"Don't Tread on Me" Three Channel Video installation. Performance still, Momenta Art, 2011 (Photo: Alesia Exum)
Chelsea Knight is a New York based video artist. She recently completed residencies at the Whitney Independent Study Program and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and was a 2007 Fulbright Fellow in Italy. She is a current resident at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Program. Her video installations tackle the dynamics of political and social control. Her narratives blend fiction and reality in a singular fluid motion. Her subjects have included professional dancers, military instructors, prison inmates and the artist’s own parents. She encourages her characters to improvise, creating a tension between the personal and the scripted. The artist’s videos examine the ways in which both governmental and domestic forces control our emotional, political and social reality. It is Chelsea’s great strength to lay bear the wires by which humans manipulate and entrap one another. I recently had a chance to stop by her studio in lower Manhattan to chat about her work, recent projects and future plans. Continue Reading More »
Clarisse d’Arcimoles is a 25-year-old French artist living in London. Her work can be found at Saatchi Gallery until April 30th as part of NEWSPEAK: BRITISH ART NOW and in Tel-Aviv at the Alfred Gallery until April 31st. A solo show in London just closed at Degree Art Gallery and she had a busy 2010. BOOM! That’s Miss d’Arcimoles blowing up – and rightfully so. Her powerful images and projects bring to mind a dozen other positive adjectives. The power in her work partially lies in the multiple jumping off points for the viewer. You’re viscerally thrown off guard with emotion, intimacy, humanity, and history. Artcards Review digitally jumped the pond to talk with Clarisse. Continue Reading More »
Tracing the Unseen Border is an exhibition curated by Ian Cofre and Omar Lopez-Chahoud that takes a look at the dynamics surrounding the border between Mexico and the United States. Each of the participating artists critically engages questions about this imaginary line, some as a representation of the actual physical space that separates both countries, and yet is unseen by a large part of the nations’ populations. Others turn their focus to the social, political, and economic implications affecting those who are determined to cross it. Collectively, the artists begin to expose the broader context in which there has been a move to obscure the border. This tendency coincides with a political discourse and policies that have shifted to border security, immigration reform, and protectionism. The artists’ works will help reveal and unravel the interconnectedness of this contemporary landscape to those who may feel far removed.
Participating artists:
Alberto Borea, Monika Bravo, Tania Candiani, caraballo-farman, Sergio de la Torre, Blane De St. Croix, Ricardo Gonzalez, M & X, Teresa Margolles, Tom McGrath, Irvin Morazan, Richard Mosse, Alex Rivera, Javier Tellez, Patricia A. Valencia, Ishmael Randall Weeks, and Judi Werthein.
At the risk of generalizing, I’ll admit that I am often suspicious of art that presents itself as “conceptual.” What frightens me is the disconnect that often exists between concept and experience. Discussing this idea with an acquaintance at a party several years ago I was asked mockingly “do you seek to be moved?” I do, and firmly believe that successful conceptual art can elicit not only a cerebral, but also a visceral physical response in the viewer. With this in mind, I had few expectations when I wandered into Sean Kelly Gallery in Chelsea last Wednesday. What I found was a mixed, but ultimately satisfying exhibition of works by Joseph Kosuth.
Behind the alias of Deaf Center are Erik Skodvin and Otto Totland, too pals from Norway. They are equally fascinated and inspired by the lights of the cities, an atmospheric walk in the empty forests of Norway, the dark yet disarming emotional contour of the movies of David Lynch or Kubrick. Erik has recently moved to Berlin where Deaf Center recorded, within three days, their latest album Owl Splinters, in Nils Frahm’s studio. He also runs Miasmahone of the most distinguished labels of experimental music and has being releasing solo work under a variety of monikers, the most prominent Svarte Greiner (Black Leaves in English). Otto has also been actively producing work for Nest, among others, as well as taking care of his home in Norway. I first encountered their music when exposed to the beautiful sincerity of Pale Ravine (Type Records, 2005). I was impressed by the density of their modern classical-ambient soundscapes, knowing that both considered themselves classically untrained or to be more specific self-taught musicians.
I had the chance to see them perform live here in New York as part of this year’s Unsound Festival’sBeyond the Dark – a tribute event for the music of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki at Judson Church in Manhattan. Erik has also performed as Svarte Greiner with Polish-German percussionist Paul Wirkus on the live soundtrack for Murnau’s German Expressionist classic “Nosferatu”.
In the following questions I try to focus on Deaf Center’s creative process, their thoughts about computer sequencing as opposed to live instrumental performances, and the power of words in their music-making. Continue Reading More »
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