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 Nov 26, 2018
Monday Nov 26, 2018
Italian artist Paola Pivi takes us on a tour of Art with a View, her latest solo exhibition at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach. Pivi is a nomad. Cultural references in her projects are so diverse that they might seem to come from more than one creative mind. Our first stop is a massive, minimalist installation that dominates a large gallery on the museum’s second floor. The work titled World Record invites us to enter a surprising interstitial space, or space between. We take off our shoes, don booties and climb into the opening between two horizontal planes, each made of 40 white mattresses.
Sound Editor: Matt Hodapp | Photographs courtesy Bass Museum of Art and Fresh Art International
Related Episodes: Miami Art Week Preview 2017, Athi Patra Ruga, Ugo Rondinone
Related Links: Paola Pivi, The Bass Museum of Art
Monday Nov 19, 2018
Monday Nov 19, 2018
Inside Miami's sound chamber, sound artist, designer and composer Gustavo Matamoros introduces to his latest creation: four audible experiences of sound moving through space. Legendary artists inspired Small Sounds Up the Wall (for Alison Knowles), Everglades (for Charles Recher), String Solo (for Vito Acconci) and Eighty-Five Audible Moments (for Pauline Oliveros). Venezuela born Matamoros made this sonic dive possible when he transformed Studio 201 at ArtCenter/South Florida into a 30-channel sound environment.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: John Cage interview; Alison Knowles, Paper Weather; Vito Acconci, American Gift, via UbuWeb; Pauline Oliveros, via UbuWeb; Russell Frehling, Mapping; Gustavo Matamoros, Small Sounds Up a Wall, Everglades, String Solo, Eighty-Five Audible Moments; Julio Roloff, Naturaleza Viva; Wolfgang Gil, Aural Fields Test; Rene Barge, Prism Break | Photographs courtesy Gustavo Matamoros, Subtropics
Related Episodes: Stephen Vitiello, Alba Triana, Magdi Mostafa, Dak'Art 2018, Staging Complex Art, Sounds of Summer in Miami
Related Links: Subtropics, Frozen Music, Canal, 2009
Monday Nov 12, 2018
Monday Nov 12, 2018
For the 33rd São Paulo Biennial, curator Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro challenges the norm. Rather than explore an overarching theme, he invited seven artists to curate exhibitions featuring their own art. Likewise, the twelve solo projects that he curated suggest we look closely at individual creative practices. Purposefully choosing not to direct our gaze, this biennial allows us to explore freely, to discover for ourselves the power of contemporary art.
Biennial programming builds on this notion in a free audio guide, a digital publication that proposes viewing exercises and an international, public symposium. The three-day event brings together artists, scientists, critics, writers, and scholars for a deep dive into one of the major issues of our time: attention. Who controls it, why and how are just a few of the questions to be considered…
Voices: Claudia Fontes, Sofia Borges, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro
Sound Editor: Laura Spencer-Morris | Special Audio: Sebastián Castagna, Ex Situ, Tal Isaac Hadad, Récital pour un masseur, Mame-Diarra Niang, 11:11, Tamar Guimarães, The Rehearsal
Related Episodes: Live from 32nd São Paulo Biennial, Sep 6, Sep 7, Sep 8, Anawana Haloba on Vanishing Cultures, Donna Kukama on Unfinished Stories, William Pope.L on Endurance, Jochen Volz on Living Uncertainty
Related Links: 33rd São Paulo Biennial, Claudia Fontes, Sofia Borges, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, Mário Pedrosa, Goethe
Monday Nov 05, 2018
Monday Nov 05, 2018
In 2018, Fresh Art International broadens engagement in the Caribbean, traveling to the Dominican Republic for Tilting Axis 4, the fourth annual meeting of the roving arts program that brings together artists, curators, and culture makers from across the region. This year’s theme was Caribbean Cultural Ecologies: Connecting Pasts, Presents and Futures.
The artists, curators, writers and educators we meet reveal what it means to work at the fringe of the global art scene. They describe isolated artistic practices, emerging and recovering culture spaces, experiments in community engagement and visions of possible futures. Advocates and provocateurs working in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Barbados, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and Puerto Rico share their perspectives on political realities, postcolonial economies, and environmental vulnerability.
Voices: Fermin Ceballos, Jorge Pineda, Louise Perrichon, Sandra Vivas, Monica Marin, Priscilla and David Knight, Sasha Dees, Suzanne Burke, Amy Hussein and Luis Graham Castillo, Lise Ragbir, Alex Martinez Suarez, Marina Reyes Franco
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Sandra Vivas, Sofia Gallisa Muriente, Caroline Gil, Aimbot
Related Episodes: Live from Dominican Republic with Tilting Axis, Live from Trinidad: Where Digital Culture Thrives, Miami's Caribbean Arts Remix, Diaspora Vibe: Art with Caribbean Roots, Art of the Everyday, Creative Time Summit to Explore Miami Culture
Related Links: Tilting Axis, Le Centre d'Art, Haiti, Mario Benjamin, Centro Léon and Centro Culturel d’Espana, Casa Quien, Carifesta 2019, Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
Monday Oct 29, 2018
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
Related Episodes: 2018 Creative Time Summit in Miami, Art and the Rising Sea, Cultural Complexity in Little Haiti, Where Art Meets Activism, Where Art Meets Cultural History
Related Links: Bakehouse Art Complex, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Sand, ArtCenter/South Florida, The Bass Museum of Art, Creative Time
Monday Oct 22, 2018
Monday Oct 22, 2018
Creative Time, the force behind ambitious public art projects in New York City and beyond, takes its annual summit to Miami in 2018. We invite Creative Time director Justine Ludwig to talk about the focus of this year's convening.
On Archipelagos and Other Imaginaries—Collective Strategies to Inhabit the World is the poetic title and subject of the 2018 Summit, with the idea of coalition as a central theme. Thinkers, dreamers and doers working at the intersection of art and politics gather to consider issues ranging from immigration and borders to climate realities, notions of intersectional justice, gentrification and tourism as an enabler for neocolonialism.
A portal to the Caribbean, Latin America and the entire world, Miami is the perfect context for such conversations. The City's creative community is ready—not only to share local challenges and their own site-sensitive initiatives, but also to welcome fresh perspectives on how art and activism might address these global concerns.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Krudas Cubensi, Mi cuerpo es mio, Haus of Shame via Amal Kiosk, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Nástio Mosquito, Hilário
Related Episodes: Cultural Complexity in Little Haiti, Art and the Rising Sea, The BLCK Family of Miami, Modern Portrait of Black Florida, Diaspora Vibe: Art with Caribbean Roots, Caribbean Arts Remix Miami, Tania Bruguera on Art Activism, Cesar Cornejo on Architectural Intervention, Mary Mattingly on Human Relationships, Glexis Novoa on Cuba's Past, Live from Dominican Republic with Tilting Axis, Live from Trinidad: Where Digital Culture Thrives, Public Art and the Underline, Artist Residency in the Everglades, Art and the Environment at Deering Estates
Related Links: Creative Time, Creative Time Summit 2018, Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Creative Time Summit Miami is co-presented with Art in Public Places of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, with leading support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Monday Oct 15, 2018
Monday Oct 15, 2018
From Port of Spain, Trinidad, we live stream a special radio program about the significance of digital media as a contemporary cultural space in the Caribbean. Joining us in our pop up studio are artist and writer Christopher Cozier, architect Sean Leonard, writer and media producer Janine Mendes-Franco, journalist and podcaster Franka Philip, and artist designer Kriston Chen—all based in Trinidad.
Listen to find out when the internet begin playing a vital connective role in the region and which social media platforms currently inform and inspire the local creative community. Hear diverse perspectives on how locally produced radio, citizen journalism and podcasting might diversify, amplify and document critical conversations about contemporary art and culture.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Talk 'Bout Us/Trini Good Media; Jamie Lee Lloyd, Unease, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, University of West Indies, 2008; 1000 Mokos, Douen Islands: In Forest and Wild Skies, featuring Sharda Patasar; Moko Jumbie special on Kelly Village TV, 2017; Sugar Cane Arrows; Attorney General TV news bulletin during 1990 attempted coup, via Wondershare; The Street, 91.9FM; IRadio.TT, Music Matters, The Caribbean Edition; 1990 Coup Special on Gayelle TV; David Michael Rudder, Accapella on Instagram, 2018; Don't Be Rude, mix created by Ozzy Merriq, 2011
Related Episodes: LIVE from the Dominican Republic with Tilting Axis, Miami's Caribbean Arts Remix, Diaspora Vibe: Art with Caribbean Roots
Related Links: Alice Yard, Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, #1000Mokos
Monday Oct 08, 2018
Monday Oct 08, 2018
In the world today, many consider capitalism a fraught economic system. Some believe that capitalism is the cause current international trade wars, accelerating student debt, the bankruptcy of entire countries, the growth of virtual currencies and the reason for coded security systems.
Artist Hilary Powell and filmmaker Dan Edelstyn, an inventive couple based in London, have decided to wreak a bit of havoc with the capitalist system in their home country by opening their own bank. Hoe Street Central Bank, AKA HSCB, is open in the former Co-Op Bank on Hoe Street in the London suburb of Walthamstow.
Powell and Edelstyn have been printing their own bank notes and selling them to buy up debt in their community. This fall, they begin producing and selling bonds—a new initiative in the orchestration of their collectively owned and distributed debt explosion. The Optimistic Foundation demonstrates what Powell refers to as pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will. In the collective act of abolishing local debt, they're staging a timely intervention in the name of economic justice.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Sound: Bank Job/Optimistic Foundation
Related Episodes: The Art of Capitalism, Occupy Museums on Artists and Debt
Related Links: Bank Job, Optimistic Foundation
Monday Oct 01, 2018
Monday Oct 01, 2018
Today, we invite artists, curators, a media specialist, and an invigilator to talk about complex art that challenges the resources of traditional exhibition spaces. Their backstories reveal how building relationships—through eco-systems, architecture, choreography, media archaeology and virtual community engagement – make exceptional art encounters possible.
Featured voices: Brian Sonia-Wallace, Sarah Oppenheimer, Dara Friedman, Rene Morales, Kevin Arrow/Obsolete Media Miami, María José Arjona, Alexandra Pirici, Rea McNamara
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special sound: María José Arjona, Alexandra Pirici, Rea McNamara, and Tony Halmos | Photography courtesy María José Arjona, The New Museum, New York and Art Basel Cities Week Buenos Aires
Related Episodes: Dara Friedman on the Theater of Your Mind, Sarah Oppenheimer on Space and Light, Sarah Oppenheimer on Architectural Interventions
Related Links: Pierre Huyghe: UUmwelt, Serpentine Galleries, Pierre Huyghe, LACMA, Sarah Oppenheimer, Baltimore Museum of Art, Sarah Oppenheimer: S-281913, Perez Art Museum, Miami, Dara Friedman: Perfect Stranger, Perez Art Museum, Miami, Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present, Museum of Modern Art, NY, María José Arjona: To Be Known as Infinite, Alexandra Pirici, Leaking Territories, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Alexandra Pirici: Co-natural, New Museum, NY, Alexandra Pirici: Aggregate, Art Basel Cities, Buenos Aires, Brian Sonia-Wallace, Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2016, Sheroes, Obsolete Media Miami
Monday Sep 24, 2018
Monday Sep 24, 2018
We meet Los Angeles based artist Mark Bradford—known for connecting art with the real world—when he represents the United States in the 57th Venice Art Biennale. While preparing for Tomorrow is Another Day, an exhibition of his signature layered abstractions, he launched a small business venture with members of the island city's hidden prison culture.
His six-year collaboration with Venice social cooperative nonprofit Rio Terà dei Pensieri offers employment opportunities to men and women incarcerated in Venice. Prisoners create artisanal goods and other products to support their re-integration into society. Titled Process Collettivo, Bradford’s relationship with this marginalized community raises awareness of the penal system and introduces a new business model. The project reveals the artist's strength as a culture maker; he acts on his belief that contemporary artists have the power to reinvent our world.
Tomorrow Is Another Day comes to the United States in September 2018, with an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art and a project engaging with the city's Greenmount West Community Center.
Sound Editing: Jonathan Pfeffer | Photos courtesy U.S. Pavilion in Venice 2017
Related Episodes: Monument to Decay: Israeli Pavilion in Venice; Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Gaze; Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief; Sounds of Venice Art Biennale
Related Links: Mark Bradford: Venice 2017; Baltimore Museum of Art