Fresh Art International

Monument to Decay—Israeli Pavilion in Venice

At the 57^th Venice Art Biennale, Miami-based curator Tami Katz-Freiman guides us through the multi-media installation that artist Gal Weinstein created for the Israeli Pavilion. The artist used glue, mold, metal, and felt to transform the shining white cube into a monument to decay.

As you listen the conversation we recorded in 2017, keep in mind the mounting tensions in the Middle East today. Consider the larger question of how nations choose to represent themselves in the context of a high profile international art biennial. Weinstein's project reveals the enduring power of art to serve as portent and marker of change.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Images: Courtesy Israeli Pavilion and Fresh Art International

Related episodes: Sounds of the Venice Art Biennale 2017, Lisa Reihanna on Reversing the Colonial Gaze, Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief

Related links: Israeli Pavilion at the 57th Venice Art Biennale, Gal Weinstein, Tami Katz-Freiman

Live from Dakar 2018

Today, we bring you Fresh Art International LIVE from Dakar, Senegal. We made the journey to West Africa in May 2018, to capture sounds of local art and culture and to document our first encounter with the biennial of contemporary African art known as Dak'Art.

In the first of our two live streaming broadcasts, you'll hear Marisol Rodríguez (Mexico City/Paris), one of the biennial's guest curators, talk about her work with a team of creatives based in the Hurricane Zone (Mexico's Yucatàn Peninsula, Central America and the Caribbean).

Also LIVE: our show from la Boite à Idée, or Idea Box, a cultural hub in Dakar's Mermoz district. In the garden of this space is where cultural activist Ken Aicha Sy, founder of Wakh'Art Music introduces us to a few of the creatives engaging in the local art and music scene. You'll hear from Ms. Sy, along with Franco-Senegalese artist Gabriel Dia, jazz guitarist Paride Pagnotti, I Science vocalist Corinna Fiore, and composer Nathan Fallou Fuhr. A modest local songwriter introducing himself simply as "Jean-Pierre," steps up to the microphone with his guitar to voice our melodic good-bye-for-now.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special audio courtesy ZAM ZAM, Paride Pagnotti, I Science, Nathan Fallou Fuhr and Jean-Pierre 

Joana Choumali Embroiders Empathy

We follow artist Joana Choumali from the Ivory Coast Pavilion at the 57th Venice Art Bienniale to Dak'Art 2018, as she explores the shared experience of migration and violence in her birth country. Her embroidered photographs trace stories of loss and longing—depicting lone figures disappearing from home and reappearing in foreign environments, and giving shape to the emptiness left by the casualties of terrorism. Needle and thread express Choumali's empathy with the fraught human condition.

Sound Editing: Anamnesis Audio | Photography: Joanna Choumali and Fresh Art International

Prospect 4 New Orleans—The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp

Come with us to explore Prospect New Orleans, the Crescent City’s triennial of contemporary art. Titled The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, the fourth iteration evokes the musical character of New Orleans and the surrounding natural environment—the bayous, lakes and wetlands near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Voices in this episode: Prospect.4’s artistic director Trevor Schoonmaker, former executive director Brooke Davis Anderson, artists Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Paulo Nazareth, Sonia Boyce, Rusty Lazer, Darryl Montana, Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters, and more!

 

Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Colonial Gaze

Today, we take you to the Arsenale, a historic shipyard and main venue for the 57th Venice Art Biennale. In the New Zealand pavilion, we hear artist Lisa Reihana speak on reversing the colonial gaze in her work Emissaries. http://www.freshartinternational.com

ORLAN on Art Tech

Today, we take you to Paris for a studio visit with French artist ORLAN. Surrounded by her books, sculptures, paintings and photographs, we talk about her evolving relationship with technology.

 Sound Editor: Alyssa Moxley | Voice Over Translation: Emilia Garth | Special Audio Track: ORLAN

Sounds of the 57th Venice Art Biennale

Our sound experience of the 57^th Venice Art Biennale features field recordings of conversations, sound art and performance from Egypt, France, Germany, Nigeria and the U.S.

Fresh Talk: Rachel Armstrong

Rachel Armstrong, scientific curator of the IDEA Laboratory in the Azerbaijan Pavilion where the exhibition Vita Vitale took place during the 56th Venice Biennale, talks about a set of surprising experiments designed to resolve the island city's environmental challenges. Listen to this conversation to learn about artists, scientists, and architects creating models for living architecture. Also featured, Davide de Lucrezia, Explora Biotech, Venice.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie

Fresh Talk: Oliver Beer

British artist Oliver Beer talks about how he explores the acoustical character of Kiliç Ali Paşa Hamam, a stunning Turkish bath designed more than 400 years ago by the legendary architect Sinan. Inside the hot, steamy, inner chamber of this historic space, a small group of young Turkish opera singers rehearse Beer's composition "Call to Sound." Their public performance will take place for one night only, on the eve of the 14th Istanbul Biennial.

Fresh Talk: Felipe Dulzaides

Cuban artist Felipe Dulzaides talks about FD Plays FD, the multi-media installation he created in memory of his father for the 12th Havana Biennial. For more than four decades—before and after Fidel Castro established his revolutionary government in 1959, the highly regarded jazz musician was active on the Cuban music scene. Our conversation takes place in a penthouse apartment of Edificio FOCSA, the tallest building in Havana.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie