Fresh Art International

Fresh Talk: Franklin Sirmans 2014

Recorded in New York during Armory Arts Week 2014, this episode features Franklin Sirmans, a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We’re talking about Prospect New Orleans, an exhibition the size of a city. Franklin is artistic director of this year’s U.S. Biennial, AKA Prospect.3, or P.3. With the biennial now 6 months away, Franklin shares his vision—a curatorial concept that spans decades and oceans.

To set the stage, Franklin talks about books, the City of New Orleans, and two historically important figures: French artist Paul Gauguin and Brazilian artist Tarsila Do Amaral. The P.3 curator explains the ideas behind several 2014 projects and introduces the participating artists whose work is represented in this week’s photo gallery: Los Jaichackers, Theaster Gates, Mary Ellen Carroll, Glenn Kaino, and Hayal Pozanti. Click on the artists’ names to learn more about their projects.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Episode Sound: Los Jaichackers, A Fuego Lento/Slow Burn II

Janet Biggs on Making Art at the Edge of the World

In 2014, we sit down with Janet Biggs, a Brooklyn-based artist whose video projects tell stories of toxic environments and endangered cultures. She explains what led her to follow miners inside a volcano in Indonesia and embed herself in a community at the edge of China’s Silk Road. Her next destination is South of the border. In Mexico, she’ll be donning an ice suit to explore a spectacular, white-hot crystal cave that lies 300 meters below the Earth’s surface.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Production Assistant: Amy Sherald | Special Audio, courtesy Janet Biggs

Related Episode: Janet Biggs and the Power of Desire

Related Links: Janet Biggs, Ijen Volcano, Taklamakan Desert, Cave of Crystals

Fresh Talk: Art x Hip-Hop

On Skype with Cathy Byrd, Atlanta-based artist and scholar Fahamu Pecou introduces his brand, explains why he's working toward a doctoral degree at Emory University and describes what it means to curate an art magazine at the intersection of art and hip-hop.

Sound Editor: Jeff T. Byrd | Episode Sound: Fahamu Pecou and Killer Mike

Fresh Talk: A Futurist Evening at Vizcaya

Recorded at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, this Fresh Talk episode features 3 of 8 projects presented at A Futurist Evening during Art Basel Miami Beach 2013. Curator Gina Wouters introduces this performance-based event that features Miami-based artists.

Antonia Wright: Suddenly We Jumped Wright is catapulted upward to break panes of glass suspended 17 and 20 feet above the East Terrace at Vizcaya.The artist's body becomes a machine and the breaking of two physical and metaphoric 'glass ceiling' simultaneously embody and question the merciless, misogynist, weaponized industrialization of a Futurist world.

Juraj Kojs David Almeida, Kim Yantis, Hisa-Hua Liang and Angie Lu: Replacement In the Center Garden, techno plants invade the formal landscape with intoxicating artificial life. Inspired by Luigi Russolo’s noisemakers (called intonarumori) and Fedele Azari’s manifesto, The Futurist Flora and the Plastic Equivalents of Artificial Odors.

Susan Lee-Chun: Untitled (Ruins) Shouldering a hybrid sculpture that fuses traditional architecture with Futurist aesthetics, the artist's time-based performance embodies the endurance and eventual collision of conflicting ideologies.

Fresh Talk UNCUT: Trenton Doyle Hancock

This is the launch of Fresh TalkUNCUT, a new series of unedited podcasts. In February 2013, Fresh Talk producer Cathy Byrd recorded a conversation with artistTrenton Doyle Hancock, in hisHouston, Texas, studio. Trenton talks about the mythology he created to filterhis artmaking and about the personal histories that lie beneath his work.

 

Sound Editor: EricSchwartz            Episode Sound: TrentonDoyle Hancock, performing Devotion at CAMH

Fresh Talk UNCUT: Jean-Ulrick Désert

Thisis our first broadcast of Fresh Talk UNCUT, a new series of unedited podcasts.In October 2012, Cathy Byrd, Fresh Talk producer, made a field recording with Jean-Ulrick Désert during her residencyin Berlin. Born in Haiti, Jean-Ulrick lived in the U.S. and France beforemigrating to Germany. He talks about how moving through these cultures hasmarked his artmaking.

 

Sound Editor: EricSchwartz

Fresh Talk: Radical Presence

This Fresh Talkepisode features Jean-Ulrick Désert and Trenton Doyle Hancock, two of the artists participating in Radical Presence:Black Performance in Contemporary Art. Curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver for the Museum of Contemporary Arts inHouston (CAMH), the exhibition is now appearing in New York City. Some of theshow’s performance art events will be featured in New York’s Performa 13 this November.

 

To hear CathyByrd’s unedited recording sessions with Jean-Ulrick and Trenton, go to the newFresh Talk UNCUT podcast series.

 

Sound Editor: EricSchwartz

Episode Sound: TrentonDoyle Hancock, performing Devotion at CAMH

Fresh Talk: Stephen Vitiello

In this episode, Cathy Byrd connects on Skype with sound artist Stephen Vitiello. Stephen shares recordings he made during residencies in New York, Australia, and on the island of Captiva, and talks about the challenges of archiving new media. Stephen’s 2010 project A Bell for Every Minute is currently installed in the Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden as part of Soundings: A Contemporary Score. Curated by Barbara London, this is MoMA’s first exhibition dedicated exclusively to sound art.

Fresh Talk: Shadow Healer

What does it mean for a story to be new age noir? At KUT 90.5 studios in Austin, Texas, Cathy Byrd meets local authors Morgan Coy and Karen Davidson to find out. They talk about about Shadow Healer, the four-part graphic novel the two Austinites created with London-based artist Chris Chalik. Here's their free five page preview.

Sound Editor: Eric Schwartz | Episode sound: Morgan Coy

Fresh Talk: Burning Man

At South By South West, in Austin, Texas, Cathy Byrd meets Steve Brown and Jessie Deeter, the team that directed and produced the documentary Spark: A Burning Man Story. Steve and Jessie explain what they learned about the individuals and ideas behind the legendary desert rituals of Burning Man. Sound Editor: Eric Schwartz | Episode Sound, from Spark: A Burning Man Story