This blog is dedicated to announcements, time-sensitive information, or ongoing social projects by Pedro Lasch. It includes individual work, and collaborations, as well as other information of general interest, and recommended events produced by current or past collaborators. For information on completed projects please visit the main site at http://www.pedrolasch.com
Durham Arts Council and Durham Art Guild present 60 WRD/MIN ART CRITIC
Durham, NC – Art critic, Lori Waxman, guarantees brief, serious reviews to all visual artists on a first-come, first-served basis in a performance about art criticism.
For 3 days at the Durham Arts Council and the Durham Art Guild, at 120 Morris Street in downtown Durham, Chicago-based art critic, Lori Waxman, will receive artists in need of reviews as part of her project, the “60 wrd/min art critic.” Reviews, which are free of charge, will be scheduled and written in twenty-five minute increments only during these hours: Thursday, May 6, 12:30-3 pm & 4:30-7 pm; Friday, May 7, 1:30-4 pm & 5:30-8 pm; and Saturday, May 8, 11-1:30 pm & 3-5:30 pm.
Reviews will be signed, published and ready for pick-up within the time frame of the performance. Artist, artwork, critic, and review will all exist in the same space simultaneously, thereby helping to demystify the art review process. The reviews will be posted at the performance site and will remain on view at through May 14. In addition, the reviews will be published by the Independent Weekly (in print and online at www.indyweek.com)in the weeks following the performance.
Advance appointments can be made on a first-come, first-served basis as of April 22, 2010 by emailing critic@60wrdmin.org. Walk-in hours will be held Saturday, May 8, 1-1:30pm.
The 60 wrd/min art critic is many things: an exploration of short-form art writing, a work of performance art in and of itself, an experiment in role reversal between artist and critic, a democratic gesture and a circumvention of the art review process. At a time when newspaper and magazine art columns are disappearing, the “60 wrd/min art critic” aims to get a community talking about its own art.
Durham is among 10 U.S. cities included as destinations for the “60 wrd/min art critic.” Waxman has focused her project on vibrant regional arts communities from Portland, Oregon, to Austin, Texas to Queens, New York, whose artists may rarely have opportunities to receive nationally published art reviews.
Lori Waxman is a Chicago-based critic and art historian. She publishes regularly in the Chicago Tribune and Artforum, and has written catalogue essays for small and large art spaces, including Spertus Museum in Chicago; Spaces Gallery in Cleveland; INOVA in Milwaukee; and Dieu Donné Papermill in New York. She teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The 60 wrd/min art critic is a project of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. More information on this national project can be found at www.60wrdmin.org.
Durham Arts Council
The Durham Arts Councilis a private nonprofit dedicated to supporting the arts in Durham and the entire Triangle Region in North Carolina and has served the community since 1954. Each year DAC serves over 300,000 visitors and program participants, over 600 artists, and more than 60 arts organizations through classes, artist residencies, exhibits, festivals, grants programs, technical support, arts advocacy and information services. By supporting the Durham Arts Council, you help DAC fulfill its mission of promoting excellence in and access to the creation, experience and active support of the arts for all the people of our community. For more information call 919.560.ARTS or visit our website at www.durhamarts.org.
Durham Art Guild
Established in 1948, the Durham Art Guild is a non-profit, member-driven organization, committed to promotion and support of the arts and artists.Their mission is to stimulate interest in the visual arts by featuring diverse exhibits and developing innovative programming to enrich and develop awareness and appreciation of the significance of art and strengthen the arts community.The DAG operates the SunTrust Gallery in the heart of arts-friendly downtown Durham, featuring changing exhibitions year-round of the area’s most notable and talented artists.The SunTrust gallery is located in the Durham Arts Council Building, 120 Morris Street, Durham NC 27701.
Annual dues are only $50 for individual members and $10 for junior members and include portfolio reviews, peer review sessions, online gallery representation, invitations to all DAG events, and eligibility to apply for the DAG Studio Residency Program after one year (for adults only).
The Durham Art Guild, Inc., is devoted to supporting artists and to developing awareness and appreciation of the visual arts, and is made possible by gifts to the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund, and support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
Art & Labour Summit: Cultural Workers, Artists, Students, and Interns Meet to Organise, Name Names, and Coordinate Demands
Thursday April 22nd, 6pm-9pm
Cell Projects Space
258 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA
Free entry and all welcome
We’d like you to join us for a special event and organisational party open to all who are interested in the better understanding and active transformation of the way art, free labour, and education work. Crises are moments of great opportunity, as we all know, and those defunding and devaluing our labour have been busy applying this knowledge.
We invite your active participation in an evening of events:
1. ‘Show and Tell’ - bring evidence of your current research, campaigns or projects dealing with art and labour to share with the group.
2. ‘Name and Shame’ - collectively create a map of power structures on the wall where we name our exploiters, quantify their exploits, draw the hidden or overt links between them and chart the ideas that legitimise their subsistence.
3. ‘Coordinate Demands’ - engage in small group discussions to identify your demands.
4. ‘Publish and Get Organised’ - we will end the evening by having a look at what we have created to decide where and how we want to publish a map of our most urgent demands and discuss the experimental, pragmatic and sustainable organisational techniques we can use to co-ordinate the next steps.
This event has been developed as a response and dialogue with the newspaper and website “Art Work: A National Conversation about Art, Labor, and Economics” recently published by Temporary Services. Pedro from 16 Beaver has brought forty free copies of the paper from the US to distribute to participants at the event in London, but you can also download the newspaper as pdf or read the articles online here: http://www.artandwork.us
This summit is co-organised by Carrot Workers Collective, Micropolitics Group, Lottie Child, Ecosophy Group, Temporary Services, Free School, Short Term Solutions, Independent Art School, ARTSCHOOL/UK, Sophie Hope and Pedro Lasch (16 Beaver)…
If you cannot attend the event, but would like to participate in the making of the map long-distance, just send us an email at the addresses below.
For any messages, comments, or questions related to this event, contact Sophie Hope - sophiehope[at]mac.com, or Pedro Lasch - plasch[at]duke.edu
5:00 p.m. Reading by Lyonel Trouillot(Richard White Lecture Hall 107)
Friday, April 23: The Future of the Past in Haiti
1:30-4:30p.m. (with coffee break) : Reconstructing Archives, Libraries and Universities in Haiti(Nelson Music Room 204)
Watson Denis,Université d’Etat d’Haïti -“State University of Haiti after the Earthquake 2010: Problems and Perspectives.” Brooke Wooldridge, Coordinator,Digital Library of the Caribbean- “The Protecting Haitian Patrimony Initiative: Preserving Patrimony while Respecting Local Sovereignty”
Sponsored by the Center for French and Francophone Studies, the Office of the President, The Office of the Provost, the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Duke University Libraries.
RICARDO BASBAUM: WOULD YOU LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN AN ARTISTIC EXPERIENCE?
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Thursday 8 April 2010, 6.30-8.30pm
The Showroom invites you to a round table discussion with Ricardo Basbaum. Would you like to participate in an artistic experience? is an ongoing project by Basbaum involving the circulation of 32 objects around the world each hosted by individuals or groups for a period of time (around one month). Participants make use of the object for their own creative project, which is documented and added to the Would you like…? growing archive. In January 2010 The Showroom invited artists to realise their own micro works with the object with the request that projects take place in the neighbourhood. These local interventions will be presented during the discussion alongside conversation with residents from the area and specialists from the field of collaborative participatory practice.
The object debuted its residency at The Showroom during the Church Street Festival on 12 July 2009 initiating the gallery’s pilot programme of projects titled Communal Knowledge. These collaborative works aim to generate playful and experimental avenues for critical reflection on issues at stake in The Showroom’s neighbourhood.
A Haiti Screening & Conversation w/ Port-Au-Prince artist André Eugene & Others / Screening of ‘Atis Rezistans, The Sculptors of the Grand Rue’
CONTENTS:
1. About this Thursday
2. About our guests: Port-Au-Prince based artist André Eugene, Laura Heyman, and Richard Fleming
3. About Leah Gordon’s film ‘Atis Rezistans, The Sculptors of the Grand Rue’
4. About the Ghetto Biennale: A Salon des Refusés for the 21st century (November-December 2009)
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1. About this Thursday
What: Haiti Screening & Conversation w/ Port-Au-Prince artist André Eugene & Others
When: Thursday 03.18.10
Where: 16Beaver Street, 4th Floor
When: 7:30 pm
Who: Free and open to all
This Thursday we will have a very special event with Port-Au-Prince based artist André Eugene, who is in New York for a few days during an exceptional visit. After screening oLeah Gordon’s
‘Atis-Rezistans: The Sculptors of Grand Rue’ (34mins), André Eugene, and our other guests Laura Heyman, and Richard Fleming, will answer questions or comments in a general conversation about art and politics in Port-Au-Prince, the recent Ghetto Biennale that happened there, and the aftermath of the tragic earthquake, and the prospects for the future.
We are keeping to 16 Beaver’s tradition of not charging anything for this event (our events are always free), a hat will be circulated for those who want to help with contributions for the Grand Rue community, as André Eugene will be flying back directly to Haiti, and is specifically in New York to buy tents for people who have no shelter for the coming rain season.
The evening is an opportunity to have a group conversation with everyone in New York who knows and cares about Haiti, or art, politics, and international resistance struggles. Please forward and post to your lists.
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2. About Port-Au-Prince based artist André Eugene, Laura Heyman, and Richard Fleming
André Eugene Andre Eugène is the progenitor of the Grand Rue artist movement in downtown Port au Prince. He fuses the fetish effigy with an apocalyptic futuristic vision. Much of his work is figurative using human skulls for heads and imbued with a bold sense of irony, sexuality and humor. To learn more on him and the Grand Rue artists, see below text and link (3).
British photographer and filmmaker Leah Gordon first visited Haiti in 1991 and has built an extraordinary body of work over nineteen years. Her work does not merely articulate nostalgia for an authentic popular culture but positively celebrates the vivid potential of contemporary communal creativity in Haiti.
Richard Fleming is a writer and journalist with experience in Haiti. He is the author of ‘Walking to Guantánamo’: ( http://www.walkingtoguantanamo.com/Front.html ). You can learn more about his work at his blog:
http://antarcticiana.blogspot.com/
Laura Heyman is an educator, photographer, artist and curator. She was a participant in last December’s ‘Ghetto Biennale’ in Port-Au-Prince and will speak of her work and experience there.
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3. About Leah Gordon’s film ‘Atis Rezistans, The Sculptors of the Grand Rue’
The Grand Rue Sculptors are a community of artists living in a downtown slum neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This is the newest art community to have emerged in the last ten years. They have produced art that reflects a heightened, Gibsonesque, Lo-Sci-Fi, dystopian view of their society, culture and religion, and have dragged Haitian art into the 21st century. Jean Herard Celeur, Andre Eugene and Guyodo are at the core of the movement, which contains seven or eight other younger artists, all producing powerful sculptural works. Their work has opened entirely new vistas into the creative possibilities of the Vodou-inspired arts of Haiti. Their muscular sculptural collages of engine manifolds, computer entrails, TV sets, medical debris, skulls and discarded lumber transforms the detritus of a failing economy into deranged, post-apocalyptic totems.
To read texts, and see images of works about the Grand Rue, and its artists, visit:
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4. About the Ghetto Biennale: A Salon des Refusés for the 21st century (November-December 2009)
Please visit the Ghetto Biennale website for full information on participants, history, ideas, etc. The following text is just an introduction.
http://www.ghettobiennale.com/
(below already happened, but written in present//future tense)
What happens when first world art rubs up against third world art? Does it bleed?
In 2009 the ‘Sculptors of Grand Rue’ plan to hold their first ‘Ghetto Biennale’. They are inviting fine artists, filmmakers, academics, photographers, musicians, architects and writers, to come to the Grand Rue area of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, to make or witness work that will be shown or happen, in their neighbourhood. In the words of the writer John Keiffer it will hopefully be a “’third space’…an event or moment created through a collaboration between artists from radically different backgrounds”. ’
‘The artists use all the detritus of a post-industrial global economy which uses Haiti as a dumping ground. They return the compliment, creating astounding bricolages and assemblages which express both the despair and the seemingly endless creativity of Haiti and Vodou. I have visited their ateliers on Haiti’s Grand Rue on several occasions over the last four years. I have had a chance to see their sculptures as they were being wrought from their desperate materials in a scrap yard on this wreck of a street, in this wreck of a city, in this wreck of a country. Saying all that, I would also have to add that, like Haiti, their sculptures seem to express the boundless creative energy of a people who are simultaneously the economically poorest, and artistically richest culture in the New World.’Professor Donald Cosentino, World Arts and Cultures, University of California-Los Angeles.
Forging a successful arts career is difficult for a downtown Haitian. Refused US entry visas, the Grand Rue sculptors were excluded from a private view of their work in a major museum in Miami. A lack of government support makes them economically excluded from all major biennales. The artists have responded by hosting the ‘Ghetto Biennale’, the first arts festival located in a shantytown in the developing world. The event will explore what happens when artists from radically different backgrounds come together. When first world art objectives encounter third world artistic reality, and when Western artists try to make art in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haitian artist, Andre Eugene says, ‘the Ghetto Biennale represents positive change in my area and gives us the chance to show another face of life in the ghettos of Port-au-Prince. I think we have much to offer and much to learn.’
Malaysian artist, Simryn Gill, has said of her potential involvement in the ‘Ghetto Biennale’.'The making of things, in the way that you describe Haitian artists doing, is very energising and attracting for me. Sometime it feels like we have left so behind us the acts of actually making, forming, transforming materials with passion and courage, and art has become a kind of domain of cleverness, even timidity, in case we somehow show ourselves up in too much eagerness or insufficient wit or skill by making forms.’
Kathy Acker, Andre Breton, Maya Deren, Katherine Dunham, Graham Greene, Jerzy Grotowski, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, & Genesis P.Orridge have all visited Haiti and made work inspired by their visit.
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16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th / 5th fl.
New York, NY 10004
CILAVS (Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies) Seminar
‘DRAWN: The New Art of Making Fiction’
by Esther Gabara
Friday, 5 March 2010, 6pm, Room B36, Birkbeck Main Building, London WC1E 7HXEsther Gabara is Associate Professor of Romance Studies, and Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University and Visiting Researcher at CILAVS (2009-10). This seminar forms part of a broader project that aims to understand how visual fictions operate as strategies of in(ter)vention in contemporary political struggles. She is the author of Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil (Duke UP, 2008).
An old friend and incredible artist based in the US will be in town as he is having a show at the Tate opening tonight. His show is called The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own at Tate Modern, Level 2 Gallery. The opening reception is Thursday, January 21 from 6:45-8:45 PM, and the show runs from January 22 - May 2, 2010. He will also be giving an artist talk at the Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern on Friday, January 22 at 6:30 PM.
Here is the link to information on the show, and I am also including the blurb below:
Michael Rakowitz works as a cultural archaeologist, uncovering an unexpected network of connections between historical fact and fantasy.The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own traces links between western science fiction and military-industrial activities in Iraq during and after Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Through a series of interwoven narratives this project addresses, among other things, the Iraqi leader’s fascination with the iconography of Jules Verne’s novels and the Star Wars films, and the World Wrestling Federation’s unique take on Gulf War politics.
The project centres on the Swords of Qādisiyyah monument in central Baghdad. This triumphal arch, otherwise known as the Hands of Victory, was inaugurated on 8 August 1989. The invitation card for the opening ceremony featured the heroic proclamation, “The worst condition is for a person to pass under a sword that is not his own or to be forced down a road that is not willed by him.” Rakowitz explores the multiple references and resonances of the Victory Arch, from the history of its design to its use as a backdrop for military posturing.
In this and other aspects of the project the artist explores how powerful contemporary mythologies derived from popular culture have informed the collective unconscious. Fictional characters from Darth Vader to Sgt. Slaughter coexist with historical figures in Rakowitz’s symbolic universe, in which warrior fantasies transcend the alleged divide between east and west.
Michael Rakowitz talks about recent projects including The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own in his Artist’s Talk on Friday 22 January.
Michael Rakowitz was born in Great Neck, New York, in 1973. He lives and works in Chicago.
The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own is curated by Ann Coxon and Rachel Taylor.
The Level 2 Gallery is conceived and led by Tate Modern’s Assistant Curators, in dialogue with Mark Godfrey, Curator.
The Level 2 Gallery programme has been made possible with the generous support of Catherine Petitgas
Screen/Society presents… Free and open to the general public!
Tuesday February 23rd at 7pm in the Griffith Film Theater: A special film event in the Kenan Ethics Series: ‘Control & Resistance’ “The Yes Men Fix the World”
– With special guests the Yes Men, in person! (Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, & Kurt Engfehr, 2009, 87 min, USA, in English, Color, 35mm) {view trailer: http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com}
A true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are two guys who just can’t take “no” for an answer. They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.
One day Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that Dow will finally clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: as people worldwide celebrate, Dow’s stock value loses two billion dollars. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can’t. On their journey, the Yes Men act as gonzo journalists, delving deep into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other institution to determine our direction as a society. Refreshments and snacks will be provided at the screening. Free parking is provided in the Bryan Center parking deck (validated parking passes will be handed out at the screening).
–> Post-film discussion led by “Yes Men” Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, and Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School.
Sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Center for Documentary Studies, the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image
