Long description 

Norwegian artist Jana Winderen records sounds above and below the surface of our blue planet to compose site-specific sonic environments. For four days during Miami Art Week 2019, she invites you to step inside the Collins Park Rotunda on Miami Beach, for The Art of Listening: Under Water. Miami’s waterways, the Barents Sea and the Tropical Oceans come together within the spherical space, to immerse you in an acoustic collage.

The Art of Listening: Under Water portrays the fragile and complex beauty that circulates through the currents of the interconnected marine world. Winderen’s ephemeral installation promises to leave us with a lasting impression. Those who take time to float into the sensory experience will take away a new understanding of sonic relationships that echo across our seas. 

Exploring a global issue of growing concern, our episode with Jana Winderen is the perfect finale for 2019. Visit our website, to hear other conversations centered on environments at risk and explore opportunities to engage with our new and ongoing initiatives.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jana Winderen 

Related Episodes: Ellen Harvey on Public Art and Climate Action, Bill Fontana on Sound & Space, Where Art Meets Sand and Social Behavior, Sound Art and Contemporary Culture with IKT Miami, Art and the Rising Sea

Related Links: Jana Winderen, Tony Myatt, Audemar Piguet Art Projects, Albert Vrana, Art Basel Miami Beach

Today, we take you to meet three globally engaged, Miami-based contemporary art experts. Ombretta Agro Andruff, Tami Katz-Freiman and Kathryn Mikesell are here to help you navigate the city and enjoy the intense burst of international art that transfigures the cultural landscape every December.

Miami Art Week brings together local and international art worlds. This is not only an opportunity for globally active galleries to present the best work of artists they represent. Miami art spaces, museums, community initiatives, individual artists and designers and collectives all rise to the occasion, too, to show their creative force to the world.

Diverse participants have diverse agendas. Whether you’re a collector, a curator, a creator, or an aficionado, focus on your passion—what would you like to discover?

Takeaways

• Plan your itinerary to focus on one art corridor— either the mainland or the beach
• Use the map guides offered at the venues you visit, mark your map - where you want to go and where you’ve been 
• Take water and snacks, wear comfortable shoes
• Do your homework, but be willing to improvise — follow your intuition!

Of Special Interest in 2019

BEFORE THE FAIRS: Dec 1, Miami—Progressive Brunch with local galleries | Dec 2, Miami Beach—Faena Festival

Dec 3-8 ART FAIRS Recommended: Art Basel Miami Beach, Design Miami, UNTITLED, NADA, PINTA and PRIZM 

EXHIBITIONS—Openings: The new Rubell Museum and El Espacio 23 in the Allapattah district | Teresita Fernandez at Pérez Art Museum Miami | Yayoi Kusama and Sterling Ruby at the Institute of Contemporary Art | Trenton Doyle Hancock at Locust Projects | Haegue Yang, Mickelene Thomas and Lara Favaretto, at the Bass Museum | Cecilia Vicuña at North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art

PUBLIC ART on Miami Beach—Collins Park, Lummus Park, on the beach and at the Convention Center

Related Episodes and Guides: Miami Art Week 2018 Preview, Miami Art Week 2017 Preview, How to Seize the Art Week Moment

Related Links: Art Basel Miami Beach, Rubell Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, The Bass Museum, El Espacio 23

About Our Experts:

From Italy, Ombretta Agró-Andruff, is an independent curator and founder of ARTSail

residency and research initiative. The program connects artists and scientists to address

the climate change specific to South Florida through creative projects. From Israel, independent curator, art historian and critic Tami Katz-Freiman remembers Miami before Art Basel. Katz-Freiman curated the Israeli Pavilion in the 57th Venice Art Biennale. From the U.S., Kathryn Mikesell is co-founder and executive director of Fountainhead Residencies and Studios. The Residency offers artists from around the world a shared creative space and an introduction to Miami’s art scene.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

In November 2019, Houston-based artist Trenton Doyle Hancock brings his mythological “Moundverse” to Miami. Locust Projects gives over the entire space to his site-specific installation. The artist will immerse us in a world inspired by comic books, toys, horror films and animations.

For decades, Hancock has been telling the story of the Mounds (gentle hybrid plant-like creatures) protected by Torpedo Boy (Hancock’s alter ego), and their enemies, the Vegans (mutants who consume tofu and spill Mound blood every chance they get). In paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, video and installation, the artist explores good and evil, authority, race and class, moral relativism, politics and religion.

This is not our first encounter with Trenton Doyle Hancock. He was among artists that curator Valerie Cassel Oliver selected for Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art. The exhibition premiered in 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Houston, and traveled across the United States. In Radical Presence, Cassel Oliver surveyed seminal black performance art. She invited artists into the exhibition to re-stage their performances.

We make our way to Houston to watch Hancock embody one of the characters in the narrative he began creating when he was 10 years old. For an evening performance titled “Devotion,” he becomes a singing Mound. He's massive. He's blindfolded. Cassel Oliver feeds him Jell-O. The spectacle is intimate, absurd and deeply spiritual.

The next morning, we wander through the artist’s mind. Our conversation explores the histories, objects and ideas that inform his work. His warehouse is awash in accumulating materials—cast-off toys, books and bottle caps, scraps of felt and fabric, cans of paint. Works in progress and finished collage paintings line the walls. A drum kit sits waiting in one corner. It seems unlikely that this artist will ever lose the desire to experiment and play with the fantastical characters that animate his inner world. 

Sound Editor: 2019 Anamnesis Audio; 2013 Eric Schwartz | Special Audio: Trenton Doyle Hancock

Related Episodes: Valerie Cassel Oliver on Black Performance in Contemporary Art, Tameka Norris on Channeling Personal History, William Pope.L Transforms the Black Factory into a Magic Lantern Show

Related Links: Locust Projects, Trenton Doyle Hancock at MASS MoCA, Radical Presence: Contemporary Black Performance Art

We shadow CYJO, a Miami-based  Korean American visual artist, as she navigates the complex maze of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2018. Her goal is to discover and document exceptional work in the photographic medium for the “Art Basel Miami Week Diary” that she contributes to the bilingual online publication L’Œil de la Photographie (The Eye of Photography).

Inside the fair, Gian Paolo Paci, of Paci Contemporary, in Bresi, Italy, introduces us to his gallery’s featured artist: American photographer Nancy Burson. Burson created some of the earliest photographic portraits using computer-morphing technology. 

Jared Quintan, Associate Director of Rhona Hoffman, in Chicago, deconstructs the symbolism in a photographic wall installation by Lorna Simpson, an African-American photographer and multimedia artist known for her singular approach to portraiture. Quintan also talks about intimate portraits by African American artist Deana Lawson, whose photographs reveal the body’s ability to channel personal and social histories.

A few weeks later, we meet CYJO in her studio, a light-filled loft that looks out over Biscayne Bay in Miami. We’re here to learn more about how the artist explores the complexities of identity, beauty and belonging through her own photography, video and text. 

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Related Episodes: Modern Portrait of Black Florida, Jillian Mayer on the Nude Selfie Project, Adam Schreiber on the Spatial Dynamics of Photography

Related Links: CYJO, Art Basel Miami Beach, L’Œil de la Photographie, Paci Contemporary, Rhona Hoffman Gallery

In 2018, Puerto Rico based actor, composer and filmmaker Juan Botta left job security behind to center on his creative life. That’s when he launched Freelance, an inventive Instagram film series that empathizes with the challenges of living and working in Puerto Rico today. Botta’s determination to make films where he lives—despite economic, political and environmental conditions—suggests creativity as a way forward. Freelance expresses a sense of hope, demonstrating that it's possible to find poetry, humor and beauty in the most unlikely situations.

The backstory: In 2019, we head to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to immerse ourselves in the island’s creative life. Now more than ever, residents are faced with a mountain of adversity. Two years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, this place still awaits reconstruction. Puerto Rico’s 2019 summer uprising protested against politics as usual. Residents gathered en masse, to transform the political landscape. Nonstop street demonstrations led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. New actors and forces are emerging that resist the island’s colonial subordination.

Despite ongoing unstable conditions, cultural work continues, with renewed energy. One night in San Juan, we meet Argentina born Juan Botta, an award winning actor, composer and filmmaker who grew up in Puerto Rico. He left his job in the tourism industry one year ago, to center on creative pursuits.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Juan Botta

Related Episodes: Mapping Caribbean Cultural Ecologies, Filmmaking in Pahokee Holds Hope for the Future, Akosua Adoma Owusu on Her Film Kwaku Ananse

Related Links: Juan Botta on Instagram, on YouTube

Today, we bring you sound art from Hong Kong, in our second guest-curated segment with Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong. CMHK is an incubator for cross-disciplinary practices in music, sound, and technology. In July 2018, composer and sound artist Samson Young introduced the first Hong Kong Mixtape, a set of nine sound art compositions. One year later, musician Him Cheung introduces Hong Kong Mixtape II. He takes us back to the former British colony to share sonic responses to highly volatile current events.

Let’s set the stage with a few facts. In 1997, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China. Now run under a "one country, two systems" agreement that guarantees it a level of autonomy, Hong Kong has its own judiciary and a separate legal system from mainland China. Rights including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are protected. Those freedoms – known as the Basic Law - expire in 2047. 

Our first Hong Kong Mixtape took us to the heart of 2017 student-led pro-democracy demonstrations, when the famed mass protests of the 2014 Umbrella Movement returned to the streets. 

The city's uncertain future has sparked years of political protests. In June 2019, thousands of Hong Kong’s citizens began to gather again, protesting against a proposed law to allow extradition to mainland China. Critics feared this could undermine the city's judicial independence and endanger dissidents. Clashes between police and activists became increasingly violent, with police using tear gas and protesters storming parliament. The bill was withdrawn in September 2019. Demonstrations continue.

For this mixtape, we share excerpts from five sound encounters by artists based in Hong Kong. The first sound work expresses feelings of anxiety and hopelessness that persist with regard to the 1997 handover to Mainland China. The following three field recording projects bear witness to months of escalating demonstrations this year—from mass marches in the streets, to the declarations of individual protesters, to Hong Kong residents' nightly ritual of shouting slogans from the windows of their homes. The final segment conveys a desire to leave all the unrest behind—taking us on a supernatural sound walk to a temple in the woods.

Fresh Art International joins U.S. based Montez Press Radio and Co-op Radio Vancouver to present Hong Kong Mixtape II.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Guest Producer: Him Cheung

Featured sound works, in order of appearance: So Ho Chi, Take 2 (ver. 2) | Jantzen Tse, So Ho Chi | RC Team, Voices of Hong Kong "Rioters" | Alex Yu, 10pm shouting _Free Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time_ Beverly Garden, Tseung Kwan O 2-9-2019 | Alex Yu, Temple

Related Episodes: Hong Kong Mixtape I, Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief, When Sound is Art—Five Sonic Stories

Related Links: Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong, Umbrella Movement

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

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,

The Commuter Biennial aims to activate unseen margins of metro Miami. Local curators Laura Randall and Courtney Levine have organized a set of art experiences for those who spend hours navigating the city in cars, busses and trains. Over the span of four months, ten public art projects will pop up around this suburban landscape.

Two of the participating artists join Randall and Levine to introduce us to The Commuter Biennial. Artist Lily Martina Lee lives and works in Boise, Idaho. Lee’s art juxtaposes intimacy and anonymity—pointing out how forensic crime scene investigations have become embedded in our everyday reality. For her commuter-centered project, she creates public memorials in locations throughout Miami Dade County, where unidentified human remains were found. Since 2005, New York based artist Marie Lorenz has navigated waterways in her handmade boats designed to optimize tidal currents. Her passengers are privileged with intimate experiences on the water. For the roving biennial, she brings her Tide and Current Taxi to Miami.

Listen to this episode to hear the voice of positive thinking. Optimistic about the potential for art to transform the grind of suburban life, the tedium of public transit and the boring daily drive, the Commuter Biennial aspires to draw our gaze from the center to the fringe—suggesting that art belongs to everyone, everywhere, across metropolitan Miami. 

Related Episodes: Public Art Meets Poetry, Public Art Hopscotches Across Buenos Aires, Art of the Everyday, Creativity in Miami’s Public Realm

Related Link: Commuter Biennial

Conversations with contributors to the book: Artist as Culture Producer

 Today’s conversations expand on the definition of the word ‘artist.’’ During Miami Art Week, artist and educator Sharon Louden, with her frequent collaborator Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, introduce the second book in Louden’s trilogy dedicated to Living and Sustaining a Creative Life. Inside New York’s Strand Bookstore, we meet a few of the artists who contributed essays to The Artist as Culture Producer. In their first-hand stories, they share the personal and professional value of creativity. 

We recorded this episode inside the tent of Untitled art fair during Miami Art Week, and at the Strand Bookstore in New York, we catch up with a few of the artist contributors. In their first-hand stories, we hear the personal and professional value of expanding the practice of contemporary art.

Related episodes: Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Theaster Gates, Marinella Senatore, Koki Tanaka.

Related Links:

Chloe Bass 
Michael Scoggins 
Shinique Smith
Brett Wallace