By the way, Macy’s doesn’t have a pet department anymore.

LO: Your work is a series of lists and highlight bureaucracy, obsession and on the surface a need for control. Tell us more about the themes in your work.
JBR: Well I lived in Paris for ten years and the French are the world champions of bureaucracy. They most likely inspired me.

Extensive travel also inspired my interest in maps. Discovering foreign cities, the details of other cultures, is exciting, but also frustrating and harrowing; like a puzzle to decipher. Maps have an absurd quality. Behind a tiny dot are the lives of millions of people. How can you make any sense out of that?

Also I guess I see life as an ineluctable struggle against disorder. That’s probably why I’m preoccupied with fathomless inventories and compilations.
One of my works lists all the destinations of the Indian railroad and another has 298 panels naming all the streets in Venice, which took me three years to do. I think it’s important to decline and to organize things; it’s reassuring. Maybe I’ve transformed my angst into compulsion.

LO: As a long time NYC resident how do you think the NYC art scene is compared to what is used to be? What are the pros and cons of the scene
now and before in your opinion?
JBR: As an outsider, I can’t really answer that question, but I suppose it partially echoes the evolution of other aspects of New York society: less whimsical, less fraternal, more individualistic, more elitist, more venal …

LO: Why do you think art is important to people and to the world?
JBR: For the usual reasons: art remains a humanizing and civilizing force in our society; it’s an ancient and universal language which permits all people to communicate and to record their history…

LO: What advice would you give an artist who has just arrived in NYC and who is not sure where to begin?
JBR: Get a job which will enable you to survive and to devote time to your work, then work; talk to people, try to enjoy life.

LO: Who are you favorite artists and why?
JBR: Nancy Spero, Paul Klee, David Schrigley … I can’t really explain why, but I suppose humor has something to do with it …

The post Leah Oates Talks Art and NYC with Judy Blum Reddy appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Image courtesy of Cheim & Read Gallery.

Joan Mitchell: Trees
May 15 – August 29, 2014
Cheim & Read Gallery
547 W 25th St.
New York City
cheimread.com

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Image courtesy of Clifton Benevento.

Polly Apfelbaum: A Handweaver’s Pattern Book
May 31 – August 8, 2014
Clifton Benevento
515 Broadway
New York City
cliftonbenevento.com

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K to J, Process still. Courtesy of K to J

Featuring: Lindsey Adelman, Laurie Anderson, Ei Arakawa/Aki Takahashi/Sergei Tcherepnin, Aranda/Lasch, Carlos Benaim, Best Made Company®, Zach Blas, Scott Bodenner, Boym Partners Inc., The Brasslab, Lady Bunny, A.K. Burns & Katherine Hubbard, Rafael de Cárdenas / Architecture at Large, Aisen Caro Chacin, Joseph Cavalieri, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Nicole Cherubini, Ryan Matthew Cohn, Tommy Coleman, CONFETTISYSTEM, Keetra Dean Dixon & JK Keller, Mark Dion, Faye Driscoll, Miriam Ellner, The Extrapolation Factory, Karen Finley, FLATCUT_, Flavor Paper, Fodera Guitars, Fort Standard, FPOAFM Studios, Fredericks & Mae, Benjamin Fredrickson, David Galbraith, Brett Ginsburg, Charles Goldman, Marvin Goldman, Phil Groman, Surya Mattu, Robin Reid, and Federico  Zannier, Harriet Rosebud, John Hatleberg, Paula Hayes, H E I D I L E E, Hood by Air, item idem, Natalie Jeremijenko, J&M Special Effects, Misha Kahn, Victoria Keddie, Kings County Distillery, Ana Kraš, Steven & William Ladd, Jeffrey Landman, Eckhaus Latta, Let There Be Neon, littleBits, Phillip Low, Lower East Side Printshop, Martinez Hand Rolled Cigars, Ohad Meromi, Les Métalliers Champenois Corp., Metropolitan Opera, MILGO/BUFKIN, Marilyn Minter, Donald Moffett, Meredith Monk, Arnaldo Morales, Raúl De Nieves, Michele Oka Doner, papabubble New York, Sally Ann Parsons, Chris Pellettieri, Gaetano Pesce, Jason Polan, Ralph Pucci, Isa Rodrigues, Jason Sapan, Miriam Simun, SITU Studio, Spectacle Theater, Specular, Swill Children, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Thunder Horse Video, Elaine Tin Nyo, UM Project, Amanda Wachob, Leslie Wayne, Richard Webber, Sylvia Weinstock, Welcome to Night Vale, Paul Wong / Dieu Donné, Caroline Woolard and BFAMFAPhD, Naomi Yasuda, Yemenwed, YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND, Jeff Zimmerman, and Or Zubalsky.

NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial
July 1 – October 12, 2014
The Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York City
madmuseum.org

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Image courtesy of Hunter College

Hunter MFA 2014 MFA Thesis Exhibition
April 24- May 22, 2014
Hunter College
205 Hudson Street
New York City
2014huntermfa.com

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Courtesy of the artist.

My work draws upon the century-long tradition of handmade sculpture. I would describe my pieces as visceral; the sculpting technique I use when working with clay reveals a flesh-like quality. As such, my work has everything to do with the materiality of life. My sculptures wear the heaviness of being; their surfaces reveal every sign of corrosion that originates in the confrontation of the body’s skin to the abrasiveness of time and life itself. Often larger than life, they are turned inward; silent and introverted, their reticent pose heightening the expressiveness of the emotion they hold captive. These works scream in silence.

nadinedemeester.be

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PULSE runs from Thursday, May 8,2014 to Sunday, May 11, 2014. See the fair website pulse-art.com for hours and ticketing information.

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Artists Darren Bader, Eduardo Basualdo, Eva Kotátková, Marie Lorenz, Koki Tanaka, and Naama Tsabar have conceived works for “Projects,” curated by Ceclia Alemani, which engage with the history of Randall’s Island, the site of the fair. While viewers can expect a consistent theme for “Projects,” “Sounds,” also curated by Alemani, will present three works, one by each Keren Cytter, Cally Spooner, and Hannah Weinberger, each of which will explore and utilize sound as a medium in a different way.

The Education program will provide workshops and tours for students from area public schools. Additionally, this year, Frieze has organized a workshop for high school students, which will offer them a comprehensive view of the contemporary art world from the artist’s studio to exhibition.

Frieze’s Talks program will be a daily occurrence and will cover a variety of issues pertinent to the contemporary arts from politics to filmmaking to writing. One such talk will be a conversation with Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot.
Frieze Art Fair runs from Friday, May 9, 2014 to Monday, May 12, 2014. See the fair website for hours and ticketing information.

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Downtown Fair runs from Thursday, May 8th to Sunday, May 11th, 2014. See the fair website downtownfair.com for hours and ticketing information.

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NYA: Is Acetate Diary an independent work in your oeuvre, or have you worked in this style previously? 
RS:Working with film (and here I mean film and not video) has been really important to me and it’s something I’ve been really focused on since my time at NYU. I’m interested in the ways that we can use film that are different from the ways that we can use digital video. What sorts of images, light patterns, or paintings can we create on acetate film and how do they differ from those we can make digitally?  I keep hearing that “digital has replaced film” and I think—in large part—”OK, fine.” But what that way of thinking forecloses is all the kinds of art making that actually rely on the medium—that rely on the acetate. To that extent, Acetate Diary is one of pieces that I’ve made that try to push back on the medium. On a practical, stylistic level, though, it’s the first piece that has relied wholly on the process of scratching and painting—I’ve used those techniques before, but usually in tandem with other processes as well.

NYA: What about the accident made you want to express the idea of a diary on film in this way? 
RS: After the accident, I gradually started feeling a little bit better and thought to myself “OK, I’m getting better; eventually I will feel like myself again.” Then, last summer, my body started aching in ways it hadn’t been before. I saw a doctor who told me that, essentially, my jaw joint had completely displaced its cartilage and was in the process of wearing itself down. I was really crushed in a lot of capacities—all of a sudden, it didn’t seem like there was this trajectory that lead from accident to feeling better—at least for the immediate future it was going to be a cycle, not a straight line. When I was a kid, my mother used to give me newspaper when I was frustrated and told me to rip it up—to let out whatever aggression and emotion was inside—and that’s what I wanted to do with Acetate Diary. I wanted to give myself total freedom to simultaneously create and destroy, to beat the hell out of that roll of film, to create something completely instinctual. By using the roll of film as a literal diary—with words, drawings, scratches, and thumbprints—I wanted to capture the urgency of the completely conflicting emotions that I was feeling at a very specific moment.

NYA: How do you see this operating as a diary, assuming the content of the film is strictly visual and avoids using words? 
RS: The film actually incorporates both. When I say “diary” I don’t mean to just limit it to words—I also think of the drawings and doodles that folks keep in their diaries as parts of the “diary,” too. But there are words that run pass the projector’s bulb—for the most part, the diary is written from left to right on the 100 feet of film, which means that when you watch it your brain understands those words less as words and more as abstract patterns. The sound that you hear, too, is all a series of words and drawings that I etched into the optical audio track of the 16mm film. As I was painting and scratching the film, I loved the idea that, through this process, I could attempt to take these abstract emotion that I was feeling, make them somewhat concrete by writing them on the film, and then re-abstract them by projecting the film. It makes the piece both public and private in a way that I find really fascinating.

NYA: Are you planning on working in this style moving forward? 
RS: I love painting and scratching on film—it’s such a wonderful, strange experience. I’ve been experimenting more and more with the technique and have been staging some live performances in which I’ll draw on the film live as it passes through the projector, which allows you to see the color and shape as the paints dry. I’m really excited to keep on experimenting with the possibilities that paint and acetate allow.

NYA: Who do you see as your aesthetic peers? From what or whom do you derive the source of your inspiration?
RS: There are so many incredible artists who have done similar work in the past—perhaps the most obvious being Stan Brakhage and Len Lye—but I’ve been really intellectually inspired by the work of folks like Jennifer Reeves and Jodie Mack, too, who have also been experimenting with how far you can push film—and I mean that in so many ways. I’ve been involved with the Orphan Film Symposium for a while now, too, and having conversations with the incredibly diverse array of archivists and media makers who frequent the symposium is always a pretty inspirational experience.

NYA: Please tell us something about the process of making this film that may not be readily apparent when viewing the work. 
RS: One thing that people always seem curious about is the timeframe that the piece encompasses—and it’s very strictly defined for me. The film was made during two weeks in October 2013 (and has not been touched since.) I gave myself total license to work on it non-linearly—I would jump around and paint the end first, then the beginning, then the end again, then the middle, etc.—so you aren’t getting a sense of time that progresses in a simple fashion but, when you watch the film, you are getting a dose of a very temporally specific moment in my life. Also, Acetate Diary is one of a series of works (three so far, all with highly different styles) that grapple with my body and subjectivity post-accident.

NYA: Where can we find more of your work? 
RS: Good question! A couple of my films are available at the Filmmaker’s Co-op in New York, but people can always reach out to me directly—we’re now on the hunt for places that are interested in future screenings of Acetate Diary (as well as my other trauma-inspired films) and I’m always really eager to get my work out there for folks to encounter.

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