Episodes
Wednesday Apr 07, 2021
Art in Miami, Then and Now—with FeCuOp
Wednesday Apr 07, 2021
Wednesday Apr 07, 2021
In 2019, we recorded the first part of this story about the history of Miami's contemporary art scene inside Locust Projects, the longest running alternative art space in the city. Locust Projects director Lorie Mertes and artists from a collaborative known as FeCuOp—Jason Ferguson, Christian Curiel, Brandon Opalka, and Victor Villafañe, remember the raw energy of the 1990s. When we meet, the collective is in the midst of building out an immersive environment for Antenna, their first major project in Miami since 2003. The performative and interactive installation aimed to create a social experiment around communication.
In early 2021, we reach out to FeCuOp to talk about how much has changed since they collaborated on the highly interactive, live, and in-person experience at Locust Projects. Only months after they realized Antenna, the global coronavirus pandemic shut down the world for most of a year, profoundly altering how we encounter art.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Sound featured with permission of FeCuOp
Related Episodes: Where Art Meets Sand and Social Behavior, The BLCK Family of Miami on Collective Creativity
Related Links: Locust Projects, FeCuOp, Christian Curiel, Jason Ferguson, Brandon Opalka, Victor Villafañe, Miami Light Project
FeCuOp is a contemporary art collaborative established in Miami in 1997, by Jason Ferguson, born in Trinidad and Tobago, lives in South Carolina; Christian Curiel, born in Puerto Rico to Cuban parents, lives in New Haven, CT; Brandon Opalka, born in Virginia, lives in Colorado. The name constitutes an amalgam of the three founding artist’s names. FeCuOp along with new Miami-based member Victor Villafañe, are like the periodic table of elements; each member’s unique characteristics bring a unique variable property to every collaboration.
Locust Projects is an alternative art space founded by artists for artists in 1998. The arts incubator produces, presents, and nurtures ambitious and experimental new art and the exchange of ideas through commissioned exhibitions and projects, artist residencies, summer art intensives for teens, and public programs on contemporary art and curatorial practice.
Friday Mar 06, 2020
OCAD University—Curating in the Digital Realm
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Today, we take you to Toronto. We’re here to meet a group of graduate students at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, also known as OCAD. For the Intro to Curatorial Practices course, their goal is to research, develop and activate an exhibition in the digital realm. Recorded in the first weeks of the semester, our conversation reveals how the students are defining their roles and designing their strategy for curating an online platform.
In the months following our campus visit, the students forged an interdisciplinary curatorial collective. In December 2019, they launched the exhibition titled connection_found. Online now, works by seven artists illustrate the quirks of navigating intimacy on the web. “At the core of the exhibition,” writes the collective on their website, “connection_found simultaneously expands, individuates, and links the collective experience of existing on the internet.”
OCAD University—Curating in the Digital Realm is one of our 2020 Student Edition episodes.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Photography: FreshArtINTL
Related Episodes: SAIC—Imagining Tomorrow, Wayne State—Designing for Urban Mobility
Related Links: Criticism and Curatorial Practice Program, Ontario College of Art and Design University, connection_found
Intro to Curatorial Practices, a graduate seminar in the Criticism and Curatorial Program at OCAD University, introduces students to the major critical texts, theories and debates in the burgeoning international field of contemporary curatorial studies. Simultaneously throughout the seminar, students attend public exhibitions, screenings, lectures, performances and events in Toronto's visual art and design worlds. An ongoing examination of contemporary art and design practices within public culture provides students with an eclectic and critical mapping of the layers and intersections of the visual arts, media and design in relation to their varied publics, audiences, markets, the mass media and the scholarly community.
connection_found is an online group exhibition organized by feelSpace featuring works by Ronnie Clarke, Taylor Jolin, Leia Kook-Chun, Madeleine Lychek and Paula Tovar, Noelle Wharton-Ayer, and Becca Wijshijer. Together, these works trace and re-trace digital intimacy, touch, and the body as it moves and navigates towards the virtual realm. More literally, connection_found suggests the curatorial alignment of these works in a digital context which, in and of itself, requires finding connection. Source: feelspace.cargo.site.
Andrea Fatona, Associate Professor, Faculty of Art and Graduate Program Director, Criticism and Curatorial Practice, is an active curator. Her areas of focus are culture, cultural policy formation, cultural production, nation making, citizenship and multiculturalisms. In the classroom, she engages students in thinking about issues around equity and diversity in the context of art.
The Student Edition began in 2019, with visits to art schools and universities in the United States and Canada, where we began recording voices of the future. In 2020, we present the first episodes in our Student Edition—conversations about creativity with emerging makers and producers. Given opportunities to explore and experiment, students are discovering how they can shape the world they live in. What issues and ideas spark their creative impulse?
Tuesday Feb 18, 2020
Alla Kovgan Channels Merce Cunningham in 3D
Tuesday Feb 18, 2020
Tuesday Feb 18, 2020
With filmmaker Alla Kovgan, we spark a conversation to find out why and how she realized CUNNINGHAM. The 2019 documentary traces American choreographer Merce Cunningham's artistic evolution over three decades.
Kovgan directed the immersive film that took seven years to make. She and her collaborators channel the spirit and image of Merce Cunningham—from his early years as a struggling dancer in postwar New York to his emergence as one of the world’s most visionary choreographers. With new technology, Kovgan creates the film in both 2D and 3D versions. She frees Cunningham’s oeuvre from the constrictions of the stage, projecting his work into an infinite realm of the senses.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio and Photography courtesy Magnolia Pictures
About CUNNINGHAM
2019 marked the centenary of legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham. The film CUNNINGHAM traces his artistic evolution over three decades of risk and discovery (1944–1972), from his early years as a struggling dancer in postwar New York to his emergence as one of the world’s most visionary choreographers. The 3D technology weaves together Merce's philosophies and stories, creating a visceral journey into his innovative work. Sharing archival footage of Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg, CUNNINGHAM is a tribute to one of the world’s greatest modern dance artists.
About Director Alla Kovgan
Alla Kovgan is a New York-based filmmaker, born in Moscow (Russia). Her films have been presented worldwide. Since 1999, Kovgan has been involved with interdisciplinary collaborations, creating intermedia performances (with KINODANCE Company), dance films and documentaries about dance. With CUNNINGHAM, she created a film that is neither a straightforward biopic nor a traditional concert film. Cunningham was conceived as a 93-minute art piece that would tell the master’s story through his work.
About Merce Cunningham: Merce Cunningham, considered the most influential choreographer of the 20th century, was a many-sided artist. He was a dance-maker, a fierce collaborator, a chance taker, a boundless innovator, a film producer, and a teacher. During his 70 years of creative practice, Cunningham's exploration forever changed the landscape of dance, music, and contemporary art. Visit Merce Cunningham Trust to explore his history.
Related Episodes: Filming Rhythm, Stories and Soul in the Toronto Subway, Akosua Adoma Owusu on Her Film Kwaku Ananse, Inside Miami’s Sound Chamber, Erika Hoffmann on the Hoffmann Collection, Stephen Vitiello on Cultural Soundscapes
Related Links: Alla Kovgan, CUNNINGHAM, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Contemporary Psyche on View in Venice Art Biennale
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Philadelphia-based art historian Deborah Barkun talks about the pleasure and critical thinking that she discovers each time she explores the Venice Art Biennale and collateral events. Through her eyes, we understand that the venerated exhibition never fails to create a constellation of art encounters—always stimulating the senses and challenging the mind, always offering a glimpse into our contemporary psyche.
58th Venice Art Biennale:
For the 2019 international art exhibition, London-based American curator Ralph Rugoff chose the title May You Live in Interesting Times. This is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse. The words ‘interesting times’ invoke periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil. Rugoff invited 79 artists from around the world who, in his words, “challenge existing habits of thought and open up our readings of objects and images, gestures and situations…entertaining multiple perspectives…holding in mind seemingly contradictory and incompatible notions, and juggling diverse ways of making sense of the world.”
The 2019 exhibition includes 89 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city center of Venice. Four countries are participating for the first time: Dominican Republic, Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Twenty-one Collateral Events taking place across the city widen the diversity of voices that characterizes the Biennale.
Read Deborah Barkun’s posts from the 58th Venice Art Biennale on instagram @freshartintl.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio recorded in Venice May-June 2019
Romani Embassy performance by Delaine Le Bass, Music by Santino Spinelli
Related Episodes: Art Historian Playlist: Deborah Barkun Listens to Joana Choumali, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, Mark Bradford Connects Art with the Real World, Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Colonial Gaze, Monument to Decay: Israeli Pavilion in Venice
Related Links: Venice Art Biennale
Related Images: Fresh VUE: 58th Venice Art Biennial, Fresh Vue: Venice Art Biennale 2017
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
How to Build the Creative Economy
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
How do healthy creative economies open the door for artists and innovators?
To answer this question, we take you to Nashville, Tennessee. Music City, U.S.A., aims to become the nation’s start up capital, too. Every year since 2012, Launch Tennessee hosts the 36|86 Entrepreneurship Festival to encourage new business endeavors. In 2019, Festival organizers invited Fresh Art International to curate a presentation around building the creative economy.
For a live audience gathered inside the historic Acme Seed & Feed building, we bring to the stage Nashvillian Harry Allen, boutique banker, Emily Best, Los Angeles based filmmaker and film producer, and Andrea Zieher, director of Tennessee’s near future contemporary art triennial. Our conversation reveals how the same risk taking and innovation that drive all startups fuel the most impactful creative entrepreneurship.
Takeaways:
- Recognize the value of cultural entrepreneurship.
- Work toward meaningful and inclusive community impact.
- Optimize technology, forge real relationships and dedicate personal energy to increase opportunities for creators and facilitate greater access to cultural experiences.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Live event recording courtesy Studio 208, Nashville
Related Episodes: Model Behavior—New Orleans Art Triennial Inspires Other Cities, Creative Hive Transforms Contemporary Art in Tampa, The Future of Art
Related Links: Seed&Spark, Studio Bank, TN Triennial, Tennessee Triennial, 36|86 Festival,
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Artist Playlist—Regina Frank Listens to Joan Jonas
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Monday Sep 16, 2019
This episode is part of our Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, filmmakers, cultural producers and other listeners to share favorites from the archive.
Based in Lisbon, German born artist Regina Frank has shown her work in New York, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo, among other cities globally. In recent projects, she explored environmental issues in performative installations at the Museum of Art Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, and BioArt 2018, Seoul, South Korea.
Here, Regina Frank introduces our conversation with renowned video and performance artist Joan Jonas, an episode first released on June 5, 2012.
Revisiting this episode is a moment to celebrate the latest chapter in Joan Jonas’s remarkable career. She represented the United States at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. In 2019, Jonas returns to Venice with an immersive, multimedia installation. Moving Off the Land II is the first public project in Ocean Space, a new global oceanic center in the restored Church of San Lorenzo.
Regina Frank writes: I have been listening to Fresh Art since Cathy Byrd launched the podcast in 2011. One episode that I love features Cathy’s conversation with artist Joan Jonas. In 1991, I met Joan Jonas for the first time. She gave a lecture at the University of the Arts in Berlin. What a wonderful artist! I am fascinated and inspired by her creative approach to combining video, performance and drawing. She saw my work and suggested that I speak to the new museum of contemporary art in New York. They gave me their window and the cover of their newsletter and catalogue a few months later, which marked the beginning of my own career, in 1992. While I was in Venice for the 58th Art Biennale, I spent hours exploring Joan Jonas’s great project in the Church of San Lorenzo. I watched every video from beginning to end.
Sound Editor 2019 Anamnesis Audio | 2012 Leo Madriz
Special Audio: Jason Moran, “He Takes His Coat and Leaves”
Feature photo: Joan Jonas, Moving Off the Land II, Ocean Space, Venice, 2019, courtesy TBA21 Academy
Related Episodes: Joan Jonas on The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things, Art with a Sense of Placed, Part One, Regina Frank on Performing at the Intersection of Art and Technology
Related Links: Joan Jonas, Ocean Space
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Live from the Everglades, Part One
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Monday Mar 18, 2019
South Florida's subtropical wilderness inspired us to stage a remote radio broadcast from the Everglades on February 24, 2019. We brought live and pre-recorded conversations with artists, scientists, rangers, educators and Miccosukee activists to a live audience on the porch of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center. This episode is Part One of our two-hour program.
Voices in Part One: AIRIE Creative Director Deborah Mitchell, Miccosukee activist Betty Osceola, Celeste DePalma of Audubon Florida, Park Rangers Daniel Agudelo, Nathan Fox, Leon Howell, Lori Marois and Emily Wong, Park volunteer Barbara Hedges, Park hydrologists Steven Tennis and Adam Thime, and AIRIE Fellows Grant Livingston, Gustavo Matamoros and Christina Pettersson.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park
This program is supported, in part, by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and Everglades National Park. Fresh Art International's Cathy Byrd, AIRIE Fellow, February 2019, lived in the Park for one month as curator in residence.
Related Episodes: Robert Chambers on Art, Ancient Plants and New Technologies, Gustavo Matamoros: Inside Miami's Sound Chamber, Deborah Mitchell: The Artist as Guide to the Everglades, Jenny Larsson on Searching for Arctic Winter, Adam Nadel on Getting the Water Right,Artist Residency in Everglades, Art and the Rising Sea, Jorge Menna Barreto on Environmental Sculpture, Rauschenberg Residency on Rising Water, Andrea Bowers on Environmental Activism
Related Links: Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), Everglades National Park, Jolt Radio
Monday Sep 17, 2018
Whithervanes: The Art of Anxiety
Monday Sep 17, 2018
Monday Sep 17, 2018
In 2018, Locust Projects invited the Detroit-based design duo known as root of two to bring three headless chickens to roost in Miami. For six months, Cezanne Charles and John Marshall embellish the Magic City skyline with their public art and digital engagement project.
Previously presented in France and the United Kingdom, Whithervanes translate the traditional weathervane into a 21st century radio transmitter. Mounted on rooftops in downtown, the Design District and Biscayne Boulevard, the four-foot tall birds change colors and direction in response to the climate of fear propagated by the media. These are tech-savvy chickens. They scan the Internet for alarmist keywords, collecting information on topics from violence to economic crises to natural disasters. You can follow their “neurotic, early worrying system”, or N.E.W.S. on the Whithervanes Twitter account.
Connecting art with streaming social media and news technology, Whithervane designers Cezanne Charles and John Marshall invite us to think about the emotional impact of the digital information that controls our view of the world.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Photographs courtesy root of two and Locust Projects
Related episodes: Art of the Everyday, Art and the Rising Sea, Report from Miami Art Week 2017
Monday Sep 10, 2018
Process, Experimentation and Action in Dak'Art 2018
Monday Sep 10, 2018
Monday Sep 10, 2018
In 2018, seventy-five artists from thirty-three countries came together for the contemporary African art biennial known as Dak’Art. The offsite program featured more than 200 autonomous artist-organized exhibitions and events across Dakar and on the island of Gorée.
The projects we share in this episode explore ideas of freedom and responsibility as they investigate colonial histories, politics, and the economy, migration and the environment. Often achieved collectively and always emphasizing process, experimentation and action, they animate the legacy of legendary Senegalese artist Joe Ouakam and Agit'Art, the revolutionary creative movement he co-founded in 1974.
Voices: Simon Njami, Glenda León, Guy Woueté, Marcos Lora Read, Magdi Mostafa, Tori Wraånes, Marisol Rodriguez, Moataz Nasreldin, Pascal Traoré, Michel Amadou Gué
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio
Related Episodes: Magdi Mostafa Turns Analog Tech into Sound Sculpture, LIVE from Dak'Art 2018, SITElines, Unsettled Landscapes 2014
Related Links: Dak'Art 2018, Simon Njami, Glenda León, Guy Woueté, Marcos Lora Read, Magdi Mostafa, Tori Wrånes, Marisol Rodriguez, ZAM ZAM, Moataz Nasreldin, DARB1718, Issa Samb, Agit'Art, Pascal Traoré, Island of Gorée
Monday Jul 30, 2018
Turning Analog Technology into Sound Sculpture
Monday Jul 30, 2018
Monday Jul 30, 2018
Egyptian artist Magdi Mostafa's interactive environment for the 2018 Dakar Biennial of Contemporary African Art turns the sounds of analog technology into a vibrating aesthetic force. Acting like tiny radio receivers, his handmade electronics make audible the otherwise silent electro-magnetic fields emanating from today’s myriad digital devices. He exposes the reverberations of energy emission and loss in our battery powered, wi-fi connected contemporary communications.
In “Transmission Loss,” electronic residue becomes the main signal—the core source of energy for an audio playscape. Mostafa invites us to turn a field of full frequency noise into a sonic composition. By tweaking the dials of tone generators and manipulating vibrating devices, we can alter sounds, discover patterns and explore the mysterious interactions of feedback and inter-device communication.
Sound Editor: Jonathan Pfeffer | Special Audio and Photos courtesy Magdi Mostafa
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