Fresh Art International

Fresh Talk: Ana Mendez

Miami-born artist Ana Mendez talks about Liminal Being, her action-based performance project inspired by Maya Deren's 1940s surrealist film Meshes of the Afternoon. In this new work, Mendez repeatedly enacted a fall up and down a flight of stairs inside Giant Motors, a former car repair shop during the Auto Body video and performance event presented during Miami Art Week 2014.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Sound effects courtesy the artist and Spinello Projects

Fresh Talk: Camille Norment

American-born artist Camille Norment lives and works in Norway. We recorded the episode inside the Nordic Pavilion at the 56^th Venice Art Biennale. Norment's project animates a space designed to converse with the surrounding topography, weather, and natural light. Titled Rapture, her elegant, immersive sonic environment evokes both harmony and dissonance.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Live performance audio via VernissageTV

Fresh Talk: Tania Bruguera

Presidents of Cuba and the U.S. recently announced a rapprochement, but is the island country ready for free expression in the form of contemporary art activism? Recorded in Havana, this Fresh Talk episode features Cuban artist Tania Bruguera and her recent launch of a new initiative: the Hannah Arendt Institute for Artivism. Bruguera is moving ahead with her project despite the fact that she's been under city arrest and subject to government reprisals after her unauthorized public art performance on December 30, 2014, landed her in jail for three days.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie

Special Audio: May Day 2009, Plaza of the Revolution and Tania, Bruguera Tatlin's Whisper #6, 2009

Fresh Talk: Cuban Art Awards

Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea and American art collectors Patricia and Howard Farber talk about the first-ever international Cuban Art Awards sponsored by the Farber Foundation. We recorded this conversation at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center during the opening event of the 12^th Havana Biennial art exhibition. 

 Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Music: Septeto Habanero

Fresh Talk: New POV at the Venice Art Biennale

Nigerian-born curator Okwui Enwezor, director of the 56th Venice Art Biennale, sparked this conversation about the expanded black presence in the global contemporary art scene. Recording in Venice, during preview days the international exhibition, Cathy Byrd connects with Canadian curators Camille Turner, Andrea Fatona, Sally Frater, and Pamela Edmonds to speak about this new development. 

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie

Fresh Talk: Agustina Woodgate

Argentinean artist Agustina Woodgate is based in Miami, Florida, and Buenos Aires. In a recent project, she and her team produced Radio Espacio Estacion (Radio EE), a 4-day online radio show for Auto Body, a performance-based exhibition featuring the work of more than 30 women artists. Our conversation—and Woodgate's temporal Auto Body broadcast—took place on Miami Beach, during Miami Art Week, December 2014.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Radio EE excerpts courtesy the artist

Fresh Talk: Cheryl Pope

Chicago-based artist Cheryl Pope tells the back story of UpAgainst, a performance she presented on Miami Beach in late2014. Pope used only her head to box down 700transparent water-filled balloons that were suspended from the ceiling ina former auto body shop. The context for UpAgainst was AUTO BODY, afour-day video and performance project that took place during Miami Art Week 2014.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Performance audio courtesy the artist and Spinello Projects

 

Fresh Talk: Fountainhead Residency

From El Salvador, Cuba, and Israel, Simón Vega, Candelario, and Gil Yefman talk about their experiences as artists-in-residence at the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, Florida. Launched in 2008 by Kathryn and Dan Mikesell, Fountainhead is one of the local efforts to build a sustainable art scene in Miami. Our conversation takes place in the house and garden where the artists live and work.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Sound effects, courtesy the artists

Fresh Talk: Tameka Norris

Tameka Norris just produced her first feature-length film. She plays herself in Meka Jean: How She Got Good. The narrative has a lot in common with The Moviegover, a novel by Walker Percy. Like Walker Percy, Norris grew up in the Deep South, and went away to seek her fortune. Like Binx Bolling, the book’s protagonist, Meka Jean reveals what it means when New Orleans is the city you call home.

We recorded this conversation with Norris when her film debuted during the international exhibition Prospect.3 New Orleans, in 2014. She presented the project as a multi-chambered installation at May Gallery, a nonprofit art space in the district known as the Upper 9^th Ward.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Soundtrack excerpts courtesy the artist

Fresh Talk: Lynda Benglis

New York-based artist Lynda Benglis has been pouring, dripping, and splattering her way through unexpected media, color, and texture for decades. Her work sometimes shocks, and always surprises. Forty years after posing nude with a dildo for the photo that appeared in a full-page ArtForum advertisement, Lynda is at last being recognized for her significant impact on contemporary art. In this episode, we talk about her passion for creating and resurrecting fountains.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Sound effects courtesy Dylan Farnum, Walla Walla Foundry