For many years Dream House was the ultimate immersive experience in New York City. Sapar Contemporary will present the exhibition “Jumping the Shadow” from July 8 to August 21, 2020. Nicole R. Fleetwood presents his new book ‘Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration’. Serpentine Galleries has launched a program that offers alternative proposals to rebuild the sector entitled ‘Future Art Ecosystems: Art x Advanced Technologies’.
‘Dream House’ Sound Installation in Danger of Closing
July 10, 2020 – Via artnews.com
Dream House has been a sanctuary since its beginning in the 1970s for all enthusiasts of the avant-garde of sound and installation art. For many years Dream House was the ultimate immersive experience in New York City. But today it is in danger of closing due to serious financial problems.
Last week the MELA Foundation and artists La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela launched a GoFundMe campaign aimed at solving these problems. MELA Foundation manages the Dream House with the help of Jung Hee Choi-owe its director and close collaborator.
The Dream House consists of three floors located in Tribeca. This is where Young and Zazeela’s residence is located, along with the archives and storage space of the Dream House. The place has white carpet and pillows spread out in an open environment. The atmosphere is impregnated with magenta light and electronic music. Visitors enter through the door on the ground floor, climb a staircase, take off their shoes and then can enter this kingdom where real life and dreams are confused.
In 1963 Young and Zazeela moved into the building and have not stopped accumulating an extensive archive of their own work and that of other artists nearby (Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, and Pandit Pran Nath). They are all part of the interdisciplinary Fluxus movement. This includes various physical manifestations of sound, light, and music. These archives contain actual works of art, audio, and videotapes—well-documented records of some of the most exploratory artists of the 20th century.
The goal of the GoFundMe campaign is to raise the $150,000 that the Dream House owe in rent in order to continue operating. Young and Zazeela’s campaign explains, “we have reached a critical point and cannot continue without paying rent to the landlord; and yet, there is no way we can move out of this building. All of our work, history, and future are here. We must ask the world to help us”.
‘Jumping the Shadow’, the works by Indonesian contemporary puppetry masters
July 11, 2020 – Via artdaily.com
Sapar Contemporary will present the exhibition ‘Jumping the Shadow’ from July 8 to August 21, 2020. It will be formed of the works of the Indonesian artists Iwan Effendi and Mulyana. This exhibition will feature works inspired by the tradition of shadow puppet theater (Wayang) by these two prominent creators.
This peculiar tradition has been part of Indonesia’s culture and history for over a thousand years. The meaning of the term Wayang refers to the entire dramatic performance, although the leather puppet itself is sometimes referred to as Wayang also. In Java, performances of this type of puppet theater are accompanied by an orchestra. These performances are often worked on dramatic stories from mythology, local adaptations of cultural legends, and also episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Jumping the Shadow will be the debut of contemporary Indonesian artists Iwan Effendi and Mulyana in New York City. Effendi has a deep relationship with puppets inspired by his paternal grandfather. He was a master of shadow puppet theater before he was imprisoned for his supposedly communist views. Effendi began his work by focusing on painting and printmaking.
His most recent drawings embody a wide range of emotions and psychological states. Effendi tries to make sure that the characters in his works show great sincerity in their faces and that this generates a climate of introspection in the spectators. These characters begin as drawings and then are completed using layers of paper mache, clay, bamboo, and cloth.
In Jumping the Shadow, Mulyana has created a wide range of characters that cast beautiful shadows in full harmony with the shadow puppets. Her works present a wide underwater panorama of creatures and corals producing an atmosphere of immersion in knitted and crocheted materials. To create this work rich in form and color, Mulyana uses reused wool as a way to generate awareness of the need to care for a magical underwater world that is rapidly eroding.
Effendi and Mulyana point out the importance of collective narratives that emphasize the union of the works. With their installations and drawings, they provoke the spectators to leave their incredulity suspended and to submerge themselves in allegories that elevate the human spirit.
‘Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration’, a book about how incarcerated artists are making some of today’s most important art.
July 8, 2020 – Via artnews.com
The United States prison system currently holds more than 2 million people. Yet this system remains almost invisible to the citizens of this country. Many members of this system produce works of art that have also gone almost unnoticed in the U.S. art scene. Nicole R. Fleetwood addresses this issue in his new book published by Harvard University Press: ‘Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration’. The book deals with the work done by imprisoned and ex-prisoner artists.
An exhibition of the work of imprisoned artists is being prepared and will soon have a presentation with the same name at MoMA PS1 in New York. The show, which was scheduled to take place in April, was delayed by the pandemic and has no date yet. Fleetwood had an interview with ARTnews by ZOOM where he discussed some issues related to his book along with three of the artists mentioned in the book: Tameca Cole, Russell Craig, and Jesse Krimes.
In this interview, Fleetwood says that his book can be used to see how difficult it is to reach art made in prisons. He also points out that this project was made possible because many people were willing to collaborate, provide access, and share resources. The creation of art within a prison is very different from what often happens in more monetised and established art circles where it is a matter of fostering an artistic community.
It took many years for Fleetwood and its partners to access materials for their art. Many artists have had their materials or their artwork confiscated. In some cases, they made art while in prison for a non-profit or community service group, and they cannot find out where that art is or where it is circulating.
Advanced Technologies, how will these impact the art world
July 10, 2020 – Via artnet.com
We have all seen our lives affected since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have had to make a forced migration to the digital world in different areas of our lives. So have the arts organizations, they have been forced to reorganize their internal operations in order to meet the demands of this new world. On top of this, they have seen their budgets freeze, they have had to suspend or give vacations to their staff, while all kinds of activities around the world have been canceled or postponed.
In response to this phenomenon, Serpentine Galleries has launched a program that offers alternative proposals to rebuild the sector. It is entitled ‘Future Art Ecosystems: Art x Advanced Technologies’. This project aims to address the impact of technologies on the arts and was produced in collaboration with the strategy studio Rival Strategy. It has already been proven and observed that simply mirroring offline programming and moving it into the online environment with images and videos does not produce the desired quality or engagement results.
Future Art Ecosystems is an annual strategic report for professionals and organizations with an interest in the development of future art ecosystems. The first report was released on July 9, 2020. This first issue of FAE focuses on a very current and exciting topic: ‘the new infrastructures that are being built around artistic practices related to advanced technologies’.
The point of view taken to assemble this inaugural publication is based on the Serpentine’s objective to share the knowledge gathered during years of working with the most talented and innovative artists in the world. The strategic report attempts to provide answers by addressing issues such as artistic practices arising from advanced technologies, the particular types of infrastructure that these practices demand, how they are being built, and strategies for an artistic-industrial revolution.
