Curator Susan Cross on the  Wassaic Project:

Our neighbors from down the street in Wassaic were here at MASS MoCA for the  Solid Sound Festival.  If you aren’t already familiar with The Wassaic Project (run by three Williams College grads: Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, and Jeff Barnett-Winsby), we hope you had the chance to learn more about this exciting arts organization.

Located in a sprawling agricultural complex in the hamlet of Wassaic, New York (located off Route 22 right near the Metro North train line), this artist-run space hosts an international residency program (with studios in the gorgeous Luther Barn – see above photo) and features art exhibitions and works by their artists-in-residence in the towering grain elevators of the former Maxon Mills (photo below).  Their annual music and arts festival drew over 2000 fans in its second year in 2009, and this year the festival (August 5^th-7^th) will include 100 artists, 25 bands, poetry readings, dance performances, film screenings, and more.

The Wassaic Project offers artists and audiences a unique setting for making and engaging with art while working to save the historic buildings of Wassaic and engage with the local community. And admission to their exhibitions and the festival is FREE! (Donations welcome).

Their vision and energy are inspiring, and we love to think of them as a sister institution.

For Solid Sound, The Wassaic Project partnered with the Bureau for Open Culture to bring artists Breanne Trammell and her kite-making workshop as well as Jen-N-Outlaws Fish Fry Truck and Crawfish Boil to MASS MoCA.

The Wassaic Project is having a fundraiser on July 9^th from 5:00 to 8:00pm. I’ll be making remarks to celebrate the great work the Wassaic Project is doing at 6 PM.

We are pleased that Pawel Wojtasik’s work Below Sea Level which was commissioned as part of These Days: Elegies for Modern Times on view here from Apr 4, 2009–Feb 28, 2010, will be part of Prospect.2.  Other artists in the biennial who have exhibited at MASS MoCA include: Sophie Calle from Game Show, William Pope.L from The Interventionists, and Jennifer Steinkamp and Alexis Rockman both from Badlands.  A press release on the exhibition is below:

Prospect New Orleans Announces Artists And Venues For Second Edition Of New Orleans International Contemporary Art Biennial

Prospect.2 To Take Place October 22, 2011 – January 29, 2012

Curated By Dan Cameron With Exhibitions To Be Presented At Venues Throughout New Orleans and in Lafayette, Louisiana

New Orleans, LA, June 22, 2011 — Dan Cameron, Founding Director of U.S. Biennial and Artistic Director for Prospect New Orleans, announced today the list of artists and venues to be featured in Prospect.2, the second edition of the international contemporary art biennial.  Opening October 22, 2011 and on view through January 29, 2012, Prospect.2 is currently planned to feature 26 local, national and international artists with diverse cultural and generational backgrounds working in a range of artistic media. “With Prospect.2, we are excited to once again welcome visitors and locals to one of the world’s most dynamic contemporary art biennials,� says Dan Cameron. “Those selected to participate in Prospect.2 include some of the most influential and recognized artists working today, a group of rising younger artists on the cusp of international careers, and artists making significant contributions to the New Orleans arts community.  In addition to being a showcase of some of today’s most vital art-making, the biennial will again draw attention, creative energy, and economic activity to the City of New Orleans, a historic artistic center, and the Gulf Region.�

Exhibiting Artists:

Prospect.2’s current list of artists includes 26 artists from nine countries, including the United States, France, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Japan, Chile, and Vietnam. In keeping with Prospect’s commitment to the promotion of the visual art community in New Orleans, this year’s biennial will feature work by several artists who live and work in the city, as well as a variety of site-specific projects inspired by the city’s distinctive history and culture and conceived specifically for the city of New Orleans. The following artists will be exhibiting their work in Prospect.2: Sophie Calle (b. France); Nick Cave (b. USA); Jonas Dahlberg (b. Sweden); Bruce Davenport Jr. (b. USA); Dawn DeDeaux (b. USA); R. Luke DuBois (b. USA); George Dunbar (b. USA); William Eggleston (b. USA); Nicole Eisenman (b. France); Karl Haendel (b. USA); Ragnar Kjartansson (b. Iceland); William Pope.L (b. USA); An-My Lê (b. Vietnam); Ivan Navarro (b. Chile); Lorraine O’Grady (b. USA); Tsuyoshi Ozawa (b. Japan); Gina Phillips (b. USA); Ashton T. Ramsey (b. USA); Alexis Rockman (b. USA); Joyce J. Scott (b. USA); Jennifer Steinkamp (b. USA); Dan Tague (b. USA); Robert Tannen (b. USA); Grazia Toderi (b. Italy); Francesco Vezzoli (b. Italy); and Pawel Wojtasik (b. Poland). In addition to the projects organized by Prospect.2, a number of artists, including Canadian sculptor Michel de Broin, environmental artist Brandon Ballengee, and Seattle-based Don and Patricia Fels, are developing major new projects that will premiere simultaneously in New Orleans.

Participating Venues:

Works will be shown at sites throughout several different neighborhoods of New Orleans, including Tremé, St. Claude, the Warehouse District, City Park, and Tulane and Xavier Universities. Venues range from museums and major cultural institutions, to public spaces, and non-traditional exhibition spaces. For the first time, Prospect will also exhibit in Lafayette, Louisiana with a video installation by Grazia Toderi presented at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Additional Prospect.2 venues include: the New Orleans Museum of Art; Isaac Delgado Art Gallery; Xavier University, Arts Village; New Orleans African American Museum; New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation; Ogden Museum of Southern Art; Contemporary Arts Center; Newcomb Art Gallery; and UNO St. Claude Gallery.

About Prospect New Orleans:

Founded in 2008 by Dan Cameron, Prospect New Orleans is one of the leading biennials of international contemporary art in the United States. Conceived in the tradition of the great international biennials, such as the Venice Biennale and the Bienal de São Paulo, Prospect New Orleans showcases new artistic practices from around the world in settings that are both historic and culturally exceptional, and contributes to the cultural economy of New Orleans and the Louisiana Gulf region by spurring cultural tourism and bringing international attention to the area’s vibrant visual arts community. Prospect New Orleans is founded on the principle that art engenders social progress.  It is organized by U.S. Biennial, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit art organization that launched in January 2007 in order to realize Prospect.1.

Northampton-based artist Samuel Rowlett and a dynamic crew of 15 local high school students collaborated on The Known Universe at “TEENSPACE� a project of Kidspace at MASS MoCA  in downtown North Adams as part of the annual DownStreet Art festival. Visit the space at 26 Holden Street to see the results.

Samuel Rowlet has written a guest blog for MASS MoCA, check out what he has been working on:

With sketchbooks filled after a month of meeting twice a week on the 3^rd floor of MASS MoCA as part of my residency with the Teenspace crew, we finally saw the space for our installation this summer.  The site of the old Artery Lounge at 26 Holden Street was perfect!   With a patina of character and quirky architectural palimpsests it was just the raw space we needed to take the ethos of the sketchbook (the artist’s equivalent of a diary), blow it up large scale and make it environmental.  The process, based on my own studio practice of turning the unpolished immediacy of sketchbook drawings into wall drawings, certainly gave the project an uncertain future.  Especially having 16 sketchbooks to source from!  However, after seeing the sketches the Crew had made, I knew we had the makings of something great.

Perhaps the most pleasing part of the project (in addition to the rocking installation: a mash-up of social commentary, angst, honesty and satire, that somehow reminds me of a Nirvana music video) has been the camaraderie and sense of collaboration that has developed within the group throughout the installation process.  As we helped draw each other’s drawings, we got to know one another, to rely on one another, riffing off each other’s ideas, and (quite literally) drawing connections between our sketchbook worlds.  I had charged them with the task of mapping their own universes, however it has become less about individual paradigms and more about stewardship of the work as a whole and the conversation they have put into motion through the process of working together.  Which, primarily, is what I hope for them will be the real take-away from this experience.  One that they can repeat in the future in whatever their chosen field may be:  a sense of creative collaboration.  “The Known Universe� expands…

This Saturday, July 2^nd, ReadNex poetry squad will be taking over MASS MoCA’s Courtyard C, bringing an electrifying Hip Hop Dance Party. Just to give you a run-down on who these awesome party-throwers are, ReadNex consists of DJ H20, and four poets, Decora, FreeFlowin, Jarabe Del Sol and Latin Translator. Forming in 2001, the members met during an open-mic night at Middletown’s Orange County Community College, and have continued to jam since then. While focusing on creating verses and beats that revolve around social change, education and confidence, the group matches their message with a thrilling dance party. But that’s not all folks…the group also facilitates workshops for youth empowerment, using hip-hop and poetry to address issues such as race, gender, injustice, and poverty.

Although they have been hitting the road lately (or airplanes for that matter) the group member, FreeFlowin was kind enough to take some time during the squad’s recent tour in London, to answer some questions for us:

MM: Chronogram Magazine described your group as “…an out-and-out activist machine…� Could you talk about your major influences, both musically and in terms of activism?

FF: We are influenced by a variety of sources. Life and experience is our greatest influence. There are too many people to list as far as influences go but to name a few they would have to be: Michael Jackson, Ghandi, Bob Marley, Nina Simone and Audrey Lorde.

MM: I understand that workshops, such as “Hip Hop and Poetry Saved My Life� are a major part of your mission. Was that something the group always wanted to do from the beginning of the formation, and how did these workshops develop over time?

FF: When we formed the group our main goal was to Perform in as many places possible. However, our main goal has been evolving and expanding since the inception of the group. After several years of performing at open mics, clubs and colleges we began to get approached by middle schools and high schools to perform for their youth. These performances later grew into lectures/ open forum discussions and these became the core elements of our workshop.

MM: In your 2010 Chronogram interview, you mentioned one of the elements of Hip Hop is Graffiti; do you combine that artistic genre or other types of visual arts in some of your performances?

FF: We don’t personally create visual art at our performances but we never turn down the opportunity to feature visual artists during our live performances. In fact at as many shows as possible we try to involve as many of the five elements that we can.

MM: During the Hudson Valley Clearwater Festival in 2009, your squad teamed up with Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, American Folk singer Pete Seeger’s grandson, which seems like a unique and inspiring combination. Have you done collaborations like that before or plan to do more in the future?

FF: We love rocking with Tao Seeger and his band and since that show we have performed with them on numerous occasions and he is even on our latest album. Song number 8 America Bolivariana the reflection of Self Revolution is an example if the fusion of genres with Tao Seeger. Interestingly enough that was not the first time we collaborated with folk music. In 2008 we were in Whitesburg Kentucky where we had the honor to jam with some really dope folk musicians. We love all genres of music so any opportunity to perform or collaborate on a project with different artist we jump on it.

MM: For this MASS MoCA event, you will be featuring a Hip Hop dance party; can you give our readers some insight into what they should expect?

FF: They should expect to dance until their legs fall off literally!!!!!

…So, you heard it from the group themselves, get ready to dance all night this Saturday out in one of MASS MoCA’s unique factory courtyards. Tickets are still available, $15 in advance, $19 the day of the show, and only 10 bucks for teens and kids! Doors open at 7, so get here early to get a perfect spot to dance all night.

Curator Susan Cross offers this information about arts fundingin in the Netherlands:

In response to the drastic cuts in government funding of the arts in the Netherlands – a country known for its stalwart support of the arts – artists and arts organizations in the Netherlands and elsewhere are setting off “art bombs’ in protest.

Roma Pas, an Amsterdam-based artist included in MASS MoCA’s Eastern Standard exhibition writes us that alternative art spaces, residency programs, and schools  including De Ateliers, the  Rijksakademie, and Jan van Eyck Academie may be forced to close.

She sent us photos of some art bombs and this video of  artbomb at the rijksakademie

Many of the organizations at risk have petitions on their sites. Show your support:24.06.11

Letter Jan van Eyck – a Defendable Space

This weekend some newspapers are publishing the letter ‘Jan van Eyck – a Defendable Space’. This letter is requesting State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra to withdraw his plans to stop financing post-academic institutes like the Jan van Eyck Academie. The academy is happy to see the letter signed by a long list of names from people within and outside of the academy, from the national and international fields of arts, culture and education. If you want to support the Jan van Eyck Academie, you can sign this letter by sending an e-mail to Judith Lindekens.

A group of Dutch artists placed this in the New York Times in response to funding cuts, advising would-be visitors of the cultural meltdown.

Gregory Euclide who was in the Badlands exhibition here in 2008 just created work for Bon Iver’s new self titled album, which was released on June 21st. Gregory’s work is also featured on the first single off the album called Calgary (a funny naming coincidence given our upcoming Oh, Canada exhibition). Check out the video of Gregory making the piece.