General’s 2nd Annual Saturday Night Party. For tickets and more information go to http://www.artingeneral.org/events/957.

Mobile Archive Daily Screening Schedule Just Announced!

The screening dates are subject to change (slightly), but all artists will be included. Check back at the Art in General Mobile Archive page for updates.

Don’t forget to join us this Thursday for the opening reception from 6 to 9!

Highlights from the Archive
Curated by Anne Barlow and Chen Tamir

A different artist will be highlighted each day throughout the exhibition:

• Thursday, September 24:  Doron Solomons
• Friday, September 25:  Ruti Sela
• Saturday, September 26:  Hito Steyrel
• Tuesday, September 29:  Gilad Ratman
• Wednesday, September 30:  Amit Goren
• Thursday, October 1:    Rinat Kotler
• Friday, October 2:  Mor Arkadir and Rona Perry
• Saturday, October 3:  Köken Ergun
• Tuesday, October 4:  Yael Bartana
• Wednesday, October 7:  Dana Levy
• Thursday, October 8:  Adrian Paci
• Friday, October 9:  Roee Rosen
• Saturday, October 10:  Ariella Azoulay
• Tuesday, October 13:  Oreet Ashery
• Wednesday, October 14:  Esra Ersen
• Thursday, October 15:  Ana Husman
• Friday, October 16:  Suleiman Mansour
• Saturday, October 17:  Miri Segal

Coming Up at Art in General

Art in General’s galleries are closed for the remainder of the summer, but here’s a preview of what’s coming up in the next couple of months.

Mobile Archive is a traveling archive of more than 1,200 video pieces by Israeli and international artists, will open at Art in General – its first U.S. venue – on September 24.  The archive, from the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, features numerous contemporary artists who have exhibited at the center and submitted work to the archive of videos, which now serves as a sort of itinerant public library.  The exhibition first moved to Hamburg and has already been displayed in Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy, among other venues.

Art in General will provide a library space for the video works, and the public will be invited to select and view pieces on projectors and television screens.  The exhibition will also include weekly video screening programs selected by guest curators.

One of the most exciting components of this unique exhibition is that it is ever-evolving and effectively represents a variety of diverse artists from around the world; each arts center hosting it has the opportunity to add new video works to the archive.  Art in General and the guest curators will select 20-25 works by New York-area artists for permanent inclusion in the archive.  Mobile Archive will remain on view until October 17 and will return to Holon in 2010 after three years of traveling.

October 29 marks an important date at Art in General, when exhibitions of three New Commissions Projects will open.  Guy Benfield, an Australian-born and Brooklyn-based artist, will be presenting Night Store in the first floor Project Space.  The exhibition, on view for two months, will consist of performative and installation art that examines the concept of the artist’s workspace.  Benfield’s project is concerned with modern creative practice in relation to artistic customs that now seem obsolete.  He investigates the relationship between the private space in which art is often created and the public context in which it might be viewed or performed.  Benfield’s past projects have also served as in-depth studies of the nature of creating, and have similarly engaged the idea of the artist as a spectacle.

Shana Moulton, a New York-based artist, will also be debuting new work at Art in General on October 29.  As part of her “Whispering Pines” video series, Moulton’s project will display a new chapter in the narrative of her anxious and withdrawn alter-ego, Cynthia, who is constantly searching for a sense fulfillment.  Moulton’s portrayal of Cynthia and her journey explores the implications of popular culture, materialism, and technology on the individual’s struggle with body image and identity.  Cynthia’s ongoing search for purpose in the material world is pervaded by her apparent uncertainty and insecurities.  Through this fictional character, Moulton satirically comments on America’s superficial preoccupation with physical beauty; Cynthia’s quests lead her to participate in bizarre and even ridiculous customs that are actually not so uncommon in America.  To read more about Moulton’s motivations for Cynthia, check out Art in America’s Video Vortex: A Conversation with Shana Moulton, by Aimee Walleston.

Phase IV, a project by Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk, will also open at Art in General on October 29.  The young artists, known as Rancourt/Yatsuk, will present the narrative of Don Donavucci, a fictional star realtor who attempts to create an ideal suburban home despite the adverse conditions in the depressed housing market.  The artists will construct this model home in Art in General’s gallery space, and viewers will have the opportunity to explore a contrived suburban landscape that will include sculptures, videos, and an eerie soundtrack.  Through their exhibition, Rancourt/Yatsuk examine the reasons for the housing market crash, and expose issues regarding limited natural resources, sustainability, and urbanization.  Their recent projects are similarly designed to be interactive with the public and also address the contemporary American landscape – coming up on August 29^th, Rancourt/Yatsuk will lead The Market Crash Tour, a performative venture that the general public is invited to participate in, as part of Flux Factory’s Going Places (Doing Stuff) Part II.

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer and stay tuned for more news about upcoming projects and public programs!

Changing The Face of Portraiture

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to catch a fascinating multi-media performance at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn featuring films by Andy Warhol and music by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips.  The songwriting duo, known as Dean & Britta, was commissioned by The Andy Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to perform both original songs and covers that accompany 13 of Warhol’s Screen Tests, each of which last for four minutes.  Accordingly, the musicians call their soundtrack 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests.

Dean & Britta’s songs complement just a selection of the hundreds of silent black-and-white film portraits that Warhol shot in his studio between 1964 and 1966.   The artist captured both famous and anonymous individuals who he believed had “star” quality; among the 13 paired with Dean & Britta’s music are Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Paul America, and Dennis Hopper.  Warhol’s attractive subjects are visibly aware of the camera, and all suggest an enigmatic and sexually charged persona, which perhaps is intensified by Dean & Brita’s subtle but sophisticated soundtracks.

While watching Warhol’s slow-motion films I felt a sensation similar to the one I felt when viewing Josh Melnick’s The 8 Train, a project commissioned by Art in General that was recently on view at the gallery.  Melnick’s exhibition also consisted of numerous black-and-white film portraits shown on large screens in slow-motion.  However, his subjects were all strangers on the subway, purposely chosen by the artist because of their inconspicuous, neutral presence, unlike Warhol’s self-aware and provocative models.  Still, Melnick’s and Warhol’s screenings similarly employ modern technology to challenge the conventional idea of portraiture – by meshing the mediums of video and photography, the artists eliminate the static nature of a frozen portrait and bring their images to life with subtle and delicate movements.

Melnick and Warhol both invite viewers to stare at people for longer than is normally acceptable in a public setting, as their pieces encourage the audience to fix their eyes on a particular individual for several minutes.  In effect, the viewer in both cases is provoked to reflect upon the concept of the gaze, and how it situates us in relation to other human beings.  While watching Warhol’s Screen Tests I revisited the thoughts that Melnick’s project incited in me – both experiences left me wondering about perception – about what my mind takes away when I look at others, whether strangers or celebrities, and about what those same people might take away if the gaze were reversed and they instead were watching me.  Both presentations also encouraged me to question the origins of my inferences, as I was curious about whether my ideas surrounding the faces on the screens were practical and well-founded, or whether I was arbitrarily filling in blanks and inventing my own stories.  Still, while both projects provide longer-than-normal opportunities to stare at a stranger, they are nonetheless comprised of ephemeral images, transient portraits that do not hang permanently on a museum or gallery wall.

While my experiences viewing 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and The 8 Train were rather reminiscent of each other, the two projects are fundamentally different at the same time.  Although both artists shot silent film, Dean & Britta’s soundtrack infuses Warhol’s work with the significant element of music and sound, and serves to heighten the provocative and alluring quality of each of his subjects.  Furthermore, though his films are slow-moving, Warhol does capture some of his models performing deliberate actions – whether chewing gum, drinking Coca-Cola, or provocatively brushing teeth.  He carefully chose his subjects from an inner circle of friends and celebrities, or made selections based on the people’s striking appearances.  In contrast, Melnick’s exhibition is intentionally a silent and impartial presentation of individuals, free of any bold sounds, movements or images that might cause the audience to perceive the subject in any particular or calculated way.  The project is no longer on view at Art in General, but you can read more about it here – and I recommend checking out Dean & Britta’s concert as well.  The duo puts on an entrancing show that is currently touring at various festivals and arts centers around the U.S., and will soon be appearing internationally.

Alternative Spaces and What They Offer

Most know that virtually any creation can qualify as art, no matter how abstract or unconventional it might seem.  Artists face no restrictions or boundaries in labeling their work as art, but their ability to authorize what constitutes art may become thwarted once they seek to exhibit or sell work to the public at an established venue.  Especially at a private gallery or collecting institution that primarily concentrates on sales, conventions that might initially be absent from an artist’s mind come into play, and will likely obstruct the artist’s desire to collaborate with such an organization.

However, artists whose work deviates from the mainstream conception of art are not predestined to a secluded career that awards them no publicity – in fact, now, they can benefit from opportunities that were not as plentiful in the past, because of the new options that “alternative spaces” provide.  These places offer to artists just what their name suggests: a space that serves as an alternative to museums or private galleries, where artists may exhibit even what might be viewed as dangerously eccentric artwork.

Alternative spaces are no doubt unique institutions, but most have adopted common objectives, programs, and policies.  They are alike in that they are not afraid to take on what some others may view as risks; instead, they encourage and seek unusual artwork that is oftentimes complex and interdisciplinary.  Many of these organizations also tend to link with local artists who may not be well-known despite their notable originality; in effect, these spaces can function to effectively bolster under appreciated or emerging artists’ careers by exposing their talent and opening the door to future opportunities to exhibit and sell work.

Ordering Art: How Commissions Complicate Art Ownership

Ordering Art: How Commissions Complicate Art Ownership

I recently read an online opinions article published in the December 2008 issue of The Art Newspaper titled “Who owns museum-commissioned works?”  The writer, Brett Littman, poses and discusses a stimulating question: “Should museums [that commission works from artists] recoup their production costs by taking a position that they have a stake in the work?”  Upon contemplating this issue, in conjunction with my last blog entry about creating art in this depressed economy, I began thinking about the complex decisions that artists face when they are offered government grants or a commission to create work.  We all know the cliché of the starving artist – at least we hope it’s a cliché – but nowadays there are certainly many more commercial opportunities for artists than there were in the past.  So when studio artists have trouble supporting themselves, the question of whether or not they should accept such an offer to do commissioned work might not seem so complicated – it would be simply crazy to turn down money from a person or an organization that would fund one’s efforts to produce new work, especially during times like these – right? Well, I’m not so sure. 

From the museum’s point of view, when a non-collecting museum commissions artwork and then desires to take a financial interest in that work, it’s understandable.  As Littman points out, if the museum offers money to the artist as well as devoting employee hours and overhead, and as a result the artwork gains attention, the museum may feel it has a stake in the piece if it eventually is sold.  However, if such a financial interest is attached to the art, I am skeptical about the sincerity of the relationship between the institution promoting the artist and exposing work to the public, and the art itself.  Would the museum begin to have some interest beyond the inherent value of the art?  And, once an artist commits to an affiliation with an outside source, he or she is inevitably sacrificing something, whether it’s the ability to claim full ownership over his or her personal and original work, or the freedom to create genuine art with no ulterior motives or external pressures.  Certainly, if an artist is collaborating with a private gallery, there is clearly a financial relationship – most commonly the gallery accepts the artist’s finished work, and shares a portion of the profit once it is sold. 

What I’m wondering is how this purely commercial relationship compares to the one that develops when an artist accepts grant money and donations from a non-profit or a museum that would not generally profit from specific works of art.  Returning to Littman’s inquiry, it’s interesting to consider his findings that museums and non-profits like Art in General, whose mission it is to commission new art, do not tend to take a financial interest in the artwork created, while those that do not have such a stated mission are more likely to seek a financial stake in commissioned art.  Perhaps this divide exists because the former tend to possess an honest and unwavering interest in supporting the creation and progression of authentically new art, while the latter – though they likely share this intention – might be less aware of the potential inhibitions on art that might be perceived as controversial, or could be more concerned about ensuring that the artwork is well-received by a wide audience. 

Art in General, for instance, whose chief objective is to commission and support the production of new artwork, allows each of the artists it works with a strict, but generous budget, as well as an artist honorarium.  And, while Art in General encourages the artist to donate a small percentage back to the organization if his or her project is later sold, the non-profit elucidates the fact that once a project is completed, the artist assumes full ownership over the work, and has ultimate control over any financial negotiations that take place.  Creative Capital, also a non-profit that endows artists with grants to encourage the creation of innovative work, has developed a “grant cycle” system: they state, “As part of our ethos of reciprocity, each grantee agrees to share a small percentage of any net profits derived from the project with Creative Capital, which applies those funds toward new grants. This provision offers artists the means to give back to the arts community.”  Still, artists should be aware that some organizations – perhaps those that are not as familiar or liberal with the process of commissioning artwork, or those that collect work – outline different policies regarding ownership and profits, and might expect more in return from the artist than he or she is willing to give up.

So, while artists are probably eager to accept any type of grant or commission that will assist them in producing their visions – especially during times when money is tight – it is important that they consider the implications of the proposed agreement.  Artists should keep in mind that there may be undesirable consequences if the aiding organization has a commercial stake in the project – to what extent will the commissioner’s objectives interfere with and hinder the artist’s aim?  And, at the end of the day, when the exhibition is over, can the artist simply walk away with his or her work, assuming full ownership over the creation?