#beatrice witkin

[flight-to-mars]

Wild, Wild World of Animals - orig. end theme

Amazing track to this 70's era documentary show. What'd I give to find it in a longer form but no luck so far. :/

[micaramel]

Artist: Dora Budor with Andromache Chalfant

Venue: 80WSE, New York

Exhibition Title: Benedick, or Else

Curated By: Nicola Lees, Eva Cilman

Date: December 16, 2018 – February 17, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of 80WSE, New York

Press Release:

80 Washington Square East is an address acquired by New York University along with the entire frontage of the eastern side of Washington Square park in 1925. At the time, the school’s attendance was growing exponentially, from 500 students in 1919 to over 7,000 by 1929. Additional living quarters and administrative facilities were required, for which 80 Washington Square East was converted to offices and dorms. The building was never fully razed, but gutted repeatedly to the point in which interiors now flow uninterrupted across the city block behind distinct facades: dorm to desk through hallway and ‘break-out’ space.

Prior to the acquisition by NYU, 80 Washington Square East was primarily residential with units designated for a specific demographic influx of its time: single men. Commissioned in 1879 by an iron manufacturer and Metropolitan Museum trustee, Lucius Tuckerman, the building featured artist’s lofts and housing for those enduring bachelorhood, that intermittent stage which makes for unreliable tenants often excluded from other residences. Nicknamed Benedick after the confirmed bachelor of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the building came to be associated with artists that lived and, more importantly, drank there. Amidst the Greenwich Village scene, fraternal orders such as the “Sewer Club” played out a theater of well-fed bohemianism within its rooms.

In 1974 NYU converted the ground floor into 80 Washington Square East Galleries devoted to solo exhibitions of student work. As part of a billion-dollar decade long redevelopment program, 1987 renovations of the galleries were followed by a new program of already practicing contemporary artists. The campus expansion successfully established the school amongst the nation’s elite academic institutions and lead to an increasingly non-commuter student body. Idealized growth fueling a hypertrophy of operational space requires multivalent and transformable redevelopment plans so as to integrate future development. NYU’s “current long-term strategic framework for growth” envisages a 2031 horizon. Such projective conceptualization of the future as a space being filled and filling itself is what amounts to a sense of the blurred present in which no definitive image of the city is attainable. Yet the recurrence of narrative and the stories we communicate as history retain agency in shaping the present conception of things. So, is the building still a bachelor, or is it more so now than ever?

To this point, Dora Budor, in coordination with scenographer Andromache Chalfant, introduces Benedick, or Else. Conceived as theater, the exhibition follows a five-act structure as scripted remodeling.  Prosthetic dry-wall and scenography play protagonists. Architectural corrections have been suggested and access increased for those in the process of completing the perpetual renovation thematizing our empire of blur. Space here is bachelorized, temporary, and unruly as action appears both completed and about to start. Unlike Shakespeare’s own fifth act conclusion, there is no Beatrice to wed, this is Benedick, or Else. Here we conclude with anticipated storage and walls stained by the charred breath of prior occupants.

Commissioned and curated by Nicola Lees Assistant Curator: Eva Cilman Lighting: Lucrecia Briceno Scenographic assistants: Lauren Barber, Rebecca Lord Surratt Editor: Noah Barker Props: Owen Bissex Production: Permanent Maintenance (Wyatt Burns) Olivia Andrews Alex Chao Saim Demirican Sam Effler Keanan Fox Cyrus Hodge Gaetano Icangelo Zack Rose Nicole Vallee Gustabo Velazquez Dennis Witkin Scenic Painting: Infinite Scenic Design: Lucas Quigley

Link: Dora Budor at 80WSE

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from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2SvhcBs

[spandrella]

I am not 100% sure if I am tracing this correctly, but it looks like music for the series was done by Gerhard Trede and Beatrice Witkins. I think Trede’s music may have been used within the episodes, and wikipedia says that Witkin wrote the theme song. According to Discogs she only ever released two tracks (one of which I can find on Spotify), but Chicago punk-ish band The Defoliants covered (and expanded? Hard to tell without access to the full credits from the PBS show) the song and it is amazing.

On a related note, Gerhard Trede was a German composer who lived from 1913-1996. His music is on Spotify and is also amazing.

Wild, Wild World of Animals - orig. end theme

Amazing track to this 70's era documentary show. What'd I give to find it in a longer form but no luck so far.