Real Art Ways | Independent Cinema | Contemporary Art | Live Art

Real Art Ways presents RAW JAZZ – A series of four free concerts in June, July and September.

Major support for RAW JAZZ comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.

Mark Dresser makes music in a vast variety of settings and contexts, but the prolific bassist always seeks to create space for the unpredictable play between form and freedom. On his 2016 album “Sedimental You,” he assembled an astonishingly creative cast that embraced the intuitive and emotionally charged nature of his improvisational imperative. He will bring this same ensemble to RAW on Saturday, September 9 to perform selections from the album.

Riveting and playful, Dresser’s compositions emerge out of an ever-shifting matrix of specific musical personalities and the often dismaying swirl of current events.

The Mark Dresser 7:
Nicole Mitchell-flutes
David Morales Boroff-violin
Marty Ehrlich-clarinets
Michael Dessen -trombone
Joshua White-piano
Jim Black – drums
Mark Dresser-bass & compositions

A prolific composer, Dresser’s developed many pieces for the Arcado String Trio, and Tambastics, while receiving numerous commissions and recording his original scores for several classic silent films, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He moved back to Southern California in 2004 to take a position as Professor of Music at UC San Diego. While he’s maintained creative relationships with many of his New York associates, the move west coincided with his renewed focus on solo bass performance. As well Dresser in 2013 recorded his first quintet CD in nearly two decades to international acclaim Nourishments (2013). (Clean Feed) marks his re-immersion as a bandleader.

Dresser tours and records with celebrated collective Trio M with pianist Myra Melford and drummer Matt Wilson. He performs solo bass recitals, and with his sonically inspired new-music trio featuring flutist Matthias Ziegler and Denman Maroney on hyperpiano. And he maintains a East and West Coast quintet dedicated to the Nourishments repertoire. His most recent project, a septet featuring Nicole Mitchell, Marty Ehrlich, Michael Dessen, Joshua White, David Morales Boroff, and Kjell Nordeson perform and record his new compositions to be released on Clean Feed.

Born in Los Angeles in 1952, Dresser has been a creative force since he first started gaining attention in the early ’70s with Stanley Crouch’s Black Music Infinity, a free jazz ensemble that included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, James Newton, and David Murray (at the same time he was performing with the San Diego Symphony). He earned a BA and MA from the UC San Diego studying contrabass with maestro Bertram Turetzky. Recruited by Anthony Braxton, Dresser made the move to New York in 1986 and spent a decade touring and recording extensively with the reed visionary’s celebrated quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Gerry Hemingway. At the same time he became a ubiquitous force on the Downtown scene, working widely with masters such as Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, and John Zorn.

Dresser received both B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with the seminal contrabass soloist, Professor Bertram Turetzky. In 1983, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Italy with Maestro Franco Petracchi. He has been awarded two New York Foundation for the Arts grants, Meet the Composer commissions, and fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Civitella Ranieri, Bellagio, and Akrai. He is on the board of the International Society of Bassists, the International Society of Improvised Music, and the advisory board of the Deep Listening Institute, and the new music ensemble, NOISE. He has been a lecturer at Princeton University, faculty at the New School University, and Hampshire College. In fall of 2004, Dresser joined the faculty of University of California, San Diego.

RAW JAZZ: Tatsuya Nakatani Gong Orchestra

Real Art Ways presents RAW JAZZ – A series of four free concerts in June, July and September.

Major support for RAW JAZZ comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.

“The fluid body of sound grew and waned and then grew again as some players switched from handmade bows to mallets and back again. The music was meditative, the gong vibrations washing over the audience.” – Cisco Bradley, Jazz Right Now

Nakatani Gong Orchestra (NGO), is a contemporary live Sound Art project that tours throughout North and Central America.

NGO is a continuous, growing community engagement project; and the only bowing Gong orchestra in existence in the world today. The rich harmonies produced from multiple layers of bowed gongs are transformative, engaging and inspiring for both players and audiences.

The gong bows and surrounding instrumentation equipment are handmade by Nakatani Kobo.

In addition to Mr. Nakatani, this performance features 14 players from the greater Hartford community.

Nakatani gives a specialized training workshop to gong players in preparation for the performance. Players will also experience Nakatani’s own unique point of view regarding Gong techniques, and will experience undiscovered dimensions while immersed in the vibrations and sounds during a training workshop. Nakatani is the composer and conductor for the evening of the performance.

Nakatani began germinating ideas for NGO in early 2002, and finally took the project on the road in April 2011. Since then he has performed over 100 concerts with NGO internationally. Notable venues include John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., MOCA Cleveland, OH, Tigertail Productions presented at Miami Dade County Auditorium in FL, Bemis Contemporary Art Center in Omaha NE, Columbia Museum of Art in SC, The Issue Project Room in New York City, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.

NGO has been a visiting artist conducting workshops at a number of universities; including the University of Illinois, Smith College, Ohio State University and Wesleyan.

Taiga Records (Minneapolis, MN) released an LP entitled “Nakatani Gong Orchestra” in 2012.

Audience members have described a NGO performance as entirely unlike anything they have ever experienced before, often relating feelings of cleansing or a sort of purification after the event.

Laureates of Connecticut Poetry Reading

Join us as Poets Laureate from around the state of Connecticut and Rennie McQuilkin, State Poet Laureate, read their work, talk about the world of poetry and share insights. A focus will be the new book put out by the Connecticut Coalition of Poets Laureate.

Signed copies of the book, Laureates of Connecticut Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (edited by Ginny Lowe Connors and Charles Margolis), will be available for a donation.

Participating Poets

Rennie McQuilkin, Poet Laureate of Connecticut and Poet Laureate of Simsbury

Ginny Lowe Connors, 2013-2015 Poet Laureate Emeritus of West Hartford and co-editor of the Laureates of Connecticut Anthology of Contemporary Poetry

Susan Allison

Christine Beck, current Poet Laureate of West Hartford

Hugo DeSarro

Tarn Granucci, Poet Laureate of Wallingford

Joan Hofman, Poet Laureate of Canton

Maria Sassi

Paolo Cirio: Street Ghosts

The Public Art component of Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance & Privacy has been created in downtown Hartford.

Artist Paolo Cirio and a team from Real Art Ways selected seven sites around downtown Hartford where unsuspecting pedestrians had been caught in Google Street View photos. On Saturday, May 13, the RAW team and Mr. Cirio visited the seven downtown sites to affix life-size cutouts of the anonymous people to buildings at the exact locations where the Street View photos were taken. Like other forms of street art, the Street Ghosts may deteriorate or disappear over time.

The locations are, top to bottom:
1. Starbucks at City Place, Trumbull Street
2. Society Room, Pratt Street
3. Hartford Prints!, Pratt Street (now missing)
4. 81 Asylum Street (now missing)
5, 777 Main Street (now missing)
6. EBK Gallery, Haynes Street
7. Bus Shelter near TheaterWorks, Pearl Street

Cirio has produced versions of this project in more than two dozen cities around the world, including London (see the photo below), Paris, New York City, Berlin, Montreal (see the video above), Sydney and Hong Kong. Cirio says, “It’s a temporary thing. That’s why they are ghosts. They appear and disappear and may come back any time.”

Member Appreciation Event: Reaction Bubble Dance Performance and Panel Discussion

What does the physical distance between us mean?

Reaction Bubble is an installation that includes custom electronics, video, ceramic sculpture, and choreography, and this presentation is the culmination of a four-year collaboration. The artists who worked together to create Reaction Bubble are the team of LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus), choreographer Deborah Goffe and ceramicist Matthew Towers. Real Art Ways introduced the artists to each other in 2012.

Dance Performance
Dancers interact with the Reaction Bubble installation and each other as they explore the impact and significance of Public Space, Social Space, Personal Space and Intimate Space.

The performance is choreographed and performed by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with Safi Harriott, Rosanna Karabetsos, Kate Seethaler and Arien Wilkerson. Sound design by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with Arien Wilkerson, and with music by Kode9, Murcof, Julia Holter and Holly Herndon.

Panel Discussion
After the Dance Performance, LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus), Deborah Goffe and Matthew Towers will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Real Art Ways Visual Arts Coordinator, Neil Daigle-Orians and take questions from members.

Free for Members and their Guests
Please RSVP to Amanda Baker at this link with the number of people attending.

The project received major support from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Important funders include the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, the J. Walton Bissell Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the Choreographic Team

Deborah Goffe is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, performance curator, and intermittent video artist. She is founder of Scapegoat Garden, a Connecticut-based collaborative dance theater, driven to create compelling, interdisciplinary performance that goes in through the nose, eyes, skin, ears and mouth to stir those who witness or participate. Scapegoat Garden strives to forge relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home. Deborah holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of the Arts School of Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from California Institute of the Arts. Since Scapegoat Garden’s founding, Deborah has been devoted to the revitalization of local dance eco-systems and the role of performance curation in such processes. To this end, she recently earned a Professional Certificate from Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. She has been honored by the Connecticut Dance Alliance for Distinguished Achievement in Dance, and has received Artists Fellowship Grants from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and the Surdna Foundation. Deborah has participated as New England Emerging Choreographer at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine and has served as a yearlong Artist-in-Residence at Billings Forge Community Works. As an educator, Deborah has taught dance and related courses in several institutions, including California Institute of the Arts, Wesleyan University, CulturArte—a youth arts summer residency program in Cape Verde, Africa, and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Modern/Contemporary Dance at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where she is excited to expand her experience of dance and place in a new context.

Safi Harriott specializes in dance education and cultural studies. She combines an awareness of her own movement through the world with an evolving understanding of systems of power and their impact on individual bodies. She has served as Visiting Lecturer in Dance at the Excelsior Community College in Kingston, Jamaica. She has also served as adjunct faculty and External Examiner (Repertory, Intermediate Modern Technique, Improvisation) for the Edna Manley College (EMCVPA) School of Dance. Harriott has facilitated workshops and presented choreography for the Kingston on the Edge Urban Arts Festival, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and the Jamaica Dance Umbrella (JDU) in addition to serving as primary coordinator and assistant to the Curator for the JDU and Junior JDU. Committed to international exchange, she has performed and co- taught in Kingston and New York with collaborators Zita Nyarady (Toronto, Canada) and Nancy Hughes (Buffalo NY, USA). More recently, she has served as Visiting Dance Faculty at the Cambridge School of Weston. In 2014 she received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Smith College. Harriott has also trained at the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, and is currently an MA candidate in Socio-cultural Anthropology at Columbia University.

Rosanna Krabetsos is a Hartford-based dancer who has studied and performed a wide range of dance forms, with primary emphasis on contemporary, hip-hop and commercial dance. A graduate of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, she is honored to have worked with artists like Kim Stroud (formerly of the Martha Graham Dance Company); Jennifer Weber (DECAdance); Kate St. Amand and Lynn Peterson (SYREN Modern Dance); Caroline Fermin (Galim Dance); Clyde Evans (Rennie Harris Pure Movement), Deborah Goffe and Leslie Frye Maietta (Scapegoat Garden). During high school, her summers were spent at Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts where she worked with Fredrick Earl Mosley, Nathan Trice, Kevin Wynn, Crystal Frazier and Rennie Harris (Rennie Harris Pure Movement), to name a few. Rosanna is currently signed to DFX Entertainment, which performs at the Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods Casinos, and other major venues. She also performs on the dance teams supporting the New England Black Wolves and the Connecticut Sun WNBA team. As an artist, Rosanna focuses locally, and is driven by a love of collaboration and the belief that dance can be a container for all of life. She is a founding member and collaborator with TNMOT AZTRO, having performed in events throughout Connecticut, including the 5×5 Dance Festival at the University of Saint Joseph and an evening length performance at Real Art Ways. Rosanna is also a lead choreographer and puppeteer for Anne Cubberly’s Nightfall, an annual interdisciplinary site-specific performance event in Hartford, and serves as the Creative Director of Hartford’s first and only beauty collective, Tainted Inc.

Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, Kate Seethaler currently teaches dance and movement at Springfield College and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. She rehearses with choreographers Katie Martin and Whitney Wilson. She also creates her own choreographic work under the newly formed skeleton collaborative, which will launch in the next year through her participation as Artist in Residence at the School for Contemporary Dance in Northampton. Kate earned her MFA in Dance from Smith College in May 2016. At Smith, she focused her interests on performance and compositional improvisation, studying with Angie Hauser, Chris Aiken, and Jennifer Nugent amongst others. Kate has most recently performed in the work of Stephanie Turner, Jennifer Nugent, Stephanie Maher, Joy Davis, and Emily Lukasewski. In 2015, she attended Bates Dance Festival as a collaborator/performer in the work of Kellie Lynch, a BDF Emerging Choreographer. Kate received her full mat and equipment Pilates certification in 2012 at Aldrich Pilates in New Haven, CT. The efficiency and clarity of the body that Pilates training provides continually informs her approach to movement generation. Kate’s choreographic work has been performed at Elm City Dance Festival, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Smith College, Springfield College, The Taft School and The Ethel Walker School amongst other venues. Her most recent choreographic interests lie in the dichotomy of exploring a deeply personal and fiercely internal physiological landscape and dismantling the external hierarchy between audience and performer(s). She earned a BA in Dance, with minors in theater and philosophy, from Springfield College in 2008.

Arien Wilkerson is a choreographer, dancer, and video artist. The Hartford-native began his dance training under the tutelage of Jolet Creary, and has been a student at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, The Artists Collective, Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts, and at the Batsheva Dance Company’s Gaga Intensive in Tel Aviv. In 2008, he was a scholarship recipient for travel to Cape Verde, Africa to participate in CulturArte, a youth arts residency program where he studied with Mano Preto (Artistic Director of Raiz di Polon) and Deborah Goffe (Artistic Director of scapegoat Garden). As a high school senior in 2009, David Dorfman and Nicole Stanton selected his work for inclusion in Wesleyan University’s Dance Masters programming, recognizing his artistic potential as a young choreographer among more established New England choreographers. Since then, he has set choreographic works on EQuilibrium Dance Theater, CONNetic Dance collaborations, and Ruth Lewis Dimensional Dance. He has also performed as a special guest in Doug Elkin’s in Fraulein Maria at the Hartford stage, and choreographed for Anne Cubberly’s Nightfall. In his role as Artistic Director of TNMOT AZTRO, Arien has been commissioned by Hartford’s Town & County Club and Open Studio Hartford to develop iterations of his BLACK BOY JUNGLE and Punching Bag. As an Artist in Residence at The Garden Center for Contemporary Dance (2013-2014), Arien developed three iterations of his work, The Projector Series, and while there, served as co-facilitator for the Invisible City Project Cooperative, an initiative designed to share resources among Hartford-based dance artists. The Projector Series 1.4, the fourth and final installment of the project, was presented to 3 sold-out audiences at Real Art Ways in 2016.

Reaction Bubble Dance Performances

What does the physical distance between us mean?

Reaction Bubble is an installation that includes custom electronics, video, ceramic sculpture, and choreography, and this presentation is the culmination of a four-year collaboration. The artists who worked together to create Reaction Bubble are the team of LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus), choreographer Deborah Goffe, and ceramicist Matthew Towers. Real Art Ways introduced the artists to each other in 2012.

In the Performance component of the exhibition, five dancers interact with the Reaction Bubble installation and each other as they explore the impact and significance of Public Space, Social Space, Personal Space and Intimate Space.

Choreographed and performed by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with Safi Harriott, Rosanna Karabetsos, Kate Seethaler and Arien Wilkerson. Sound design by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with Arien Wilkerson, and with music by Kode9, Murcof, Julia Holter and Holly Herndon.

Admission is Free.

The project received major support from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Important funders include the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, the J. Walton Bissell Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the Choreographic Team

Deborah Goffe is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, performance curator, and intermittent video artist. She is founder of Scapegoat Garden, a Connecticut-based collaborative dance theater, driven to create compelling, interdisciplinary performance that goes in through the nose, eyes, skin, ears and mouth to stir those who witness or participate. Scapegoat Garden strives to forge relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home. Deborah holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of the Arts School of Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from California Institute of the Arts. Since Scapegoat Garden’s founding, Deborah has been devoted to the revitalization of local dance eco-systems and the role of performance curation in such processes. To this end, she recently earned a Professional Certificate from Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. She has been honored by the Connecticut Dance Alliance for Distinguished Achievement in Dance, and has received Artists Fellowship Grants from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and the Surdna Foundation. Deborah has participated as New England Emerging Choreographer at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine and has served as a yearlong Artist-in-Residence at Billings Forge Community Works. As an educator, Deborah has taught dance and related courses in several institutions, including California Institute of the Arts, Wesleyan University, CulturArte—a youth arts summer residency program in Cape Verde, Africa, and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Modern/Contemporary Dance at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where she is excited to expand her experience of dance and place in a new context.

Safi Harriott specializes in dance education and cultural studies. She combines an awareness of her own movement through the world with an evolving understanding of systems of power and their impact on individual bodies. She has served as Visiting Lecturer in Dance at the Excelsior Community College in Kingston, Jamaica. She has also served as adjunct faculty and External Examiner (Repertory, Intermediate Modern Technique, Improvisation) for the Edna Manley College (EMCVPA) School of Dance. Harriott has facilitated workshops and presented choreography for the Kingston on the Edge Urban Arts Festival, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and the Jamaica Dance Umbrella (JDU) in addition to serving as primary coordinator and assistant to the Curator for the JDU and Junior JDU. Committed to international exchange, she has performed and co- taught in Kingston and New York with collaborators Zita Nyarady (Toronto, Canada) and Nancy Hughes (Buffalo NY, USA). More recently, she has served as Visiting Dance Faculty at the Cambridge School of Weston. In 2014 she received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Smith College. Harriott has also trained at the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, and is currently an MA candidate in Socio-cultural Anthropology at Columbia University.

Rosanna Krabetsos is a Hartford-based dancer who has studied and performed a wide range of dance forms, with primary emphasis on contemporary, hip-hop and commercial dance. A graduate of the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, she is honored to have worked with artists like Kim Stroud (formerly of the Martha Graham Dance Company); Jennifer Weber (DECAdance); Kate St. Amand and Lynn Peterson (SYREN Modern Dance); Caroline Fermin (Galim Dance); Clyde Evans (Rennie Harris Pure Movement), Deborah Goffe and Leslie Frye Maietta (Scapegoat Garden). During high school, her summers were spent at Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts where she worked with Fredrick Earl Mosley, Nathan Trice, Kevin Wynn, Crystal Frazier and Rennie Harris (Rennie Harris Pure Movement), to name a few. Rosanna is currently signed to DFX Entertainment, which performs at the Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods Casinos, and other major venues. She also performs on the dance teams supporting the New England Black Wolves and the Connecticut Sun WNBA team. As an artist, Rosanna focuses locally, and is driven by a love of collaboration and the belief that dance can be a container for all of life. She is a founding member and collaborator with TNMOT AZTRO, having performed in events throughout Connecticut, including the 5×5 Dance Festival at the University of Saint Joseph and an evening length performance at Real Art Ways. Rosanna is also a lead choreographer and puppeteer for Anne Cubberly’s Nightfall, an annual interdisciplinary site-specific performance event in Hartford, and serves as the Creative Director of Hartford’s first and only beauty collective, Tainted Inc.

Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, Kate Seethaler currently teaches dance and movement at Springfield College and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. She rehearses with choreographers Katie Martin and Whitney Wilson. She also creates her own choreographic work under the newly formed skeleton collaborative, which will launch in the next year through her participation as Artist in Residence at the School for Contemporary Dance in Northampton. Kate earned her MFA in Dance from Smith College in May 2016. At Smith, she focused her interests on performance and compositional improvisation, studying with Angie Hauser, Chris Aiken, and Jennifer Nugent amongst others. Kate has most recently performed in the work of Stephanie Turner, Jennifer Nugent, Stephanie Maher, Joy Davis, and Emily Lukasewski. In 2015, she attended Bates Dance Festival as a collaborator/performer in the work of Kellie Lynch, a BDF Emerging Choreographer. Kate received her full mat and equipment Pilates certification in 2012 at Aldrich Pilates in New Haven, CT. The efficiency and clarity of the body that Pilates training provides continually informs her approach to movement generation. Kate’s choreographic work has been performed at Elm City Dance Festival, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Smith College, Springfield College, The Taft School and The Ethel Walker School amongst other venues. Her most recent choreographic interests lie in the dichotomy of exploring a deeply personal and fiercely internal physiological landscape and dismantling the external hierarchy between audience and performer(s). She earned a BA in Dance, with minors in theater and philosophy, from Springfield College in 2008.

Arien Wilkerson is a choreographer, dancer, and video artist. The Hartford-native began his dance training under the tutelage of Jolet Creary, and has been a student at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, The Artists Collective, Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts, and at the Batsheva Dance Company’s Gaga Intensive in Tel Aviv. In 2008, he was a scholarship recipient for travel to Cape Verde, Africa to participate in CulturArte, a youth arts residency program where he studied with Mano Preto (Artistic Director of Raiz di Polon) and Deborah Goffe (Artistic Director of scapegoat Garden). As a high school senior in 2009, David Dorfman and Nicole Stanton selected his work for inclusion in Wesleyan University’s Dance Masters programming, recognizing his artistic potential as a young choreographer among more established New England choreographers. Since then, he has set choreographic works on EQuilibrium Dance Theater, CONNetic Dance collaborations, and Ruth Lewis Dimensional Dance. He has also performed as a special guest in Doug Elkin’s in Fraulein Maria at the Hartford stage, and choreographed for Anne Cubberly’s Nightfall. In his role as Artistic Director of TNMOT AZTRO, Arien has been commissioned by Hartford’s Town & County Club and Open Studio Hartford to develop iterations of his BLACK BOY JUNGLE and Punching Bag. As an Artist in Residence at The Garden Center for Contemporary Dance (2013-2014), Arien developed three iterations of his work, The Projector Series, and while there, served as co-facilitator for the Invisible City Project Cooperative, an initiative designed to share resources among Hartford-based dance artists. The Projector Series 1.4, the fourth and final installment of the project, was presented to 3 sold-out audiences at Real Art Ways in 2016.

Reaction Bubble Reception

What does the physical distance between us mean?

Created by LoVid, Deborah Goffe and Matt Towers; Tyler Henry – Technical Director. Commissioned and produced by Real Art Ways.

The presentation of Reaction Bubble is the culmination of the artists’ four-year collaboration, inspired by the anthropological field of Proxemics (the study of the impact and significance of physical distances on human interaction). The installation invites audience involvement, forming an immersive installation and performance experience.

Reaction Bubble received major support from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Important funders include the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, the J. Walton Bissell Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Real Art Ways Member Appreciation Event
4:00-5:00 PM
Meet the artists with other Real Art Ways supporters; learn about the conceptual development and the collaborative process.

Public Reception
5:00-6:30 PM
Dance Performance: 5:30 PM
Choreographed and performed by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with
Safi Harriott, Rosanna Karabetsos, Kate Seethaler and Arien Wilkerson.

Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance, and Privacy

The Exhibition was featured in a discussion of surveillance on Where We Live on WNPR on Tuesday, May 23. The show was titled, Somebody’s Watching Me: Big Brother In The Modern Age. Co-curator Ed Shanken and RAW’s Will K. Wilkins participated in the discussion. Visit WNPR’s page about the show and listen to the recording of the broadcast.

Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance, and Privacy, is an exhibition of visual art, public art, film, performance, interactivity, public discussions, and spoken word, exploring the prevalence of surveillance and its impact on the way we lead our lives. The exhibition will be on view through June 19, 2017.

The exhibition is co-curated by Edward Shanken and Jessica Hodin.

Mass government surveillance and corporate data collection have become the new normal. We hear that individual privacy must be sacrificed in the interests of national security and that “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.” But has increased surveillance made us safer, or are we, in fact, more vulnerable in other ways? Is privacy only about hiding bad things? Might privacy be a matter of principle: that personal information isn’t anyone else’s business, that citizens have the right “to be let alone,” as the U.S. Supreme Court declared more than a century ago?

Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance, and Privacy examines these issues, revealing many shades of grey. The artworks in the exhibition offer probing insights into our complicity in surrendering privacy, how surveillance culture impacts our daily lives, the banality and uncanniness that it can generate, and forms of resistance that range from invisibility to hyper-publicity.

The exhibition features the U.S. premiers of Julian Oliver’s Stealth Cell Tower, an antagonistic GSM base station in the form of an innocuous office printer and Michelle Teran’s Folgen, which tracks the locations and identities of YouTube video-makers. Eric Corriel’s Targeted addresses discriminatory surveillance practices, while Eva and Franco Mattes’ The Others consists of a slideshow of 10,000 photos appropriated from random personal computers, without their owners’ knowledge.

Paolo Cirio will lead a public art project, Street Ghosts, in downtown Hartford. Working with local residents, Cirio will appropriate images of people “captured” in Google Maps Street View and physically post life-size posters of these images at the exact sites of the Google Maps locations in the city.

The star-studded line-up of international artists includes Aram Bartholl, Hasan Elahi, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Jonas Lund, Trevor Paglen, Ryder Ripps, Bjoern Schuelke and Abram Stern (aphid).

Reaction Bubble – a collaborative project that includes custom electronics, sound and video, ceramic sculpture, and choreography, and that was commissioned and produced by Real Art Ways, is also included in Nothing to Hide?.

Read the article about “Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance and Privacy” in the Hartford Courant.

About the Curators

Edward A. Shanken is Associate Professor and Director of Digital Arts and New Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. He lectures and publishes widely on surveillance art, cybernetics and systems theory, and the relationship between new media and contemporary art. His books include Systems (Whitechapel/MIT, 2015), Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon, 2009), and Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness (U Cal Press, 2003). http://artexetra.com/

Jessica Hodin received her B.A. from Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) with a major in Art History and holds a Master’s Degree in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York). She is currently a fellow at the Art and Law Program. Jessica manages Art Basel’s Crowdfunding Initiative, a creative partnership with Kickstarter aimed to catalyze support for nonprofit arts organizations and institutions around the world. From 2013-2014, she was the Curator and Director of the Bleecker Street Arts Club in Manhattan’s West Village. She continues to advise clients with respect to art acquisitions and pursue independent curatorial projects.

Featured image: Targeted – Eric Corriel

Reaction Bubble

Premiere of a Collaborative Art Exhibition Commissioned and Produced by Real Art Ways. Reaction Bubble is an installation that includes interactive custom electronics, video, ceramic sculpture, and choreography.

The presentation of Reaction Bubble is the culmination of a four-year collaboration. The artists who worked together to create Reaction Bubble are the team of LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus), choreographer Deborah Goffe, and ceramicist Matthew Towers. Real Art Ways introduced the artists to each other in 2012. The project received major support from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Important funders include the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, the J. Walton Bissell Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Reaction Bubble is inspired by the anthropological field of Proxemics, the study of the impact and significance of physical distances between people as they interact. These distances are described as conceptual bubbles. Each “bubble” is a different size and is appropriate for a specific type of interpersonal interaction: Public Space, Social Space, Personal Space, and Intimate Space. The exhibition employs ceramic sculptures, video, interactive technology and dance to explore the meaning of the interactions influenced by these physical distances.

Throughout the development and process of creating Reaction Bubble, the artists drew inspiration from each other’s artistic fields. One area of interest is the intersection between handmade fine art and new technology. They examined relationships between human bodies and mediated spaces, from urban digital signage to personal smart devices. Reaction Bubble will extend from the artists to audience involvement, forming an immersive installation and performance experience.

The exhibit will be on view through June 19, 2017.

Schedule of Dance Performances:
Friday, June 16, 7 PM
Saturday, June 17, 3 & 7 PM

About the Artists

LoVid is the artist duo of Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus. Their interdisciplinary works explore the often invisible or intangible aspects of contemporary society, such as communication systems and biological signals. They are particularly interested in the ways technology seeps into the evolution of human culture. Their practice includes performances, participatory public art, handmade technologies, textiles, prints, App-art, experimental video, and immersive installations. They focus on the juxtaposition of media with physical objects, geographic spaces, and the human touch. LoVid’s performances have been presented at Museum of the Moving Image, Graham Foundation, Eyebeam, MoMA, FACT, PS1, Real Art Ways and The Kitchen, among many others. LoVid’s videos have been screened in galleries, festivals, and events worldwide including Modern Art Oxford, Art in General, Gene Siskel Theater, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and NY Underground Film Festival.

Deborah Goffe is a performer, dance maker, dance educator, performance curator and intermittent video artist. She is founder of Scapegoat Garden, a Hartford-based collaborative dance theater company, which has served as a primary vehicle and creative community through which Deborah has explored the intersection of dance with other media. A graduate of the University of the Arts (BFA, Modern Dance) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA, Dance Performance and Choreography), Deborah earned a Professional Certificate from Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance in 2013 where she explored curatorial practice as a way to nurture the health and vitality of local dance eco-systems.

Matthew Towers is an Associate Professor of Ceramics at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford in Connecticut. His work has been shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions such as White on White, NCECA 2005 Clay National Exhibition, Greenwich House Pottery, Pewabic Pottery, The Elmhurst Art Museum, The Slater Memorial Museum, The Archie Bray Foundation, the Wexler Gallery and the Philadelphia Clay Studio. Towers received his B.F.A. in Theater from New York University and his M.F.A. in Ceramics from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.

Tyler Henry – Technical Director

Instrument Portrait Series: HARP – Edmar Castañeda

At the home of Ed and Tracy Church in Hartford.

“One of the most singular and inspired artists on the scene today, Castañeda simultaneously comps, covers bass lines and solos with passion and virtuosity on his unique blue harp.” – Downbeat

“almost a world unto himself” – The New York Times

Please join us on Saturday, March 11, 2017 to listen to the incomparable jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda.

Castañeda’s performing credits include Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall,The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival. It will be a rare treat to experience his music in an intimate and personal setting.

In addition to his acclaimed performing career as an instrumentalist, Edmar has also performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, John Scofield, Marcus Miller, John Patitucci, and Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Big Band.

Experience the infectious charisma and powerful artistry of this amazing musician in a comfortable, intimate setting.

Tickets are $75 | $65 RAW Members

About Edmar Castañeda
Edmar Castaneda was born in 1978, in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Since his move to the United States in 1994, Edmar has quite literally revolutionized the way audiences and critics alike consider an instrument commonly relegated to the “unusual category.” Paquito D’Rivera, Edmar’s frequent collaborator, has remarked: “Edmar is an enormous talent, he has the versatility and the enchanting charisma of a musician who has taken his harp out of the shadow to become one of the most original musicians from the Big Apple.”

Even now, on stages across the globe, one notes how Edmar’s body seemingly engulfs his Colombian harp as he crafts almost unbelievable feats of cross-rhythms, layered with chordal nuances rivaling the most celebrated flamenco guitarist’s efforts. Edmar’s latest recording “Double Portion,” (which features Miguel Zenon, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Hamilton de Holanda on Mandolina) has caught the attention of reviewers and his legion of fans. Rob Young of “Urban Flux Magazine” says of the recording “Edmar Castaneda’s caliber redefines depth, skill and emotion.”

Learn more at Edmar’s Website.

Instrument Portrait Series: HARP – Tasana Camara

RAW presents a series of concerts that examine the harp and its different manifestations both structurally and musically. Each concert features a performance and discussion revolving around the harpist’s craft and the intricacies of their instrument.

About Tasana Camara
Tasana Camara is a world-renowned balafon, djembe, and kora player hailing from Conakry, Guinea in West Africa. He has performed with the Ballet Senegal, Ballet la Maise, Ballet Djouliba, and the National Ballet of Guinea.

He helped found “Group Laiengee” a performing troupe in Guinea composed of children with significant disabilities. In 2008 Tasana and Group Laiengee partnered with Dr. Donald DeVito at The Sidney Lanier Center, a public school in Gainesville, Florida for American students with disabilities. This project was included in the United Nations Compendium on “Music as a Natural Resource” to find ways to make music programs a source of economic opportunity for developing communities around the world.

Camara performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 21, 2010 with the Sidney Lanier School Music Ensemble (musicians from both the American School and Group Laiengee). The performance in New York was funded by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

He currently resides in Western Pennsylvania, teaches music lessons, and performs internationally.

Instrument Portrait Series: HARP – The Secret Trio

RAW presents a series of concerts that examine the harp and its different manifestations both structurally and musically. Each concert features a performance and discussion revolving around the harpist’s craft and the intricacies of their instrument.

The Secret Trio

“…mesmerizing” – Village Voice

The Secret Trio is an instrumental group consisting of Ismail Lumanovski (clarinet), Tamer Pinarbasi (kanun), and Ara Dinkjian (oud). In 2010, these three New York-based musicians, each busy with numerous projects, felt the desire to play music which would satisfy their own creative and emotional needs. They began to meet at Dinkjian’s home where they developed a group philosophy and sound.

This philosophy begins with a mutual respect and admiration. Ismail, Tamer, and Ara individually have extensive education in both eastern and western music and have performed throughout the world. Each is a composer. Music, one of humanity’s most precious gifts, has united their cultural diversity (Ara is Armenian, Tamer is Turkish, and Ismail is Macedonian).

The group blends Middle Eastern and western musical traditions in original and folk compositions.

Instrument Portrait Series: HARP – Tiny Beast

RAW presents a series of concerts that examine the harp and its different manifestations both structurally and musically. Each concert features a performance and discussion revolving around the harpist’s craft and the intricacies of their instrument.

Tiny Beast

Formed in the summer of 2012, Tiny Beast is composed of Nuiko Wadden (harp) and Dawn Posey (violin). Ms. Wadden is an expressive player with an unconventional approach to the rhythmic possibilities of the orchestral harp. According to the Washington Post, “…Wadden’s superb, dancelike playing on the harp was a joy to hear.”

Listen to an excerpt of Ms. Wadden playing Polvere et Ombra by Suzanne Farrin – the piece will be included in the performance at RAW.

Tiny Beast will play a combination of duets and solo harp pieces, most of which are 21st century compositions. Composers include Mark Fromm, Carlos Salzedo, Suzanne Farrin, Kenji Bunch and Sebastian Currier.

Hartt @ RAW

Join us for an afternoon of new music composed by The Hartt School composition faculty members Robert Carl and Ken Steen.

Program:
Robert Carl – Infinity Avenue
Ken Steen – Assumption

Robert Carl

“Robert Carl’s music, to my ear at least, has always felt like the work of a particularly sensitive sonic observer of the world. Originally a student of history before he refocused his efforts into music, his interest in time, memory, and space are veins running through his compositions, his work more given to conjuring imagery than narrative plot. And whether inspiration is mined in the wake of a seascape or travelers on a speeding bullet train, the resulting music tends to carry a distinct organic beauty and rich, encompassing depth.” ~ Julia Lu, NewMusicBox

~ notes from the composer on Infinity Avenue

Infinity Avenue is an ongoing project now entering its second year. It unites an interest in alternative tuning with open-ended form. It is designed so as to exist in multiple formats. At the core is a patch in MaxMSP that allows for real-time performance and exploration of a world in precise overtone-derived tuning. The materials of this “score” allow for realizations that so far have included the following:

– An installation that may be either directed by a solo performer for any amount of time, or allowed to run semi-automatically.

– A solo performance which can be more precisely structured by a laptop player, allowing for direct choice of pitches, harmonies, and gestures, as well as more automatic fields.

Next up is what will be unveiled at this performance, a version that allows for a small improvising ensemble to interact with the patch.

Watch an interview with Robert Carl with samples of his compositions HERE.

Ken Steen

“Ken Steen is a composer of considerable talent and originality. His music is thoughtful and remarkably well crafted. It has both surface beauty and inner depth.” — Ingram Marshall, composer

Ken Steen’s music and sound art is recognized internationally for its authentic vitality, remarkable range and distinctive personal vision. Whether acoustic, electronic or some multimedia combination, his work is often characterized as being seductively gorgeous, featuring sumptuous textures of gradual yet unpredictable evolution. In the last 5 years Steen’s work in various forms have enjoyed more than 100 performances on 5 continents: from Mumbai to Tripoli, Paris, Reykjavík, Buenos Aires and New York City.

~ notes from the composer on Assumption

Assumption, is a fixed audio piece that is informed by traditional “tape” pieces, sound art, and sonic installations. The primary sound sources, derived from a quartet of 18th c. bells and a decaying antique harmonium, were recorded/collected from the 12c. Eglise de l’Assomption in Marnay-sur-Seine, France. Much of the piece relies on juxtaposition of the beautifully out-of-tune harmonium (noisy, decrepit pedals and all…), with vocal and other sonorities based on spectral analyses of the bells that evolve over extended periods of time.

HSO: Lies You Can Believe In

Led by HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan, Lies You Can Believe In will be a special performance featuring HSO musicians performing in ensembles throughout the gallery spaces of Real Art Ways. This concert offers a unique blend of visual art and intriguing music, vibrant performers and an intimate and social audience experience, all at one of the coolest venues in Hartford.

Lies You Can Believe In features music by classical and contemporary composers, whose works are threaded by the concept of “observation,” tying back to Real Art Ways’ current exhibits, Reaction Bubble and Nothing to Hide? Art, Surveillance, and Privacy.

Beethoven’s Octet for Winds, Mvt. 1 was written during a time that wealthy noblemen hired small ensembles to watch while they dined and celebrated; this piece was written with that performance setting in mind. Christopher Swist’s Cities at Twilight brings to life the unique aural essences different metropolitan areas have as the day moves to night. Missy Mazzoli’s Lies You Can Believe In tells an improvisatory tale, touching upon the violence, energy, mania and rare moments of calm one finds in a city. And Copland’s jazz and blues-infused Music for the Theatre evokes the lively atmosphere of the theater.

Tickets to this concert are $25. Tickets are $20 for HSO subscribers and Real Art Ways members. Student tickets are $15 (with valid ID).

Program:
Beethoven Octet for Winds, Mvt. 1
Swist Cities at Twilight, Mvt. I “Hartford” & Mvt. IV. “New York”
Mazzoli Lies You Can Believe In
Beethoven String Quartet Op. 59, No. 1
Copland Music for the Theatre

Concert Sponsor:

COMPULSIVE PRACTICE

In the Video Gallery

For the 2016 Day With(out) Art, Visual AIDS presents COMPULSIVE PRACTICE, a video compilation of compulsive, daily, and habitual practices by nine artists and activists who live with their cameras as one way to manage, reflect upon, and change how they are deeply affected by HIV/AIDS. This hour-long video program will be shown continuously in RAW’s Video Gallery and continued daily through December 31.

From video diaries to civil disobedience, holiday specials and backstage antics, Betamax to YouTube, COMPULSIVE PRACTICE displays a diversity of artistic approaches, experiences, and expectations. The compulsive video practices of these artists serve many purposes—cure, treatment, outlet, lament, documentation, communication—and have many tones—obsessive, driven, poetic, neurotic, celebratory. COMPULSIVE PRACTICE demonstrates the place of technology, self-expression, critique, and community in the many decades and the many experiences of artists and activists living with AIDS.

COMPULSIVE PRACTICE is curated by Jean Carlomusto, Alexandra Juhasz, and Hugh Ryan. Participating video makers and artists include James Wentzy, Nelson Sullivan (1948–1989), Ray Navarro (1964–1990), Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot, Juanita Mohammed, Luna Luis Ortiz, Mark S. King, Justin B. Terry-Smith, and the Southern AIDS Living Quilt.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mark S. King has written about living with HIV since testing positive when the test became publicly available in 1985. His blog, www.MyFabulousDisease.com, chronicles his life as an HIV positive gay man in recovery from addiction. He is also the author of A Place Like This, his memoir of life in Los Angeles during the dawn of the AIDS epidemic.

Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot has been working as a sex worker/prostitute activist and artist in the Bay Area for more than thirty years. Since the late seventies, she has written and performed political satire as “Scarlot Harlot,” and produced work in a variety of genres on queer and feminist issues including work based on her experience in San Francisco massage parlors. A “Mother” of the sex workers rights movement, she is credited with coining the term sex worker. Her recent work and archives are available at sexworkermedialibrary.org

Juanita Mohammed is a community video artist and activist. She uses inexpensive camcorder video technology to respond to the needs of those who matter to her. In her work at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City, Mohammed makes educational videos for and about the AIDS community. In her personal video work, she looks to her friends and neighbors to find stories that are not typically represented in the media.

Ray Navarro (1964–1990) was an artist, filmmaker and activist. He attended Cal Arts in California and moved to New York in 1988 to go to the Whitney Independent Study Program, and soon joined ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power). He was also a member of DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists), a video-documenting affinity group of ACT UP. DIVA TV documented public testimony, the media, and community activism to motivate the fight against AIDS.

Luna Luis Ortiz was born in New York City in 1972. In 1986, he was infected with HIV at the age of 14 from his first sexual experience. In 1988, he began his journey as an HIV awareness spokesperson for youth living with HIV at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, and has worked at Gay Men’s Health Crisis since 2007. He then studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and has worked with the photographers David LaChapelle, Lisa Ross, Shedrich Williames and Nan Goldin. The Luna Show is a show about the voguing scene and the people involved in the House/Ball community, one of the hardest hit communities by the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Luna Show has been viewed by 2 million people worldwide.

The Southern AIDS Living Quilt is a project that illustrates the growing impact of HIV on women in the southern U.S., particularly women of color. Using video testimonials, the Living Quilt shares the personal stories of women living with HIV, their families and health care providers throughout the region. The stories underscore the critical importance of making HIV screening a routine part of medical care in order to ensure earlier diagnosis and prevent the spread of the disease.

Nelson Sullivan (1948–1989) was a video artist in New York City during the 1980s. Nelson lived in a large townhouse at 5 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District of New York City and his houseguests over the years included Lady Bunny, Michael Alig and the Club Kids, Sylvia Miles, Albert Crudo, and John Sex. Nelson’s friendships with the emerging artists of that day like RuPaul, Deee-lite, Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman give Nelson’s videos an intimacy that allows the viewer an in-crowd look at the past.

Justin B. Terry-Smith, M.P.H., is a noted HIV and gay civil rights activist and the creator of “Justin’s HIV Journal,” a popular blog in which he shares his trials and tribulations of living with HIV. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Justin resides in Laurel, Maryland, with his husband, Dr. Philip Terry-Smith, and their sons, Lundyn and Tavis. Presently, Justin is working toward earning his doctorate in public health. Find him at www.justinbsmith.com

James Wentzy is an AIDS activist and documentary filmmaker associated with ACT UP throughout the 1990s. He has been producer director and editor for the weekly series AIDS Community Television (aka DIVA TV) since 1991, producing over 160 documentary programs, his own feature-length documentary Fight Back, Fight AIDS, and documented over 700 hours of actions and demonstrations, conferences, and the communities’ cultural and artistic responses to AIDS. His footage frequently appears in others’ media documentaries. He worked as video archivist for the Estate Project’sAIDS Activist Video Preservation Project at the New York Public Library.

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Jean Carlomusto was an early pioneer in the AIDS Activist video movement. Her most recent works include the Emmy-nominated documentary, Larry Kramer In Love & Anger (Sundance Film Festival and HBO, 2015), Sex In An Epidemic (Showtime, 2011), and Offerings (an interactive altar featured in the traveling international exhibition, “Not Alone”, Stop AIDS / Make Art, 2010). She continues to create critically acclaimed films that explore the unorthodox complexities of LGBTQ history.

Alexandra Juhasz has been making and thinking about AIDS activist video since the mid-80s. She is the author of AIDS TV: Identity, Community and Alternative Video (Duke, 1995), and a large number of AIDS educational videos including Living with AIDS: Women and AIDS (with Jean Carlomusto, 1987), Safer and Sexier: A College Student’s Guide to Safer Sex (1991), and Video Remains (2005). Most recently she’s been engaging in online cross-generational dialogue with AIDS activists and scholars about the recent spate of AIDS imagery after a lengthy period of representational quiet.

Hugh Ryan is a freelance writer and curator whose work explores the intersection of queer identity, history, and culture. His writing has appeared in venues from like The New York Times, Buzzfeed, Out Magazine, and The LA Review of Books, and he has spoken on queer museology at museums and universities around the world, including the Museum of History and Industry, Rutgers University, New York University, the Swedish Exhibition Agency & National Museum, and The Brooklyn Museum. He is the Founding Director of the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History and currently sits on the Board of Advisors for QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, and is the New York Public Library’s 2016-2017 Martin Duberman Visiting Scholar, where he is researching the queer history of the Brooklyn waterfront for a 2017 exhibition he is curating at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Lost and Found

Lost and Found brings together six artists that embrace material discovery, be it actual found objects or reused/redirected items.

Scott Schuldt presents documentation of a cabin he stumbled upon in the woods that was apparently built in the 1950’s. He meticulously recorded the site with drawings, photos and encased detritus, acting as a detective of sorts trying to decipher the clues he finds.

Anita Balkun also documents a living space – that of her grandfather. Large-scale photographs find discrete areas of his house and stir memories from childhood.

Robert Calafiore’s lush pinhole photographs focus our attention on glass vessels rescued from antique shops and flea markets.

Jeff Ostergren and Liz Atzberger take different approaches to explore everyday objects, i.e. zip ties, pins, plastic shopping bags, billboard ads etc., making art objects that reflect upon the history of painting and sculpture while bringing it directly into current recognizable culture.

Joseph Fucigna also draws upon utilitarian materials, using plastic construction fencing to mold evocative wall sculptures.

All the work in this exhibition surprises through visual dexterity.

Curated by David Borawski

Featured image: Scott Schuldt

Marion Belanger: Passing Moments

For her solo exhibition, Passing Moments, acclaimed photographer Marion Belanger presents images printed from her Instagram feed. The 14 images, all black and white, were curated for their unique sense of light and line. The immediacy of the online platform emphasizes the artist’s keen eye. Each photo is a moment, a blink in the continuum.

Curated by David Borawski

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marion Belanger is interested in the concepts of persistence and change, and in the way that boundaries demarcate difference, particularly in regards to the land. She has been the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a John Anson Kittredge Award, an American Scandinavian Fellowship, Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowships, and has been an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony, at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, at the Virginia Center for the Arts and at Everglades National Park.

The artist earned a MFA from the Yale University School of Art where she was the recipient of both the John Ferguson Weir Award and the Schickle-Collingwood Prize, and a BFA from the College of Art & Design at Alfred University. Her photographs are included in many permanent collections including the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, the Yale University Gallery of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the International Center of Photography. She was the 2007 Photographer Laureate of Tampa, FL.

Her book of photographs Everglades: Outside and Within, with an essay by Susan Orlean, was released by the Center for American Places at Columbia College and the University of Georgia Press in 2009. Her current work investigates the shifting edges of the North American Continental Plate in Iceland and California. Radius Books will release Rift/Fault, with an essay by Lucy Lippard in 2016.

She is a current nominee for the Prix Pictet Award in Photography and Sustainability and the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography.

Featured image: “Untitled” Archival inkjet print on rice paper, 2016

Ellen Hackl Fagan: Into The Blue Again

Into The Blue Again features the work of Ellen Hackl Fagan in a solo exhibition of her large scale watercolor/pigments on rag paper. This series explores the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface manipulation inspired by the sound of cobalt blue. Her process walks the balance between randomness and intention, like jazz music, revealing limitless possibilities for improvisation.

Curated by David Borawski

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who believes that synaesthesia can be taught. Through interactive tools and crowd sourcing, Fagan is developing a corresponding language of color to sound.

Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with cognitive scientist Michael Cole, the Reverse Color Organ is being developed into an app and website to put this synaesthetic tool into peoples’ hands to be used not only to expand the language of color, but also as a crowd-sourced musical instrument.

Fagan earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting and Interdisciplinary Media in 2005 from Hartford Art School in Connecticut. She was awarded a RADIUS artist residency through the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, in 2004, as well as a grant through the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in 2005.

Fagan exhibits her work extensively throughout New England and New York City.

In June of 2014, Ellen Hackl Fagan expanded her independent curatorial practice into a full time business and is now the owner of ODETTA Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. There, she maintains her painting studio and has become an active member of this vibrant arts community.

Featured image: “Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue: Big Blue” (detail), 2016, ink, pigment, acrylic on museum board

Kurt Steger: Scribing the Void

Scribing the Void is a monumental sculpture transcribed from a Central Park boulder and initially installed at ODETTA gallery in Brooklyn, New York. At Real Art Ways, it is again suspended in the exact north-south orientation, level line and elevation as it would sit on the boulder. The sculpture moves almost imperceptibly with the air currents in the gallery.

The scribe line was achieved after multiple trips to the Central Park site, methodically tracing and cutting the shape of the boulder’s surface onto chipboard templates, resulting in 82 linear feet of a single contour line. This line was then copied onto the wooden superstructure that was transported and reassembled at the gallery.

The composer RSM was invited to create a score that was composed by placing the scribe line of the boulder onto a musical staff, effectively writing the song of the rock. RSM then took these notes and recorded the composition. The Byzantine-inspired sounds of piano, violin, drum, and voice permeate the empty space.

A recent pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash in western Tibet inspired much of Steger’s conceptual thoughts behind the sculpture: materiality versus immateriality, questions of time and space, and perceptions of memory beyond the familiar senses are addressed in Scribing the Void. The scribe line represents the divide between spirit and matter, the line between birth and death. Void speaks of loss, our severed connection to nature, community and ancestry, separation from our inner lives, and the mystery of existence.

Artist’s Statement
I have always been interested in the natural world and its interrelationship with the human psyche. My concern began at a young age, when I saw the “Crying Indian” commercial on TV, which warned against pollution and environmental loss. It touched me deeply, and my creative work is an expression of an ongoing concern for our planet.

My sculptures are constructed using traditional materials such as wood, paper, concrete, and steel. I often incorporate impermanent elements – ice, fire, erosion, and gravity – which leave their mark and allude to the passage of time. The stain left by the fugitive materials refers to the destruction of nature, and the devastating imprint that humans have imposed on the environment.

I was trained as a carpenter and woodworker. I value the beauty of craftsmanship, as well as the importance of ritual, and bring both elements into my work. Beyond the physicality of the object that I create, there are the invisible agents that speak to the heart. Working by hand, I combine knowledge and intuition, bridging the gap between mind and heart. My work addresses our need to reconnect with nature in order to heal the primal wounds of the human psyche.

Curated by David Borawski