Interview taken from "The Friendliest Black Artist in America"
William Pope L.
Interviewer: Lowery Stokes Sims
Sims, Lowery. William Pope. L : The Friendliest Black Artist in America. By Mark H. Bessire. New York: MIT P, 2002.
In his interview Pope L. talks about the Black African Male and the concept of presence/ versus lack. The idea that ideas of masculine is rooted in presence, that the idea of blackness is rooted in lack. How does this fit into your work as its image has both elements?
I do feel these words. Recently I have been asked to define my work in terms of why use myself as my model, and also what does race have to do with my work. I see the lack represented two fold. One that if a so-called white artis (read male) no one asks about race unless there is some other signifier present. So it is the lack of whiteness which prompts the question. I have found that sometimes people talk about masculinity and issues around that- but that begins to be an assumption placed upon the work and the artist without the question being asked. The second areana is of course my work and my need to do performative works with myself as the model. I feel like it is a need, an internal need to speak for myself to be heard and that certainly comes out of lack. It may stem from what Pope L. is talking about. I wrote some thoughts down for Sonali on race and work on race and while I did not use the word lack, I did use the word deficit. My desire is not to work out of deficit, or a sense of deficit.(in relation to race).
The theme of masculinity and blackness are running themes in this article. What is your sense of this negotiation of blackness seeing as how the two seem two be tethered as problematic- something to overcome?
Pope L. says that what it is to be black is a negotiation. The idea of a black race is at the same time a factual fiction in America. There is no black race as it is social construction based on power. He speaks of these masks of blackness. But on the other hand there is no solid heretige for black people in this country that extends past these borders- concretely anyway. So there is this “black race” the black diaspora I think is apart of this but also that there was a erasure of memory not just of geography. So there are nooks and cranies in which to negotiate what it means to be black and it keeps changing and must be changed, accepted and rejected. It is room to maneuver.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
This is an official diversion::
Sonali said I should write about why I should and should not do work about race. This is the first of several internal conversations. These are not supposed to be difinative but a work in process of my thinking.
A case for why or why not- Race
If I were to make art about race only two reasons stand out. One would be to seememly make reactionary art which would stem from a primal point of personal pain in expereining the effects of descrimination. The other would be to attempt in dismantaling the constructs of the idiosyncrasies of race and racism. This would seem a natural extension of my altruistic attitudes about race. My fundamental standpoint on race comes from my understanding of the origins or the necesisity of establishing race which is monetary and physical exploitation. I understand that people have prejudices and prefere the familiar over the foreign. To have these dispositions are as natural as they are human. I feel however that in order to exploit someone you must play off those fears and defense mechanism that make people stick to their own. Money and the fear of loosing a status of power/privelidge has the power to intensify fear and distrust into hatred. Once those who attain power usually find ways to segment those who might disrupt that status quo. I had an irish friend who when shown a old passage out of a history book that stated “the Irish are the niggers of Europe.” was so taken aback all he could say was that the Irish weren’t niggers, that they weren’t black. He couldn’t see that there were twoo things being said in the same sentence. Yes the literal statement likens the Irish to black people, but in reality what the statement was saying was the Irish are the most dispised people of European decent, according to whom ever said such a thing. This is unfortunately for an Irish Person even worse than being openly disrespected as Irish that the concept of being black might actually be worse. Unfortunately for black people when called a nigger there is very little one can say to disbleive that they are talking about you- however I have seen some people bite on the line “well if they talking about stupid black people then yeah they’re talking about niggers…” Not the case. I also take the history of the United States. Before there were white people and black people there were distinct European ethnicities and the Irish were pretty low on the totem pole, so were the Italians, but as soon as there was the idea of a new race vying for economic prosperity there was a cementation of what was considered white. Now I realize that there are some other factores such as the melting pot of American homogeny to contend with but the time roughly coincided. But the reality was that if you were poor and in the south what race would afford a white indentured servant wasn’t much better off than a black slave.
Slavery made it’s way round the ethnic block so to speak in America first starting with the American Indian, made it’s way to the Chinese and then I believe to the African slave. That is why they say the Chinese built the great American railroads, and then ultimately it was the poor, andless vagrants and criminals.
I do not want to sit here and knit pick but there is an anger here with in me that exist that has nothing to do with race other than to aknowledge the fact that racism becomes institutionalized though decmination of power and, well great PR. If you tell people that they can’t have a job at your company because you don’t want to pay them $2 you’ll be in trouble. But if you tell people they can’t have a job because they won’t work for $1 but a Mexican will then the Mexicans are in trouble. All of a sudden it’s the Mexicans who are taking all the jobs. Fear of loosing one’s place or status with in the status quo to another especially when “another” is the “other.”
So if I say I want to talk specificly about race then I feel I must talk about that. The definition of how race is constructed and deceminated. But for me it is such a taxing road to cover. Racism is determined by trying to hide behind something else. Here I must confess that I do like to talk about race in conversation and debate. In conversational mode I feel very well versed. I have a languge that most of the time I can wield very well. I feel like with art I may not have that language with which to properly discuss such things. Even in a conversation there are those time you miss and things go afoul and misunderstood. I hate loosing that conversation because it feels like when I loose it gives credence to such preposterous concepts as “reverse racism.” There is no such thing as racism in reverse. Racism is racism, but here again your saying two things with the same sentence. One is “hey that’s not fair!” and the other is “your not supposed to do that/ now it’s not me has the upper hand!” It’s so nuanced.
Having said that if I were to handel race artisticly it is like I said hopefully born out of the tradition of tolerance and equality from which I am sown. However I know that I have a vindictive side to my personality. It has the voice of the victim that delights in the idea of the tables being turned. That is a hard wound to heal and I am getting older and more set in my ways and experiences.
If I were to do work with race It would have to be a mission of understanding and teaching. A mission steeped in healing for which I know many of us a badly in need of. That’s why I SHOULD do work on race. That is the only reason to do work on race, to combat the malignancy of history and present wrongs that are waged in the name of terrorism, illegal immigrants and the retaliation the comes along with it.
But most of all to combat racism is to attempt to erase the eccomnomic weapon that has been and is still used to splinter the world into guarded kingdoms. Sexism is the same in this way. Everything that holds true for the illusion of race hold true for the illusion of sex ad gender.
As I said previously if I were to do anything about being black I would like it to be about exploration of ethnicity…but there was one thing I did leave out. African American ethnicity in America is a much different problem to tackle that say the ethnicity of an Italian American, mostly due to the fact that Africa is not a country and is not a small region consisting of an overall homogenous larger region. The African American is often displaced within their own history. Its is not unlike the”Jew.” People of the Jewish faith are not from Irael unless they came from Israel. Many existed as Europeans and carpatheans and even “Africans.” What I mean to say is that there may be no common concept of shared ethnicity outside of sharing in the concept of race. One might hope that a concept of a shared spiritual homeland might talke root like Israel for the jewish. But that also seems to be a function of power and privelidge. No one carved out a place amist the many waring and impoverished African states and stated “displaced black people of the world…your new homeland!”
A case for why - Race
If I were to make art about race it would be to attempt in dismantling the constructs of the idiosyncrasies of race and racism. This instance would seem a natural extension of my altruistic attitudes about race. My fundamental standpoint on race comes from my understanding of the origins or the necessity of establishing race, which is monetary and physical exploitation. I understand that people have prejudices and prefer the familiar to the foreign. To have these dispositions are as natural as they are human. I feel however that in order to exploit someone you must play off those fears and defense mechanism that make people stick to their own. Money and the fear of loosing a status of power/privilege has the power to intensify fear and distrust into hatred.
So if I say I want to talk specifically about race then I feel I must talk about that. The definition of how race is constructed and disseminated.
If I were to do work with race it would have to be a mission of understanding and teaching. A mission steeped in healing for which I know many of us a badly in need of. That’s why I SHOULD do work on race. That is the only reason to do work on race, to combat the malignancy of history and present wrongs that are waged in the name of combating terrorism, illegal immigration.
But most of all to combat racism is to attempt to erase the economic weapon that has been and is still used to splinter the world into guarded kingdoms. Sexism is the same in this way. Everything that holds true for the illusion of race holds true for the illusion of sex ad gender.
The only odd problem about talking about the so called “black race” in America. African American ethnicity in America is a much different problem to tackle that say the ethnicity of an Italian American, mostly due to the fact that Africa is not a country and is not a small region consisting of an overall homogenous larger region. The African American is often displaced within their own history. Its is not unlike Jewish. People of the Jewish faith are not Israeli unless they actually came from Israel. Many existed as Europeans and Carpathians and even Africans. What I mean to say is that there may be no common concept of shared ethnicity outside of sharing in the concept of race. One might hope that a concept of a shared spiritual homeland might take root like Israel for the Jewish. But that also seems to be a function of power and privilege. No one carved out a place amidst the many warring and impoverished African states and stated, “Displaced black people of the world…your new homeland!” There is only an occasional black positivism/community trend that speak to brotherhood and kinship.
Sonali said I should write about why I should and should not do work about race. This is the first of several internal conversations. These are not supposed to be difinative but a work in process of my thinking.
A case for why or why not- Race
If I were to make art about race only two reasons stand out. One would be to seememly make reactionary art which would stem from a primal point of personal pain in expereining the effects of descrimination. The other would be to attempt in dismantaling the constructs of the idiosyncrasies of race and racism. This would seem a natural extension of my altruistic attitudes about race. My fundamental standpoint on race comes from my understanding of the origins or the necesisity of establishing race which is monetary and physical exploitation. I understand that people have prejudices and prefere the familiar over the foreign. To have these dispositions are as natural as they are human. I feel however that in order to exploit someone you must play off those fears and defense mechanism that make people stick to their own. Money and the fear of loosing a status of power/privelidge has the power to intensify fear and distrust into hatred. Once those who attain power usually find ways to segment those who might disrupt that status quo. I had an irish friend who when shown a old passage out of a history book that stated “the Irish are the niggers of Europe.” was so taken aback all he could say was that the Irish weren’t niggers, that they weren’t black. He couldn’t see that there were twoo things being said in the same sentence. Yes the literal statement likens the Irish to black people, but in reality what the statement was saying was the Irish are the most dispised people of European decent, according to whom ever said such a thing. This is unfortunately for an Irish Person even worse than being openly disrespected as Irish that the concept of being black might actually be worse. Unfortunately for black people when called a nigger there is very little one can say to disbleive that they are talking about you- however I have seen some people bite on the line “well if they talking about stupid black people then yeah they’re talking about niggers…” Not the case. I also take the history of the United States. Before there were white people and black people there were distinct European ethnicities and the Irish were pretty low on the totem pole, so were the Italians, but as soon as there was the idea of a new race vying for economic prosperity there was a cementation of what was considered white. Now I realize that there are some other factores such as the melting pot of American homogeny to contend with but the time roughly coincided. But the reality was that if you were poor and in the south what race would afford a white indentured servant wasn’t much better off than a black slave.
Slavery made it’s way round the ethnic block so to speak in America first starting with the American Indian, made it’s way to the Chinese and then I believe to the African slave. That is why they say the Chinese built the great American railroads, and then ultimately it was the poor, andless vagrants and criminals.
I do not want to sit here and knit pick but there is an anger here with in me that exist that has nothing to do with race other than to aknowledge the fact that racism becomes institutionalized though decmination of power and, well great PR. If you tell people that they can’t have a job at your company because you don’t want to pay them $2 you’ll be in trouble. But if you tell people they can’t have a job because they won’t work for $1 but a Mexican will then the Mexicans are in trouble. All of a sudden it’s the Mexicans who are taking all the jobs. Fear of loosing one’s place or status with in the status quo to another especially when “another” is the “other.”
So if I say I want to talk specificly about race then I feel I must talk about that. The definition of how race is constructed and deceminated. But for me it is such a taxing road to cover. Racism is determined by trying to hide behind something else. Here I must confess that I do like to talk about race in conversation and debate. In conversational mode I feel very well versed. I have a languge that most of the time I can wield very well. I feel like with art I may not have that language with which to properly discuss such things. Even in a conversation there are those time you miss and things go afoul and misunderstood. I hate loosing that conversation because it feels like when I loose it gives credence to such preposterous concepts as “reverse racism.” There is no such thing as racism in reverse. Racism is racism, but here again your saying two things with the same sentence. One is “hey that’s not fair!” and the other is “your not supposed to do that/ now it’s not me has the upper hand!” It’s so nuanced.
Having said that if I were to handel race artisticly it is like I said hopefully born out of the tradition of tolerance and equality from which I am sown. However I know that I have a vindictive side to my personality. It has the voice of the victim that delights in the idea of the tables being turned. That is a hard wound to heal and I am getting older and more set in my ways and experiences.
If I were to do work with race It would have to be a mission of understanding and teaching. A mission steeped in healing for which I know many of us a badly in need of. That’s why I SHOULD do work on race. That is the only reason to do work on race, to combat the malignancy of history and present wrongs that are waged in the name of terrorism, illegal immigrants and the retaliation the comes along with it.
But most of all to combat racism is to attempt to erase the eccomnomic weapon that has been and is still used to splinter the world into guarded kingdoms. Sexism is the same in this way. Everything that holds true for the illusion of race hold true for the illusion of sex ad gender.
As I said previously if I were to do anything about being black I would like it to be about exploration of ethnicity…but there was one thing I did leave out. African American ethnicity in America is a much different problem to tackle that say the ethnicity of an Italian American, mostly due to the fact that Africa is not a country and is not a small region consisting of an overall homogenous larger region. The African American is often displaced within their own history. Its is not unlike the”Jew.” People of the Jewish faith are not from Irael unless they came from Israel. Many existed as Europeans and carpatheans and even “Africans.” What I mean to say is that there may be no common concept of shared ethnicity outside of sharing in the concept of race. One might hope that a concept of a shared spiritual homeland might talke root like Israel for the jewish. But that also seems to be a function of power and privelidge. No one carved out a place amist the many waring and impoverished African states and stated “displaced black people of the world…your new homeland!”
A case for why - Race
If I were to make art about race it would be to attempt in dismantling the constructs of the idiosyncrasies of race and racism. This instance would seem a natural extension of my altruistic attitudes about race. My fundamental standpoint on race comes from my understanding of the origins or the necessity of establishing race, which is monetary and physical exploitation. I understand that people have prejudices and prefer the familiar to the foreign. To have these dispositions are as natural as they are human. I feel however that in order to exploit someone you must play off those fears and defense mechanism that make people stick to their own. Money and the fear of loosing a status of power/privilege has the power to intensify fear and distrust into hatred.
So if I say I want to talk specifically about race then I feel I must talk about that. The definition of how race is constructed and disseminated.
If I were to do work with race it would have to be a mission of understanding and teaching. A mission steeped in healing for which I know many of us a badly in need of. That’s why I SHOULD do work on race. That is the only reason to do work on race, to combat the malignancy of history and present wrongs that are waged in the name of combating terrorism, illegal immigration.
But most of all to combat racism is to attempt to erase the economic weapon that has been and is still used to splinter the world into guarded kingdoms. Sexism is the same in this way. Everything that holds true for the illusion of race holds true for the illusion of sex ad gender.
The only odd problem about talking about the so called “black race” in America. African American ethnicity in America is a much different problem to tackle that say the ethnicity of an Italian American, mostly due to the fact that Africa is not a country and is not a small region consisting of an overall homogenous larger region. The African American is often displaced within their own history. Its is not unlike Jewish. People of the Jewish faith are not Israeli unless they actually came from Israel. Many existed as Europeans and Carpathians and even Africans. What I mean to say is that there may be no common concept of shared ethnicity outside of sharing in the concept of race. One might hope that a concept of a shared spiritual homeland might take root like Israel for the Jewish. But that also seems to be a function of power and privilege. No one carved out a place amidst the many warring and impoverished African states and stated, “Displaced black people of the world…your new homeland!” There is only an occasional black positivism/community trend that speak to brotherhood and kinship.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Sunday post 09/14/2008
1. Sunday Entry:
Highlight an artist of interest that relates to your work. Provide the following information:
- Artist Biography and brief explanation of work (can use quotes from critics or galleries)
Ana Mendieta
1.
The photographs of Ana Mendieta document private sculptural performances enacted in the landscape to invoke and represent the spirit of renewal inspired by nature and the power of the feminine. In her Silueta series (begun in 1974), created on location in Iowa and Mexico, Mendieta carved and shaped her own figure into the earth to leave haunting traces of her body fashioned from flowers, tree branches, mud, gunpowder, and fire. A typology of Siluetas emerged, including figures with arms held overhead to represent the merging of earth and sky; floating in water to symbolize the minimal space between land and sea; and with arms raised and legs together to signify a wandering soul. By 1978, the Siluetas gave way to ancient goddess forms carved into rock, shaped from sand, or incised in clay beds.
An exile from Cuba, Ana Mendieta was sent from her native homeland to an orphanage in Iowa at age 12. This traumatic experience had a tremendous impact on her art. She felt that, through her art, her interactions with nature and work in the landscape would help facilitate the transition between her homeland and new home. By fusing her interests in Afro-Cuban ritual and the pantheistic Santeria religion with contemporary aesthetic practices such as Earthworks, Body art, and Performance art she maintained ties with her Cuban heritage.
2. (another slightly different take)
Cuban-born Ana Mendieta produced work in the seventies in which she used her own body as a medium. In opposition to the predominant modernist theories of the time, this concept was being used by several other women artist as a feminist assertion of female body as a vehicle for personal and social expression. These women's emphasis on the female body as a realistic tool for the woman artist, challenged the male tradition of the idealized female nude; and was a precursor to the direction toward the refiguration of the body in the rest of the art community during the eighties.
Mendieta sought to establish a "dialog between the landscape and the female body return to the maternal source." She envisioned the female body as a primal source of life and sexuality, as a symbol of the ancient paleolithic goddesses. Between 1973 and 1980, Mendieta created her signature series, entitled "Silueta" or silhouette. Here, Mendieta used her body or images of her body in combination with natural materials. The pieces were transient, created and then photographed just before or during their destruction. The materials used were highly symbolic. In one work from the "Silueta" series, she outlined her figure with gunpowder, creating a shape reminiceint of prehistoric cave paintings. By setting it alight, she incorporates the ritualistic use of fire as a source of exorcism and purification. Mendieta also used flowers as mediums in her series, quoting the folk traditions of Mexico. Her primary material was the earth itself. In her "Tree of Life" series, she covered her naked body with mud and posed against and enormous tree. Ridding herself of her color and form, she is visually united with the tree, arms raised in supplication.
Tragically, Ana Mendieta died at age thirty-six, the result of a fall from an apartment window in New York in 1985. She left over 200 photographs documenting her body works, and a generation indebted to her innovation and ideals.
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork
- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://www.offoffoff.com/art/2004/anamendieta.php
- link to gallery representing artist
at the time of her death- http://www.galerielelong.com/
-artist website
NA
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Thursday post 09/11/08
Did anyone critique your work this week? If so, what were their impressions?
No
What was the most motivational or creative moment of the past week?
Finally not being sick and able to work-to find 6 books that are actually relevant to my practice.
What do you want to achieve in next week's studio practice?
Tie up the loose ends in my new work
What did you achieve in your studio this past week?
To create those loose ends
What has been an artistic failure this week?
My last shoot wasn’t effective enough-I need to shoot more.
What was the most profound thought in relation to your practice this week?
That I was able to tie in Edward Hopper to what I want in my studio practice.
If there was a visiting artist this week, what is your impression of their work and process in relation to your own?
NA- But next week!
No
What was the most motivational or creative moment of the past week?
Finally not being sick and able to work-to find 6 books that are actually relevant to my practice.
What do you want to achieve in next week's studio practice?
Tie up the loose ends in my new work
What did you achieve in your studio this past week?
To create those loose ends
What has been an artistic failure this week?
My last shoot wasn’t effective enough-I need to shoot more.
What was the most profound thought in relation to your practice this week?
That I was able to tie in Edward Hopper to what I want in my studio practice.
If there was a visiting artist this week, what is your impression of their work and process in relation to your own?
NA- But next week!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Sunday post 09/07/2008 pt2
Highlight an artist of interest that relates to your work. Provide the following information:
- Artist Biography and brief explanation of work (can use quotes from critics or galleries)
Pia Linderman
Born in Espoo, Finland, Pia Lindman received her MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland, and then as a Fulbright scholar received a Master of Science in Visual Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She now lives and works in New York City.
Lindman takes the site-specific art tradition as a point of departure. Her work evolves around the themes of social context and space, as well as the performative aspect of making and experiencing art. By engineered social contexts like the Hybrid Sauna at M.I.T. in 1999 and Public Sauna at P.S.1 in 2000, Lindman aims to provoke members of the audience to perform and experience a particular social practice, forcing a re-evaluation of notions of corporeality and public sphere. Lindman’s approach to drawing is informed by the tradition of performance art. After videotaping herself re-enacting gestures of mourning captured in photographs in the New York Times, she traced these gestures from video stills with pencil. By exhibiting both the tracings and the enactments, she tries to illuminate some of the relationships between a photograph, its mediation, and the idea of original content, in this instance human emotional reaction to terrorism.
Lindman has mounted solo exhibitions and screenings at “the lab”, N.Y.C., Galleri Leena Kuumola in Helsinki Finland; the Institut Finlandais in Paris, France; Artist-in-Akiya in Tokyo, Japan; Kluuvi Gallery in Helsinki, Finland; and Galleri FABRIKEN in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has been included in group exhibitions and screenings in New York such as: “Premieres” at the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.C., “BLIND DATES” at Sculpture Center L.I.C., "The Suburban Backyard" at Socrates Sculpture Park L.I.C., "Lobby Projections" at Museum of Modern Art in Queens; "New Views, World Financial Center", with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the World Financial Center Arts & Events; and "Greater New York" at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, L.I.C. Her video series Thisplace is in the MoMA collections. She has shown internationally in galleries and art institutions such as: Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna, Austria, Millais Gallery at the Southampton Institute, U.K., San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, SF, FIAC with Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, Kunstbunker in Nuremburg, Germany, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland, and Beaconsfield in London, UK. She has lectured widely, among other at Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, New York University School of Visual Art, Institut Française d’Architecture in Paris, France, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She has received numerous awards, including those from AVEK (The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in Finland, FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange), the Council for the Arts at MIT. Lindman’s work has been reviewed in many periodicals and journals including: Times Higher Educational Supplement, PRINT Magazine, Rethinking Marxism, Artforum.com, Brooklyn Rail, Art Press, The New York Times, The Village Voice, ARTnews, Technikart, Thresholds, Time Out New York, and Time Out London.
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork
- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://www.re-title.com/artists/Pia-Lindman.asp
http://www.m-cult.org/performingplaces/presenters/lindman.htm
- link to gallery representing artist
http://www.luxegallery.net/web/default2.asp?active_page_id=166
- artist website
http://web.mit.edu/pialindman/
- Artist Biography and brief explanation of work (can use quotes from critics or galleries)
Pia Linderman
Born in Espoo, Finland, Pia Lindman received her MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland, and then as a Fulbright scholar received a Master of Science in Visual Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She now lives and works in New York City.
Lindman takes the site-specific art tradition as a point of departure. Her work evolves around the themes of social context and space, as well as the performative aspect of making and experiencing art. By engineered social contexts like the Hybrid Sauna at M.I.T. in 1999 and Public Sauna at P.S.1 in 2000, Lindman aims to provoke members of the audience to perform and experience a particular social practice, forcing a re-evaluation of notions of corporeality and public sphere. Lindman’s approach to drawing is informed by the tradition of performance art. After videotaping herself re-enacting gestures of mourning captured in photographs in the New York Times, she traced these gestures from video stills with pencil. By exhibiting both the tracings and the enactments, she tries to illuminate some of the relationships between a photograph, its mediation, and the idea of original content, in this instance human emotional reaction to terrorism.
Lindman has mounted solo exhibitions and screenings at “the lab”, N.Y.C., Galleri Leena Kuumola in Helsinki Finland; the Institut Finlandais in Paris, France; Artist-in-Akiya in Tokyo, Japan; Kluuvi Gallery in Helsinki, Finland; and Galleri FABRIKEN in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has been included in group exhibitions and screenings in New York such as: “Premieres” at the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.C., “BLIND DATES” at Sculpture Center L.I.C., "The Suburban Backyard" at Socrates Sculpture Park L.I.C., "Lobby Projections" at Museum of Modern Art in Queens; "New Views, World Financial Center", with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the World Financial Center Arts & Events; and "Greater New York" at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, L.I.C. Her video series Thisplace is in the MoMA collections. She has shown internationally in galleries and art institutions such as: Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna, Austria, Millais Gallery at the Southampton Institute, U.K., San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, SF, FIAC with Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, Kunstbunker in Nuremburg, Germany, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland, and Beaconsfield in London, UK. She has lectured widely, among other at Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, New York University School of Visual Art, Institut Française d’Architecture in Paris, France, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She has received numerous awards, including those from AVEK (The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in Finland, FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange), the Council for the Arts at MIT. Lindman’s work has been reviewed in many periodicals and journals including: Times Higher Educational Supplement, PRINT Magazine, Rethinking Marxism, Artforum.com, Brooklyn Rail, Art Press, The New York Times, The Village Voice, ARTnews, Technikart, Thresholds, Time Out New York, and Time Out London.
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork
- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://www.re-title.com/artists/Pia-Lindman.asp
http://www.m-cult.org/performingplaces/presenters/lindman.htm
- link to gallery representing artist
http://www.luxegallery.net/web/default2.asp?active_page_id=166
- artist website
http://web.mit.edu/pialindman/
Sunday post 09/07/2008 pt1
- Artist Biography and brief explanation of work (can use quotes from critics or galleries)
Chris Burden (born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946) is an American artist.
He studied for his B.A. in visual arts, physics and architecture at Pomona College and received his MFA at the University of California, Irvine from 1969 to 1971.
Burden's reputation as a performance artist started to grow in the early 1970s after he made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His most well-known act from that time is perhaps the performance piece Shoot that was made in F Space in Santa Ana, California in 1971, in which he was shot in his left arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters. Burden was taken to a psychiatrist after this piece. Other performances from the 1970s were Five Day Locker Piece (1971), Deadman (1972), B.C. Mexico (1973), Fire Roll (1973), TV Hijack (1972), Doomed (1975) and Honest Labor (1979).
Several of Burden's other performance pieces were considered somewhat controversial at the time: another "danger piece" was Doomed, in which Burden lay motionless in a museum gallery under a slanted sheet of glass, with a clock running nearby. Unbeknownst to the museum owners, the concept of Doomed was that Chris was prepared to remain in that position until someone from the museum staff interfered in some way with the piece. Forty-five hours later, a museum guard placed a pitcher of water next to Burden, thus ending the piece.
In 1975 he created the fully operational B-Car, a lightweight four-wheeled vehicle that he described as being "able to travel 100 miles per hour and achieve 100 miles per gallon". Some of his other works from that period are DIECIMILA (1977), a facsimile of an Italian 10,000 Lira note, possibly the first fine art print that (like paper money) is printed on both sides of the paper it is printed on, The Speed of Light Machine (1983), in which he reconstructed a scientific experiment with which to "see" the speed of light, and the installation C.B.T.V. (1977), a reconstruction of the first ever made Mechanical television.
In 1978 he became a professor at University of California, Los Angeles, a position from which he resigned in 2005 due to a controversy over the university's alleged mishandling of a student's classroom performance piece that echoed one of Burden's own performance pieces.[1] Burden cited the performance in his letter of resignation, saying that the student should have been suspended during the investigation into whether school safety rules had been violated. The performance allegedly involved a loaded gun, but authorities were unable to substantiate this.
In 2005, Burden released Ghost Ship, his crewless, self-navigating yacht which docked at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 28 July after a 330-mile 5-day trip from Shetland. The project cost £150,000, and was funded with a significant grant from the UK arts council, being designed and constructed with the help of the Marine Engineering Department of the University of Southampton. It is said to be controlled via onboard computers and a GPS system, however in case of emergency the ship is 'shadowed' by an accompanying support boat.
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork
- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://artforum.com/diary/id=8299- link to gallery representing artist
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/chris-burden/
- artist website
- NA
Chris Burden (born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946) is an American artist.
He studied for his B.A. in visual arts, physics and architecture at Pomona College and received his MFA at the University of California, Irvine from 1969 to 1971.
Burden's reputation as a performance artist started to grow in the early 1970s after he made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His most well-known act from that time is perhaps the performance piece Shoot that was made in F Space in Santa Ana, California in 1971, in which he was shot in his left arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters. Burden was taken to a psychiatrist after this piece. Other performances from the 1970s were Five Day Locker Piece (1971), Deadman (1972), B.C. Mexico (1973), Fire Roll (1973), TV Hijack (1972), Doomed (1975) and Honest Labor (1979).
Several of Burden's other performance pieces were considered somewhat controversial at the time: another "danger piece" was Doomed, in which Burden lay motionless in a museum gallery under a slanted sheet of glass, with a clock running nearby. Unbeknownst to the museum owners, the concept of Doomed was that Chris was prepared to remain in that position until someone from the museum staff interfered in some way with the piece. Forty-five hours later, a museum guard placed a pitcher of water next to Burden, thus ending the piece.
In 1975 he created the fully operational B-Car, a lightweight four-wheeled vehicle that he described as being "able to travel 100 miles per hour and achieve 100 miles per gallon". Some of his other works from that period are DIECIMILA (1977), a facsimile of an Italian 10,000 Lira note, possibly the first fine art print that (like paper money) is printed on both sides of the paper it is printed on, The Speed of Light Machine (1983), in which he reconstructed a scientific experiment with which to "see" the speed of light, and the installation C.B.T.V. (1977), a reconstruction of the first ever made Mechanical television.
In 1978 he became a professor at University of California, Los Angeles, a position from which he resigned in 2005 due to a controversy over the university's alleged mishandling of a student's classroom performance piece that echoed one of Burden's own performance pieces.[1] Burden cited the performance in his letter of resignation, saying that the student should have been suspended during the investigation into whether school safety rules had been violated. The performance allegedly involved a loaded gun, but authorities were unable to substantiate this.
In 2005, Burden released Ghost Ship, his crewless, self-navigating yacht which docked at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 28 July after a 330-mile 5-day trip from Shetland. The project cost £150,000, and was funded with a significant grant from the UK arts council, being designed and constructed with the help of the Marine Engineering Department of the University of Southampton. It is said to be controlled via onboard computers and a GPS system, however in case of emergency the ship is 'shadowed' by an accompanying support boat.
- 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork
- a link to an interview with the artist or a review
http://artforum.com/diary/id=8299- link to gallery representing artist
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/chris-burden/
- artist website
- NA
Thursday, September 4, 2008
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