Fresh Art International presents conversations about creativity in the 21st century. Launched in 2011, the podcast archives more than 300 stories from the center and fringe of art, design, and film scenes across six continents. Host Cathy Byrd is a contemporary art writer and curator respected as one of the world’s first women podcasters. She roams the planet to capture underrepresented oral histories, recording soundscapes and voices on the street, in classrooms, galleries, theaters, and museums. Listeners who follow her nomad studio are as likely to find themselves in a city as in a swamp, landfill or desert, on a mountain path or beach. Stay tuned for more voices from the field.
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
Juan Botta Makes One-Minute Movies in Puerto Rico
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
In 2018, Puerto Rico based actor, composer and filmmaker Juan Botta left job security behind to center on his creative life. That’s when he launched Freelance, an inventive Instagram film series that empathizes with the challenges of living and working in Puerto Rico today. Botta’s determination to make films where he lives—despite economic, political and environmental conditions—suggests creativity as a way forward. Freelance expresses a sense of hope, demonstrating that it's possible to find poetry, humor and beauty in the most unlikely situations.
The backstory: In 2019, we head to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to immerse ourselves in the island’s creative life. Now more than ever, residents are faced with a mountain of adversity. Two years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, this place still awaits reconstruction. Puerto Rico’s 2019 summer uprising protested against politics as usual. Residents gathered en masse, to transform the political landscape. Nonstop street demonstrations led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. New actors and forces are emerging that resist the island’s colonial subordination.
Despite ongoing unstable conditions, cultural work continues, with renewed energy. One night in San Juan, we meet Argentina born Juan Botta, an award winning actor, composer and filmmaker who grew up in Puerto Rico. He left his job in the tourism industry one year ago, to center on creative pursuits.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Juan Botta
Related Episodes: Mapping Caribbean Cultural Ecologies, Filmmaking in Pahokee Holds Hope for the Future, Akosua Adoma Owusu on Her Film Kwaku Ananse
Tuesday Oct 22, 2019
Hong Kong Mixtape II
Tuesday Oct 22, 2019
Tuesday Oct 22, 2019
Today, we bring you sound art from Hong Kong, in our second guest-curated segment with Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong. CMHK is an incubator for cross-disciplinary practices in music, sound, and technology. In July 2018, composer and sound artist Samson Young introduced the first Hong Kong Mixtape, a set of nine sound art compositions. One year later, musician Him Cheung introduces Hong Kong Mixtape II. He takes us back to the former British colony to share sonic responses to highly volatile current events.
Let’s set the stage with a few facts. In 1997, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China. Now run under a "one country, two systems" agreement that guarantees it a level of autonomy, Hong Kong has its own judiciary and a separate legal system from mainland China. Rights including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are protected. Those freedoms – known as the Basic Law - expire in 2047.
Our first Hong Kong Mixtape took us to the heart of 2017 student-led pro-democracy demonstrations, when the famed mass protests of the 2014 Umbrella Movement returned to the streets.
The city's uncertain future has sparked years of political protests. In June 2019, thousands of Hong Kong’s citizens began to gather again, protesting against a proposed law to allow extradition to mainland China. Critics feared this could undermine the city's judicial independence and endanger dissidents. Clashes between police and activists became increasingly violent, with police using tear gas and protesters storming parliament. The bill was withdrawn in September 2019. Demonstrations continue.
For this mixtape, we share excerpts from five sound encounters by artists based in Hong Kong. The first sound work expresses feelings of anxiety and hopelessness that persist with regard to the 1997 handover to Mainland China. The following three field recording projects bear witness to months of escalating demonstrations this year—from mass marches in the streets, to the declarations of individual protesters, to Hong Kong residents' nightly ritual of shouting slogans from the windows of their homes. The final segment conveys a desire to leave all the unrest behind—taking us on a supernatural sound walk to a temple in the woods.
Fresh Art International joins U.S. based Montez Press Radio and Co-op Radio Vancouver to present Hong Kong Mixtape II.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Guest Producer: Him Cheung
Featured sound works, in order of appearance: So Ho Chi, Take 2 (ver. 2) | Jantzen Tse, So Ho Chi | RC Team, Voices of Hong Kong "Rioters" | Alex Yu, 10pm shouting _Free Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Time_ Beverly Garden, Tseung Kwan O 2-9-2019 | Alex Yu, Temple
Related Episodes: Hong Kong Mixtape I, Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief, When Sound is Art—Five Sonic Stories
Related Links: Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong, Umbrella Movement
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Contemporary Psyche on View in Venice Art Biennale
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Tuesday Oct 15, 2019
Philadelphia-based art historian Deborah Barkun talks about the pleasure and critical thinking that she discovers each time she explores the Venice Art Biennale and collateral events. Through her eyes, we understand that the venerated exhibition never fails to create a constellation of art encounters—always stimulating the senses and challenging the mind, always offering a glimpse into our contemporary psyche.
58th Venice Art Biennale:
For the 2019 international art exhibition, London-based American curator Ralph Rugoff chose the title May You Live in Interesting Times. This is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse. The words ‘interesting times’ invoke periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil. Rugoff invited 79 artists from around the world who, in his words, “challenge existing habits of thought and open up our readings of objects and images, gestures and situations…entertaining multiple perspectives…holding in mind seemingly contradictory and incompatible notions, and juggling diverse ways of making sense of the world.”
The 2019 exhibition includes 89 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city center of Venice. Four countries are participating for the first time: Dominican Republic, Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Twenty-one Collateral Events taking place across the city widen the diversity of voices that characterizes the Biennale.
Read Deborah Barkun’s posts from the 58th Venice Art Biennale on instagram @freshartintl.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio recorded in Venice May-June 2019
Romani Embassy performance by Delaine Le Bass, Music by Santino Spinelli
Related Episodes: Art Historian Playlist: Deborah Barkun Listens to Joana Choumali, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, Mark Bradford Connects Art with the Real World, Lisa Reihana on Reversing the Colonial Gaze, Monument to Decay: Israeli Pavilion in Venice
Related Links: Venice Art Biennale
Related Images: Fresh VUE: 58th Venice Art Biennial, Fresh Vue: Venice Art Biennale 2017
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
How to Build the Creative Economy
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
Tuesday Oct 08, 2019
How do healthy creative economies open the door for artists and innovators?
To answer this question, we take you to Nashville, Tennessee. Music City, U.S.A., aims to become the nation’s start up capital, too. Every year since 2012, Launch Tennessee hosts the 36|86 Entrepreneurship Festival to encourage new business endeavors. In 2019, Festival organizers invited Fresh Art International to curate a presentation around building the creative economy.
For a live audience gathered inside the historic Acme Seed & Feed building, we bring to the stage Nashvillian Harry Allen, boutique banker, Emily Best, Los Angeles based filmmaker and film producer, and Andrea Zieher, director of Tennessee’s near future contemporary art triennial. Our conversation reveals how the same risk taking and innovation that drive all startups fuel the most impactful creative entrepreneurship.
Takeaways:
- Recognize the value of cultural entrepreneurship.
- Work toward meaningful and inclusive community impact.
- Optimize technology, forge real relationships and dedicate personal energy to increase opportunities for creators and facilitate greater access to cultural experiences.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Live event recording courtesy Studio 208, Nashville
Related Episodes: Model Behavior—New Orleans Art Triennial Inspires Other Cities, Creative Hive Transforms Contemporary Art in Tampa, The Future of Art
Related Links: Seed&Spark, Studio Bank, TN Triennial, Tennessee Triennial, 36|86 Festival,
Tuesday Oct 01, 2019
Commuter Biennial Brings Public Art to Miami’s Margins
Tuesday Oct 01, 2019
Tuesday Oct 01, 2019
The Commuter Biennial aims to activate unseen margins of metro Miami. Local curators Laura Randall and Courtney Levine have organized a set of art experiences for those who spend hours navigating the city in cars, busses and trains. Over the span of four months, ten public art projects will pop up around this suburban landscape.
Two of the participating artists join Randall and Levine to introduce us to The Commuter Biennial. Artist Lily Martina Lee lives and works in Boise, Idaho. Lee’s art juxtaposes intimacy and anonymity—pointing out how forensic crime scene investigations have become embedded in our everyday reality. For her commuter-centered project, she creates public memorials in locations throughout Miami Dade County, where unidentified human remains were found. Since 2005, New York based artist Marie Lorenz has navigated waterways in her handmade boats designed to optimize tidal currents. Her passengers are privileged with intimate experiences on the water. For the roving biennial, she brings her Tide and Current Taxi to Miami.
Listen to this episode to hear the voice of positive thinking. Optimistic about the potential for art to transform the grind of suburban life, the tedium of public transit and the boring daily drive, the Commuter Biennial aspires to draw our gaze from the center to the fringe—suggesting that art belongs to everyone, everywhere, across metropolitan Miami.
Related Episodes: Public Art Meets Poetry, Public Art Hopscotches Across Buenos Aires, Art of the Everyday, Creativity in Miami’s Public Realm
Related Link: Commuter Biennial
Monday Sep 23, 2019
Making Art, Creating Culture
Monday Sep 23, 2019
Monday Sep 23, 2019
Conversations with contributors to the book: Artist as Culture Producer
Today’s conversations expand on the definition of the word ‘artist.’’ During Miami Art Week, artist and educator Sharon Louden, with her frequent collaborator Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, introduce the second book in Louden’s trilogy dedicated to Living and Sustaining a Creative Life. Inside New York’s Strand Bookstore, we meet a few of the artists who contributed essays to The Artist as Culture Producer. In their first-hand stories, they share the personal and professional value of creativity.
We recorded this episode inside the tent of Untitled art fair during Miami Art Week, and at the Strand Bookstore in New York, we catch up with a few of the artist contributors. In their first-hand stories, we hear the personal and professional value of expanding the practice of contemporary art.
Related episodes: Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Theaster Gates, Marinella Senatore, Koki Tanaka.
Related Links:
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Artist Playlist—Regina Frank Listens to Joan Jonas
Monday Sep 16, 2019
Monday Sep 16, 2019
This episode is part of our Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, filmmakers, cultural producers and other listeners to share favorites from the archive.
Based in Lisbon, German born artist Regina Frank has shown her work in New York, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo, among other cities globally. In recent projects, she explored environmental issues in performative installations at the Museum of Art Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, and BioArt 2018, Seoul, South Korea.
Here, Regina Frank introduces our conversation with renowned video and performance artist Joan Jonas, an episode first released on June 5, 2012.
Revisiting this episode is a moment to celebrate the latest chapter in Joan Jonas’s remarkable career. She represented the United States at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. In 2019, Jonas returns to Venice with an immersive, multimedia installation. Moving Off the Land II is the first public project in Ocean Space, a new global oceanic center in the restored Church of San Lorenzo.
Regina Frank writes: I have been listening to Fresh Art since Cathy Byrd launched the podcast in 2011. One episode that I love features Cathy’s conversation with artist Joan Jonas. In 1991, I met Joan Jonas for the first time. She gave a lecture at the University of the Arts in Berlin. What a wonderful artist! I am fascinated and inspired by her creative approach to combining video, performance and drawing. She saw my work and suggested that I speak to the new museum of contemporary art in New York. They gave me their window and the cover of their newsletter and catalogue a few months later, which marked the beginning of my own career, in 1992. While I was in Venice for the 58th Art Biennale, I spent hours exploring Joan Jonas’s great project in the Church of San Lorenzo. I watched every video from beginning to end.
Sound Editor 2019 Anamnesis Audio | 2012 Leo Madriz
Special Audio: Jason Moran, “He Takes His Coat and Leaves”
Feature photo: Joan Jonas, Moving Off the Land II, Ocean Space, Venice, 2019, courtesy TBA21 Academy
Related Episodes: Joan Jonas on The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things, Art with a Sense of Placed, Part One, Regina Frank on Performing at the Intersection of Art and Technology
Related Links: Joan Jonas, Ocean Space
Monday Sep 09, 2019
When Sound is Art—Five Sonic Stories
Monday Sep 09, 2019
Monday Sep 09, 2019
Today, we introduce you to five artists whose primary medium is sound. The diverse techniques and concepts they explore demonstrate the versatility and power of sonic art. Working with music and song, noise and movement, in natural and urban settings, they are among thousands of artists drawn to this highly diverse art form.
American sound artist Stephen Vitiello is based in New York City. In 2013, we talk about his work and the first group show dedicated entirely to Sound Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. We consider the history of sound art and what draws Vitiello to work with the sounds that surround him.
The sound of glass holds a universe of meanings for Camille Norment. Representing Norway at the 56th Venice Art Biennale, the American-born artist based in Oslo creates a sonic environment inspired by how sound inhabits and moves through the body. She creates an atmosphere in the pavilion that alternates between dissonance and harmony.
At the Hong Kong pavilion in Venice the same year, we walk through another immersive audio experience—the political commentary of Hong Kong based sound artist and composer Samson Young. We talk about the profiteering and political influence of songs produced to raise funds for disaster relief.
American artist Bill Fontana has a long-time relationship with sound and space. He describes his practice as “composition by listening.” Based in San Francisco, Fontana is known for relocating sounds to create site-specific installations around the world. We talk about how nature and history inform his public art projects — from his 1981 Landscape Sculpture with Foghorns, in San Francisco, to his 2018 Sonic Dreamscapes, in Miami Beach.
In 2017, we meet Colombian composer and sound artist Alba Triana in her Miami studio. She shows us a range of her experiments, from inaudible sound and light installations to interactive electronic music compositions and vibrational environments. Each one transforms our perception of space.
Sound Editors | Special Audio: Five Sonic Stories—Anamnesis Audio and Joseph DeMarco, Bill Fontana—Anamnesis Audio | Bill Fontana, Camille Norment—Kris McConnachie | VernissageTV, Alba Triana—Alyssa Moxley | Alba Triana, Stephen Vitiello—Eric Schwartz | Stephen Vitiello, Samson Young—Guney Ozsan | FreshArtINTL
Related Episodes: Bill Fontana on Sound & Space, Camille Norment on the Character of a Sonic Environment, Alba Triana on Experimenting with Sound and Light, Stephen Vitiello on Cultural Soundscapes, Samson Young on Songs for Disaster Relief
Related Links: Bill Fontana, Camille Norment, Alba Triana, Stephen Vitiello, Samson Young
Monday Sep 02, 2019
How Paint and Pixels Power the Art of Allison Zuckerman
Monday Sep 02, 2019
Monday Sep 02, 2019
New York-based artist Allison Zuckerman explains what drives her desire to distort conventions of female beauty and push art appropriation to a new high. In bright, bold collages, she mixes paint with pixels to create absurd and exaggerated hybrids—women claiming their presence and power in the world.
We meet during her 2018 exhibition at Miami’s Rubell Family Collection. The paintings on view are the wild fruit of a 2017 summer residency. When collectors Mera and Don Rubell offered Zuckerman the time and space to expand her artmaking, she seized the opportunity to go larger than life. In Fall 2019, curator Tami Katz-Freiman introduces Zuckerman’s wild pop-surrealist paintings to Israel, with a solo show at the Herzliya Museum of Art.
Sound Editor: Joseph DeMarco
Related Episodes: Patricia Cronin on Making Art History, Zoë Buckman on Fight Mode, Kathleen Morris and the Year of Yes, ORLAN on Art Tech
Related Links: Allison Zuckerman, Rubell Family Collection, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art
Monday Aug 26, 2019
Model Behavior—New Orleans Art Triennial Inspires Other Cities
Monday Aug 26, 2019
Monday Aug 26, 2019
In August 2019, we head to Nashville, Tennessee, where leaders of the seventh annual 36|86 Entrepreneurship Festival invited us to stage a live podcast event. We’re here to talk about the Creative Economy. At the heart of our conversation is a startup that aims to have a big cultural impact in this state: the Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art. The major art exhibition premieres in 2021, joining others across the United States. Every three years, Prospect New Orleans, Cleveland’s Front International, and Counterpublic in St. Louis, animate contemporary art experiences for their diverse communities.
New Orleans and Nashville are both southern destinations for music and festivals. To think about what an expansive art exhibition could mean for Nashville and the State of Tennessee, let’s go back in time, to the year 2017, when the fourth iteration of Prospect New Orleans came to the Crescent City. You’ll hear how The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp evokes the musical character of New Orleans and the surrounding urban and natural environment. Click below to hear more stories from Prospect.
Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Sonia Boyce, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Music Box Village, Darryl Montana, The Kitchen Sisters
Voices, in order of appearance: Trevor Schoonmaker, Brooke Davis Anderson, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Paulo Nazareth, Sonia Boyce, Rusty Lazer, Darryl Montana, Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters
Related Episodes: Art and Community in Prospect 3 New Orleans, Tameka Norris on Channeling Personal History, Franklin Sirmans Introduces Prospect 3 New Orleans, William Pope.L Transforms the Black Factory into a Magic Lantern Show
Related Links: Prospect New Orleans, Tennessee Triennial, Front International, Counterpublic, 36|86 Entrepreneurship Festival