Fresh Art International

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Writer/curator Cathy Byrd sparks conversations about today’s art, design, and film on the Fresh Art International podcast. Synthesizing interviews and field recordings with critical commentary since 2011, the podcast archives the voices, sounds, and stories of contemporary culture makers from around the world.

Episodes

Monday Aug 12, 2019

Destination American Southwest

Monday Aug 12, 2019

Today, we take you back to the month of April, in the year 2012. That’s when we set out on a road trip from Austin, Texas. We’re aiming to find out how remote wide open spaces of the American Southwest inform and inspire art and design, curating and filmmaking.

Lubbock, Texas, birthplace of musician songwriter Buddy Holly, is our first stop. In a warehouse at the edge of town, we meet architecture professor Chris Taylor. He introduces us to students from Texas Tech University who took his course in Land Arts of the American West. The course involves a 6,000-mile road trip that culminates each time in an exhibition such as the one on view during our visit.

We drive on to Roswell, New Mexico, home to the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Museum, to spend the night in one of the ranch-style houses that accommodate the Roswell Artists in Residence Program, known as RAIR. Established in 1967 by artist and art collector Don Anderson, the program is off the beaten path for residencies, offering visual artists the unique opportunity to spend an entire year concentrating on their work. The voices you’ll hear are five of the current residents at the time of our visit: Sarah Bostwick, Jon-Paul Villegas, Brian Villegas, Brian Kluge, and Sioban McBride.

A three hour drive from El Paso, Texas, Marfa has become a destination for art tourism. Home of the ghostly Marfa Lights (unexplained lights sometimes seen along the horizon in the night sky), the tiny town sits in the high desert, between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park.

Renowned minimalist artist Donald Judd came here in the 1970s to escape New York City’s commercial art scene. With the help of the DIA Foundation, he acquired a former Army base. Before Judd died in 1994, he transformed the 400-acre expanse into a faceted art experience. The Chinati Foundation is a contemporary art museum designed to connect art to the surrounding landscape. Year round, visitors can explore Judd's signature boxes and installations by Dan Flavin, Rebecca Horn, Ilya Kabakov and more. We spend a few days to track down some of the artists, curators, designers and producers expanding on Judd’s singular vision.

Professional filmmakers Jennifer Lane and David Hollander moved to Marfa from Los Angeles. CineMarfa, the film festival they founded there, will celebrate its tenth year in 2020. We visit their home for a conversation about the genesis of CineMarfa and plans for the second annual event.

Ballroom Marfa is a key site of cultural production in this remote art mecca. Arts pioneers Fairfax Dorn and Virginia Leh-bermann founded the contemporary cultural arts space in 2003. Ballroom’s gallery is a converted dancehall that dates to 1927. We sit down with Ballroom’s creative team to learn more.

In 2019, we reach out to curator Laura Copelin to find out what happened next. Ballroom Marfa continues commissioning site specific artworks and installations—responding to the environmental, social and political ecology of the landscape that extends to the border of Mexico. One recent example is Haroon Mirza’s massive Stone Circle in the grasslands east of town. This is Ballroom’s most ambitious public commission since Elmgreen & Dragset’s Prada Marfa was completed in 2005. The stone circle will remain in the landscape for the next several years.

Leaving the high desert, we drive northeast through the Texas hill country, passing endless fields of bluebonnets. In East Austin, we meet designer architect Jack Sanders in his studio. Sanders talks about how the legendary architect Sam Mockbee influenced the evolution of his own life’s work.

Sound Editing and Special Audio Credits:

Destination American Southwest Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Land Arts of the American West Sound Editor: Leo Madriz | Special Audio: 45 rpm record found by Land Art 2011 participants

Program Director: Chris Taylor

Students: Alexander Bingham, Luis Bustamante III, Will Cotton, Winston Holloway, Richard Klaja, Celeste Martinez, Zachary Mitchell, Carl Spartz, Rachael Wilson, Bethany Wood. Program Assistant: Adrian Larriva

Roswell Artists in Residence Sound Editor: Leo Madriz | RAiR acoustics: Sarah Bostwick

CineMarfa Sound Editor: Jay Agoglia | Sound Track: Harmony Korine, TRASH HUMPERS, 2009

Ballroom Marfa Sound Editor: Leo Madriz | Special Audio: Brian LeBarton, The Wind, 2010. New Year’s Film/Score Series. January 2, 2010. The Crowley Theater, Marfa

Jack Sanders Sound Editor: Leo Madriz | Music: Ross Cashiola, “Trains in the Grass”

Tags: architecture, Austin,, Design Build Adventure, El Cosmico, Jack Sanders, Marfa, Rural Studio, Sam Mockbee, Texas, New Mexico, art podcast, Fairfax Dorn, Virginia Lebermann, Roswell, artists in residence, Chinati Foundation, Texas Tech University, Donald Judd

Monday Jun 24, 2019

The Art of Obsolete Media

Monday Jun 24, 2019

In this episode, we revisit one of our live studio sessions from 2018: The Art of Obsolete Media. Web streaming on Jolt Radio, we introduce four Miami-based artists passionate about bygone technology: Barron Sherer, Kevin Arrow, Martha Raoli and Terence Price.

The initial spark for this conversation was Obsolete Media Miami (O.M.M.), a shared studio space and repository for all kinds of old media that Barron Sherer and Kevin Arrow launched and operated from 2015-2018.

On Fresh Art International, you’ll hear Sherer introduce the work of legendary filmmaker Jonas Mekas, and talk about his own complex film and video installation projects— presented in Miami, Florida, and Queens, Australia in 2018. Sherer opened a new studio space in February 2019. In 2020, he’ll launch the Moving Image Alliance, a nonprofit media arts resource and service organization to support contemporary moving image arts based on pre-digital cinema practices and technologies.

Kevin Arrow takes us on a tour of the Obsolete Media Miami space at the edge of Miami’s Design District. In early 2019, Arrow established Media and Archival Studies (M.A.S.), Miami with Stephanie Marie, the Manager of Special Collections and Archives at the Miami-Dade Public Library System. Among his upcoming local collaborations are a live “cinema + sound” experience at Bakehouse Art Complex, the activation of a planetarium dome at Booker T. Washington High School and the screening of a Maya Deren film at the North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art.

Artist and writer Martha Raoli talks about her 2018 performance with a manual typewriter at the Perez Art Museum, Miami. In 2019, Raoli launched her own radio show featuring live theremin performance. You can listen to "Etherwave Hour" on Jolt Radio every Saturday at 2pm.

Obsolete media inspired photographer Terence Price to create an entire body of work from family photo albums and home movies. After presenting his solo exhibition "Dancing in the Absence of Pain,” in early 2019, at Art Center South Florida (now Oolite Arts), he’s been preparing for upcoming shows and completing a residency with Oolite that will end in December 2019.

These Miami-based artists represent a penchant for the pre-digital among creatives the world over. Their bygone tech-infused pursuits emphasize the ongoing relevance of obsolete media in the field of contemporary art.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Courtesy Jonas Mekas, Barron Sherer, Kevin Arrow, Martha Raoli, Terence Price

Monday Apr 29, 2019

Public Art Meets Poetry in O, Miami

Monday Apr 29, 2019

Public art meets poetry in the month-long festival known as O, Miami. We sit down with visual artists Najja Moon and Michelle Lisa Polissaint and O, Miami's managing director Melody Santiago Cummings to talk about their work and introduce the spectrum of site-specific projects that bring poetry to communities.

Who’s The Fool? How To Patch A Leaky Roof: Moon and Polissaint create a Little Haiti Cultural District version of the blue umbrellas distributed for free in the Design District, a burgeoning retail development that is rapidly reducing the footprint of a community established by thousands of Haitian immigrants beginning in the 1950s. The artists imagine a dual role for the 1,000 bright red umbrellas they had fabricated. Mobile shelters from the rain and shields against the impact of urban development, the Little Haiti umbrellas feature a Creole proverb alluding to the false promise of urban development in the district. As if placing a flag on the moon, or drawing a line in the sand, Moon and Polissaint proclaim the identity of the community they call home and construct a monument to those fighting to preserve the district. The artists will go door to door with their gifts, inviting their neighbors to join in addressing the larger issue of gentrification in Miami.

O, Miami projects introduced in this episode: Who's the Fool?; Chiquita Poemas; The Last Ride of José Martí; The Beach is a Border; The Sunroom, poetry in schools

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Michelle Lisa Polissaint, Moonlight Moanin'; O, Miami: Ivan Lopez, The Last Ride of José Martí; Mia S. Willis, "hecatomb;" Sandra March, with Jose Olivarez, The Beach is a Border; The Sunroom

Related Links: O, Miami, Najja Moon, Michelle Lisa Polissaint

Monday Apr 22, 2019

A Creative Hive Transforms Contemporary Art in Tampa

Monday Apr 22, 2019

Today, we take you to meet the creative hive that's transforming the cultural landscape of Tampa, Florida. While the coastal city may still be best known for its cigar-making history and vulnerability to rising sea levels, we discover an animated art scene. This is where new and established studios, public art projects, dynamic DIY galleries, avant-garde festivals, and networked community hubs are inventing fresh opportunities for public engagement with contemporary art.

Voices (alpha order): Janina Awai, Wendy Babcox, Neal Bender, Carrie Boucher, Devon Brady, Warren Cockerham, Liz Dimmit, Bridget and Henry Elmer, Rebecca Flanders, Mitzi Gordon, Sarah Howard, Noelle Mason, Tracy Midulla, Margaret Miller, Libbi Ponce, Jenn Ryan Miller, Gary Schmitt, Bosco Sodi, Jake Troyli, Christian Viveros-Fauné

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio Courtesy of Wendy Babcox, Meghan Lock and Noisy Womxn; Kalup Linzy and FMoPA; JaTovia Gary, Kristin Reeves and FLEX FEST; Devon Brady and The Echo Quilt

Tempus Projects supported, in part, this episode.

About Tempus Projects: Tempus Projects is an alternative space situated in a storefront on Florida Avenue in the South Seminole Heights district of Tampa, Florida. A nonprofit organization operates the space as a way to nurture established and emerging local, national and international artists working in all media. Tempus originates, organizes and hosts exhibitions, events and special projects, to engage the Tampa Bay community through the visual arts. This home-grown cultural initiative has energized the district’s emergence as a unique and creative destination.

Monday Apr 15, 2019

Art and the Climate Crisis with IKT Miami

Monday Apr 15, 2019

Globally engaged curators introduce IKT, the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and talk about themes we'll explore during the 2019 IKT Congress in Miami. Ground zero for sea level rise, Miami is the ideal context for our conversation on how art and visual culture are changing public perception of today's climate crisis.

Recorded in the studio of Jolt Radio, Miami, on April 10, 2019, during our weekly web streaming radio show.

Voices: (alpha order) Daniela Arriado, Susan Caraballo, T.J. Demos, Julia Draganović, Vanina Saracino

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Cara Despain, Sea Unseen; Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, Forest Law; Oliver Ressler, Code Rood; Enrique Rámirez, Tidal Pulse; Band of Weeds, Underground Root Movement |

This episode is supported, in part, by IKT Miami.

Related Links: IKT, Screen City Biennial

Episode Participants:

Daniela Arriado is Director and founder of Screen City Biennial in Stavanger, Norway. Based in Berlin since 2012, she explores new curatorial approaches towards expanded borders of cinematic experiences and the audio-visual through projects concerning urban screens and online streaming platforms for video art.

Susan Caraballo is a Miami-based arts consultant, producer and curator working at the intersection of curating and directing to explore global issues including the ecological crisis and contemporary social conditions. A member of IKT's Miami constituency, Caraballo organized the symposium for the 2019 Congress around the subject of environmental sustainability and creative resilience.

T.J. Demos is Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture, at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Founder and Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. He writes widely on the intersection of contemporary art, global politics and ecology.

Julia Draganović is a curator whose focus is time based and collaborative art and new artistic strategies. She has curated projects in Germany, Italy, Spain, the USA and Taiwan. Currently Director of Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany, Draganović has served as President of IKT since 2014.

Vanina Saracino is an independent curator and film programmer based in Berlin. She is the co-founder of OLHO, an international curatorial project about contemporary art and cinema initiated in 2015 in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, also shown at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi (Venice, 2017) and Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2018). Saracino is co-curating the 2019 Screen City Biennial.

About IKT: German curators Eberhard Roters, Eddy de Wilde and Harald Szeemann and others founded IKT in 1973, to stimulate and extend debate concerning curating. Convening each year in a different city, IKT brings together curators from around the world, to meet, share knowledge, exchange ideas and broaden their professional networks.

About IKT Miami: A group of twelve Miami-based curators organized a three-day program for IKT's 2019 Congress in Miami. More than 100 international curators and art professionals participated, along with local curators, cultural producers, artists and other members of Miami’s cultural community. IKT Miami brought international attention to area artists and cultural producers, including those addressing global issues of sustainability and resilience in South Florida. The symposium and five related community events introduced Miami’s rich cultural landscape.

Monday Apr 08, 2019

Sound Art and Contemporary Culture in Norway with IKT

Monday Apr 08, 2019

This flashback to Norway 2017 features our sonic encounters and conversations with artists, curators and cultural producers in the capital city of Oslo and in Tromsø, a small town north of the Arctic Circle.

In 2017, Fresh Art International founder and artistic director Cathy Byrd traveled to Norway as a new member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT), an organization designed to support and connect curators in our global community. The Office for Contemporary Art, Norway, and Oslo Pilot (now known as osloBiennalen) guided our first experience of contemporary Nordic art and culture.

In 2019, when IKT convenes for the first time in the United States, Fresh Art International will stage three podcast events with IKT delegates and Miami-based curators and cultural producers. Diverse venues, partners, grantors and sponsors make possible the realization of IKT Miami and the Post-Congress that follows in Havana, Cuba.

Voices: (alpha order) Thale Fastvold and Tanja Thorjussen/LOCUS, Freek Lomme/Onomatopee, Charlotte Nilsen, Marita Isobel Solberg, Ánde Somby, Amund S. Sveen, Jana Winderen, Tori Wrånes, Jana Winderen

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Margrethe Pettersen, Jana Winderen, Tori Wrånes | Photography: Fresh Art International, featured artists and curators, IKT and OCA Norway

Related Links: IKT, OCA Norway, osloBiennalen

Monday Apr 01, 2019

Live from the Everglades, Part Two

Monday Apr 01, 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.

Voices in Part Two (alpha order): Warren Abrahamson, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, Robert Chambers, Houston Cypress, Jose Elias, Nathan Fox, Ellen Harvey, Jenny Hipscher, Lori Marois, Deborah Mitchell, Cristina Molina, Adam Nadel, Paula Nelson-Shokar, Sarah Michelle Rupert, Dara Silverman, Hilary Swain

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park

This episode 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.

Monday Mar 18, 2019

Live from the Everglades, Part One

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.

Monday Feb 11, 2019

Art with a Sense of Place - Part Two

Monday Feb 11, 2019

Art with a Sense of Place considers creative projects that respond to a physical space and those that react to or embrace a historic moment, a cultural environment, a socio-political tension, or a psychological space.

Emerging in the 1960s, site-specific art sought to transcend what was perceived as the over-curated, almost clinical context of the art museum. Artists rebelled by creating their own exhibition sites (Agnes Denes brought a Wheatfield to a New York City landfill). Some flaunted the rules of museum installation with live interventions (Joseph Beuys lived in a Soho gallery with a live coyote).

Our series of episodes on site sensitivity brings a broader range of cultural production into the conversation, exposing new ways of seeing place, space, and site in contemporary art.

Art with a Sense of Place, Part II, highlights conversations featured in the second issue of the Fresh Art International Smart Guide. We produce the guide as a series of downloadable pdfs. Each issue delves into a different theme—through select episodes, transcriptions and links to research that informs our podcast.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Related link: Smart Guide, Issue 02 Art with a Sense of Place

Monday Oct 29, 2018

Where Art Meets Sand and Social Behavior

Monday Oct 29, 2018

What does it mean to make art collectively? How does art speak to our shared destiny? Where does sand intersect with art and community?

In the studio at Jolt Radio, with Miami-based curators and artists, we speak of art at the intersection of sand, smells and social behavior. Curator Quinn Harrelson and artist Troy Simmons introduce Collectivity, a site-specific exhibition at the Bakehouse Art Complex that explores the power of the individual and the collective. Curator Marie Vickles and artist Geovanna Gonzalez talk about the role of destiny and poetry in the exhibition Visions of the Future at Little Haiti Cultural Complex. Artist Misael Soto, the first-ever Art in Public Life resident for the City of Miami Beach, explains how he's curating and activating Sand, just steps from the shore in Collins Park.

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Sound: Domingo Castillo, Tropical Malaise, Martin Jackson, It's really very easy, Misael Soto, Flood Relief