Artist Residency Update

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“Between the River and Lagoon,” our artist residency initiative devoted several weeks during January, 2014 in rural Fort Pierce, Florida to provide the necessary time to develop working sketches, photograph historical locations, access county records, talk to local historians. Some of the residency production became part of a comprehensive exhibition in drawing, photography, and video at FIU Frost Art Museum. Our Kickstarter project allowed for the residency’s lodging and per diem during the stay in Fort Pierce.

Onajide Shabaka developed two different, but related performative works. Each work included walking, the artist’s primary performative action out of which other notions flow, “Uncovering Places of Memory: The Body of Bill ‘Blackjack’ Horton,” and “Shifting of the Landscape Black.” Both projects documented presence through time by discretely walking several blocks in a neighborhood, and several out of town locations.

Final Report Documentation: “Between the River and Lagoon” (2MB) [link temporarily disabled]

F*ck You, Pay Me

Mike Montiero, I met several years ago here in Miami, but in San Francisco there is a Creative Mornings series where this video was made. We all need to learn about contracts.

Making Cutting-Edge Art with Ballpoint Pens

Accessible and affordable, the ballpoint pens:

“Last August, Toyin Odutola brought a stack of ballpoint pens and markers into the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, sat down, and drew a picture. A large screen projected her progress as she filled the paper with thousands of marks. Museumgoers circled around her and asked her questions. “One lady was like, ‘Is that pen? I don’t believe it!’” Odutola recalls. “I was drawing, and she took the pen out of my hand and looked at it.”

Nail.

To shut out these kinds of distractions and focus on the task at hand, Odutola put on headphones and listened to dance music. Four hours after she started drawing, she was done, having produced a densely limned portrait of an Asian woman with golden hair and eyebrows, her skin composed of Odutola’s signature sinewy ballpoint lines, with blue, green, and flesh tones rising from underneath. “It was shocking that I finished, because I’d never really performed drawing,” says Odutola, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in the Bay Area and Alabama. “It’s normally a very solitary act within my studio.”

Read More

(Via ARTnews.)

Artist-in-Residence Initiative

The Artlab33 Artist-in-Residence Initiative is designed to sustain a critical discourse on contemporary art, society, and the natural environment in south Florida. Organic and malleable by design, the residency initiative offers a platform for visual and interdisciplinary art practice to take risks, make discoveries, and challenge traditional systems of thought, production, and being.

Artlab33 Artist-in-Residence Initiative is also an opportunity to work in non-traditional studio in the natural environment, giving the time, solitude, and focus often unavailable to many working artists. This also allows an artist access to an outdoor workspace, and an inspirational setting, free from the expectations of commercial and academic demands, while also having access to local indoor space to focus on research, writing, and production, interaction with the local community.

UPDATE: JUNE 2014

INITIAL PROJECT

“Walking The River Making Art” (previously postponed due to infrastructure damage)

Still closed for concrete footbridge repair. Sad. #florida #betweenriverlagoon #artresidency

The entrance is still closed due to the footbridge needing replacement. The concrete and rebar structure is crumbling. Access to Jack Island is only available by water. This location, however, has provided the site for a number of exploratory visits, and a number of completed art works. The image below, taken in a location several kilometers north of Jack Island, shows the richness and health of the Indian River Lagoon as many ospreys were out catching mullet as they jumped out of the water.

Osprey waiting for the evil human to depart so it can eat its mullet. #betweenriverlagoon #artresidency #intercoastalwaterway

FEC railroad in a diorama of downtown Ft. Pierce, FL. at St. Lucie County Historical Museum. #betweenriverlagoon #artresidency

Fort Pierce, Florida as the site of this residency has a vibrant historical museum. Above is a diorama of downtown Fort Pierce as viewed along the FEC rail lines about 1930.

This house has many stories to tell going back to 1940s. #betweenriverlagoon #artresidency

My transcription of a family letter, dated: 9-28-52. #artandtext

The above house had been the storehouse of many documents and photographs which gave this area its significance as a residency location. The above letter from 1952 has been rewritten with the attempt to copy stylistically certain features of the original. The text as well was excerpted, and changed, to fit the needs of this project. The final project will reflect the original, both photos and letters, but will change into fiction as artistic license is used extensively.

Working on a drawing that will be glazed with encaustic. #betweenriverlagoon #artresidency #drawing

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Short Term Art & Research Residency on the St. Lucie River and Lagoon (FL).

“Between the River and Lagoon” is an art residency initiative devoting several weeks over a two month period in rural Fort Pierce, Florida to build a comprehensive exhibition in drawing, photography, sculpture and video.

 

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Guidelines for Openings

Somehow, this post had been buried and not posted. We think it has merit and are now doing just that. It’s kind of funny too.

Guidelines for Openings:

“To celebrate the third printing of I like your work: art and etiquette, now available here, we’ll be posting excerpts from the book during the next two weeks.

1. You must attend openings. When you’re Bruce Nauman, you can be a hermit in New Mexico. Until then however, you have to attend openings. Why? If you’re young, it’s important to find out how things work, to meet your colleagues, to find out what’s out there in the world, and ultimately, perhaps, to learn how to behave at openings. If you’re mid-career, you must go out to support the colleagues you met at the earlier stage of your respective careers. If you’re older, it’s important to support colleagues, still, but now also students, and / or other members of the younger generation who will see you as a mentor. Other slightly noble reasons: if you’re obsessed with art and you have to see things as soon as you’re able, and if you really, honestly, love art—talking about it, interacting with it, talking to people responsible for making, distributing, promoting, and critiquing it. If you love it, then it’s not work. Artists, critics, and curators stay vital when they’re interacting with their peers. If you’re young and you hate openings, there’s a noble history of outsider artists living in insane asylums and working as janitors who are discovered long after they’ve died. If you’re old and you hate openings, it’s likely your best years are behind you, and you think all art but the stuff you and your peers made is shit. I hope your few years of past relevance allow you to retire to your television.

2. You must greet and congratulate the dealer and the artist(s) at the opening. All other greetings are situational: a friendly nod if you catch somebody’s eyes is completely acceptable, as are a passing pat, an air kiss, or any preferred method of casual greeting in a crowded opening where you may know half the crowd.

3. The dealer is required to provide alcohol and non-alcohol to all the guests. This can be as simple as a tub of beer and bottled water. It can be fancy wines and freshly squeezed juices, cheese platters, and a bow-tied bartender. There ought to be alcohol for at least the first two hours of a three-hour opening. The last hour is usually best, but not if there’s no alcohol.

4. If the dealer and/or artist(s) ask you how you like the show during the opening, try to find something polite to say. If they insist on a real opinion, they’ve got whatever you have to say coming.

5. Be briefed on at least three recent things that you can be congratulatory about: recent exhibitions seen and enjoyed, exhibitions you would like to see and enjoy but have not been able to make yet for whatever reason, recent successes by colleagues.

6. If you’re an artist, critic, or curator, someone will inevitably ask you what you’re working on. It’s good to have either two projects that can be mentioned briefly, or one project that can be mentioned in more depth—though still kept within the bounds of appropriate party chatter. In different cities, artists, critics, and curators take different tacks on describing their workload. In Los Angeles, artists must always look like they are rested and fresh. In New York, the more haggard and hardworking you look the better. It’s always appropriate to be on your way to or to have just returned from international travel, e.g., ‘I just got back from being in this biennial in Prague, but I’ve only a couple of weeks to get on my feet before I have to have some meetings in London.’

7. Usually the rapid coming and going of people at an opening allows for quick conversational turnover, but if you get stuck in a bad conversation with someone and you’re outside, say, ‘I’m just going to pop in and look at the show.’ If you’re inside, say, ‘I’m just going to pop out for some air/a cigarette.’ If they’re still following you, go to the bathroom.

8. If you don’t know anyone at an opening, (unlikely after a few years going to openings but nevertheless), then it’s relatively easy to engage with people looking at the work or at the beer bucket. The more people you can attend the opening with, the easier it may be to weave yourself into the social web.

9. Try not to get too drunk on the cheap white wine/cheap beer at the opening: afterwards, at the bar or at dinner, it’s more acceptable. But you still have to be able to walk out of the bar at the end of the evening. Unless, of course, you don’t want to, in which case you can likely get away with being a drunk for many years as long as you don’t punch people too often.

10. The dinner after the opening can only be attended if you’re invited formally, beforehand, or by the dealer or artist during the opening—except if it’s a very wealthy gallery having a very large dinner where no one is sure who’s invited and who isn’t, and you know a few people there. Somebody always doesn’t show, and either way you’re welcome to stay at the bar or smoke outside while things mix up. N.B.: this only works at certain restaurants. In Los Angeles, the best place to crash is Dominic’s.

11. Whoever you sit next to at the dinner determines your rank in the pecking order, according to the gallery. If you sit next to the artist, it’s likely you’re wealthy, the artist’s best friend, or an important curator. If you sit behind the potted plant next to the artist’s third cousin, it’s likely you’re a critic. This can be accepted temporarily—as the dinner breaks up, there is great mobility in seating arrangements. (This is dependent on the size of the dinner and the choreography of the event.)

12. Business can always be discussed at openings and dinners, provided you observe the protocols. Artists can never directly invite dealers to visit their studios, unless a strong rapport has already been established. Artists can, however, talk about what they’re working on, and the excitement that others have for the work, e.g., ‘I just finished the installation about Hekabe with the really ornate collage. Hans Ulrich stopped by on his way through and said it looked like Vito Acconci on acid.’ Curators can corner dealers for specific works. Critics can, and should, get whiskey for free.”

(Via Paper Monument.)

Dirt Yards on Labor Day Weekend

Dirt Yards on Labor Day Weekend:

 

 

Then I went out and shot some Dirt Yards At Night. The thing about shooting Dirt Yards at Night is it teaches me PATIENCE. I have to SLOW DOWN. So besides everything else about the project that I love, it is very relaxing. It forces me to stop, stand still, be quiet, wait, expect the unexpected and BE PATIENT. It took me nearly an hour standing at one spot of one road to capture four ‘okay’ shots tonight. That’s a good lesson for me — the fast, the furious, the high octane. Slowing down gives my engine a rest, and I get to look at the stars and watch the clouds move by while I wait for my camera to chug away at the very long exposures and processing time. It’s all good . . . as long as I stay away from the Hood Fry’s and football games.

(Via So What? Kim Dot Dammit Live.)

“Dirt Yuta Suelo Udongo Te” : Onajide Shabaka’s Art Exhibit About the Most Primordial of Materials

Press from the exhibition:

“Dirt Yuta Suelo Udongo Tè” : Onajide Shabaka’s Art Exhibit About the Most Primordial of Materials:

“Dirt. God created man from it. We grow our food in it. And it’s where all of us go to rest in the end.

For Broward artist, curator, and writer Onajide Shabaka, the primordial substance is also the inspiration for ‘DIRT Yuta Suelo Udongo Tè,’ a new exhibit opening in Miami’s …”

(Via Broward-Palm Beach New Times | Complete Issue.)

Dirt Art Exhibit at Second Saturday June 8:

“Dirt. God created man from it. We grow our food in it. And it’s where most of us go to rest in the end.

For South Florida artist, curator, and writer Onajide Shabaka, the primordial substance is also the inspiration for ‘DIRT Yuta Suelo Udongo Tè,’ a new exhibit opening in t…”

(Via Miami New Times | Complete Issue.)

DIRT Yuta Suelo Udongo Tè: Art is About:

Exhibition runs: June 1-28, 2013

Exhibition Venue:

Spear Building

3815 NE Miami Court

Miami Design District 33137

Weekdays: Tue, Fri, & Sat 12 noon-6 pm

Miamiartexchange.com & Artlab33.com

(also by appt. editor@miamiartexchange.com)”

(Via Art is About.)