Array

9 DAYS|3 LOCATIONS|20 SUN BOXES

Sound artist, Craig Colorusso, returns to Western Massachusetts with his latest piece, a solar powered sound installation; SUN BOXES.

For the first three weekends of November Turners Falls River Culture will present Craig Colorusso’s latest piece Sun Boxes.  At three locations, allowing the participants to observe the piece evolve as it moves through the town.

Nov. 5-7      Lawn of the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Ave.

Nov. 12-14   Peskeomskut Park, Ave. A + 7th Sts

Nov. 19-21   Lawn at the beginning of the bike path, 1st St

Sun Boxes is a solar powered sound installation.  It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. Inside each Sun Box is a PC board that has a recorded guitar note loaded and programmed to play continuously in a loop.  These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord.  Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.

Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers, and surround themselves with the piece.  Certain speakers will be closer and, therefore, louder so the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array.  Allowing the audience to move around the piece will create a unique experience for everyone. in addition, the participants are encouraged to wander through the speakers, which will alter the composition as they move.  Given the option two people will take different paths through the array and hear the composition differently.  Sun Boxes is not just one composition, but, many.

We are all reliant on the sun.  It is refreshing to be reminded of this.  Our lives have filled up with technology.  But we still need the sun and so does Sun Boxes.  Karlheinze Stockhausen once said “using Short-wave radios in pieces was like improvising with the world.”  Similarly, Sun Boxes is collaborating with the planet and its relation to the sun.

Colorusso now lives on the South Shore of Boston with a wife and a cat.

Come be part of the drone.  Craig Colorusso  muudon@yahoo.com 718.809.2349

Lisa Davol, riverculture@montague-ma.gov 413-230-9910

Theater on the green: Staging eco-minded productions in SD – SignOnSanDiego.com

A great article ont he inspiring work being done by Mo-olelo Performing Arts down in San Diego…

K.C. ALFRED / UNION-TRIBUNE  Seema Sueko (shown at Miramar Recycling Center) and her theater company Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company have been at the forefront of developing strategies to reduce waste and other environmental impacts from the construction and disposal of used theater scenery

Green is the shade of the heroine’s skin in the massive Broadway hit “Wicked.” Green is also the color of the currency “Wicked” continues to haul in — some $1.3 million a week, more than six years after the show’s New York premiere.

But green also has come to mean something more than cold cash to the people behind that showbiz phenom and other hot-ticket Broadway shows. And at least a bit of the credit can go to a San Diego theater whose $168,000 yearly budget doesn’t match what “Wicked” makes in a day.

Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company puts on just two productions a year, each focusing on a specific social issue, from gun violence to racism to brain injury. Besides rolling out a wide array of educational efforts with every show, the community-minded company also has embraced the idea of reducing live theater’s environmental impact in general, devoting special attention to how sets are designed and discarded.

Read the full article here: Theater on the green: Staging eco-minded productions in SD – SignOnSanDiego.com.

Rachel Rosenthal, Keynote Address at Earth Matters on Stage

leib2-1Rachel Rosenthal, Artistic Director and performer with The Rachel Rosenthal Company, is an interdisciplinary performer who has developed a revolutionary performance technique that integrates text, movement, voice, choreography, improvisation, inventive costuming, dramatic lighting and wildly imaginative sets into an unforgettable theater experience. Over the past thirty years, she has presented over 35 full-scale pieces internationally. Critics have called her “a monument and a marvel” and Rosenthal has been critically ranked with Robert Wilson, Ping Chong, Richard Foreman, Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson by Richard Schechner, editor of The Drama Review (TDR).

She is an N.E.A., J. Paul Getty Foundation and California Arts Council Fellow, and recipient of numerous awards, including an Obie for Rachel’s Brain, the College Art Association Art Award, and the Women’s Caucus for the Arts Honor Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts.  In 1994, she was chosen by Robert Rauschenberg to represent Theatre in his suite of prints, Tribute 21, and in 1995 received the Genesis Award for spotlighting animal rights issues in her work.  Rosenthal formed the Rachel Rosenthal Company in 1989 in Los Angeles.  The thematic emphasis of the Company’s work encompasses artistic, social, environmental, technological and spiritual issues presented in a visually, viscerally compelling form.

Born in Paris of Russian parents, Rosenthal’s family fled Europe during WWII to New York where she graduated from the High School of Music and Art and became a U.S. citizen. She studied art, theatre and dance in Paris and N.Y. after the war with such teachers as Hans Hoffmann, Merce Cunningham, Erwin Piscator and Jean-Louis Barrault.

She moved to California in 1955 where she created the experimental Instant Theatre, performing in and directing it for ten years. She was a leading figure in the L.A. Women’s Art Movement in the 1970’s, co-founding Womanspace, among other projects. Since 1975, Rosenthal has focused primarily on creating new works, writing, performing and teaching.

Rosenthal has performed at: documenta 8 / Kassel-West Germany; The Festival de Theatre des Ameriques / Montreal-Canada; the Kaaitheater / Brussels; Festival Internacional de Teatro / Granada-Spain; the Theatre Festival / Zagreb-Yugoslavia; U.S Time Festival / Ghent-Belgium; The Helsinki Festival/Helsinki-Finland; The Internationals Sommer Theater Festival / Hamburg-Germany; I.C.A. / London; The Performance Space / Sydney-Australia; The Kitchen, Dance Theatre Workshop and Serious Fun! (Lincoln Center) in New York City; the L.A. Festival (1987, 1990) Japan America Theatre, and Museum Of Contempor-  porary Art in Los Angeles; Jacob’s Pillow Splash Festival / Lee, MA and the Kala Institute / Berkeley, CA.

In 1990, Ms. Rosenthal premiered Pangaean Dreams at The Santa Monica Museum Of Art for The L.A. Festival.  In 1992 filename: FUTURFAX was commissioned by the Whitney Museum in New York. In 1994 she premiered her 56-performer piece Zone at the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts Wadsworth Theatre.  Between 1994 – 97, with her newly formed Company, she revived her acclaimed Instant Theatre of the 50’s & 60’s asTOHUBOHU! and went on to collaboratively createDBDBDB-d: An Evening (1994), TOHUBOHU! (1995-97),Meditation on the Life and Death of Ken Saro-Wiwa andTimepiece (1996), The Swans and The Unexpurgated Virgin (1997).  Both Timepiece and The Unexpurgated Virgin premiered at the Fall Ahead Festival at Cal State LA.  She has toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia.

Rosenthal has taught classes and workshops in performance since 1979, in her LA studio as well as around North America and Europe.  Rosenthal has lectured at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Robert Lepper Distinguished Lecture in Creative Inquiry series, as a lecturer/presenter at the first Performance, Culture and Pedagogy Conference at Penn. State (1996).  In addition to personal appearances as performer, panelist and lecturer, Rosenthal teaches performance in her private studio in Los Angeles and has been a visiting artist at such institutions as The Art Institute of Chicago, Otis/Parsons, New York University, University of California (UC) Los Angeles, UC Irvine, University of Redlands, UC Santa Barbara, California (Cal) Institute of the Arts, Cal. State University Long Beach, Cal. State Los Angeles and at the Naropa, Esalen and Omega Institutes.

Grants received include: NEA Solo Performer Fellow (1983, 1990, 1993, 1994), J.Paul Getty Fellow (1990), five USIA travel grants (1987-1993), Art Matters (1988-1990), NEA Interarts (1992), Foundation for Contemporary Performing Arts, Inc. (1988-1990), The Rockefeller Foundation MAP (1993), The J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts (1995), The Tides Foundation (1988-91), California Arts Council Fellow (1988), City of L.A. Cultural Affairs Department (1989-1998), National State County Partnership (1989,1991,1993-97), and most recently The ESRR Vision Trust (1996-1997).

Awards include: the Vesta Award (1983), the Obie Award (1989), the Artcore Art Award (1991), the College Art Association of America Artist Award (1991), the Women’s Caucus for Art Honor Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts (1994) and The Fresno Art Museum’s Distinguished Artist Award (1994). Artist Robert Rauschenberg has honored her in a new suite of prints entitled Tribute 21 (1994) as the representative for Theatre in a list including Art, Music, Civil Rights, Space & Ecology.  Recipients include Mikhail Gorbachov, R. Buckminster Fuller, Toni Morrison, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.  In 1995, she received The Ark Trust’s Genesis Award for spotlighting animal rights issues with “courage, creativity and integrity”.  In 1996, she received a Certificate of Commendation as well as a Certificate of Appreciation both from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.  In 1997, she received the L.A. WEEKLY Theater Career Achievement Award.

Rosenthal’s book Tatti Wattles: A Love Story which features her original, full color illustrations, published by Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, CA; a monograph of her life’s work, entitled Rachel Rosenthal, published by the John Hopkins University Press; Rachel’s Brain and Other Storms, an anthology of 13 of her performance texts published by Continuum and Nihon Journal an artists book of Japanese Sumi Ink paintings on Arches paper are all currently available.  Rosenthal’s work centers around the issue of humanity’s place on the planet.  She is an animal rights activist, a vegetarian, and companion to 3 dogs.

Chantal Bilodeau

Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Her plays include Pleasure & Pain (Magic Theatre; Foro La Gruta and Teatro La Capilla, Mexico City), The Motherline (Ohio University; University of Miami), Tagged (Ohio University; Alleyway Theatre), as well as several shorts that have been presented by Brass Tacks Theatre, City Theatre Company, The Met Theater, Philadelphia Dramatists, Raw Impressions, and Women’s Project. She has been a fellow in the Women’s Project Playwrights’ Lab, the Lark Playwrights Workshop and at the Dramatists Guild and has received grants from NYSCA, the Canada Council for the Arts, Stichting LIRA Fonds (The Netherlands), the Quebec Government House, Étant Donnés: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts and Association Beaumarchais (France). Her translations include plays by Quebec playwrights Larry Tremblay and Catherine Léger, French-African playwright Koffi Kwahulé and Jean Cocteau. Current projects include the book for the musical The Quantum Fairies in collaboration with composer Lisa DeSpain and lyricist Mindi Dickstein and the translation of four more plays by Koffi Kwahulé.

ShareThis

Go to the Green Theater Initiative

Theresa Nanigan: Two souls in one breast

Cathy Fitzgerald of ecoartnotebook.com reviews Theresa Nanigan’s touring exhibition:

A couple of weeks ago, after travelling a couple of hours to an all day meeting, and facing another couple of hours driving home, I was reminded that there was an exhibition next door of work by an artist whose work I’ve known about for some time.  The Mermaid Arts Centre, in Bray, Co. Dublin was about to close, so it was quiet and the most delicious time of all to spend time with artworks. Although I heard the artist talk about how she had approached this commission (a talk shared on the south east Irish Art resource programme ArtLinks.ie ) I was still taken aback by the strength and clarity of the work; its  many layers of investigation — some of which I have grappled with myself.

I was soon stopped short by a beautifully presented but unsettling photographic image of a man sitting in the foreground of a clear-felled hillside (isn’t the best art, the most unsettling?). Interested in permanent ecological and economically sustainable forestry in my own work, I felt this one image sucessfully captures all the sublime horror of the battlefield that is clear-felling.

As I knew that the artist, US-born Theresa Nanigian, wasn’t coming from my own forest/ecological concerns, I asked her about this particular piece. She felt that this piece could be read as a metaphor for the break-down in religious belief in this country of Ireland, as the figure in the foreground was in black and holding a small book (I hadn’t noticed these details at first). This is clearly a way, and perhaps the way, most Irish audiences would read this work. But when I questioned Theresa about the location of the scene and found out the title and background of the work, I felt another thrill – the title of the work  is Crone Forest 2009 and she had been referred to this area by a Coillte forester as part of her year long project on what you might refer to as an in-depth, visual commentary on a study of “place”.

So here was a contemporary photographic image, clearly echoing the visual strategies of landscape artists working in the 18th century, portraying nature as “sublime” (where “nature” was painted as an all powerful force in the greater part of an image, “man”  figuring as a dwarfed element in the foreground, overwhelmed in his relationship to what in the 18thC he saw as the uncontrollable forces of nature) but also inadvertently drawing attention to what I feel is the major point of what I feel people don’t generally understand about forests in Ireland. There is something really lacking and scary when we cannot really “see” our own environment, and that we call a clear-fell site a forest! Yet it is not commented upon by either most foresters (and I am not making attack against the semi-state Irish forestry organisation Coillte) or most people in the surrounding community (as reflected in the other major part of Theresa’s project, where she interviewed local people about living in this area). What people generally know about forestry in Ireland is so very poor; what we have in the main is monoculture tree plantation crops. Yet, this lack of understanding is perhaps not surprising in a land that was deforested so long ago and that lacks a wider understanding of true sustainability in general. Today most people lack a real basic understanding of the important sustaining elements of forests in regards to biodiversity, waterways, climate and the resources that real forests have and do provide.

Amongst the other images, I also liked an image of the young girl walking “blind” in a large forest but perhaps the other most striking work is Barley Field 2009, an image of a man reminiscent of Caspar David Frederich’s figure in The Wanderer. Except in this instance, we see a typical Irish property developer figure, ear to his mobile phone caught up no doubt in Ireland’s all too recent story of “‘progress”.

There is a second major part to Theresa’s project. She spent a long time in this rural part of Ireland, close to a city, and interviewed the local community about what it was like to live there. Known in her previous work for capturing the endless streams of information that we are bombarded by in contemporary life, Theresa presented these voices by re-inventing 18thC style silhouettes of those interviewed, with text of their comments underneath. How potent to use this personal, but intriguingly anonymous means of presenting viewpoints in this visually saturated age.

The parts seemed to stress the extent of which modern communities are disconnected from the natural environment that surrounds and supports them. Ultimately, the study and understanding of “ecology!”, as its very root, is the study of “home/place” and this artist’s study offers a considered and compelling visual study of the ecology of modern Ireland.

The exhibition, supported by Wicklow Co Council  travels to the West Cork Arts Centre for July 12 – July 18 2009.

See more of Theresa’s work at www.theresananigian.com

Cathy Fitzgerald worked in agricultural science research for ten years in New Zealand before obtaining an MA in Fine Art (New Media) in Ireland. Her online Art& Ecology notebook documents a “Slow Art” local project taking place in her small two-acre spruce plantation in Ireland — a small community action in response to climate change. It’s an ongoing conversation between herself, sustainable foresters, her local community and beyond, detailing an example of how to turn a small monoculture spruce plantation into an ecologically& economically sustainable real forest.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Art Steroids = Money

{Free Manny sign by GhoDilated}

What else can art steroids be, but money?

I began mulling this over on Sunday as I watched the Dodgers lose by two in 13 innings. With Manny Ramirez out for 50 games because of steroid use, the Dodgers are a different team. I like Juan Pierre, but he doesn’t quite have the swagger, showmanship and home runs that the ManRam brings to the game, and I’m going to guess, the power-enhancing steroid use either.

We know what steroids do for sports, but is there some equivalent for art? I don’t think it can be literal steroid use (like this example), nor can it be drugs, alcohol, sleep deprivation, cigarettes, or any of the tried and true tricks used by artists (or more likely, artistes.)

But there is one thing that changes the game and that is money. Not that this is an original observation, but here’s the thing: having money means you win the game or are at least assured a piece of the action.

Infusions of cash into a mediocre artist’s career means we will still be talking about them decades later. A few examples here might be Michael Heizer or Dennis Oppenheim, who either through family money or interest of a collector, parlayed early promise into decades of boringness.

{Reading Positions for Second Degree Burn, 1970, by Dennis Oppenheim. I actually really love this piece, despite my earlier comment.}

Although baseball is a game with rules and a supposed level playing field that can be manipulated by steroids (i.e., more strength and power) art is a “game” where people say anything goes, where there are no rules. That may be true, but money still matters. A whole lot.

The following list can can go on and on, but I’m specifically thinking about Duchamp’s parental support, Warhol’s earnings from his career as a graphic designer, and Koon’s work as a commodities trader and later risky bets on sculpture fabrication by gallerists. Money made the difference in turning them from players into superstars, and since I generally like the work by these artists, I’m glad it did. But what about Damien Hirst or any of the other forgettable mediocrities out there? We have to talk about them because people with money decided that they were worth talking about, even though they aren’t.

Just like in baseball, “art steroids” i.e. cash money has the effect of improving your chances at a successful career. But here’s the crazy thing: people love it, encourage it, gossip about it, complain about it but take it anyway, flaunt it by keeping it on the DL; but it is generally just this acceptable thing which we all know is there. In a way, it’s like the only rule in the game of art. If you have money, your chances are a lot better.

Now, if anyone would like to provide “the drugs,” I’ll be the first to step up for an injection.

=====

Am I wrong here? Let me know what you think constitutes art steroids.

Go to Eco Art Blog

Antony Gormley and snobbery

Ben Street at Art21 | Blog is among those who sneer at Antony Gormley’s One And Other, the sculpture which will be installed on the Fourth Plinth from July 4. The piece consists of 2400 members of the public standing on the fourth plinth, one at a time. Volunteers submit their names to the One And Other website and have their names chosen, apparently at random. Street sniffs:

Only a culture so profoundly in love, as the UK is, with the process of celebrification could endorse a proposal that equates mere self-expression with art. The project description is full of phrases that are begging for qualifying air quotes: “Participants will be picked at random, chosen from the thousands who enter, to represent the entire population of the UK” [emphasis mine]. Gormley has the temerity to suggest that he has been the victim of press “snobbery”; surely pomposity of that Meatlovian scale is crying out for some leavening criticism. The use of the political buzzword “participant” shows how neatly the rhetoric of contemporary art has, since 1997, dovetailed with the rerouting of political discourse towards an emphasis on “openness,” “transparency,” and “interactivity” while actually being none of those things. The suggestion of the term participant is that the person has an active role in the creation of the work of art, whereas the truth of much participatory contemporary art is that the participant simply becomes the medium for the artist to express whatever it is he or she is expressing (usually a toothless critique of the patron rubber-stamped by same).

For Gormley’s project, as for much contemporary political discourse, language is bent to purpose. That dreaded term empowerment is so beloved of official arts bodies when angling for funding is dragged in, but what does it mean here? And to what extent is this, in Gormley’s words, “about the democratization of art”? It means that after what will certainly be a protracted screening process, members of the public, who have conflated exposure with success, will be allowed to spend an hour of their time gesticulating slightly out of earshot above the tinkling fountains and rumbling buses. Some of them will moon Nelson. Gormley and the subsidizing bodies will feel good about “democratizing” art and “empowering the public.” That all this is happening in the shadow of the National Gallery, one of the world’s best collections of painting (and free to enter), has a ring of embarrassment about it. We get the public art we deserve, I suppose.

Leave aside, for a moment, the much gnawed over question of whether Gormley’s oeuvre is any cop or not, and consider whether it’s entirely reasonable for Gormley to claim he’s been the victim of snobbery, as ridiculed here by Ben Street.

The art world’s and the broadsheets’  invective against Gormley – where it exists – has grown in perfect parallel with his popularity. That would suggest either that his work has become worse as his popularity’s grown, or that there is a disagreeable horror of populism in the art world.

Q1. Which of those two propositions above is the more plausible?

Q2. Might the assumption that the British lumpenproletariat are too vulgar to be trusted to behave properly with art, and that when Gormley gives them the opportunity the best they will achieve is to “moon at Nelson”, not be a perfect example of the kind of snobbishness Gormley is complaining about?

Another Place by Antony Gormley photographed by Richard Dutton

PS. I’ve signed up to to be one of the 2,400. In the slim likelihood that I’m picked, I welcome suggestions about how I should spend that hour. No mooning, please.

PPS. Michaela Crimmin, who has been involved in the Fourth Plinth from its inception – it was, lest we forget, an RSA initiative, promises to blog further on the Plinth some time in the next couple of days.


 

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Ed Miliband, Mark Lynas, Pete Postlethwaite & Franny Armstrong

If anybody hasn’t seen this, here’s Franny Armstrong, Mark Lynas and Pete Postlethwaite ambushing Miliband at the London premiere of Age of Stupid last weekend. It needs to be said, Miliband was there, he takes it on the chin and responds well. The political reality is that until movement that Armstrong and others are building really achieves a critical mass, he’s always going to be forced to acquiesce to the more pro-business agenda of Peter Mandelson, as cabinet did over the third runway at Heathrow.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Tipping Point to commission climate change performances – 4 May deadline

Editors’ note: This commission is unique among those dealing with art and climate change in its focus on performance and theatre.

The Tipping Point Commissions are inviting artists to submit proposals for new performance work in the context of climate change. The proposals will be considered by a selection panel, leading to around four commission awards of at most £30,000.

The theme of climate change is intended to provide a springboard for the commissions. Artists are invited to submit projects that stimulate audiences towards the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to comprehend a world dominated by climate change. The Tipping Point Commissions are seeking proposals that offer creative reflections on a world that is rapidly changing and on humanity’s role and responsibilities within it.

Proposals can be made by practitioners of any performance discipline, as individuals or groups, by artists on their own or together with curators or producers.

Proposals must be submitted by 4 May at 5pm. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to develop ideas and attend an interview. The selection panel which will include:

  • Graham Devlin: Chairman, Tipping Point (Chairman of Selection Panel)
  • John Ashton: UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change 
  • Nick Starr: Executive Director, National Theatre 
  • Maresa von Stockert: Director, Tilted Productions 
  • Cecilia Wee: Writer, Broadcaster and Curator

The criteria for the TippingPoint Commissions and the application form is available here.For further information, contact Angela McSherry.

www.tippingpoint.org.uk/commissions

Go to the Ashden Directory