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Congratulations to our 2012 Art Matters Grantees!
Art Matters is pleased to announce 32 grants ranging in amounts of $3,000 – $10,000 to artists who are working on socially engaged projects with a local, national and/or global focus: Nicole Awai, Rozalinda Borcila, Che Chen, Sandra de la Loza, Sergio de la Torre, Harry Dodge, Daniel Duford, Kate Gilmore, Renée Green,
Postcommodity
Support for The Repellent Fence, a site-specific installation and monument examining the Tohono O’odham border experience as a metaphor for the Western hemisphere’s larger Indigenous human rights crisis.
Geo Wyeth
Support to document a series of site-specific, research-driven performances in rural South Carolina and Alabama as part of an ongoing performance project Haunts.
Will Wilson
Support for Towards a Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange, a project inviting indigenous artists, arts professionals and tribal governance to engage in the performative ritual that is the studio portrait.
Hong-An Truong
Support for travel to Vietnam for the creation of the video A Chilly Night at a Desolate Palace, juxtaposing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring with the Vietnamese folk opera, Cai-Luong.
Miljohn Ruperto
Support for a film project involving travel to Johannesburg, South Africa and England, for interviews with former members of an anti-apartheid group.
Elaine Reichek
Support for travel to London for research on embroidery artist Mary Linwood.
Paul Pfeiffer
Support for the film Vitruvian Figure (2014), documenting the production process of the artist’s warehouse size architectural model of the Philippine Arena mega-church currently under construction in the outskirts of Manila.
Akosua Adoma Owusu
Support for travel to Ghana to Mexico City, to work on a film adaptation of a folk hero Kwaku Ananse, in West African fables.
Alison O’Daniel
Support for The Tuba Thieves, a film project exploring the recurring theft of sound in Southern California.
Deana Lawson
Support for travel to Haiti, Jamaica, and Ghana to continue the artist’s portraiture photography work.
Vishal Jugdeo
Support for a video project in Kolkata, India involving the port of departure, globalization and tolerance of marginal sexualities.
Jennie C. Jones
Support for the artist’s Acoustic Painting series, which uses soundproofing materials from industrial settings to bridge two-dimensional works and audio pieces.
Trajal Harrell
Support for travel to Japan to research Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of Butoh dance, starting with the question, “how does one vogue Tatsumi Hijikata?”
Wynne Greenwood
Support for new work inspired by the Serbian mythological creature Azdaja, to be presented at Drugstore, a queer cultural space in Belgrade.
Renée Green
Support for Returning Kaleidoscopic Migration Constellations, a film involving movements of people in the history of California, New York, Brazil, Vienna, and Berlin.
Daniel Duford
Support for Ringing the Temple Bell a three-day event involving performances, workshops and the building of an earthen bread oven/kiln.
Sergio de la Torre
Support for Noise (working title), the third chapter of a video trilogy exploring Chinese immigration in Mexico.
Che Chen
Support for research in Mauritania into Haratine and Beydane contemporary music culture.
Rozalinda Borcila
Support for travel and research into extraterritorial zones in the US, with a focus on Foreign Trade Zones (FTZs) and Immigrant Detention Centers.
Grantee Sonya Clark at Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, Atlanta
Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, features work by Chakaia Booker, Sonya Clark, Maya Freelon Asante, Maren Hassinger, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Joyce J. Scott, and Renée Stout. On view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Sept. 6 through Dec. 1, 2012, this exhibition explores the innovative ways that Black women artists fuse fine
A new publication by grantee Ernesto Pujol
Sited Body, Public Visions: silence, stillness & walking as Performance Practice by Ernesto Pujol is a collection of the artist’s intimate writings about the body and a reflection about his relationship with communities and landscapes. Pujol shares his field experiences across the United States, choreographing durational group performances through a methodology of vulnerability inspired by
Grantee Binod Shrestha at Rochester Art Center through November 4th
Binod Shrestha’s practice investigates the body as a metaphor situated in our collective consciousness. Through layers of artistic amalgamation accumulated through the years and straddling multiple cultures, Shrestha begins a conversation on body-politics, displacement, and the transient nature of memory in a personal, ritualistic, and reflective context.
Grantee Sheila Pepe at Underline Gallery through October 12th
SHOP is an annual group exhibition that provides an antidote to the banality of the mass-produced and fast-fashion distribution – offering a range of artist editions in limited production to coincide with a month long celebration of fashion in New York City.
Grantee Cauleen Smith at threewalls in Chicago through October 20th
Filmmaker Cauleen Smith wraps up her 2-year Chicago residency and research on Sun Ra with her exhibition The Journeyman – an installation, recording studio, and library about artistic process, research and the relationship between an artist and the subjects they revere. The exhibition will be accompanied by the release of a limited edition vinyl record
Grantee Xaveria Simmons at The Studio Museum in Harlem through October 21st
Primary Sources presents the work of Njideka Akunyili, Meleko Mokgosi and Xaviera Simmons, the 2011–12 artists in residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Grantees Clifford Owens, Xaviera Simmons and Hank Willis Thomas at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago 3/29/2012 – 5/5/2012
Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present tête-à-tête, a group exhibition of photographic work by Derrick Adams, Jayson Keeling, Deana Lawson, Zanele Muholi, Clifford Owens, Mahlot Sansosa, Malick Sidibe, Xaviera Simmons, Mickalene Thomas, and Hank Willis Thomas. Curated by Mickalene Thomas.
Grantees Juan William Chavez, Chitra Ganesh and Arnold Kemp awarded Guggenheim Fellowships
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Fellowships to a diverse group of 181 scholars, artists, and scientists in its eighty-eighth annual competition for the United States and Canada. Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.
Grantees Sonya Clark, Kalup Linzy and Karyn Olivier in Magical Visions at the University of Delaware Museums’ Mechanical Hall February 1–June 29, 2012
Magical Visions: Ten Contemporary African American Artists brings together the work of artists who have pioneered significant changes in media including assemblage, fiber, painting, photography, printmaking, quilt making, and sculpture to video with performance. Through their own magical visions, these artists give birth to works that challenge traditions and open new vistas. Artists included in
Grantee Yto Barrada’s RIFFS at the Renaissance Society in Chicago March 18 – April 22, 2012
For her Midwest museum debut, Tangier-based artist Yto Barrada will exhibit “Riffs”, an installation of photographs and films that inquire into the daily traces of historical changes taking place in North Africa, the artist’s home. Barrada, who is Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2011, has developed an artistic practice which combines the strategies of
Grantees Andrea Fraser, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Wu Tsang included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, March 1-May 27th
The 2012 Biennial takes over most of the Whitney from March 1 through May 27, with portions of the exhibition and some programs continuing through June 10. The participating artists were selected by Elisabeth Sussman, Curator/Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney, and Jay Sanders, a freelance curator and writer who has spent the
Grantees Frazier, Gates, Gonzales-Day, Leigh, Motta, My Barbarian and The Propeller Group awarded 2012 Creative Capital Grants
Congratulations to Art Matters Grantees LaToya Ruby Frazier, Theaster Gates, Ken Gonzales-Day, Simone Leigh, Carlos Motta, My Barbarian and The Propeller Group on their 2012 Creative Capital Grants in the Visual Arts and Film/Video.
OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews David Kagan
Art Matters Grantee David Kagan was recently interviewed about his work by OtherPeoplesPixels, for their featured artist blog. Follow the link to read more.
“No Limits: Janet Biggs” on View at Tampa Museum of Art, Oct.30 – Jan.8
The Tampa Museum of Art is pleased to present No Limits: Janet Biggs, the first survey exhibition of this New York-based video and performance artist. For almost fifteen years, Biggs has been an important figure in the world of video art. Her work has been featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions around the
“Andrea Bowers: The New Woman’s Survival Guide” on View at Andrew Kreps Gallery, Oct. 29 – Dec. 17
The Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Andrea Bowers’ second exhibition at the gallery entitled, The New Woman’s Survival Guide. Consisting of drawings layered over wallpaper made up of handbills and protest signs collected by the artist, the show contrasts previous tropes of feminism with current ones. The New Woman’s Survival Guide is on
DeeDee Halleck: 30 Years of Paper Tiger Installations
Follow the link to view the latest video featuring the many installations the Paper Tiger collective has created over the years.
Grantees Clark and O’Grady selected as 2011 USA Artist Fellows
Congratulations to 2011 Art Matters Grantees Sonya Clark and Lorraine O’Grady on their USA Artist Fellowships!
Wu Tsang and Alexandro Segade
Support for travel to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to interview queer people using questions inspired by Pasolini’s 1965 documentary on public attitudes towards sex, as well as documenting nightclub performances and queer theater happenings.
Sonali Sridhar
Support for travel to India for a project involving the harnessing of solar power from panels embedded and embroidered in women’s veils.
Susan Silton
Support for travel to La Gomera in the Canary Islands to work with women practitioners of the whistling language Silbo Gomero towards a project involving a whistled adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s Lifting Belly.
Jessica Segall
Support for travel to Mongolia to collaborate with local artist Tuguldur Yondonjamts on a performative sculpture project involving natural electric fields.
Sreshta Rit Premnath
Support for travel to Bangalore, India for photo/video documentation of utopian imagery of development, the architecture of MS Ramaiah, and migrant laborers.
Sheila Pepe
Support for the Denmark or Greece iterations of Common Sense, an ongoing installation performance involving a large-scale crocheted drawing which audience participants dismantle/unravel and repurpose.
Yoshua Okón
Support for a project restaging key battles from the Guatemalan war in late 80s and 90s in the parking lot of Cypress Park Home Depot with members of the Mayan community in LA who fought in the actual war and are now day laborers.
Lorraine O’Grady
Support for travel to Jamaica to meet local family members, artists and art workers, documenting the trip in photos, video and text.
Wardell Milan
Support for travel to photograph the remaining architecture from Nazi-occupied Berlin and Mussolini-era Fascist Rome towards the project Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, a film adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros.
Cynthia Madansky
Support for the experimental film 1+8, about Turkey and it’s relationship with the eight countries it borders, in collaboration with Istanbul-based artist Angelika Brudniak.
Helen Lessick
Support for travel to Kenya to research the interaction of soil, culture and time, in collaboration with Nairobi-based video artist David Koch, the UN Programme for the Environment, and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture.
David Kagan
Support for travel to Ghana to explore the intersection of contemporary and traditional music making, towards a new music/ video project Obruni Papa.
Hope Ginsburg
Support for travel to the reef atolls off the coast of Belize to study the sea-sponges that grow there as part of the artist’s ongoing social artwork project Sponge.
Robert Gero
Support for travel to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia for research and interviews with the Roma.
William Gaynor
Support for travel to India and Nepal to research everyday life in Mumbai, the architecture of Agra, the spiritual aspects of Varanasi, and the physical landscape of Barun Valley.
Lola Flash
Support for travel to England, Brazil and South Africa to continue three different photographic portrait series involving the politics of pigmentocracy, gender and age.
Hasan Elahi
Support for travel to Transdneistra, the self-declared republic between Moldova and the Ukraine, to document daily activities in its major cities using software the artist has developed.
Tony Cruz
Support for travel to Panama and Spain to research religious festivities centered around two black mystical figures, as part of an ongoing project involving musicians Ismael “Maelo” Rivera and Pau Casals.
Sonya Clark
Support for travel and research in Jamaica, Ghana and the UK towards the project Black Hair and Tilled Land: Combing through Canerows, exploring the history of sugarcane and Afro-Caribbean hairstyles named for the Triangle Trade cash crop.
Laura Chipley
Support for travel to Ecuador to document the ongoing effects of oil contamination perpetrated by Texaco in the Amazon from 1964-1990 towards the series of experimental videos Deep Black Sea.
Juan William Chávez
Support for travel and research in Spain, England and France towards a photo/video project exploring the partnership between humans and bees.
Andrea Bowers
Support for a video project documenting DREAM-activist youth in California fighting the deportation of undocumented students.
Mary Walling Blackburn
Support for a video project retracing, in reverse, the route taken by American hashish smugglers from Nova Scotia to Syria in 1974.
Julie Tolentino
Support for YOUR UNTITLED MARK (upon me), a project in which the artist and video collaborator Stosh Fila create live portraiture with five Filipino queer/trans writers, artists, and movers through a one-on-one movement workshop in Manila, Philippines.
Judi Werthein
Support for a film project on Eva Peron working with the original French theater script “Eva Peron” by Copi to explore myth, identity and translation.
Javier Téllez
Support for Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (Dürer’s Rhinoceros), a video installation in collaboration with patients at Miguel Bormbarda Psychiatric Hospital in Lisbon.
A.L. Steiner
Support to collaborate with recent Art Matters grantee Ginger Brooks Takahashi on her funded video and photo project in Mongolia inspired by Ulrike Ottinger’s film Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.
Binod Shrestha
Support for travel to Nepal, place of the artist’s birth, for interviews and video/photo documentation exploring body-politics, violence, memory and identity towards an exhibition also involving Nepali expatriates in the US.
Robbinschilds
Support for travel to Iceland to film the artists moving in extreme landscapes for a new video/performance piece involving the feminist reworking of the “man alone” trope.
Lucy Raven
Support for research in Chennai, Kerala and Mumbai, India towards a video project exploring the international outsourcing of 3D animation and visual effects for the creation of US landscapes in Hollywood movies.
Gilad Ratman
Support for a performance project with Romanian heavy metal bands to take place in a rural area near Iasi, Romania, engaging questions of identity and territory within the region.
Jose Perdices
Support for travel to the Museum Ahmed Zabana in Oran, Algeria, for a photo and video project Zabana Inshallah, documenting the dismantling of certain colonial collections there.
Camilo Ontiveros
Support for El Pedon, a project in which the artist extracts a meter cube of soil from Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico and transports it, in tact, to an arts institution in the US.
Ryan McNamara
Support for travel to Buenos Aires to expand the artist’s dance practice that evinces failure.
Mary Mattingly
Support for travel to Bangladesh for a photography project examining water issues and culture, travel and architecture in Barisal, Khulna and Chittagong as well as in areas near the river and deltas.
Lovett/Codagnone
Support for travel and research in Brest, France, location of Fassbinder’s film version of Jean Genet’s novel Querelle, as part of an ongoing creative investigation of the material.
Donna Huanca
Support for the artist’s nomadic journey through Bolivia, creating ephemeral installations and photo-documentation in the style of Colonial Photography with collaborator Roy Minten.
Kira Lynn Harris
Support for travel to France and Spain to complete a series of large-scale drawings and photographs of the Chapel Notre Dame du Haut by Le Corbusier, Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona and George Wyman’s Bradbury building in LA.
Dee Dee Halleck
Support for the Waves of Change video series, a compendium of alternative/citizens/community media projects (radio, television, internet and more) from around the world.
Chitra Ganesh
Support for travel to Tokyo and Kyoto to research graphic storytelling forms Kamishibai and Garo/Seijen.
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Support for travel to and research in Edinburgh, Scotland towards the development of a protest computer video game addressing environmental racism, health care corruption and gentrification, with characters based on her Scottish ancestral lineage.
Elsewhere Collective
Support for the development of a collaborative project in Spree Park, an abandoned amusement park in Berlin, Germany.
Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson
Support for travel to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Greenland to film the Inuit communities’ public resolution of sovereignty and to collaborate with artists from Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia.
Ben Coonley
Support for travel to Hong Kong for the creation of a video docu-drama involving an x-phi study that examined whether different cultures tend to be moral absolutists or moral relativists.
Tiffany Chung
Support for a collaborative performance/video project by the Vietnam-based artist and Tokyo-based art collective Nibroll, involving youth culture in Vietnam and Japan.
Dave Bryant
Support for the artist’s trek through Annapuma Himal of central Nepal and the creation of a feature length narrative video travelogue.
Janet Biggs
Support for travel to Spitsbergen in the Artic to create a new video exploring gender roles in polar exploration.
Yto Barrada
Support for MIA THE MECHANIC, a photo storybook for girls in Arabic, French and English created by the Morocco-based artist in collaboration with American filmmaker, writer and graphic designer Sean Gullette.
Rheim Alkadhi
Support for travel to Syria and Jordan to conduct interviews with displaced Iraqis, including members of the artist’s extended family, towards a series of experimental videos.
