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

MacArthur Genius Grant Series

I want to tell you something remarkable. Something you probably aren’t aware of. You may already know that Real Art Ways is pretty good at what we do.

But did you know Real Art Ways has presented the work of (drum roll, please)…
48…(!) MacArthur Genius Grant Awardees? We’re going to share a bit about them in coming weeks.

– Will K. Wilkins

KEN VANDERMARK

Ken Vandermark has performed at Real Art Ways in 2013, 2014, and most recently last year. He is known for his vivid mixture of free improvisation and complex composition. He received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1999.

L to R: Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley, Joe Morris, and Stephen Haynes, at Real Art Ways. Photo by Rob Miller

FREDERICK WISEMAN

The two most recent films Real Art Ways has presented by the great documentarian Frederick Wiseman are In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: New York Public Library, documenting all 92 branches of the New York Public Library. Wiseman received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1982.

JOHN ZORN

Real Art Ways organized and hosted the 1984 New Music America festival, at a number of Hartford venues. We presented saxophonist John Zorn. Zorn received his MacArthur Fellowship in 2006.

BILL VIOLA

Real Art Ways presented video artist Bill Viola’s “The Locked Garden” in the 2002 group exhibition “Acquiring Taste.” Viola received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989.

JOSIAH MCELHENY

Josiah McElheny, a glass artist who makes exquisite objects and engages with big ideas, had work in “Exhibition Room” in 2000 and “Faith” in 2006. Josiah received his MacArthur Fellowship in 2006.

YVONNE RAINER

In 1980, Real Art Ways presented choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainier’s Journeys From Berlin/1971. Rainer received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1990.

GEORGE RUSSELL

Real Art Ways presented the late George Russell (composer, music theorist, and educator) with his Living Time Orchestra in 1988. Russell received his MacArthur Fellowship the next year.

LAURA POITRAS

We have presented three films by Laura Poitras, The Oath (including a post-film discussion with Laura) in 2010, the Academy Award Winning Citizenfour in 2015, and Risk in 2017. She received her MacArthur Fellowship in 2012.

MEREDITH MONK

Meredith Monk is a composer, performance artist, and video artist. Real Art Ways presented her work multiple times, including a 1981 solo concert, screenings of her video work in 1984, 85, 88, and a performance in 1987, presented with Trinity College and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Monk received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1995.

JANINE ANTONI

Janine Antoni’s video pieces Migration (made in collaboration with Paul Ramirez Jonas) and Ready or Not, Here I Come were included in the 2000 group exhibition Moving Pictures. She received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1998.

ORNETTE COLEMAN

In 1985, Real Art Ways celebrated jazz legend, Ornette Coleman, by hosting and organizing the week-long Ornette Coleman Festival. The festival opened with a free concert featuring Ornette and his jazz-funk band, Prime Time, and he was also honored with the keys to the city. In collaboration with Cinestudio, Real Art Ways premiered “ORNETTE: Made in America”. Ornette received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1994

JULIE AULT

Julie Ault is a founding member of artist collaborative Group Material. In 1990, in conjunction with their “AIDS Timeline” exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Real Art Ways commissioned and produced their public art project “AIDS Bus Poster.” An edition of 50 were placed on public buses in Hartford, the nation’s insurance capital. Ault received her MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.

CHARLES BURNETT

In 1990, Real Art Ways screened Burnett’s Killer of Sheep using a rented truck that traveled to several locations, including George Day Park and Sheldon Oaks Central. Burnett received the MacArthur Fellowship in 1988.

Burnett’s masterpiece was one of the first 50 films to be selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films. Killer of Sheep focuses on everyday life in black communities in a manner rarely seen in American cinema.

Available to rent from Milestone Films

GARY HILL

Gary Hill first showed at Real Art Ways in our Daniel Wadsworth Memorial Video Festival in 1987. Also, his installation Standing Apart was part of our 2000 group exhibition “Moving Pictures.” He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998.

JOHN JESURUN

In collaboration with the Wadsworth Atheneum, Real Art Ways presented “Shatterhand Massacree-Riderless Horse” in 1989. Jesurun received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1996. Find out more about John Jesurun HERE.

FRED WILSON

In 1992, in collaboration with Trinity College, we included Fred’s work in “The Order of Things: Toward A Politic of Still Life”. Fred received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 1999.

ANTHONY BRAXTON

Musician and composer Anthony Braxton has performed multiple times at Real Art Ways, including solo concerts in 1979 and 1984 and a duo with Richard Teitelbaum in 1980. Braxton taught at Wesleyan University from 1993 – 2013. He received a MacArthur Genius grant in 1994.

JOHN SAYLES

Sayles is an important independent filmmaker. Real Art Ways screened his film’s “Honeydripper” in 2008, and “Go For Sisters” in 2013. He has also appeared at Cinestudio and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Sayles was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983.

WALTER ABISH

In March of 1981, author Walter Abish did a reading from How German Is It (1981), Minds Meet (1975), and In The Future Perfect (1977). (This coincided with a solo exhibition by MacArthur Fellow Cindy Sherman.) Abish was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.

JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER

Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” opened at Real Art Ways on August 16, 2013.

He was awarded his MacArthur in 2014.

ERROL MORRIS

One of the singular documentary filmmakers of our time. Real Art Ways has shown several of his films, including “The Fog of War” (2003), “The Unknown Known” (2014), “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008), and “Fast, Cheap, And Out Of Control”(1997).

He received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 1989.

INIGO MANGLANO-OVALLE

n 1996, Real Art Ways commissioned Manglano-Ovalle to create new work in our unrenovated gallery space. Please read the insightful review by the late Owen McNally of the Hartford Courant here.

Manglano-Ovalle received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 2001.

JUDY PFAFF

Judy had a solo exhibition of her multimedia works in 1986. She returned to Hartford in 1993 serving as an artist-in-residence at the University of Hartford. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2004.

CARRIE MAE WEEMS

Work from Carrie’s critically acclaimed The Kitchen Table Series was included in the 1990 group exhibition Presumed Identities. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2013.

DEBORAH WILLIS

Curator, historian, and photographer Deborah Willis worked with Real Art Ways as a member of our jury for STEP UP 09, an open call for emerging artists. Deborah received her MacArthur Genius Grant in 2000.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM

In 1981, Real Art Ways presented a Merce Cunningham film festival, showcasing films of his choreography scored by his longtime partner, John Cage. In 2019 we showed the documentary film Cunningham, a celebration of his work, which premiered on what would have been his 100th birthday. He received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1985.

MARY HALVORSON

Mary has performed several times at Real Art Ways, most recently in 2018 with Taylor Ho Bynum. She was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2019. Her projects range from experimental and hybrid improvisations, collaborations with vocalists, to solo compositions. (In the top photo she appears with cellist Tomeka Reid, in front of a large-scale photo created by the artist Andy Buck, who passed away in March.)

PEPON OSORIO

In 1993, Hartford was suffering through violent gang warfare. Pepón Osorio had an idea to create an art installation based on an all-male Puerto Rican barbershop, a place where masculinity and machismo reign (for better and for worse.) We talked about making it a public art project, found an empty store, and Pepón created his over-the-top “En La Barbería No Se Llora” (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop) in the summer of 1994. Area barbers gave free haircuts at the opening, a jibaro band played, and it was broadcast on local Spanish-language radio. Pepón received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1999.

Questions of Practice: Artist Pepón Osorio on the Role of the Arts in Expanding Dialogue Beyond the “Local” from Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on Vimeo.

LUIS ALFARO

Luis Alfaro is a performance artist, playwright, educator and curator. He performed his one-man show No Holds Barrio at Real Art Ways in February of 2007, when he was in town working with our friends at the Hartford Stage. He received a MacArthur Fellow award in 1997.

IDA APPLEBROOG

Ida Applebroog is a multimedia artist who received a MacArthur Genius award in 1998. Real Art Ways presented a solo exhibition of her work in 1985, and included her in the group exhibition 15 Years of RAW in 1990.

CAMILLE UTTERBACK

Camille is a new media artist working in interactive installations. Her “Untitled 5” was presented by Real Art Ways in 2006. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2009. She teaches at Stanford University.

“Untitled 5” at Real Art Ways

CECIL TAYLOR

Real Art Ways presented the late, great Cecil Taylor twice. Many musicians we work with were close to him, including Taylor Ho Bynum and Stephen Haynes. Cecil was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1991.

Here is an article from Rolling Stone

CINDY SHERMAN

We presented Cindy Sherman’s work in the late 70’s, and again in 1991(15 Years of RAW), and 1992 (The Order of Things: Toward a Politic of Still Life) (in collaboration with Trinity College). She was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1995.

STANLEY NELSON

It feels like Stanley was just here, but it was more than 4 years ago that he came with his documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Stanley was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2002. Others of his many films include Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, and The Murder of Emmet Till.

MARK BRADFORD

Mark was in our 2003 group exhibition, Lean, Too, curated by Eungie Joo. His piece Burn Baby Burn was featured, and we got a nice review in the New York Times. Mark was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2009.

New York Times article about Lean Too exhibition.

Click the image to read the article.

TREVOR PAGLEN

Trevor’s work was in our group show Nothing To Hide, curated by Edward Shanken and Jessica Hodin, in 2017, the same year Paglen was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.

His photographs show three of the largest agencies in the U.S. intelligence community – National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland; National Reconnaissance Office,Chantilly, Virginia; National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Virginia, 2014.

A woman looking at Trevor Paglen's night time photographs on the wall.

Paglen’s images on display at Real Art Ways

TYSHAWN SOREY

Tyshawn has performed at Real Art Ways several times, with his own ensemble as well as in our Improvisations series, with Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes. He’s a neighbor, teaching at Wesleyan. Tyshawn was awarded a MacArthur Genius grant in 2017.

Tyshawn Sorey

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March Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

March Poet | Elizabeth Thomas

Elizabeth Thomas is a widely published poet, performer, advocate of the arts and teacher. She has read her work throughout the United States, in other parts of the world, and has been a member of three Connecticut National Poetry Slam teams. She is the author of two poetry books: Full Circle and From the Front of the Classroom. Thomas is an arts educator who has taught all ages from pre-K to senior citizens. She has taught in most of the Hartford schools, and is a master teaching artist for the Connecticut Commission of the Arts and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Elizabeth says “…poetry helps us understand who we are in relation to the world around us…”. Thomas has recently completed a memoir.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

Los Paisanos: Narratives of the Chinese Diaspora in Puntarenas by Dorcas Tang

Real Art Ways presents Los Paisanos: Narratives of the Chinese Diaspora in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, a project by Philadelphia based artist and photographer Dorcas Tang.

Los Paisanos documents a community of the Chinese diaspora living in Costa Rica. The photographs, found objects, and audio tell a complex story of migration and cultural exchange, questioning what it means to be Chinese, Costa Rican, both, and neither.

Project Statement:

Los Paisanos means “countrymen”, a term of endearment used between the Chinese community in Costa Rica to refer to one another. This exhibition illuminates living narratives erased from national and global history despite their 160-year presence. Through my lens, the images hint at a transnational network of diasporic kinship. The project strives to question and redefine this crucial intersection between Chinese and Latinx identity utilizing oral histories, intimate family photos, and portraits. While it is by no means comprehensive, it offers a glimpse of what it means to navigate this complex identity. Ultimately, this exhibition brings into dialogue about what it means to belong.

About the Artist:

Dorcas Tang is an artist, photographer, and storyteller whose diasporic identity as a third-generation Chinese-Malaysian drives her work. Looking towards the future, she is excited to continue bridging communities and fostering critical dialogue through creating socially engaged visual narratives. If she could have any superpower in the world it would be the ability to completely understand other human beings. And cats.

The creation of the work was supported by the Class of 1961 Arts and Social Change Grant from the Lang Center at Swarthmore College and the Greater Philadelphia Asian Studies Consortium Award

Real Wall: Alexis Christina Crowley

Real Art Ways presents a new installation by Hartford-based artist Alexis Christina Crowley

Hail Eve, Full of Grief and Earthly Delights is an installation utilizing mythologies and memories to explore the process of grief. Exploring a variety of media and techniques, Crowley’s work offers multiple ways for the viewer to interpret life, bodies, and death.

From the Project Statement:

‘Hail Eve’ was created specifically for the Real Wall, as part of the artist’s IRL(in real life) grief process as she’s faced with the potential death of a loved one. In order to conceive of the loss of a body she looks at the experience of having one. Semi-related mythologies, iconic imagery, and allusions to personal and cultural stories are mashed together, mimicking the strangeness of memories, beliefs, and emotions that morph and surface randomly during periods of grief.

About the Artist:

Alexis Christina Crowley has been working as an artist in and around Hartford since 2010. She took a winding road through several institutions, and received her BFA in Printmaking from the Hartford Art School in 2015. After graduating she worked out of Parkville Studios in Hartford, along with 4 other artists, for several years. As a result Alexis has been involved in several local DIY arts events and projects, and experimented in her personal work with collaboration, installation styles, and performance. She is becoming increasingly comfortable with vulnerability in her practice, sniffing out the edge of and marking her own boundaries with a sense of curiosity, using her relationship with herself/body as material/subject matter. Growing up in a New Age family, her Mother being a Minister and teacher of Tarot etc, has had a clear effect on her magical thinking and dramatic voice – always tryna say everything and nothing.

Real Wall is a series of wall mounted exhibitions taking place in between formal gallery spaces. Artists are invited to engage with the space in experimental ways meaningful to their practice in short-run exhibitions.

Image: Dear Diary, I love you, I wish I were writing to you from someone else’s hand (detail), mixed media, 2019

Americana Vibes

Curated by Sam Goldenberg

Americana Vibes highlights musicians who have shaped our cultural and musical identity between the years 1910 – 2000. The exhibition features the work of 54 musicians juxtaposed through video footage, curated playlists and framed album art. Americana Vibes provides an aerial view of the musical history of the 20th Century.

Featured musicians include Leadbelly, Billie Holiday, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Sugarhill Gang, and Nirvana.

Image: A collage of 4 album covers. From L to R: The Beach Boys Good Vibrations, Billie Holiday This Years Kisses, Prince When Doves Cry, and Bruce Springsteen Born to Run.

Artist Talk: Julian Johnson

FREE ADMISSION

All are invited to attend an artist conversation and reception with Julian Johnson. Julian will be in conversation with Visual Arts Manager Neil Daigle Orians, about his work and process involved in his exhibition, Skinny Boy Lookin’ Like Deer In Headlights. Julian is one of six 2019 Real Art Awards recipients, which supports emerging artists as they develop their work. His work was chosen from nearly 500 applicants. The reception will begin at 2 PM and the conversation begins at 2:30 PM.

About Julian’s Work:

Exploring his experiences with mental health, Marfan Syndrome, and religion, Julian Johnson’s photographic works offer the viewer an immersive narrative of healing. Ranging in subject matter and process, Johnson’s installation of images create a personal narrative that incorporates elements of still life, portraiture, landscape, and candid street photography that allows for wide interpretation.

About the Artist:

Born and raised in Austin, TX, Julian received his B.A. in Studio Art from Wesleyan University. He now lives and works in NYC. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the CICA Museum in Gimpo, South Korea and the Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University.

Click here to learn more about the artist.

Click here to learn more about the Real Art Awards.

February Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

February Poet | Antoinette Brim

A Celebration of Women Come and hear Antoinette Brim share readings that celebrate women and are a reflection of the centennial of women’s right to vote.

Antoinette Brim, author of These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love and Psalm of the Sunflower, is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow, a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry, memoir, and critical work has appeared in various journals and magazines, as well as, in anthologies including Villanelles, Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Critical Insights: Alice Walker, 44 on 44: Forty-Four African American Writers on the 44th President of the United States, Not A Muse, Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta, and The Whiskey of Our Discontent: an anthology of essays commemorating Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks.

Time-Space Compression: Geoffrey Detrani

Curated by David Borawski, Real Art Ways presents mixed media work by Geoffrey Detrani.

Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of works by New Haven-based artist Geoffrey Detrani. Utilizing mixed media on paper, Detrani’s paintings and drawings create abstract semblances of chaotic landscapes. The resulting compositions offer emotive textures of conflict between organic and inorganic bodies.

From his artist statement,

“The imagery that I use explores a hypothetical intersection between the natural world and the built environment. I am interested in a representation of the natural world that is spun from a conflation of imagination and ideology – a symbolic rendering – rather than one that mimics our visual/optical experience of it.”

About the Artist:

Geoffrey Detrani is a visual artist and writer whose work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Los Angles, Boston and South Korea and other locales. His artists’ books are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His paintings are in the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Schenectady Museum, the Transportation Security Administration and various private collections. He works in New Haven, CT.

Click here to learn more about the artist.

Image: Cleaving Day, pencil and acrylic on paper, 2019, 48×60″

January Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

December Poets | John Jeffrey & Tom Nicotera

Two Poets, Two Paths to Inspiration. Come and hear how Observation and Imagination have equally inspired poetry. Tom Nicotera and John Jeffrey will read their works for Love and Life and Everything Else.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

Space Around a Porcupine: Morgan Bulkeley

Curated by David Borawski, Real Art Ways presents paintings and sculptures by Morgan Bulkeley.

From the Artist’s Statement:

“I try to make paintings that are beautiful, frightening and funny all at once, similar to The Theater of the Absurd, which assumes things are so bad that you can only laugh. I see in nature and in the best of humanity an incredible beauty; but I also see in our technology and aggression a will and ability to destroy that beauty, either actively or inadvertently. The refuse of our consumerism, wafting down our streets, caught in the twigs of trees in our deepest forests or swirling in giant gyres in the ocean, is a steady reminder of our growing and smothering effect on our only habitable planet. I paint to try to make people think of the fragility in which we exist.”

About the Artist:

Morgan Bulkeley was born in the Berkshires of Massachusetts in 1944. He was raised on a small farm in the town of Mount Washington, where his parents, both naturalists, raised many wild, orphaned animals. He graduated from Yale University in 1966 with a B.A. in English Literature. After a stint in the Coast Guard, he spent a year in Newark New Jersey, drawing and working with VISTA Programs. Subsequently he spent 14 years in Cambridge Massachusetts painting and sculpting. In 1985 he returned to his childhood home where he lives with his environmentalist wife Eleanor Tillinghast.

Click here to learn more about the artist.

Featured image: Peter, Four Morgans, oil on canvas, 2019

Skinny Boy Lookin’ Like Deer In Headlights:
Julian Johnson

Real Art Ways presents a new installation by 2019 Real Art Awards recipient Julian Johnson.

Artist talk: Sunday, March 8 • 2:00 PM

About the Artist:

Click here to learn more about the artist.

Click here to learn more about the Real Art Awards.

The 2019 Real Art Awards is supported in part by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Image: Infrared Sauna, digital photograph, 2019.

December Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

December Poet | Lisa Starr
Lisa Starr is the author of three collections of poetry, including Mad With Yellow, her most recent. She also co-edited the anthology Where Beach Meets Ocean, celebrating the Block Island Poetry Project, the writing series she founded and
directed for 13 years at The Hygeia House, the inn she owned and operated. Starr was Rhode Island’s Poet Laureate from 2007-2013.

After living on Block Island for 30 years, where she ran an inn (The Hygeia House) and raised her children, Starr has recently and happily relocated to Westerly, RI, where she is nearing completion of Pot Luck, a collection of poems about children, and collaborating with her long-time companion, the poet and Rumi translator Coleman Barks, on a memoir about grief, time and friendship. And Mary Oliver. The newly appointed Artistic Director for the Arts Café Mystic, Starr moonlights serving tacos and sangria at a very cool local cantina. She also runs a monthly poetry salon at The Savoy Bookstore and Café in Westerly.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

STILL BEGINNING: 30th Annual Day With(Out) Art

Free screening and post-film conversation led by Shanique Reid, Youth and Development Specialist of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.

Real Art Ways is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for the thirtieth annual Day With(out) Art by presenting STILL BEGINNING, a program of seven newly commissioned videos responding to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, and Derrick Woods-Morrow.

Nguyen Tan Hoang, “I Remember Dancing”, 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

The seven short videos range in subject from anti-stigma work in New Orleans to public sex culture in Chicago, highlighting pioneering AIDS activism and staging intergenerational conversations. Recalling Gregg Bordowitz’s reminder that “THE AIDS CRISIS IS STILL BEGINNING,”* the video program resists narratives of resolution or conclusion, considering the continued urgency of HIV/AIDS in the contemporary moment while revisiting resonant cultural histories from the past three decades.

Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over. In 1989, Visual AIDS organized the first Day Without Art, a call to the art world for mourning and action in response to the AIDS crisis. For Day With(out) Art’s thirtieth year, over 100 institutions worldwide will screen STILL BEGINNING, recognizing the important and necessary work of artists, activists, and cultural workers who have responded to AIDS while emphasizing the persistent presence of the epidemic.

*Gregg Bordowitz, The AIDS Crisis is Still Beginning (2019) was recently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. Hear Bordowitz discuss the work here.

Shanti Avirgan, “Beat Goes On,” 2019. Commissioned for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art 2019. Still courtesy of the artist

Artist Talk: Somewhere in the Sequence

FREE ADMISSION

All are invited to attend an artist conversation and reception. Reception will begin at 2:30 PM with light refreshments and mingling before the conversation begins at 3 PM.

Real Art Ways presents Somewhere in the Sequence, a group exhibition curated by David Borawski. Funded in part by a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust (A.R.T.) Fund, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Somewhere in the Sequence brings together artists from across New England to explore personal, political and artistic stances, resistance to the status quo, meaning and aesthetics, and strategies for artistic and social communication.

Incorporating sculpture, video, installation, painting, and photography, Somewhere in the Sequence explores a wide breadth of material and conceptual approaches.

Exhibiting artists include Fafnir Adamites, Monique Atherton, Katie Bullock, Alyssa Freitas, Debbie Hesse, Matt Neckers, and Soo Sunny Park.

Image: Plato’s Dichotomy, 2018, Soo Sunny Park

Artist Talk: Jeanne Jalandoni

FREE ADMISSION

All are invited to attend an artist conversation and reception with Jeanne Jalandoni, one of six 2019 Real Art Awards recipients. Reception will begin at 2:30 PM with light refreshments and mingling before the conversation begins at 3 PM. Joining her in conversation is Dr Jason Chang, Director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut.

Click here to learn more about Sowing Mythology.

From Jalandoni’s Artist Statement
Combining media and materials parallels bicultural identity; a mixture of experiences that were essential to my upbringing and cultural inheritance. I am expected to sustain them, but am subject to disassociate because I am “American” before I am “Filipino.” This tension between “real” and “imagined” elements in my paintings invites viewers to question bicultural tangibility, while allowing me to explore and take authorship of my identity.

About the Artist
Jeanne F. Jalandoni (b. New York, NY) lives and works in Uptown Manhattan. She works primarily with oil paint and textile. Jalandoni received her BFA from New York University with a concentration in painting. In 2018, she was an artist-in-residence at 36 Chase & Barns Residency (North Adams, MA; affiliated with Erica Broussard Gallery, Santa Ana, CA). Her studio is located at Cornerstone Studios in Washington Heights, NY.

Click here to learn more about her work.
Click here to learn more about the Real Art Awards.

The 2019 Real Art Awards is supported in part by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Image: Mourning Dove, 2019, Jeanne Jalandoni

Somewhere in the Sequence

Artist Talk: Saturday, November 23 | 2:30 PM

Real Art Ways presents Somewhere in the Sequence, a group exhibition curated by David Borawski. Funded in part by a grant from Artist’s Resource Trust (A.R.T.) Fund, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Somewhere in the Sequence brings together artists from across New England to explore personal, political and artistic stances, resistance to the status quo, meaning and aesthetics, and strategies for artistic and social communication.

Incorporating sculpture, video, installation, painting, and photography, Somewhere in the Sequence explores a wide breadth of material and conceptual approaches.

Exhibiting artists include Fafnir Adamites, Monique Atherton, Katie Bullock, Alyssa Freitas, Debbie Hesse, Matt Neckers, and Soo Sunny Park.

November Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

November Poet | Patrick Donnelly
Patrick Donnelly is the author of four books of poetry, Little-Known Operas (Four Way Books, 2019), Jesus Said (a chapbook from Orison Books, 2017), Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012, a Lambda Literary Award finalist), and The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press).

Donnelly is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH, now a center for poetry and the arts. With his spouse Stephen D. Miller, Donnelly translates classical Japanese poetry and drama. Donnelly’s awards include the 2015-2016 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program Award, and a 2018 Amy Clampitt Residency Award. Donnelly was 2015 – 2017 poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

October Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

October Poet | Michael R. Brown
Michael R. Brown attended the University of Michigan where he earned a Ph.D. in English and Education. He has published five books of poetry: Falling Wallendas, Tia Chucha (1994); The Man Who Makes Amusement Rides, Hanover Press (2003); Susquehanna, Ragged Sky (2003); The Confidence Man, Ragged Sky (2007), and The Martin Bormann Dog Care Book (Resolute Bear Press, 2018.)

Michael joined the slam poetry movement in Chicago and spread the phenomenon throughout New England. He and Patricia Smith established The Cantab (1992) in Cambridge, MA, carried the slam to Sweden, and led a U.S. national championship team in 1993. He and Erkki Lappalainen organized the first Poetry Olympics in Stockholm in 1998. He also created Dr. Brown’s Traveling Poetry Show, a two-hour theater production. From 2008 until 2016, he and his wife Valerie Lawson put out Off the Coast, an international poetry quarterly. They now run a book publishing press.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

September Riverwood Poetry Series

Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.

September Poet | Margaret Gibson
Margaret will read poetry from published books that contemplate our relationship with Nature in a time of climate crisis and environmental grief. The poems make a connection between our most intimate personal relationships and the Living World.

Margaret Gibson, current Connecticut Poet Laureate, is the author of 12 books of poems, all from LSU Press, most recently Not Hearing the Wood Thrush, 2018. A poem from that collection, Passage was included in The Best American Poetry, 2017. The title poem from her previous collection, Broken Cup, 2014, won a Pushcart Prize for 2016. Broken Cup was a Finalist for the 2016 Poet’s Prize. Awards include the Lamont Selection for Long Walks in the Afternoon (1982), the Melville Kane Award (co-winner) for Memories of the Future (1986), and the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry for One Body (2008). The Vigil was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1993. She has also written a memoir, The Prodigal Daughter, University of Missouri Press, 2008. Gibson is Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut, and lives in Preston, CT. Click here to learn more about Margaret Gibson.

About Riverwood Poetry Series
The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.

Speak Up – Tests

Don’t miss this fantastic night of storytelling to kick off the school year and Speak Up’s fall season!

Speak Up returns to Real Art Ways with Tests: Stories About Trials, Tribulations, and Old Fashioned Quizzes. School will be back in session and all are invited for a night of hilarity and heartbreak.

The cast features Speak Up veteran storytellers Anne Stuart of Boston, Nina Lichtenstein of Maine, and Hartford area locals Matthew Dicks and Barbara Klau. Joining them will be professional storyteller and New Yorker Carla Katz and first timers Ellen Feldman Ornato and Christine Thibodeau.

Hosted – as always, by Elysha Dicks.