I Spy: Surveillance and Security with Deborah Aschheim, Hasan Elahi, Trevor Paglen, Paul Shambroom :: until April 30, 2010 :: Sun Valley Center for the Arts, 191 5th Street East, Ketchum, Idaho.

I Spy: Surveillance and Security examines the relationship between surveillance, security and privacy in the early 21st century.

The attempted bombing on Christmas Day of a Detroit-bound flight reopened the urgent national conversation about security and surveillance that has been going on since September 11, 2001. Government today has unprecedented access into our lives. At the same time that we are debating how to balance civil rights against our need for security, corporations use hidden cameras and track our internet use to sell us their products. Millions of us willingly (or unwittingly) give up our privacy to participate in social networking sites like Facebook.

How has increased governmental and corporate intrusion into our lives shaped our assumptions about what is private and what is public? How has our definition of civil liberties changed? What effect has the Internet and the boom in social networking sites had on our behavior? Are we safer now than we were before?

Between 2003 and 2005, Deborah Aschheim created six installations she called Neural Architecture (a smart building is a nervous building). “Nervous systems” for architecture, these sculptural projects reflect our tendency to think about buildings in human terms. They also convey our ambivalence toward surveillance; technologies that initially seem invasive or Orwellian eventually become simple conveniences. The sculpture Aschheim presents in this exhibition is a recreation of one neural column from her earlier projects.

Hasan Elahi has made his everyday life part of his artwork. Erroneously targeted as a suspected terrorist and interrogated by the FBI, Elahi decided that his best defense was to open up his life to public and governmental scrutiny. Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is an online database that documents his travels, finances and even the meals he eats on airplanes. For I Spy, Elahi is creating a timely installation that considers security and surveillance in the world of aviation. Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is a project of Creative Capital.

The work of artist, writer and geographer Trevor Paglen explores the relationship between surveillance and security in a post-September 11th world. His long-distance photographs of secret military installations, badges from classified military programs and photos of U.S. spy satellites in orbit expose a world of secret operations and surveillance that sometimes exists in plain sight.

From 2003 to 2007 Paul Shambroom photographed Homeland Security training environments like “Disaster City” in Texas and “Terror Town” in New Mexico. His images of personnel in their disaster gear, training in simulated settings, get at the difficulty we sometimes have discerning between legitimate security threats and paranoid fear. Shambroom is a 2001 Creative Capital Visual Arts grantee.

Related Programs

Lecture: Living in a Wired World: Can Personal Privacy Survive in the 21st Century?
by Frederick Lane
Attorney, author and technology expert
March 10, 7pm

Lecture: The Role of Surveillance in National Security
by John Lehman
Former Secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission
April 1, 7pm

e-flux journal Issue #14
 March 2010: Education Actualized, guest-edited by Irit Rogoff :: Lecture: Participation - A User’s Guide by Irit Rogoff :: March 8, 2010; 6:30 pm :: Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square, NYC.

All around us we see a search for other languages and other modalities of knowledge production, a pursuit of other modes of entering the problematics of “education” that defy, in voice and in practice, the limitations being set up by the forces of bureaucratic pragmatism: a decade of increasing control and regulation, of market values imposed on an essential public right, and of middle-brow positivism privileged over any form of criticality — matched by a decade of unprecedented self-organization, of exceptionally creative modes of dissent, of criticality, and of individual ambitions that are challenging people to experiment with how they inhabit the field, how they inhabit knowledge.

Our notion of “Education Actualized” lies in the tension between these antagonistic spheres. If we think of actualization as the incarnation of an idea of “an education” within one particular educational system, we arrive at the duality we inhabit and work with. This issue is teeming with voices — angry and bewildered, critical and speculative, voices of ideas put to the test, producing fictions of impossible encounters — all efforts to grasp and locate, to actualize and inhabit this ongoing process in which we are all immersed.

You will see that almost every one of the contributions here reflects an unease and a recognition of the dangers and limitations wrought by attempts to regulate and homogenize a vast range of education cultures. The marketing of education, which began in the U.S. and followed in Britain, has now taken hold on the European continent. The dangers inherent in education becoming a market economy geared towards profit and revenue, privileging a reductive notion of “outcomes,” “transferable knowledges,” and “entrepreneurship” are clear to all. But the emerging dominance of cognitive capitalism over European education systems and their inscription into capital economies of debt and credit, of self-support, of precarities for both students and professionals, is only one side of these developments. The other is the politicization of “education” to an extent we have not seen since the late 1960s.

Not only are students — whose access and conditions have worsened considerably — being treated as paying clients with no say or part in determining their own education, they are also increasingly organized in effective and insistent ways. But many other spheres and strata of education have also been galvanized and linked up with the proliferation of self-organized structures that have emerged in the past decade of waning public-sphere culture and increasing privatization.

This issue of e-flux journal aims to bring together and extend a series of projects and interactions taking place between 2006 and the present that involved extensive investigations into “education” as a site of knowledge production, alternative modes of questioning, new vocabularies, analyses of the conditions of contemporary education, and negotiations between institutional and self-organized cultures. The voices that make up this issue have all been involved with related projects: A.C.A.D.E.M.Y was a series of exhibitions and publications (Hamburg, Antwerp, Eindhoven) that saw life over the course of 2006–2007; “Summit – Non Aligned Initiatives in Education Culture” was a large-scale meeting held at the HAU theatres in Berlin in 2007; in other formations and in other conjunctions we met and collaborated through the “Dictionary of War” project, the “Edu-factory,” border academies, nomadic universities, committee meetings, conferences, discussions, and dinners. But, rather than document or build directly upon these activities, we wanted to bring about an “actualization” of these originary events—a constant process by which concepts acquire extensions and qualities.

This does not purport to be a representation of this vast field of thought, action, and agitation — the work collected here is in dialogue with many other exponents of this field, part of a network of shared concerns and open collaborations. This might help to explain what could appear to be a fairly arbitrary conjunction of people who do not belong to any particular organization, institution, or profession. Some of us are academics, some activists, and others are artists, curators, or publishers; everyone seems to be turning their hand to forms of activity and articulation outside their typical sphere of operations. Our contact with “education” as a political platform, a polemic, and the site of much of our work seems to have stretched us in unexpected directions, as can be seen through the actual writing that has been produced for this issue.

The focal point of the issue is the specter that haunts European higher education — the Bologna Accord on education, the so-called reforms of the system across the continent of Europe that aim to standardize it with comparable entry points, degrees, outcomes, credits, funding structures, criteria of excellence, and so forth. This has undoubtedly produced a very “Eurocentric” view of the map of education, but so great is the potential upheaval of “Bologna” that we decided to focus on this part of the world, but also to place it in dialogue with colleagues and collaborators in the U.S. There is equally a decisive “geopolitical” drive to Europe’s education policy that fuses the former East and the former West into one knowledge tradition, thereby erasing decades of other models of knowledge in the East and producing an illusion of cohesion through knowledge economies and bureaucracies.

Our thanks to e-flux journal for giving us the space to elaborate the ideas included in this issue and for founding a platform hospitable to expanded discussions around creative practices. Our thanks to the Siemens Art Fund that initiated the A.C.A.D.E.M.Y project and to the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Germany, that funded the “Summit” project, to Van Abbemuseum and MuHKA, which took part in extensive discussions and collaborated on these projects, and to the many other institutions, forums, and funders who have supported this work as it has progressed.

My thanks to Susanne Lang who took on co-editing this issue, to Ashley Whitfield who took on its production, and to the authors who rose to the challenge and explored the numerous facets of “education” as a vital, critical, and communal space. — Irit Rogoff

Upgrade! Eindhoven: Tetsu Kondo (Japan) :: March 14, 2010; 8:00 -10:30 pm (doors open 7:30) :: Temporary Art Centre, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

The next Upgrade! Eindhoven presents Albert van Abbe and MAD Artist in Residence, Tetsu Kondo discussing Kondo’s work and vision. Kondo is an artist, musician and researcher whose work includes drawing, installations and musical instrument design. He is currently teaching at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

Kondo will also demonstrate his Dendraw, a software instrument he developed, that transforms the beauty of visual programming into live interactive sound performances. The Dendraw generates specific sine waves depending on screen position. The Dendraw concept is inspired by acoustic string instruments such as the guitar and violin. The Dendraw consists of 5-circular strings which generate tones as Kondo slides its points in the screen, sometimes creating harmonies with certain movements.

All Art Licensing offers FREE live event: LICENSE YOUR ART-OPEN DOORS AND CLOSE DEALS on Wed, February 24th

This comprehensive presentation with live audio and downloadable presentation helps artists understand the art licensing business and identifies the points of entry.

Ever wondered how creators get their art on all those beautiful products in small boutiques and huge retail stores? Artists, Painters, Illustrators, Cartoonists, Animators & Graphic Designers — this is a fast-paced introduction to art licensing that will show you how to begin to expand your creative and income potential.

If you want to increase your income and learn more about art licensing, then this FREE live event with downloadable presentation is a great starting point.

Topics include: What exactly is licensing and how does it work – Types of licensing – What you MUST know about the retail marketplace BEFORE you start – Protecting your rights – Royalty rates – Artist requirements – Agent services – and much more!

This class will run just under 1-1/2 hours with a live Q&A at the end.

Register online below. Submit your questions for the live Q&A during the checkout process in the designated box at the bottom of the checkout page. J’net will answer as many questions as possible during this class.

Upon registration for this event, you will be sent an e-mail confirmation of your reservation. The day before the event, February 23rd, you will receive an email with the call-in number, access code and presentation handout.

Register at: www.allartlicensing.com/schedule.cfm

Call for Artists

Artists are invited to participate in an art liquidation sale.  Dust off unsold work and liquidate your inventory at the:

Holiday ArtStravaganza Artist Liquidation Sale

sponsored by C Art Gallery

855 Hiawatha Place South, Seattle

Sundays in December: 12/6, 12/13 and 12/20 – 10AM-6PM

All art must be priced below $500.
We strongly suggest you  have a wide selection of work under $100.

Original work only.

Artists are provided approx. 5 1/2′ wide x up to 10′ tall hanging space and 3′ of floor space to lean art in front of your wall.  Work must be labeled with price, artist and name of piece.

Submit by October 27 to c.artgallery@gmail.com:

• Artist name and bio

• Five samples of work representative of art to be featured.

• Dates of participation (be sure to review participation fees below)

• $15 non-refundable entry fee via Paypal by clicking the following link: $15 Entry Fee

(No obscene, gratuitous erotica or sexually explicit work will be accepted.)

Additional Information:

Artists will be selected as works are submitted and approved.  Selected artists will be notified by Ocotber 29 and will be requested to send a 50% non-refundable deposit due by November 4 based on the fee structure below to secure your space.

   One  Sunday         Fee:  $  80   Deposit:  $40
   Two Sundays        Fee:  $150   Deposit:  $75
   Three Sundays     Fee:  $200   Deposit:  $100        

The balance of the participation fee is due November 15.

The gallery will not receive any commission for the sale of work.

Participating artists agree to set-up between 8AM and 9:30AM and be present or have a representative present during the course of the day  through 6PM.  The artists is required to remove all work from the premises each day unless other arrangements are made.

C Art Gallery will be open 10AM-6PM each Sunday and will handle all transactions. Additional fees include service fees for sales transactions.  Artist will be responsible for paying sales tax on work sold.

Please e-mail c.artgallery@gmail.com or call 206-322-9374 for additional information.

via uncp.edu

Somewhere towards the beginning of Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph of the Will, in the middle of a long and tedious sequence of military men addressing the party congress on matters of public policy, Goebbels, in a suit, rises to the microphone to speak about propaganda. “May the bright flame of our enthusiasm never be extinguished,” he says, looking somewhat more comfortable in front of the crowd then you might imagine. “It alone gives the creative art of modern political propaganda its light and warmth. From the depths of the people it rose aloft. And into the depths of the people in must descend… It may be good to have power based on arms, but it is better and more joyful to win and to keep the hearts of the people.” It’s a telling moment, especially in light of Riefensthal’s insistence, for the remainder of her life, that Triumph was not and is not a propaganda film, but instead a work of ‘total art’ or of ‘cinema verite.’ Technically speaking, she is correct, insofar as Hitler had chosen her precisely for her pedigree as an artist, and she only agreed to make the film when he promised to keep Goebbels and his minions at the ministry entirely out of its production.

And yet, watching the film today, it is clearly not only a piece of propaganda, but the apogee of the genre. By turns horrifying and deadly dull, it is wholly without irony or self-reflection of any sort. Quite literally a masterpiece, it is responsible for creating an entire arsenal of cinematic techniques later employed by everybody from Josef Stalin to Barack Obama. In effect then, the distinction, between art and propaganda, which mattered so much to Reifenstahl in the films production, has in some sense vanished. Art not only became propaganda but perfected it, the distance she fought to maintain damning her all the more for preserving the unique power of her vision. Triumph plays at Anthology this Saturday at 6 and 8:30, its worth seeing, if you haven’t before; even if the technical achievements no longer impress, the relentlessness of thing remains striking and, god willing, singular.

On the night of 11 September 1940, Henry Moore was trapped in Belsize Park Tube station by German bombing; the so-called Shelter Drawings, which he began the next day and continued throughout the Blitz, were to be his best known and best loved works.

Late flowerings – that rage against the imminent dying of the light – are not especially unusual. Titian painted into his 80s; W B Yeats, late in his 70s, wrote, in the final stanza of a late, great poem, of nymphs and satyrs boisterously copulating in the foam. John Cowper Powys wrote the finest of his novels during his 70s. Call it, if you like, a kind of manic exuberance before the shutters come down.

I tracked down curator Hanne Mugaas, one of the organizers behind New York's Art Since the Summer of '69, for a 1 question interview, à la Rafaël Rozendaal's One Question Interview blog. Mugaas is the first to curate a new public video art initiative in Stavanger, Norway called Public Screens. In the spirit of Boston's Lumen Eclipse or Creative Time's At 44 1/2, Public Screens presents video art around the city on large public screens. Mugaas's exhibition for this new project "Keep On Moving, Don’t Stop" brings together animations by a young generation of artists who grew up under the specter of the internet, television and video games. Artists include Michael Bell-Smith, Vidya Gastaldon, Ezra Johnson, Yui Kugimiya, Takeshi Murata, Adam Shecter, and Espen Friberg. (More shots of the exhibit after the jump.) Given the topic of the show, I thought it would be fitting to ask Hanne about her childhood exposure to animation.

What was your favorite animated television show as a child and why?

My favorite animation as a kid was Flåklypa Grand Prix (Pinchcliffe Grand Prix) from 1975. It was made by the legendary Norwegian animator Ivo Caprino. It's about the inventor Reodor Felgen who's living with his animal friends Ludvig, a nervous, pessimistic and melancholic hedgehog, and Solan, a cheerful and optimistic magpie. One day, the trio discover that one of Reodor's former assistants, Rudolf Blodstrupmoen, has stolen his design for a race car engine and has become a world champion Formula One driver. Solan secures funding from an Arab oil sheik who happens to be vacationing in Flåklypa, and to enter the race, the trio builds a gigantic racing car: Il Tempo Gigante—a fabulous construction with two extremely big engines.

My dad used to show me this and another film by Caprino, Karius and Baktus (Caries and Bacterium), about two little trolls living in and destroying your teeth, on a film projector and projection screen in our living room.

Here is a clip of Flåklypa Grand Prix (Pinchcliffe Grand Prix):

And a clip of Karius and Baktus:

*CAUGHT LOOKING 2010: Open call for CMU School of Art Students, Faculty and Staff.*

Now is your chance to see your video on the biggest screen in Pittsburgh in front of a public audience! CAUGHT LOOKING is the 4th iteration of new one-minute video works on the “jumbotron” screen at PNC Park. In addition to videos by CMU students faculty and staff students, faculty and staff from Pittsburgh Filmmakers will also be submit their work.

*Caught Looking 4 will be held on Wednesday, April 28th starting at 7PM at PNC Park*.
The public is welcome to this FREE event.

Participate in this unique program! Make a FAMILY-FRIENDLY (SAFE FOR WORK) one-minute video. Please avoid profanity and nudity, as the PNC Park is a public venue, and a workplace.

Note: The videos in the program will be selected by Jacob Ciocci of CMU and Andrew Swensen of Pittsburgh Filmmakers. All submissions will not necessarily be selected for the screening.

*THE DEADLINE FOR VIDEO SUBMISSIONS IS APRIL 1st AT NOON.*
*SUBMISSIONS CAN BE DROPPED OFF IN THE ART OFFICE ANY TIME AFTER MARCH 22nd.

*PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS IN THEIR ENTIRETY!*

These are the video settings: NTSC DV (720×480 Pixels), Anamorphic
16:9, 29.97 Fps, 48 kHz

TO MAKE YOUR FILES
1. Make or import your 1 minute movie in Final Cut Pro
2. Put your name or any credits AT THE END OF YOUR PIECE.
3. Export -> Using QuickTime Conversion
4. Options->Settings: Compression Type: DV-NTSC highest quality
5. Size: NTSC 720×480 16:9
5.Name the resultant file with YOUR LAST NAME.

*HOW TO DELIVER YOUR FILES (starting march 22nd):
1. Burn a DVD-R or CD-R with the quicktime file
2. Label the disk with your last name
3. PUT THE DISK IN A CASE
4. Fill out the form located in the art office
5. Drop the disk off in the art office “jumbotron” box

QUESTIONS, contact Jacob Ciocci

LISTEN HERE

MFA students Agnes Bolt & Oscar Peters discuss their “Braddock Cross-Pollination Project” executed in Fall 2009 when they traveled from Braddock, PA to Braddock ND - the only two Braddocks in America.

Tangibly, a photographic essay, “Braddock Cross-Pollination Project’s” true form lies in the social, psychological, political and metaphoric exchange between two small, economically struggling towns in America linked purely by a common name. This 1,300 mile drive from Pennsylvania to North Dakota and back was to deliver a message from stranger to stranger, and allow each town to reflect on its own existence via its doppelganger. Over 40 people participated in the project, from an urban African American teenager to a 70-year-old sunflower farmer living in the barren plains.

ABOUT BRADDOCK(s):
Braddock, PA is an urban ex-steel industry town of about 2,000 people fighting with drugs and crime, abandoned homes and businesses. Since the 1980’s Braddock has undergone an almost 90% drop in population as the Steel Industries begun to shut down. An energetic young mayor is attempting to revive the town but with no supermarkets, gas stations and now a closing hospital- the major source of employment, the town has a long way to go.

Braddock, ND is a farming community with a population of 19 people. Founded as a frontier railroad town, today its entirely Caucasian, Catholic, conservative and aging population will probably be the last generation to call Braddock their home; the school and post office closed down several years ago, the parish rectory building was literally being moved on a tractor trailer to another town while I was there, the only remaining establishments in town are the bar and senior citizen community center. The liveliest community may be the seasonal pheasant and deer hunters that return annually to Braddock.

BROWSE PAST LAB A6 PODCASTS

March is Disability Awareness Month. This year they are encouraging everyone to “Free Your Mind”.

(via indianadisabilityawareness.org)

Last year my blog at this time concentrated on what we do in the gardens to make them accessible to as many people as possible. All of that information is still relevant so check it here.

With 100 Acres – The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park opening June 20 I decided to take a look at it this year. Since it does not have an asphalt road running through it, or concrete walks, it won’t be as easily accessed for those with mobility issues as the rest of our gardens and grounds. But there will still be much to experience and enjoy.

First you have to get there. One of the main access points will be the 38th street loop just west of the IMA’s 38th Street entrance. The parking area there will put you right at the Park. However, once there, you do have to cross a one lane road. On the other side an ADA compliant ramp will lead visitors down into the Park. Other access points will be crossing over the Pony Truss Bridge from the main IMA campus and, of course, the Canal Path that runs along the edge of the Park. Once inside, many areas in the 100 Acres will be accessible by way of crushed stone paths. Not as ideal as concrete, but much better than mulch or turf. These will lead you to the visitors’ center and some of the inaugural art pieces. Several mulch paths will give people even more opportunities to interact with nature and art. Those paths will quite simply require a different level of mobility.

I really want to emphasize the nature side of the Art and Nature Park. At this point we cannot get everybody to all areas of 100 Acres. However, you will be immersed in nature no matter where you go. Native trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, and perennials will abound. We began replacing the exotic invasives two years ago with a major tree planting. This year over 70 species and cultivars will be planted in and around Alfredo Jaar’s Park of the Laments.

Animals like beaver, squirrels, and turtles are common sights. Occasionally you might even glimpse a red fox or mink. Above all, it will be a great place to experience the joy of birdwatching. Waterfowl such as ducks and herons can be found on the lake, the canal, and the White River. Great Blue Herons show up regularly in the shallows of the lake. Birds of prey soar in the skies. Songbirds can be found throughout.

I have been crazy-mad about pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) from childhood as they were frequent inhabitants of the creek-bottom woods where I grew up. We have at least a pair of these brightly colored crow-sized birds in the 100 Acres.

It’s not all about seeing the birds, listen for their fascinating calls as well.

Our newly revamped website will also give folks multiple ways of getting information about the site, the nature, and the art. You can begin accessing information before you leave home! Heck, you can get information right now, over three months before the official opening day. Check out the 100 Acres page to learn about the geology of the site (work done with the US Geological Survey), the first eight commissions, or details of the opening week-end. Access is about more than physical attributes.

The visitors’ center will be fully accessible with ramps leading to a surrounding deck. Drinking fountains and bathroom facilities are located in this building. Educational materials to be housed here are still being developed. The Visitor’s Center will also give shelter from the elements – like our sudden Midwest thunderstorms.

Be sure and mark June 20 on your calendars. Free Your Mind and see you there.

The Western Front throws a party like no other!

Our 37th Anniversary Gala Dinner and Art Auction takes place on Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. Themed in an era of the New Deal, the evening will be reminiscent of the importance of collective support for the arts during a time of particular uncertainty.

The Auction is the signature event held at the Western Front: the Grand Luxe Hall hosts 70 guests during the evening with a catered three-course dinner, complementary beverages, musical entertainment by Veda Hille and returning auctioneer Hank Bull.

For the Western Front, a non-profit registered charity, the event raises funds to help support its diverse arts programming, and its continued efforts to foster a vibrant cultural scene in Vancouver.

For art lovers and friends of the Western Front, this is a rare opportunity to purchase works by a wide range of renowned artists: Will Kwan; Jin-Me Yoon; Julie Morstad; Scott Moore; Reece Terris; Martin Thacker; Al Neil; Kika Thorne; Damian Moppett; Heidi Nagtegaal; Jeremy Hof; Allyson Clay; Hank Bull; Sonny Assu; Khan Lee; Sonja Ahlers; Peter Gazendam; Sabine Bitter; Helmut Weber; Eric Metcalfe; Donato Mancini; Alison Hrabluik; Michael Drebert; Ian Skedd; Laiwan; Elizabeth Zvonar; and Erin Shirreff.

Western Front is grateful for the participation of Rigamarole fine wines, Authentic Wine & Spirit Merchants, the Flower Factory and Pan-O-Pan in making this event a delicious success.

Our Auction Preview Catalogue is now online:
http://auction2010.tumblr.com

Tickets are $150 and a portion is eligible for a charitable tax receipt. To reserve a seat or table, please call 604.876.9343 or email: admin@front.bc.ca

NYC public school students between the ages of 13–18 are invited to spend their Thursday afternoons, from 3–6PM, at Eyebeam. Each month will feature a series of free hands-on workshops, starting at 4PM, where students will have the opportunity to work with different open-source software programs as used by artists and technologists.

Thursdays in March: Make your own Wordpress website with Eyebeam Intern, Georg Pedersen. Graphic artist and designer Georg Pedersen will introduce the versatile and free blogging platform, Wordpress to students. Students will learn what makes a good website in terms of content, visual layout, and functionality, and then get to create their own webiste over the course of the month.

Montreal sculptor Louis Fortier could be called the man of 1,000 faces.About 100 of those faces are currently on exhibition at Karsh-Masson Gallery in the Byward Market.
Strangley, many of those faces bear a striking resemblance to the late French president Charles de Gaulle, he of the muscular, upturned nose and haughty air.
Actually, Fortier thinks of the faces in his exhibition as having more of a Julius Caesar look, hence the title, “Juliennes et autres tranches d’histoires.” You can mischievously translate the show’s title as “Julius Caesar wannabes and other slices of history.”
Fortier makes models of his own head with cement, plaster or wax and, while the material is still pliable, contorts his features, adds some bumps and turns his visage into that of a grumpy gnome-like caricature. Again and again.
The resulting creations, each one unique, line the walls of Karsh-Masson until March 8.
Fortier describes his work as “an exploration of the permanence and control inherent in classical statuary.”
Well, that's his take. You, however, can view the work any way you like.
For starters, play a game with the kids and try to find which of the grotesque creations most resembles grandpa, the crotchety old man down the street or maybe the local school principal.
Or try to figure out which misshapen head most resembles the artist. I have not seen the artist and, likely, neither have you. But I made an educated guess and a gallery employee who has met M. Fortier confirmed that I had chosen well. See how good you are.
In other words, don’t take this very seriously. This is gimmicky art combining silly ideas and repetitive processes.
Silly ideas and repetitive processes can, at times, be interesting, even enlightening and poetical. Ottawa artist Karen Jordon is such a practitioner. She can spend years sticking toothpicks in a perforated wall to create nothing more than a wall of toothpicks.
This act of creation is a form of artistic self-flagellation. It is theatre, albeit theatre of the absurd.
Fortier’s silly ideas and repetitive processes do not constitute riveting theatre. But they are worth a peek even though it is a safe bet to say you will forget those 100 faces the minute you walk out the door.

One of the most influential people in the Canadian art world, Pierre Arpin, is leaving the Canada Council for the Arts to become general manager, exhibition and collection services, for the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.
At the Canada Council, Arpin served as the head of visual arts, giving him a powerful voice in deciding which artists and galleries receive funding from the federal agency. As well, Arpin’s fingerprints can be seen in everything from the annual Governor General’s Visual Arts Awards to decisions regarding Canada’s representative to the Venice Biennial.
Arpin is a former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, of British Columbia’s Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and of the Art Gallery of Sudbury.
“Pierre Arpin has tackled major issues of museum and collection management and has established a very strong reputation for the role he has played in several Canadian institutions,” said a written statement from Gerard Vaughan, dirrector of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Arpin begins his new job in February.
“This will be a challenging and exciting role and I look forward to being a part of what is, in my view, one of the leading art museums in the world,” said Arpin.
The Canada Council offices are closed until early January so no one was available to comment on Arpin’s departure nor to discuss a replacement.

Great things are expected of Andrea Fatona, the new curator of contemporary art at the Ottawa Art Gallery, considering applicants for the job were required to have better art credentials than those applying to replace Pierre Theberge as the director of the National Gallery of Canada.

The Ottawa Art Gallery may not be able to pay much but it does seek the best.

Fatona replaces Emilie Falvey, who left this fall to pursue outside writing and curating projects. Expect to see some of Falvey’s shows at the OAG in coming months even though she is officially gone.

Fatona is best known as an independent curator based at the University of Toronto but she has also been involved with Artspace Gallery in Peterborough and Artspeak Gallery in Vancouver. Fatona moved to Ottawa shortly before Falvey’s job came open so she has had a few months to become acquainted with the art scene here.

An exhibition Fatona curated for a gallery in Chatham, Ont. called Reading the Image: Poetics of the Black Diaspora is currently touring the country, with stops in Oshawa, Sherbrooke,  and Whitehorse.

Mela Constantinidi, the Ottawa Art Gallery director, describes Fatona’s background as one with an emphasis on “equality issues.” And certainly Fatona, in an interview, indicated she is hoping to become involved in art projects that will bring artists to the gallery from communities that have not always been well represented in exhibitions. This could mean the OAG will start to have a more multi-cultural flavour in coming. Fatona is also keen to assemble an exhibition that would explore the role of Ottawa as the national capital.

The Armory Art Show takes the idea that art isn't a commodity to be sold like the machines and tools on display at the Hannover industrial trade show (that I used to visit as a teenager) and dispenses with it neatly. If any of the Show's objects at some stage were in the presence of an artist toiling over their meaning and worth (I'm not talking about money here), you wouldn't know that once you encountered them at the Piers in New York City. Make no mistake, I had no illusions about the Armory Show before I went. So I did not undergo the kind of shock treatment that someone with romantic ideas about the commercial art world would experience if she or he was exposed to such an abomination of the human spirit for the first time. That said, the Armory Show still was a soul crushing experience, where your soul is not only crushed, it's actually slowly and steadily ground into a fine powder.

A short editorial interlude of sorts: If you can't imagine that a soul can be ground into a fine powder, you might enjoy the Armory Show. Also, if you have a problem with someone using such imagery - after all how can a soul, which is not a solid entity, be ground into a powder? - then, well, you might enjoy Twitter.

Experiencing the Armory Show is a bit like going to the mall before Christmas: You know in advance that the experience will suck the life out of you completely, to leave you behind poorer (literally and figuratively), owning a bunch of junk that your loved ones don't really need. But you still end up wondering how every year the combination of crass commercialism and fake happiness can be so toxic. Maybe it's the music? How much canned "holiday" music can one take before resorting to creatively adding some not-so lyrical flourishes ("Oh fucking Tannenbaum")?

Well, the Armory Show doesn't have any music, Christmas or whatever else. Maybe it should? Instead, the atmosphere the day I went (Saturday) was more like a really crowded, run-down second-world airport: Outside a bunch of tremendously ugly concrete. I entered using a very narrow escalator. Inside it was crowded and noisy, it smelled funny, and the VIP lounges contained an odd mix of presumed entitlement, bad free coffee, and overpriced junk food.

Needless to say, the idea that there actually are VIPs in anything art related is revolting. I am fully aware that I am nothing but a sorry egalitarian.

Of course, there is a reason why the Armory Show bothered me so much. There actually is good art on display, and I still want to believe that at least some of the artists who might have toiled over their art are profoundly distressed about seeing it reduced to... yeah, to what?

If you didn't like my comparison with Christmas at the mall, here's another attempt: It's like going to an IKEA, except that IKEA will guide you through the store so that you really look at literally everything they got, regardless of whether you need four hundred dozens cheaply made candles for $5.99 or not. IKEA also doesn't have booths. The Armory Show has booths but no predestined path for its visitors. Still, it's positively IKEAish. The funny thing is that the booths, which, I suppose, are there to divide the space to get things more organized, only add to the visual clutter.

So once you enter the Armory Show your first experience is a bit like opening your closet door and having the entire contents of the upper shelves fall into your face.

I'm glad I did not commit to blogging about the photography at the Armory Show, because the task of having to systematically walk through the aisles and jot down what there is to be seen strikes me as daunting. If you're interested in seeing such a list head over to the DLK Collection blog where they're in the process of publishing just that, in six parts. Very impressive.

What I did do instead was to walk down the various aisles in what I thought was some sort of systematic fashion, looking left and right, and finding quite a bit of noteworthy and even more not so noteworthy photography. I'll talk about some of what I found over the next few days.

The Armory Show - or in fact, any other such trade show - is interesting in one aspect: What you get to see is what galleries want you to see. The successful work. The work that they hope or know will sell. So in that sense, the Show gives you an idea of what that work is.

Of course, assuming the last paragraph is correct the flip side of the Show is that if you have followed the photo (or art) scene for a while, there will be few - if any - surprises. The surprises will mainly be at the galleries whose existence you've never heard of before, which, at least for me, means those in places like, for example, Moscow. There has been a lot of talk about how the internet has brought photographers together - but seeing so much work I had never even heard of before made me wonder what I had been doing these past few years. After all, I have been spending what occasionally strikes me as a freakishly large amount of time looking at and/or for photography online.

In any case, here's the thing. You can't really look out for experiences like that, the experiences where you stumble upon the unexpected. As an early 21st Century person living in the Western world you're actually trained to avoid just doing that. Or at least I am. Going to the Armory Show is like going to a very, very big store without a list of things to buy. I don't think the brain is set up to process a huge amount of visual information without running into some serious problems.

Oh, I know, young people are very good at multitasking and video gaming etc., but a lot of those assertions are based on little more than the hype generated by the makers of the various electronic gadgets and websites. How all these people are supposed to leapfrog hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, to be able to do things that the human brain is not evolved for, I'd still like to see an explanation for.

This all might strike you as tremendously old-fashioned, but just think of the combination of driving and texting or even "just" talking on the phone. Most people are terrible drivers without being on the phone, and adding their friend call in to talk about that cute guy/girl they just met usually does not help very much. I'm just saying.

Of course, I could just be the real exception, and everybody else could have just tremendously enjoyed the Armory Show. Maybe. Maybe not. It is true, there actually were people drooling over the art at the Armory Show. I saw at least two of them. Of course, they both were less than a year old each, so maybe that doesn't mean that much.

Having basically no life force left, I dragged my body's shell over to the art show called SCOPE (Why are they yelling?). I ended up being very positively surprised by SCOPE. I suppose in part that's because it was smaller and less overrun. But all in all, the experience was so much nicer since it didn't come across as such an obvious art-meat market. People seemed to be a bit younger and the art seemed a bit fresher.

I'm sure the New York art scene, where you just got to have an opinion about which show is better than which other show (for reasons which are not entirely obvious to someone like me who lives in the countryside and is thus - hopefully - excused), will have an opinion about me proclaiming that SCOPE was "fresher" than the Armory Show. Be that as it may, SCOPE renewed my faith in the art world a little bit.

One could have long - and probably partly fruitless - debates about art and the gallery world and the pros and cons. You know what, I don't have a problem per se with art being shown in a gallery. It is true, galleries are like hospitals; but all things considered, a good gallery show can be a tremendously exciting and uplifting event. I'm a real sucker for seeing art work on the wall somewhere, and right now, the most likely place to have such an experience is at a gallery (especially since so many museum shows are dedicated to celebrating the 50th anniversary of that body of work or whatever else has been established for a long, long time).

An art fair/show, though... That's one of those supposedly fun things I'll never do again.

We have made a couple of changes in our program this year, most notably we will be announcing the winner in November 2010. The $50,000 is given to the artist who receives the highest number of votes so check back often for updates and of course the announcement of the shortlist in May 2010 and the launch of the voting in September!

In the meantime, we will be posting semi regularly about some of the unique aspects of the prize, like the artist residencies. Each year, the Grange Prize provides the nominees with an opportunity to complete a residency in the partner country during the voting period. Last year Lynne Cohen travelled to Cancun, Marco Cruz and Federico Gama spent two weeks in Toronto and Jin Me Yoon spent 12 days in Mexico City. Over the next couple of months we will be sharing some of their stories and giving you some sneak peeks at the work they made while on their residencies.

Hello Douglas,

A good resource for your friend may be Telecoms Sans Frontiers. They deploy
teams around the globe to rebuild communications in emergencies and
disasters. They also work on large long term projects, such as using
communications technology to fight the food crisis.

http://tsfi.org

They established the internet and highspeed satellite lines at the airport
days after the earthquake in Haiti, then moved out to secure connections at
camps and government coordinating offices. They dispach teams daily into the
camps with free call equipment and have reached over 10,000 Haitian
families. They are partnered with many of the humanitarian and rescue
organizations that will be in Haiti for the long haul.

There is more on their work in Haiti here:

http://tsfi.org/en/action/emergencies/112-seisme-en-haiti-tsf-deploi-ses-equ
ipes


I hope that is helpful,


Kendra Kellogg
 
Email:  kendrakellogg-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org 
 
 

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From: idc-bounces-xGejAJT2w6zH

(March 5-12) THE BLUEST EYE University of Maryland's theater department tackles Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland, opening tomorrow and running through March 12th. The play centers on an 11-year-old African-American girl growing up in 1940s Ohio, who blames her dark skin for the discrimination she faces and prays for a pair of blue eyes. Next Tuesday's performance includes a "talk back" session with UM faculty from the English and history departments.

(March 5-28) LAUREL ART GUILD The 41st Annual Laurel Art Guild features the work of Maryland, Northern Virginia and D.C. artists, with an exhibit that opens tomorrow and runs through March 28th. You can see what the local talent's up to as awards are parsed out on Sunday.

(Through March 21) DEAR SARA JANE The scrappy staff at Hub Theatre is mounting its newest production, "Dear Sara Jane" at The Soundry art space in Vienna, Virginia, through March 21st. Victor Lodato's portrait of a young military wife is a humor-filled yet unrelenting examination of a culture of violence both abroad and at home.

Art Institute in the Community: Go beyond the museum walls as curator James Rondeau and exhibition manager Maureen Pskowski discuss the work of sculptor Scott Burton and Ellsworth Kellyâs White Curve, on view in the Modern Wing's outdoor spaces. 

Whatâs New: On October 10, Caravaggioâs The Supper at Emmaus, on loan from the National Gallery London, arrives at the Art Institute. Curator Christina Nielsen offers an inside look at the masterpiece and the artist that she calls âa supernova with a self-destructive streak.â

Exhibition Focus: Though separated by nearly 150 years, the works on view in Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage and On the Scene: Jason Lazarus, Wolfgang PlÃger, Zoe Strauss share an unusual feature. Photography curators Elizabeth Siegel and Katherine Bussard reveal the surprising similarity.

  Your Turn: Weâd like to hear from you. Share your modern-day versions of Victorian photocollage or let us know if you think repurposing found photographs can still be considered photography. E-mail us at musecast@artic.edu or post your thoughts to our Facebook page.

2nd Graphic "1＿Wall" Exhibition
at Guardian Garden (Ginza, Shimbashi area)
(2010-02-22 - 2010-03-18)

2nd edition of the "1_Wall" graphic exhibition. Presentations by participating artists will be given in front of a general audience, and the jury members will select the winner. The winner of the Grand Prize will be given the right to hold a solo show and produce a pamphlet one year after the award is made. Compared to the Hitotsubo exhibition and its decision process based solely on a portfolio , "1_Wall" incorporates an additional review process that adds an extra layer of seriousness to the proceedings.

Katsumi Asaba "Design Revolution"
at Creation Gallery G8 (Ginza, Shimbashi area)
(2010-02-22 - 2010-03-26)

The 12th edition of this exhibition, held to commemorate the life and career of the graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura, features the Misawa Design 2009 Bauhaus series of posters by Katsumi Asaba. These works express the design philosophy of the Misawa Bauhaus Collection. Art talk 219th Creative Salon March 18th (Thu) 19:10-20:40 with Taku Sato and Katsumi Asaba Venue: Creation Gallery G8 Free entry, reservation required 03-3575-6918

KW Institute for Contemporary Art – Hotel Marienbad From April 1st to 30th, 2010 a drug detox residency will be offered.

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Finalists for the 25th Annual Mayor’s Arts Awards

EXCELLENCE IN AN ARTISTIC DISCIPLINE

· Cathedral Choral Society

· Ira Blount

· Lawrence Bradford

· Pan American Symphony Orchestra

· Peter Waddell

· Step Afrika!

· The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

· Theater Alliance of Washington, DC

· Transformer

EXCELLENCE IN SERVICE TO THE ARTS

· Dance/Metro DC

· Kim Roberts

· Margery E. Goldberg

· Washington Project for the Arts

INNOVATION IN THE ARTS

· Daniel Phoenix Singh

· FOTOWEEK DC

· GALA Hispanic Theatre

· Miriam’s Kitchen

· Taffety Punk Theatre Company

· The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts

· VelocityDC Dance Festival

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO ARTS EDUCATION

· CityDance Ensemble, Inc.

· Duke Ellington School of the Arts

· The Shakespeare Theatre Company

· The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts/Education Department

· The Washington Ballet

· Washington Performing Arts Society

OUTSTANDING EMERGING ARTIST

· Andrew Wodzianski

· Brian W. Grundstrom

· Sarah Elizabeth Koss

· Helanius J. Wilkins

· Luciana Stecconi

· Michelle Herman

Finalists for the Mayor’s Award for Arts Teaching

PERFORMING ARTS

· Gregory E. Lewis

· Premila Mistry

· Thomas Kingston Pierre, Jr.

· Rebecca Stump

· Benjamin Whelan-Morin

LANGUAGE ARTS

· Kathy Echave

· Mark A. Williams

VISUAL ARTS

· Stephanie Basralian

· Daniel A. Foley

· Eric Michael Ginsburg

· Bill Harris

· Charles Jean-Pierre

· Vinson Irby

· Andrea Perll

· Lindy Russell-Heymann