Moderators wanted

Is there something we are missing in this blog? well, yes there is. It's YOU!
We would like you to be a guest moderator for a week. What's required? That you do one post - about an art event, a review, an interview, something you are interested in. So if ya got something to say, and we know you do, say it here!

Send an email to visualartsneworleans@gmail.com to set up a time.

Alvar Arts

Pati D'Amico Wednesday night June 20th at the Alvar Library, Alvar Street next to Douglass H.S. in the Bywater.

Fwd: Best Art Practices - International Award for young curator

06/11/07 Best Art Practices Best Art Practices International award for young curators First edition theme Projects in non-conventional spaces Announced by Italian Cultural Office of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol Curated by Denis Isaia http://www.bestartpractices.it/ The Award The Italian Cultural Office of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, next host of the European Biennal Manifesta, is announcing the first edition of the international competition Best Art Practices – International award for young curators . Best Art Practices will assign prizes to the best curator practices of contemporary art of the last five years. The theme of the first edition will focus on projects in non-conventional spaces. The Award accepts only projects that have been completed in the last five years and therefore inaugurated after 1 March 2002. Itinerant events or events taking place over a period of time will be accepted as long as all the phases are concluded by 1 March 2007. The Award is open to all curators of all nationalities born on or after 2 March 1967. Transmission of data Entries must arrive by 12 midday of Monday 3rd September 2007 by post, courier or hand delivery at the Award secretary's office. The postmark will not be considered as proof for the date of arrival of the entry and data sent by email or other means of transmission different from those indicated above will not be accepted. Prizes First prize € 10,000 Second prize € 3,000 Third prize € 2,000 Languages accepted The data may be sent in Italian, German, English or Spanish. Composition of the Jury The international Jury is composed of a Jury President and five commissioners. President: Carlos Basualdo, curator - Philadelphia Museum of Art Commissioner: Marion Piffer Damiani, independent curator; Bolzano Commissioner: Letizia Ragaglia curator – Museion; Bolzano Commissioner: Montse Romaní, independent curator; Barcelona Commissioner: Anton Vidokle, artist; New York and Berlin Commissioner: Andrea Viliani, curator – Mambo; Bologna Selection and prize giving The winners will be selected by the assembled Jury. At the end of the selection the first 8 placed will be classified. It is within the jury's jurisdiction to proclaim, for valid and justified reason, that no project has reached the winning standard. The list of the first 8 selected will be published with effect form 12th November 2007 on the website of the Award. It is also possible that a number of the projects, at the jury's discretion, will form part of an exhibition and in due course a catalogue, and that a number of the competitors may be invited to participate in a conference on this subject. Enrolment forms, prizes-giving criteria and more information are available at http://www.bestartpractices.it. Press Office Carlo Simula +39 0577 22 07 21 press@bestartpractice.it email to a friend contact subscribe electronic flux corporation / www.e-flux.com 295 greenwich street #532, nyc ny 10007 to unsubscribe click / here

"local artists still alive"

Takashi Horisaki, the New York artist who is "latexing" a home in the Lower 9th to bring to the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island, wrote a little about the New Orleans art community and the lastest Neighborhoods project show at his blog.

If you missed the front page article by Katy Reckdahl about his project, see it at
nola.com link

keep up with what he's doing at
social dress new orleans

St. Claude Gallery Hop time

Farrington Smith Gallery presents
The Amazing Technicolor Visions of
Lewis and Yseult
Show opening Saturday, May 19 from 5-9 pm
2514 St. Claude Ave.

Collaborative and solo work by Louis St. Lewis and Sean Yseult
with special guest Quintron on the turntables

This is the New Orleans premiere of pieces from the duo's show "12 Inches of Fame"- the last art show displayed at the famed CBGB's- as well as brand-new work. see our website for more information about Lewis and Yseult!
www.farringtonsmith.com

Visit other galleries in the St. Claude Arts District- also open this Saturday night! See www.scadnola.com for more information!

Neighborhoods: 2426 Bradish Place

SITE-SPECIFIC ART INSTALLTION TITLED: “NEIGHBORHOODS: 2426 BRADISH PLACE,”

TO BE HELD SATURDAY, MAY 19TH, IN THE TULANE/GRAVIER NEIGHBORHOOD OF NEW ORLEANS.

On Saturday, May 19th, 2007, 6:00-9:00pm, for one night only, the third installment of the “Neighborhoods” art installation project will be held at 2426 Bradish Place,Tulane/Gravier. “NEIGHBORHOODS: 2426 BRADISH PLACE” is a site-specific, multidisciplinary installation that will take place in the gutted ground floor of the home of Michelle Levine and Clay Thomas.

Michelle is an artist who is currently rebuilding her house and studio in the Tulane/Gravier neighborhood. Through the use of interviews with neighbors, soundscapes, live music, drawing, photography, and sculpture, this event will confront the range of issues the community is experiencing as they revitalize this neighborhood.

Visual artists include: Shannon Crane, Courtney Egan, Scott Saltzman, Maxx Sizeler, David Sullivan, Jonathan Traviesa, Elizabeth Underwood, Robert Vicknair, and Monica Zeringue; sound by Anton Gussoni, and SpartieTucker, and music by The Panorama Jazz Band.

FYI: see images from last Neighborhoods event in Gentilly at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33224774@N00/sets/72157594526756556/

Call for artists projects

MADRID PROCESOS 07

AVAM (Associated Visual Artists of Madrid) invites proposals for a
competition to select eight artistic projects for inclusion in MADRID
PROCESOS 07. This competition is part of the activities of CRAC
(Coordination of Resources for Contemporary Art), an initiative
sponsored by AVAM in order to improve the working conditions for the
production and creation of works in the plastic and visual arts.

The maximum amount designated for support is 9.000 €.

Artists of any nationality may participate, regardless of age.
Participants must present an original and unpublished project (It may
currently be in some phase of production) to be partially, or totally
completed during the duration of the grant.

The deadline for applications is May 7, 2007.
For more information please visit http://www.avam.net

Vito Acconci in New Orleans

VITO ACCONCI

Monday, April 23rd
6:30 p.m.
Miller Hall, Room 114
Loyola University
6363 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118

This lecture has been made possible by the generosity of Barriere
Construction Company, Linda and Richard Friedman, and Lin Emery.


For more information
visart@loyno.edu/(504) 861-5456

Jerry Saltz lecture at Tulane

If you missed Jerry Saltz speak at Tulane this past Wed. April 4th
well... sorry. The lecture was loaded with insight and optimism. His
take on art and criticism were seemingly off the cuff and not bogged
down with heavy art speak. At times this distracted from the lecture
as I felt as though I was in a Junior High science lecture by the
'cool' teacher who wanted to make science fun. "Right dummies and
prophets, does anyone know who made this piece...", this makes sense
if you were there. The patronizing became annoying at times, but only
in good Saltz fashion do I point out the bad with the good.

Over all the lecture was informative and highly entertaining. I
gathered from talking to several people that were in attendance, they
left the auditorium a better person and perhaps a little more
enlightened about viewing and creating art. I especially enjoyed his
bit about the third thing that exists between the artist and the
viewer being not only the artwork itself but the experience as another
element of communication. This element being linked to notions of the
sublime was quite interesting, and I could not agree more with Mr.
Saltz in that the sublime exists in dialogue and human interaction
rather than silence and solitude in our contemporary setting.

Please check out the art reviews by Jerry Saltz weekly at
villagevoice.com, you may even become a fan.

Dan Tague

Karen Louise Crain at the Big Top

Karen Louise Crain’s color photographs at the Big Top revolve around a central female character’s amusing and disjunctive interactions with her immediate environment. This character’s relationship to the audience and to her environment seems to change between “episodes,” or costume-changes.

First we see a woman with hair pulled back, reading glasses on, lounging in a retro-geometric mumu in a yard that at first glance seems off-kilter but not necessarily devastated. A big rocket is askew behind her, the plant next to her looks threateningly like a big dead furry spider in a pot, and the place seems to be in some sort of upheaval. But the character doesn’t care – she sits reading a magazine, deep in an escapist reverie induced by glossy pages. She appears unposed, and her mumu provides a certain kind of exuberant structure and contrast within the odd setting. She appears strangely comfortable.

Another photo in the same “episode” shows the same woman in the same yard. This time she is dwarfed by vegetation in upheaval. She wields a pair of clippers, which seem to pick at the upturned roots of a big tree ineffectually. Her cool in the previous photo is made comical by her attempts to control her environment in this image. I can imagine that this character is determined to do what she can to control the world – which is very little - and she’s not going to worry over it. Maintaining the bubble of one’s personal world and interests in the face of disaster and the suffering of others is the subject of these identity explorations. Karen Louise writes about this in her statement, posted in a comment below.

The second set’s character is much more posed, and appears less comfortable in, or less a part of, her environment. She steadfastly ignores the giant piles of tree trunks looming behind her, while she, clothed in a pretty dressing gown and little else, talks on the phone or pours her tea. The contradictions involved in maintaining one’s femininity in the midst of a giant clean-up are under inspection here. These photos seem to be played for contradiction much more than the garden photos.

The third costume change involves a character who comes off as a ploy for a one-line joke – it’s a good joke too. Dressed smartly as the chair of the garden club or some sort of community matron, she stands at the door of a flooded house, complete with giant orange spray-painted X on the door, knocking, with a “welcome-back” gift in her arms. She is aware of her environment and knows just what it needs, a houseplant. This character is full of omni-directional cheer, determined to make the best of the situation no matter how dire. As a viewer, I enjoy this humor but when the joke is over, I am drawn back to the more intense visual pleasure of the mumu lady in the garden, and her ambiguous relationship between what’s in her head and what’s in her surroundings.

The last character appears in only one photo. For her cameo, the woman in a leopard coat leans on a boarded up building, on which is spray painted in bright red “Looters will be shot.” Again she talks on the red phone. Her eyes are obscured by dark glasses, and a piece of matching leopard luggage makes her departure imminent. She’s getting out of Dodge. But Karen Louise, having just bought a house here 6 months before the storm, is here for a while. With some artists, the storm and it’s aftermath brought artwork to a standstill. Karen Louise Crain found the ability to start her art career at this moment.

Courtney Egan

Takashi Horisaki to do project in New Orleans

Takashi Horisaki is an artist who spent 3 years in New Orleans, graduated from Loyola, and he now lives in NYC. Upon a post -Katrina visit he was inspired to do work about the state of things here. He wrote the following:

"Last June, I revisited New Orleans and shocked the situation. Since then, as an artist, I have been concerned about all level of political social and cultural issues over there. Several good exhibitions about New Orleans happened in NYC, but felt missing such a physical reality that I got there. So, I started thinking about how possibly under my situation, I were able to contribute to these issues that supposed to be nation level.

I completed my proposal late December and that is "Social Dress New Orleans - 730 days after." One of my recent sculpture works is Social Dress series. I use pure liquid latex to apply onto object mainly buildings, let it dry, carefully peel it off with all surface substances and exhibit in a different space. I thought finding entire toppled shotgun house in New Orleans, painting latex, peeling it off, bringing it to NYC and recreate the house here will be good piece to physically present and speaking up about those issues still happening over there.

Fortunately, one of institutions well accepted this project proposal and will be solo exhibition coming Summer. At Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York between 7/29 and 10/28, this sculpture will be exhibited coming with documentary film screening and publishing a book of this project."


Please take a look at his blog and his remarkable work. He will keep us here posted about his project.

GRADUALLY

A Performance by Butch Merigoni
New Orleans, March 8, 2007

A New York artist, originally from New Orleans, Butch Merigoni returned to New Orleans with a relatively rare visual arts performance. Not that art performance has disappeared, but unlike the seeming heyday for this medium in New Orleans when I arrived in the late 1970s and 1980s, it seems too long absent. Many of us remember the CAC and even the New Orleans Museum presenting performances.

Butch’s intent was that this piece serve as a combination of his reaction to the post-Katrina world of New Orleans and an empathetic response to the artists and others still living with that rather surreal reality. One knows that, in fact, the artist’s ability to focus significant light on, or aid in overcoming the insanity of, such a social, economic and political collapse is likely to be minor. However, each of us speaks with the power of the media we are competent in. It seems as well, that an art performance may be pretty much as successful as all the documentaries, political visits, and editorializing that has already taken place. In any event, Butch appeared to realize that, as artist do, he was speaking to the audience in attendance and expressing his need to comment. That is sufficient.

In short, Merigoni, dressed in a rather insubstantial white pair of pants and t-shirt, without shoes, stood in the empty streets of Gentilly at night and pelted himself with 144 (twelve dozen, a gross) raw eggs. After this painfully extended process, he removed his soiled cloths and poured water over himself to cleanse his body, dressed and left. The whole process took approximately 30 minutes.

Two of the essential decisions made in such art acts became the key to the success of this piece – pace and place. A three dozen egg performance was not an option. As with all of us who have endured the barrage of small and large blows for over 18 months by institutions, contractors, and thoughtless talking heads, too much seems never enough. For thirty minutes the central sound in that once bustling Gentilly neighborhood was that of eggs breaking over and over and over on the artists body. The tension built as the blows continued and the performer, shaking in the cold night air, persisted well past our grasping of what he “meant” to say. His slow, deliberate and trance-like countenance was mesmerizing and not a little painful to us all.

Place counted on two other levels. This near empty and almost silent part of New Orleans was a companion performer, but so was the fact that Merigoni stood on a sewer cover where the detritus of the eggs mounted under his bare feet. The performance was lit by twelve participants each holding a flashlight. Each had some power to control what was focused on. It was not incidental that such temporary lighting was for so long part of our mode of survival. (I won’t try to impose my interpretation of the possible rationale for persistence of the number 12 in the piece, but it clearly has symbolic power)

As I mentioned afterwards to the artist, the phrase “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet” kept coming to mind. However, as did he, we all seem to just wash off the muck, start the next day, and have long given up the idea that an omelet will ever be forthcoming.

Gerald L. Cannon

Video: Patricia Sills

St. Claude Gallery Hop

This Saturday, March 24, Barrister's Gallery , Farrington Smith Gallery and l'art Noir New Orleans have coordinated their openings to offer you a gallery-hopping experience St. Claude Ave.-style.

For Barrister's Gallery, this is also an inaugural show at their new location of 2331 St. Claude Ave. and Spain. I saw the space at about the halfway point in its construction, and it promised to be very nice. The show is new works on paper by Myrtle Von Damitz, III and is entitled, "I'm Running Out of Coffee and It Smells Like Rotten Onions." The artist's reception on Saturday is from 4-9 p.m.

At Farrington Smith Gallery, there will be paintings by Steve Richardson and Katherine Thompson. Our artist's reception will be from 6-9 pm, and you can find us at 2514 St. Claude Ave. at Franklin.

Furthur down the way at 4108 St. Claude Ave., l'art Noir is opening their Comic Art Show, which includes work by Tony "Baloney" Juliano, Henriette Valium, and Caeser Meadows.

We're excited to be building on the art scene over here in the Marigny/Bywater; please stop by any or all of these shows this Saturday, March 24!

-from Amy Farrington

48 Hour Film School Introduced to New Orleans

yall check out the film and share your thoughts -

February 13, 2007 - New Orleans, LA
As part of its continuing efforts to provide affordable, hands-on
training to aspiring filmmakers, the New Orleans Video Access Center
(NOVAC) and the Digital Filmmaking Institute (DFI) held the first
ever “48 Hour Film School” workshop on January 27-28th. The end
result was a completed short film entitled Breaking Bread which was
produced by workshop participants, edited in one day, and now
available online at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdHnEU07cs

Within the first 24 hours at the LIFT Production Offices, students
learned the basics of pre-production planning and hands-on techniques
in camera/lighting/sound. On day two, the class moved to an Uptown
park, which served as the location for Breaking Bread . While
producing the short film, students received applied set and technical
experience in camera, sound, lighting, production assistance, and
directing. Many students also served as “extras,” with local actors
Kevin Barraco and Tanner playing the lead roles.

Breaking Bread was shot and edited in one day, confirming the belief
of NOVAC executive director Tim Ryan that “anyone with a story to
tell, a technical understanding of the equipment, and a devoted group
of friends/family can produce their own digital films in a short
period of time.”

Jason Vowell and Wylie Whitesides, two local independent filmmakers,
facilitated the workshop. “It’s really important to actually do
instead of teach…A lot of people think it costs a ton of money and
takes a ton of experience to make a good short film….That’s just not
the case anymore. Better quality and lower prices for equipment, and
the ability to broadcast your creations over the Internet, are really
changing the way the world thinks about their entertainment choices.
Our class gave the students an upper hand in that world,” said Vowell.

In addition to the “48 Hour Film School” workshop, NOVAC’s DFI offers
other affordable digital filmmaking training, including the following
upcoming workshops: Introduction to Final Cut Pro (Feb. 24-25,
$225), DV Camera and Lighting (March 10 - $125), and DVD Studio Pro
(March 24-25 $225). In July, NOVAC will also be offering a one-week
digital film camp for teens. Visit novacvideo.org for more
information on the first-come, first-served workshop registration
process.

NOVAC Digital Filmmaking Institute
Tim Ryan, NOVAC
(504) 339-4350
tim.ryan@novacvideo.org