#ui-intermediaconcepts-festivals

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Taken from Documenta14.de, from an article titled, “Memory, Image: On Rosa Luxemburg’s Prison Letters and Gender Violence” By Sean O’Toole

This article from Documenta caught my eye with Ana Mendieta’s image of a silhouette in the snow, covered in a red pigment. The article, written by Sean O’Toole, talks about the deaths of numerous women, many artists or activists.

Upon reading a little into the article, I’ve found myself intrigued by Mendieta’s work. After arriving from Cuba as a political orphan, Mendieta spent the rest of her childhood in my college town, Iowa City, where she’d later study fine art at the University of Iowa. Learning that she made her work 40 years ago in the same place I stood was fascinating, especially since her work deals with intimate social issues and ideas around depicting these issues.

O’Toole goes into this thought of depiction (especially by photography) and reflects the sheer amount of photos and images we as a planet are producing—possibly 1.3 trillion photos will have been taken by the end of this year. Documentation has changed drastically in the last two to three decades, and it has allowed us to expose parts of our culture and society that was once easy to disguise. 

I admired a quote from John Berger in the article: “What served in place of the photograph; before the camera’s invention?” asks Berger. “The expected answer is the engraving, the drawing, the painting. The more revealing answer might be: memory. What photographs do out there in space was previously done within reflection.”10

Going back to Mendieta’s work, a connection lies between this documentation and the work itself. The second picture is a still from a film Mendieta made in college, where she created nearly one hundred of these “ebodied encounters.”

‘Mendieta explained her decision to absent herself from her performative encounters in simple terms. “I don’t particularly like performance art,” she told art historian Joan M. Marter in a 1985 interview. The immediacy rankled. “If you have a body right there—a woman, naked—it’s pretty much that and it’s really a confrontation. So I just decided that the next best thing would be to have just my silhouette. So that’s why there’s a mark because that’s the work. I wasn’t really there.”18′

Another instillation of hers dealt with the rape and murder of a University of Iowa student, Sarah Ann Ottens. Mendieta followed crime reports of the murder and posed herself, bloodied, over a table. She had invited the public to view this work, where she stayed still for about an hour.

Mendieta died after falling from the 34th floor of her New York apartment in 1985. The cause of her death, be it accidental or intentional, is still contested, as her partner, Carl Andre, was in the apartment with her at the time. The more I read up on this artist, the more I wonder what more she had planned to do. Her work dealt with such personal and intimate ideas, as well as violence.

More about Mendieta can be read here. The original article from Documenta can be read here.

[sarahshoemakerphoto-blog]

Biennials, Festivals & Fairs

I clicked on the Art in Odd Places link because the name stuck out to me the most. When I got to the website I was excited when I read “Presenting visual and performance art in unexpected public spaces”.  I’m extremely fascinated with this festival and would love to experience it in person! I looked in the past years and clicked on 2017 just to see what happened recently. I noticed that each year has a different theme which I think is really cool. This event happens every October so maybe I’ll check it out next year as a birthday gift to myself. 

[flezner]

http://www.artinoddplaces.org

Art in Odd Places

According to their website, “Art in Odd Places aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations.”

In 2005, Ed Woodham and a group of artists wanted to respond to the dwindling of public space and personal civil liberties. They started in the Lower east Side and East Village, parading the streets with art. In 2008, they added an annual festival along 14th street in Manhattan.

AGENCY. SELF. STATUS. OTHER. IMAGE. GENDER. MEMORY. HEALTH. POLITICS. SEX. DEATH. AGE. ABSENCE. BEAUTY. VISCERA. EXCLUSION. LANGUAGE. BELONGING.

The above are the words curator, Katya Grokhovsky, uses to describe her next year’s group exhibition, Art in Odd Places 2018: BODY. The exhibition will be composed of projects by women, female identifying and non-binary artists along 14th Street, NY October 11-14, 2018.

Katya fascinated me once I started looking into her more. AiOP linked to an interview with Katya and the ArtSlant Team titled KATYA GROKHOVSKY ANSWERS 5 QUESTIONS. Below are the questions and a summary of her answers:

1. What are you trying to communicate with your work?

The often invisible, absurd, grotesque, and difficult aspects of human experience as it pertains specifically to a female immigrant person.

2. What is an artist’s responsibility?

To question the way the world functions, in all of its aspects. To be fully aware and awake, to listen, look, analyze and critique, to push the limits and boundaries of yourself and your audience.

3. Show us the greatest thing you ever made (art or not)?

Bad Woman (pictured below) is my greatest work to date. Filmed on location in my parents’ backyard in Melbourne, Australia, where we first migrated to from Ukraine in the 90s.

4. Tell us about a work you want to make but never will.

The work I want to make will dismantle the patriarchy and rebuild the world. I may never make this in my lifetime or many lifetimes after this one, but I will smash the failing system with my art—or die trying.

5. Who are three artists we should know but probably don't?

Shay Arick, an artist from Israel, living in New York, who works critiques ideas of masculinity and social taboos.

Deborah Castillo, a Venezuelan artist, based in Brooklyn, who dissects ideas of patriarchal power through performance, video, and sculpture.

Kate Power, an artist and writer, based in Adelaide, Australia, who deconstructs social human relations and dynamics.

My work tends to surprise and haunt me all the time and I am in constant dialogue with myself and the universe through it. - Katya Grokhovsky

After reading more about Katya, I am very interested to see what kind of show she curates for Art in Odd Places in 2018. I expect it to be outrageous, controversial, and odd. I expect it to be awesome. I will be in New York by the time this exhibition will be in action. I will definitely be checking it out.

[iowa-keanureeves-blog]

One of the links I looked at was Art in Odd Places. The title itself made me want to know more. I learned that whatever the “odd place” is, it’s always a public space. I scrolled through pictures on the website and found one of a guy with a cape and golden helmet on- planking across outside newspaper containers. I wondered how long he had actually stayed there. Another showed a group of women outside, in a glass box with orange nurse masks over their noses and mouths. They all wore long, black skirts and flowy, white tops. Their expressions were serious with a hint of worry. Maybe they just felt awkward? Another shows what looks to be the side of a building that is having construction done, with worn out adds placed on it’s wall. Over the adds, are the same blue and white  “wallart 99% off  the entire store” sings. At first glance, they look like Walmart signs, but then you understand the pun. Lastly, there’s one that is simply the same exact clocks, side-by-side in a line across a fence. The times on each clock get later and later. Starting at 1 and getting all the way to 11:10.

[phantomintermedia-blog]

... Oh come on. You know I had to click on “Art in odd places”! Is anyone surprised.

From art that was meant to be stepped on to a cat walk across the street, this is full of art that I would also like to do at some point in my life. 

[asacroweintermedia-blog]

I’m posting about Terrain for the Biennials, Festivals, and Fairs category because I would like to attend (?) the Iowa City events but am having a lot of difficulty figuring out how to read the site and schedule.  Most of it besides what is at PS1 is at private residences and the only specific date I can find is for the kick off block party in Illinois that already happened.  Any interpretive help would be much appreciated, since I clearly didn’t take good enough notes when we talked about this in class! In a way, I think this goes with the exhibition I was interested in at MoMA PS1 because it is such a site specific festival, just as “The Hole at P.S.1.” is such a site specific piece.  This all makes me think of Situation from the Documents of Contemporary Art book series, which perhaps I should read myself to better understand this recurring theme and how I might use it in my own work.

[shangxiaban]

Charles Atlas, Kiss the Day Goodbye, 2015, multimedia installation

when people go to biennial, festivals and fairs that have a totally different feeling because there are a lot of artists artwork on the same place. you can have a different feeling and change really quickly. this artwork is on the Venice Art Biennale 2017  ” Viva Arte Viva” at Arsenale. I like this project because use multimedia to show the idea of kiss the day goodbye. two different color no then timer, red and green have the strong compare. backside screen have many photos on one day, morning to night. dark area but lighting timer and backside screen. everyone will focus on the timer and screen.