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Real Art Ways notes with profound sadness the passing of our beloved friend and Board member Jeffrey Hayes. Jeffrey loved movies, poetry, music, food and wine, and created a sense of play and joy with everything he did. Jeffrey left us all too soon; we will continue our work with his spirit in our hearts. |
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Details coming soon!
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Buffalo, NY--Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud. On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government's entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz as "insufficient on its face." This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as "fact") were true, they would not constitute a crime. The US Department of Justice had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal. No action has been taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal. According to Margaret McFarland, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Terrance P. Flynn, the DoJ will not appeal Arcara's ruling and will not seek any new charges against Kurtz. For over a decade, cultural institutions worldwide have hosted Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble's educational art projects, which use common science materials to examine issues surrounding the new biotechnologies. In 2004 the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Kurtz had schemed with colleague Dr. Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to illegally acquire two harmless bacteria cultures for use in one of those projects. The Justice Department further alleged that the transfer of the material from Ferrell to Kurtz broke a material transfer agreement, thus constituting mail fraud. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for these charges was increased from five years to twenty years in prison. Dr. Kurtz has been fighting the charges ever since. In October 2007, Dr. Ferrell pleaded to a lesser misdemeanor charge after recurring bouts of cancer and three strokes suffered since his indictment prevented him from continuing the struggle. KURTZ SUMS UP END OF FOUR-YEAR NIGHTMARE Finally vindicated after four years of struggle, Kurtz, asked for a statement, responded stoically: "I don't have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?" Said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria, "I am glad an innocent man has been vindicated. Steve Kurtz stared in the face of the federal government and a twenty-year prison term and never flinched, because he believes in his work and his actions were those of a completely innocent man. Clients like him are a blessing, and although I have had many important victories, this one stands at the top of the list." As coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, a group organized to support Kurtz from the beginning of the case, Lucia Sommer sees the end of the prosecution as bittersweet, and like Kurtz, is thoughtful about the broader significance of the case: "This ruling is the best possible ending to a horrible ordeal--but we are mindful of numerous cases still pending, and the grave injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration following 9/11. This case was part of a larger picture, in which law enforcement was given expanded powers. In this instance, the Bush administration was unsuccessful in its attempt to erode Americans' constitutional rights." Referring to the international outcry the case provoked, involving fundraisers and protests held on four continents, Sommer said, "The government has unlimited resources to bring and prosecute these kinds of charges, but the accused often don't have any resources to defend themselves. This victory could never have happened without the activism of thousands of people. Supporters protested, vocally opposed the prosecution, and refused to let it go on in silence. And without their efforts at fundraising, Kurtz and Ferrell would not have been able to defend themselves from these false accusations." Sommer added that the next step for the defense will be to get back all of the materials taken by the FBI during its 2004 raid on the Kurtz home, including several completed art projects, as well as Dr. Kurtz's lab equipment, computers, books, manuscripts, notes, research materials, and personal belongings. The four confiscated art projects are the subject of an exhibition entitled SEIZED on view at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, through July 18: BACKGROUND TO THE CASE The case originated in May 2004, when Kurtz's wife Hope died of heart failure as the couple was preparing a project about genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Police who responded to Steve Kurtz's 911 call deemed the Kurtzes' art materials suspicious and alerted the FBI. Kurtz explained that the materials (legally and easily obtained basic life science equipment and two harmless bacteria samples) had already been displayed at museums throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public. However, the following day, Kurtz was illegally detained for 22 hours on suspicion of bioterrorism, as dozens of agents from the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, Department of Defense, ATF, and numerous other law enforcement agencies raided his home, seizing his personal and professional belongings. After a federal grand jury refused to charge Kurtz with bioterrorism, Kurtz and Ferrell were indicted on two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud concerning the acquisition of of harmless bacteria for one of Critical Art Ensemble's educational art projects. (Critical Art Ensemble is the recipient of numerous awards for its projects, including the prestigious 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, in recognition of twenty years of distinguished work: The Department of Justice brought the charges in spite of the fact that the alleged "victims of fraud"--American Type Culture Collection and the University of Pittsburgh--never filed any charges or complained of any wrongdoing, and the fact that in bringing the charges the Department of Justice was acting completely outside its own Prosecution Policy Relating to Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud For more information and extensive documentation, including the Judge's CONTACTS: |
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New York, NY - Rarely in a musical movement has a player left an indelible mark on those with whom he collaborated and those listeners with whom he enthralled more than the late NYC avant jazz saxist, Thomas Chapin. To commemorate this gifted, multi-instrumentalist-composer and to mark the decade since his passing, two NYC concerts are planned by his widow, Terri Castillo-Chapin, with the help of Thomas’ many friends and musical colleagues. Entitled LIFT OFF! REMEMBERING THOMAS CHAPIN, the concerts will take place in NYC on Wednesday, February 13 at St. Peter’s Church at 6:30 pm (619 Lexington Ave. at East 54th St. – admission free), and on Friday, February 15, 2008 at the Bowery Poetry Club at 8:00 pm (308 Bowery at Bleecker St. – admission $15). |
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JWL B. of the Florida hip-hop duo Yo Majesty was not satisfied with her tight-collared, mostly male audience at a New York club last fall. So she nonchalantly peeled off her oversized white T-shirt and black sports bra and performed the next several songs topless, bounding about the stage with the ease of a shirtless male rapper. The audience lit up and finally proceeded to, as the Yo Majesty song “Club Action” commands, get their behinds “on the floor.” And that is how a lesbian rap group from Florida got an uptight Manhattan crowd to relax a little. “I got stretch marks, and I’m fat, and I’m wildin,’ ” Jwl B., whose real name is Jewel Baynham, said in a phone interview. “But your boy 50 Cent does his show with his shirt off. Why can’t I? God made me who I am, and I’m comfortable in it. I want people to know you don’t have to look glamorous to be an inspiration.” It’s a lackluster time for mainstream female rappers, with M.C.’s like Foxy Brown and Remy Ma making more headlines for jail stints than for their music. Lil’ Kim hasn’t gone platinum since 2003, Eve’s comeback album has been delayed several times, and Missy Elliott’s first record in three years isn’t due until late spring. Fergie, with her singsong chants about her feminine wiles, is the closest thing to a female rap superstar these days. But in the wake of the critical favorite M.I.A., a new crop of young, multicultural, female hip-hop acts is causing a stir on the Internet and in indie-label conference rooms. There’s Kid Sister, a cheeky, charismatic rapper from Chicago who recently released a video featuring Kanye West; Amanda Blank, a nasty-mouthed M.C. from Philadelphia who is associated with the hipster male hip-hopper Spank Rock; and Santogold, a new-wavey singer and dub-style rapper from Brooklyn who toured with Bjork last fall. Though their styles vary from agile wordplay to club-ready choruses, what unites them is their fresh, left-of-center enthusiasm; their bold attitudes; and an expansive approach to female sexuality. “There is a reason why these artists are having so much early traction online,” said Josh Deutsch, chief executive of Downtown Records, which will release albums by Amanda Blank and Santogold this spring. “And it’s because they have such strong voices and strong points of view. There’s nothing remotely manufactured about them.” Yo Majesty’s roots go back six years, when Ms. Baynham met LaShunda Flowers, who is known as Shunda K., a track star turned rapper, at a gay club in Tampa, Fla. (A third member, Shon Burt, quit recently.) The group’s early songs were “real gay music,” Ms. Flowers said. Yo Majesty broke up for a few years, during which Ms. Flowers renounced her homosexuality, found God, married a male Christian missionary, got divorced then reclaimed her lesbian identity. Upon reuniting, the rappers began building a following through MySpace. That led to a recording contract with Domino Records, which will release their debut album this year. Yo Majesty’s party-rap proudly celebrates everything below the waist, but the duo also grapples with growing up Christian and gay. “At the end of every show,” Ms. Flowers said, “whatever we do, we ask people, ‘Do you know who the Lord is?’ ” The only religion in Amanda Blank’s music is the kind she is losing. Ms. Blank, whose real name is Amanda Mallory, mimics the pornographic lyrics of Southern rappers like Trina and Khia, but she ramps up the gross-out factor to the point of nigh-absurdity. Her persona is a mix of seediness and street-toughness, which is on display in “Loose,” a recent video by Spank Rock. As several naked, tattooed women writhe all over him, Ms. Blank sits on a toilet, threatening to fight rappers who try to steal her style and making highly unprintable claims about her sexual prowess. Unlike Yo Majesty and Amanda Blank, Kid Sister spurns sexual frankness in favor of innuendo. Born Melisa Young on the South Side of Chicago, she dismisses unsuitable suitors while strutting her postmodern stuff. “We could be hugged up like hippies on a tree trunk,” she teases in her verse in Chromeo’s “Tenderoni,” while “Telephone” reprimands a guy for calling too much. In the video for her single “Pro Nails,” backup dancers sit in pedicure chairs, lip-synching the chorus: “Got her toes done up with her fingernails matchin’.” The video underscores Ms. Young’s populist, all-ages aspirations. “It’s music made by a girl who shops at Target, made for girls who shop at Target,” Ms. Young said. “Or girls who work at LensCrafters or Ace Hardware or are sorority sisters or debutantes.” Angel Laws, editor of the celebrity news Web site Concreteloop.com and an early champion of Kid Sister, said: “I think she stands out. She’s a party rapper, bringing back the ‘80s style with the club-hop.” (Kid Sister’s debut album, “KoKo B. Ware,” is due from Fool’s Gold Records this summer.) But the artist with the loudest buzz is Santogold, who has already been called the next big thing in many articles. Born Santi White, she parlayed a college internship at Ruffhouse Records into a job as an A&R scout for Sony. After she was executive producer and wrote most of the songs on an album for the R&B singer Res, she left and eventually formed her own punk band, Stiffed. In 2006 Ms. White, who now lives in Brooklyn, began writing her own songs; “Creator” and “LES Artists” confess to feelings of alienation, but she also revels in her individuality. Singing in a haunting, sensual wail, or toasting in the style of dub M.C.’s, she adds a layer of softness to an unusual mix of synthesizers, dancehall rhythms and percolating new wave. “She appeals very broadly,” said Martin Heath, the founder of Lizard King Records, which signed Stiffed and is jointly releasing Santogold’s debut album with Downtown. “She’s not cliché one way or the other. She’s not playing on the foxy thing.” Ms. White said she admires other female artists who try to defy stereotypes. “You get these images of women in sexy clothes, walking around in, like, panties,” she said. “Even Beyoncé — that’s what it is to be a woman and make music. But now there are all these other women doing cool, interesting things, wearing styles they came up with, and it’s not about being naked.” Since the time seems ripe for underground, unquantifiable female M.C.’s, the Lady Tigra is hoping that pioneers will have a place too. She was half of the ’80s duo L’Trimm, which scored a poppy Miami bass hit with “Cars that Go Boom” in 1988. After spending the last two decades getting a creative writing degree, managing Manhattan clubs and writing and singing the theme song for the frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry (“Sorry Ice Cream”), she’s preparing for a comeback. Her first solo album, “Please Mr. Boom Box,” released by High Score Records, is available through major digital retailers. Tigra’s aesthetic hasn’t changed much since the ‘80s. She raps in the same honeyed, high-pitched tone, and there are beefy low-end clicks, handclaps and electro synthesizers, all hallmarks of classic Miami bass music. But contrary to much music of that genre, there is little overt sex; she prefers coy comebacks. The Lady Tigra, whose real name is Rachel de Rougemont, said she hopes that girls will realize that artists like Fergie and Gwen Stefani were inspired by semi-forgotten female forebears like “L’Trimm and J. J. Fad and M.C. Lyte and get into that.” “Before, you’d really have to come with it to be considered an M.C.,” she added. “And now women get — if not equal — way more respect and recognition for what they do.” Correction: February 3, 2008 An article last Sunday about female rappers misidentified the member of the hip-hop duo Yo Majesty who married and then divorced a male Christian missionary. She is LaShunda Flowers — not Jewel Baynham, the other rapper. |
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It's the third Thursday evening of the month, which means it's Creative Cocktail Hour, a regular event that melds art, music and mingling — and for the past five years has given people good reason to venture out on a "school night." "The interesting thing about it is it isn't the same group of people every month," says Audrey Conrad, among the minglers this December evening. She wears a knit mini and black knee-high boots. "There are some hard-core Creative Cocktail Hour addicts who you'll see every month. But depending on what [art or music] is being featured, you get … a whole different contingent of people," she says. Conrad is one of the event's "hard-core addicts" — self-proclaimed and such an advocate of Real Art Ways that the folks there had the good sense to ask her to join its board of directors about a year and a half ago. If you've gone to a cocktail hour, fundraising event or art happening there, you've likely seen her. That's her in the short blond bob, chatting up old faces and welcoming new ones. Dressed as she is this evening in her "girl persona," Conrad is also one of a dozen or so cocktail-hour regulars from the transgender community, all at various stages in their search for gender identity. For some, that's meant surgery; for some, that's meant cross-dressing, and for still others, something else entirely. They come here, says Conrad, to find community in the accepting environment that Real Art Ways and its patrons have helped to cultivate. But that search for community and identity isn't unique to them, or any one group, says Conrad. Really, it's everyone's story here this night. Even that of the very city that hosts them. "The concept isn't peculiar to the transgender community," she says. "There are all sorts of people who come here … who wouldn't typically interact with each other but who find a commonality here they wouldn't find elsewhere in Hartford — a commonality in music, in art or in just the fact that people are getting together and talking. "It has far less to do with people's backgrounds or sexual orientation and gender," she says, "than with an interest in finding something to do which has meaning." Meaning is what first drew Conrad, a Midwestern native who moved to Connecticut in the late 1980s. She immersed herself in work for the first few years, which didn't leave much room for socializing. At the same time, she was still wrestling with her gender identity. "For a long time, I really fought internally with myself," she says. "Society is always trying to put you in a box ... and as hard as I tried to fit into that "boy box," there was a part of me that just was not comfortable at all." Yet, she wasn't entirely comfortable in the "girl box" either. "I consider myself transgender, and I bounce back and forth," she says. That might mean her "girl persona" for going out on the town and her "boy persona" at her job in the tourism industry. In the late 1990s, with that internal wrestling behind her, Conrad was ready to carve out a social life. She stumbled on Real Art Ways, attended a few art events and has been returning ever since. Here, she says, she's found a vibrant group of people, provocative artworks and films — and a place in which she feels welcome as Audrey. "And actually, I've found I don't have any difficulty here in Hartford, or Connecticut. I go pretty much anywhere in 'girl mode' and very seldom have anyone take notice of me," says Conrad, 61. "One of the nice things about Connecticut is people are fairly involved with their own lives. "They haven't the time to worry about others." Her pro may be another's con, but she does sum it up quite right. Back inside the gallery, people meander, nibble on cheese and crackers and peruse the hanging photographs of artist Caleb Portfolio. In another corner, a small group is clutched around the DJ and dancing to the loungey music. All around, there's laughter, conversation, even quiet introspection. There are artists and office drones, activists and college students, urban and suburban, gay and straight. And those who don't fit neatly into any of our "boxes." And, of course, there's Conrad. "I'm not sure I've made a lot of deep friendships here. But I've met a lot of interesting, vibrant people," she says. "This is a place to go once a month and see people and chat. "And at the end of the evening, you say goodbye and 'see ya next month.'" Contact Joann Klimkiewicz at The Hartford Courant. .: Read the original story at The Hartford Courant |
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“Shadow Show,” at Real Art Ways in Hartford, picks up in various ways on this metaphor. The curators — Elizabeth Keithline, a Rhode Island artist who originated the idea, and Kristina Newman-Scott, director of visual arts at Real Art Ways — have assembled the work of 16 artists exploring shadows and concepts of shadowing in contemporary culture. Exhibits range from installations that use actual shadows for visual effect to video art and elaborate conceptual pieces concerned with issues of surveillance, memory, perception and truth. That the majority of the artwork is installed in the dark is, I suspect, more an accident of curatorial selection than any nod to Plato, but it nonetheless adds an overall, welcome air of mystery. Entering this exhibition you feel as if you are stepping into an alternate universe, a place where nothing is entirely as it seems. Or maybe for the first time we begin to see the delicate nature of reality. Using digital animation software, Rupert Nesbitt creates realistic-looking video landscapes that move. An occasional distortion of perspective reveals that the imagery has no basis in reality, and that these are purely imaginative spaces, but most of the time you think you are looking at a real environment. Shadowy government activities are the subject of William Allen’s nine-panel text paintings examining the history, purpose and mythology around the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, a United States government structure near Bluemont, Va. Here, beneath a FEMA training base, is an underground operation designed to house government officials in case of a nuclear emergency. Humor is lacking from this show, with the exception of William Lamson’s one-minute animated video loop. It is made up of photographs of the artist lying face down in various suburban landscapes, that have been spliced together to make it seem as if his motionless body is sliding along the ground like some giant worm. Though it is sort of silly, the imagery is captivating. What I also like about this video is the way in which it plays with our willingness to respond positively toward that which we know isn’t real. This is in some ways the opposite of what Plato was talking about, for it involves a knowing appreciation of something clearly artificial — as if we are heading back into Plato’s cave just for the fun of it. Several artists in this show are interested in the idea of traces, evidence of things left behind in the landscape, or in the mind, or on the body. This is a popular theme in contemporary art but has a particular, even special relevance here. Perhaps most interesting among the works of this kind is a collaborative installation by an artist, Duncan Laurie, and an electrical engineer, Gordon Salisbury. It is installed in a darkened room off to one side of the exhibition. Inside the room is a rock hooked up to a device measuring energy waves, and a video of hallucinogenically pulsating signals that represent naturally occurring energy waves in plants and rocks. Whereas Mr. Laurie and Mr. Salisbury’s installation is all about picturing hidden energy flows, Olu Oguibe’s sculptural installation, “Buggy Memorial to the Unknown Child,” makes manifest complex human emotional states. This deeply personal work is all about the artist’s feelings surrounding the pointless death of his brother, at the age of 4, from dehydration after a routine attack of measles. Things half-hidden are the subject of Sam Ekwurtzel’s pair of video loops, a compilation of close-ups of photographs of television sets for sale on eBay. Mr. Ekwurtzel discovered that when the owners photographed their television sets to sell online, many inadvertently captured reflections of themselves and their living rooms on the reflective surface of the television screens. By cropping and blowing up these images the artist reveals a hidden world. There are many other interesting works here dealing with shadowy issues, ranging from street surveillance of random individuals in snapshot photographs by Erik Gould to the documentation of the noises and atmosphere of an airport lounge in an installation by Barbara Westermann. Like so many other artworks here, they zoom in on things that we look at but rarely see. |
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Hear the interview with Marek Bartelik on WNPR
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The Newark art scene could use more wealthy patrons, and City Without Walls is one place where they would come in handy. The 32-year-old nonprofit gallery, which supports emerging artists and runs education programs on contemporary art, is one of the most socially engaged and dynamic art spaces in the state. It operates on a shoestring budget of $253,000, made up of donations from members, foundations and government agencies. With more resources, it could do even greater things for the city and for contemporary art in New Jersey. Part of the gallery’s broader mission is to connect art and artists with the public throughout the state. It does that each year with its annual Metro show, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary. It is a juried, traveling exhibition featuring nearly 70 small works by artists mainly from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The name of the exhibition refers to a tradition of transporting the works by train to places in New Jersey and New York. Artworks in the exhibition must be smaller than 13 inches in every dimension — length, width and depth. Making art this size is trickier than it sounds, for it forces artists to be extremely economical with their ideas and materials. Many of the pieces here are skillful and clever. A few are fabulous, combining interesting subject matter and independent thought. Beth Gilfilen’s intricate color-coded collage made of paint swatches from the hardware store is especially impressive; Marco Muñoz’s ethereal still-life photographs from paper negatives are also lovely. There are a handful of standouts among the many paintings. Joe Waks hunts down amateur landscape paintings in thrift stores, junk shops and yard sales, then paints McDonald’s restaurant signs into them. Finally, he stamps them with his name, claiming them as his own. The paintings are hideous, but the idea is genuinely intriguing. Amy Hill does oil portraits of urban hipsters in Renaissance style. They are creepy, the figures tough and tattooed, standing in front of brick tenements with the rolling hills of Tuscany in the background. They are like a George Tice photograph crossed with a Piero della Francesca painting. They have a magical feel about them. Magic also comes to mind across town at Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark’s newest major commercial gallery. The space immediately blows you away — an astonishing 30,000 square feet running over three levels of an old discount furniture warehouse on Market Street. That is about double the gallery space in the New Museum of Contemporary Art that opened in New York in early December. Notwithstanding the intense smell of mold mixed with mildew from a plumbing mishap — something has to be done about the problem — this is a great new initiative for Newark. How long it will last is anyone’s guess, for Mr. Ravens — well known in the local arts community for his enterprising curatorial projects — is financing the gallery himself and needs to sell artwork to survive. (Here, too, those well-heeled patrons would be useful.) For the moment, at least, Mr. Ravens in doing his best to attract a broad clientele: his inaugural exhibition, “Sanctuary,” is a madcap group sampler of more than 150 works by 71 artists. The show is unfocused, though some sense of order is provided by the nine-page room sheet. Among the works, all for sale, are minor pieces by the collectible artists Elizabeth Murray, Fred Wilson, Tara Donovan and Vija Celmins, as well as surprises by many who are less well known. (Most of the artists are from New Jersey, with a few from New York and elsewhere.) I liked a series of cow’s-blood paintings preserved in resin by Jordan Eagles, which are so mysteriously beautiful they look like photographs. If Mr. Ravens keeps showing great new work like this, one has to hope he is here to stay. “Metro 25,” City Without Walls, 6 Crawford Street, Newark, through Dec. 20. Information: (973) 622-1188 or www.citywithoutwalls.com. “Sanctuary,” Rupert Ravens Contemporary, 85 Market Street, Newark, through Jan. 18. Information: (973) 353-0110 or www.rupertravens.net. |
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Olu Oguibe's brother died of complications of measles and dehydration in the late 1970's at the age of four. It was a death that didn't have to happen. While the proximate cause was physical factors, the real reason was social, economic and political factors. Oguibe's brother, like so many millions of others and not only in Africa (Oguibe is originally from Nigeria), didn't have access to the necessary basic health care. The centerpiece of Oguibe's "Buggy Memorial to the Unknown Child" installation is a large blow-up photo of a young African child (actually Oguibe himself). The old film-based image is marked with dust motes and light scratches. It is mounted on the wall, memorial-style, and framed by heavy somber drapes. Set before it on a pedestal is a worn old baby buggy. Relating to the theme of the show, the shadow here is one of personal loss. But an even larger shadow is cast—the moral shadow over a humanity that has the wealth and knowledge to prevent avoidable deaths like that of Oguibe's brother but squanders those resources in war, waste and obscene concentrations of wealth. What could be more symbolic of inertness and silence than a stone? Yet it is a chunk of rough granite from the shores of Jamestown, Rhode Island that collaborators Duncan Laurie and Gordon Salisbury used to create the computer animation "Rockstar" (get the pun?). Laurie is an artist and Salisbury is an electronic engineer. For another project, Laurie had developed a "rate of change detector," a device for monitoring "the state of the electrical charge on the surface of plant leaves and stems," according to the work's title card. That varying electrical charge was keyed to an audio track. In the course of that project, he found that some stones possess an internal electrical signal. Capturing the electronic impulses from this nondescript chunk of rock, they used them as the basis for creating a computer animation with electronic music soundtrack. It appears that even rocks may have a vibrant inner life. Richard Goulis works with found objects. The appeal is not only in the physicality of the objects but also in the suggested presence of the lives connected to the objects. With "High Definition," Goulis employs antique wood and cloth trays used in the sorting of pieces of jewelry for manufacture. In these trays—stained rectangles of cloth of different colors stretched between rickety wood frames—the presence of the past is evident in the wear. More to the point, the workers who used the trays are present in the doodles on them—flowers, faces, a martini glass. There is an element of desire to two that are inscribed with hearts with arrows through them. At work but dreaming of love. While the desire for play—in the midst of what was likely monotonous, tedious work—is inscribed in the trays, Goulis also uses DVD projection to overlay the array of trays with scenes of the hands of his wife and children playing in the yard. This projection interacts with the mottled panels to create a subtle moving abstraction. The freedom of play invades the servitude of work, a daydream outlet of escape. And the presence of work, and particularly exploitative and repetitive work, casts its shadow over the carefree play of those who unreflectively consume the fruits of others' harsh labors.
A further commentary on the dystopia of omni-present surveillance is offered by Erik Gould's "In Plain Sight." Gould presents 77 grainy black and white images of people taken on the streets of Boston and Providence in the summer of 2007. He apparently made no effort to conceal his actions. These random "surveillance photos" capture people talking on their cellphones, slugging coffee, hurrying somewhere. It's a commentary on the loss of privacy or, more accurately, the loss of the expectation of privacy. It's a fact that while we take little or no notice there are images like these being captured of most of us several times a day. It would be interesting to combine this idea somehow with imagery derived from Google Earth. With "Instances in the Field," Rupert Nesbitt showcases 3-D Studio Max animation. These are hyperreal virtual environments created by Nesbitt wholly in the computer. They look like our world but something's off. The sense of realism is challenged in part by the clinical chilliness of the digital imagery. But there also the odd occurrences, like nightmares made real: the rolling upheaval of the land in one animation, the appearance in another of explosions out of nowhere with a subsequent billowing and dissipation of thick black smoke. This virtual world is a shadow of our analog environment, disturbing both for the virtuosity of the simulation and the sense of cataclysmic instability. We live in a time in which the conceptual ground is shifting beneath us. Tim Doherty's "I am an impotent necromancer. I know this but I keep trying," besides having one of the longest titles I have ever encountered, uses old-fashioned mechanical rather than digital technology. Doherty has made a machine to reanimate dead birds. The bird carcasses are connected to a machine. When the machine is cranked, the operator can make the birds' wings move up and down in a simulacra of flying although there is no forward motion. In the gallery, the contraption is set on a pedestal. A light is projected from the floor up through it to cast looming shadows on the wall. When the machine is operated, which it wasn't while I was there, the shadows of the birds seem even more realistically to be taking wing. I don't know whether Bert Crenca was ever an underground comix artist. But if not, he surely missed (one of) his calling(s). Crenca's "You Can't Call Your Own Baby Ugly" is a series of doodles sketched over three years at conferences, school board meetings and at his desk at (supposedly) work. It's an amazing collection of surrealistic, psychedelic and grotesque imagery. Wild misshapen figures twist in upon themselves or merge with their landscapes, all rendered with virtuoso cross-hatching and shading. One whole room in the main gallery is devoted to co-curator Elizabeth Keithline's "The Lost House Project." An installation, it consists of a set of sculptures Keithline creates by wrapping combustible objects in wire and then burning the object. What is left is the wire mesh form. These forms are suspended from the ceiling. A light is shone through them, projecting shadows. The wire forms are arranged to suggest the outer contours of a house or other building with a peaked roof. The visitor is contained within this "house" that isn't really there, just as the separate wire components contain the presence of the pre-existing form. The projected shadows further feed this notion of presence/absence, substance/shadow. |
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At its most basic level all vision is about distinguishing light from darkness. This elemental truth is the foundation of "Shadow Show" at Real Art Ways, which runs through Feb. 2. The show features the work of 16 artists from Rhode Island and Connecticut and explores the concept of shadow. Perhaps most compelling is a work by Olu Oguibe called "Memorial to the Unknown Child." The installation consists of a baby carriage in front of a large photograph — a portrait of a young boy. Oguibe, who was born in Igbo in West Africa, has seven sisters but his only brother died as a young boy. At first glance, this photograph seems to be Oguibe's brother but no such photographs exist. This is a photograph of Oguibe as a young boy. He has put himself in the place of his brother. The idea is simple, but the execution is powerful. One gets the impression that Oguibe has carried his brother with him all these decades. The idea of his brother existing in a shadow expands the concept beyond the constraints of light and darkness and turns into something ethereal. Those who stand a bit longer in front of this work will no doubt find their minds drifting to their own departed loved ones. Or considering the vagaries of chance that allow one person to live while another dies. Oguibe's work, indeed the work of the entire show, is designed to foster such thought. This dreamy state of mind can be difficult to maintain, but one aspect of the show and another in the gallery help preserve the effect. Most important to the mood is the work of artist Duncan Laurie and electrical engineer Gordon Salisbury, who amplified sound found in minerals and plants. This is the exhibit's soundtrack, and it establishes a mood of tranquility at the same time it causes one to wonder what we are missing beneath the clatter of traffic, trains and airplanes. The mood is enhanced by the work Kambui Olujimi, who is not part of the show but whose works from his own dream book inhabit the gallery's other spaces. Some aspects of the "Shadow" exhibit are political, but most seek simply to explore the idea of what we consider reality. Tim Doherty's installation "Necromancer" recalls a Renaissance term associated with demonic magic but also the ancient Greek definition that represented an art associated with spiritual wisdom. Duality is at play in the work as well. The installation is lifeless until one climbs aboard and begins pedaling in the manner of an exercise bike. At this point these ancient-looking spirits come to life and begin to move. But to really appreciate the work, one must watch the wall where the shadows seem even more alive — an eerie turn on E.T. silhouetted against the moon. This sense that the shadows are more alive than reality persists in a room filled with Elizabeth Keithline's mesh sculptures of combustible items wrapped in wire and set ablaze. These sculptures hang like dormant trees and once again the shadows seem more substantial than the actual artifacts. The illusion is powerful and is central to the theme of the show. More than anything, "Shadow Show" wants to create a space where the mind can wander unencumbered by the baggage of stubborn reality. SHADOW SHOW runs through Feb. 2 at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 2-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 2-11 p.m. Information at www.realartways.org. Contact Matt Eagan at eagan@courant.com. |
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HARTFORD - Real Art Ways on 56 Arbor St. in the Parkville section isn't the easiest place in the world to find, tucked back as it is off a side road, and in the back of a refurbished industrial brick building. But just like a gem in the rough, it is absolutely worth the search. About 500 people each month make the sojourn to the Real Art Ways Creative Cocktail Party held on the third Thursday of each month, where people meet to see the art, listen to live music, dance, and just have fun. Through word-of-mouth, the event has continued to grow with a life of its own, says Executive Director Will K. Wilkins of the Creative Cocktail Hour, one of many activities at Real Art Ways. "We are in an interesting position. We don't have a collection," says Wilkins, who has been at the helm since 1990. "A collection can weight you down" while the art they display is "of the present and in the moment." First and foremost Wilkins says they are dedicated to artists and to making new art accessible to people. They are also dedicated not just to visual artists, but also to musicians and authors, with readings given by different published authors, and poets, as well as independent films shown in their movie theater, which was built in 1996. Wilkins says he wants people to come to Real Art Ways and relax. "There is no test - There is no right or wrong answers." Wilkins says he was working happily for a theater group in New York City when he came upon an advertisement in a trade newsletter seeking a director for the non-profit organization that had started in 1975. By the time Wilkins came on the scene, Real Art Ways had been housed in three different locations and was in a transitional period. Something about their message and goals spoke to Wilkins, who applied and was chosen for the executive director's spot in 1990. And the rest, as they say, is history. A soft spoken but clearly passionate person, Wilkins says life has improved and become more stable over the years for RAW, but there were many tough years, and it took longer than he had originally thought it would to get to where they are today. "Life is not an unbroken string of successes," Wilkins philosophized, saying they are now in a transitionary period once again, bringing on new staff and expanding. "There is always something new to see. "What is exciting about this, is this is Hartford. This could be in any vibrant city," Wilkins says. One of the things that makes Real Art Ways so successful is that it does not try to make itself into something it is not, or compare itself to others. "We are not trying to be the Wadsworth," he says. "We are just trying to be ourselves." With more than 1,200 members, Real Art Ways just keeps on growing and evolving, but continues to be devoted to new and emerging artists and to the community. |
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TIN/BAG will play music from their 2nd CD, "And Begin Again", released earlier this year on the Evander label. On the recording, 4 of the 10 tracks feature an expanded group (clarinet and drums) but the tour is just the two of them. One expects you'll hear beautiful ballads like "For Wadada" (dedicated to the great trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith, once a New Haven resident now living and teaching on the West Coast.) Much of the music on the CD is slow but never lugubrious or boring. That's because the songs have a melodic base that the instrumentalists build their conversations off of. "Bienvenue" has a quick boppish line played by Baggetta while Tiner swerves and dances around and then they switch for a moment so the guitar lines are dancing. On "The In-Between", they start together and then quickly go in different directions then back together, split again, and so on. There's a heavy backbeat for the opening section of "Half Life Part II: A Slight Shift" but the piece softens and one hears the interplay of guitar with Harris Eisenstadt's active drumwork. Tiner soon joins in as does clarinetist Brian Walsh and the quartet find the beat again, taking them to the close of the piece. Tiner's muted trumpet is just the right touch for "Fishers of the Stars", the introspective piece that closes the disk. Yet, listen to Baggetta and his smart, melodic yet ever-so-playful supporting guitar work - this inventive dialogue can be heard throughout the program and lifts the music high above the ordinary. Having heard Mike Baggetta play experimental guitar pieces at The Buttonwood Tree several years ago, his work here often seems spare yet even the low volume can't hide the rich sounds he creates. Because the majority of the songs are ballads, Tiner does not go in for flashy technique and swift phrases - instead, one can hear the influence of Miles Davis and Wadada Smith in his deliberate delivery. He does let loose now and again but never loses his focus. For more information about TIN/BAG and their 2 CDs, go to www.kristiner.com and follow the links. Baggetta has an informative blog and you can check that out by clicking here. To find out more about the duo's Real Art Ways date, go to www.realartways.org. |
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Real Art Ways garners Best Bet 1 BEST BET 1: "Shadow Show" at Real Art Ways.
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.: Alexis Peskine in the NY Times
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Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins and 50,000 Beds creator Chris Doyle were featured on WNPR's "Where We Live," discussing the ambitious project and the importance of community and contemporary art. |
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50,000 Beds receives a great preview in the New York Times. This ambitious collaboration between 3 of Connecticut's leading contemporary arts organizations opens at Real Art Ways July 21, from 6-9pm.
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Check out this New York Times review of Bill Dixon and the Sound Vision Orchestra, featuring Real Art Ways' favorite trumpeter and former Composer-in-Residence Stephen Haynes.
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 Artist Jordan Eagles, whose work is on display in our galleries through July 15, has been attracting a lot of media attention.
.: Review by Matt Eagan of the Hartford Courant |
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Review by Chuck Obuchowski of BassDrumBone Concert
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Colin McEnroe interviewed Henriette Mantel, co-director of An Unreasonable Man opening at Real Art Ways March 30. A book signing, along with Q&A with Ralph Nader will take place opening night. .: Listen to Henriette Mantel with Colin McEnroe |
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.: "What Rhymes With Rest, Let's Ask The Busy Poet," on NYTimes.com |
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A challenge of Greater Hartford's established arts community has been to find ways to speak to new audiences, namely young people and a population that is ethnically and culturally diverse. One institution that has succeeded is Real Art Ways, an alternative art space that has always been ahead of its time. RAW has been able to reach out to a widening circle of visitors and patrons. It has become a social and cultural magnet, not only in its Parkville neighborhood, drawing people of all ages and interests from the region and beyond. |
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.: More on Kehinde in Vanity Fair
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.: More about Krystiana's work
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 Will K. Wilkins and Dean Andrews Real Art Ways was honored by Bank of America for their commitment to the growth and vitality of Hartford. |
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http://www.mwomack.com/sculpture_magazine.html |
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To listen, [download the mp3]
Read the Real Art Ways Press
Release regarding Lamar Outdoor Advertising's refusal to run billboards for POZA. Lamar's History of Censorship |
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 Detail from “Altarpiece” Short of watching Animal House for the ninety-eighth time, few of us non-Greek-lifers fully comprehend everything that comes with the toga parties and the ice luges. Most of us associate frats with crazy parties and sororities with sexy pillowfights and hot girl-on-girl action. In her exhibit Conquests , painter Sarah Bereza, 27, depicts sorority girls as trophies to be added to the collection of a modern male ¨headhunter¨ (maybe more hiply referred to as a ¨player¨). |
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 Artist Carl Pope has returned to Hartford with a new installation at Real Art Ways titled “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses.” It is on exhibit until July 15. (photo: Patrick Raycraft/The Hartford Courant) On a stifling Sunday afternoon in Hartford's North End, young people are cooling off with water from a fire hydrant. The only breeze comes from the noisy streams of traffic crossing Albany Avenue. |
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What do a very large war gaming table, twin beekeepers, handmade pixels and a parasitic light-stealing orb have in common? All are part of an exhibit entitled Four Solo Shows on view at Real Art Ways in Hartford through July 9. |
Jeffrey Hayes
Correction Appended
The doors have been open for barely half an hour, but a strong crowd has already gathered at Real Art Ways. They stand inside the gallery space of the Arbor Street arts center and cinema with arms crossed, cocktails dangling and noses reaching toward the wall — all the better to inspect the intricacies of the exhibited photographs. 
In “The Republic,” Plato uses an allegory of prisoners chained in a cave watching shadows on a wall to suggest that the things we believe are real are often only an illusion, a kind of puppet show of real life. To experience true reality we must escape from the cave of ignorance and into the clear light of day.
Shadows are the indication of a presence, not the presence itself. In Real Art Ways' Shadow Show, curated by Rhode Island artist Elizabeth Keithline (who has a large installation work in the exhibit) and RAW's Director of visual Arts Kristina Newman-Scott, the various works in various media trade on the presence of absence as well as other associations with the concept of "shadow."
Reflections and shadows of the intersection between commerce and the home are at the heart of Samuel Ekwurtzel's playful and revealing "Living Spaces of People Who Are Selling Their Television." The work consists of two video loops, showing on two separate televisions, culled from images scavenged from Ebay, the online auction site. Ekwurtzel had noticed that sellers photographing their TVs for sale often inadvertently captured reflections of their location. These are mostly interior spaces, often with the seller in the image. Ekwurtzel downloaded the images and isolated the screens, some of which are surprisingly clear. Isn't it one of the dystopic fears about television that as we watch it, it watches us back? Ekwurtzel presents evidence from Ebay that this eventuality has come to pass.
The duo of Kris Tiner (trumpet) and Mike Baggetta (guitar), a.k.a. TIN/BAG, makes music that is both spare and rich, at times thick with ideas. Yet there are moments of quiet contemplation, when the guitar is so quiet in the background one must lean into the speakers. Some of the their music moves so slowly, like conversation in which each word is ripe with meaning and one wishes not to lose anything.
Franco-Brazilian artist Alexis Peskine, whose work will be shown at Real Art Ways, opening September 20, 2007, was featured in the New York Times for his exhibition commenting on French race relations at The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in NYC.
Legendary performance poet and acclaimed writer Sekou Sundiata passed away at the age of 59 on July 18, 2007. He performed at Real Art Ways several times in the 1990s.
One of the notorious "NEA 4," Tim Miller brought his censored performance art to Real Art Ways. Now he's winning awards. Coincidence?
Julian was one of the first artists selected in our juried process for emerging artists. The Stray Shopping Cart: AN Illustrated System of Identification, Montague examines an every day feature of urban life, positing shopping cart finds as a sociological adventure. His new book is a continuation of his work at Real Art Ways.
Leroy Jenkins was an outstanding violinist, who played at Real Art Ways most recently in November, 2002, to help us celebrate the opening of the Real Room.
Marilyn Nelson, Connecticut Poet Laureate, who joined Real Art Ways for "Writers and Readers" in September '06 was recently profiled in the New York Times.
Kehinde Wiley, the first artist to be exhibited in the Real Room, made Vanity Fair's exclusive "Arts Issue
Krystiana Robb-Narbutt - painter, illustrator, and poet - passed away on December 5, 2006. Krystiana's work can be seen as part of POZA.
View the Karolina Bregula photographs 
