Harvey has an autobiography! Real Art Ways welcomes actor, writer and LGBTQ+ icon Harvey Fierstein on Thursday, March 31 at 7pm for an intimate conversation with Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins. Harvey’s autobiography, “I Was Better Last Night,” is scheduled for release on March 1. Read more »
A monthly gathering of people young and old, city, suburb and country, black, white, brown, gay, straight, trans, polkadotted and spotted.
Everybody is welcoming, conversations abound, people connect.
Come with friends, come by yourself. Hangout and talk about art, music and more. Creative Cocktail Hour is a great way to meet new people!
The incomparable DJ James Hall aka Mr. Realistic.
Four exhibitions, opening reception for Peter Waite/Ken Morgan and Elizabeth Flood.
Food truck – East West Grill.
Mali Obomsawin – bass, voice
Savannah Harris – drums
Allison Burik, Noah Campbell – reeds
Miriam Elhajli – voice, guitar
Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet
Mali Obomsawin’s new work Sweet Tooth is a suite for Indigenous Resistance, weaving together original compositions and arrangements with archival pieces from her community at Wabanaki First Nation. Known for her work as a bassist and singer, the project is Obomsawin’s debut as a composer-bandleader. Sweet Tooth highlights exciting intersections in Obomsawin’s own roots: incorporating a deep knowledge of rock, jazz, and folk traditions, it juxtaposes Wabanaki stories and songs passed down in her own family with original pieces addressing contemporary Indigenous life, blood politics, colonization, continuity, love and rage. Mali Obomsawin Sextet features Savannah Harris on drums, Allison Burik and Noah Campbell on reeds, Miriam Elhajli on voice and guitar, and Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet. Stay tuned for the record in 2022!
To explore Mali’s career and music, visit her website: https://www.maliobomsawin.com
Mali Obomsawin is a bassist, singer, composer and songwriter from Odanak W8banaki First Nation. With an eclectic background in jazz & creative music, American roots & folk, and indie rock, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. A Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist, Mali has toured internationally, receiving acclaim from NPR and RollingStone and several Boston Music Awards nominations with her band Lula Wiles. She frequents the folk & roots circuit as both frontwoman and sidewoman, appearing at Newport and Philly Folk festivals, and performs as a bassist & singer in the jazz and creative music scene with the likes of Bill Cole, Taylor Ho Bynum, Peter Apfelbaum and Delbert Anderson. In 2020 she joined Welcome to Indian Country, an Indigenous Performance Production featuring six leading Indigenous artists in Jazz and roots music. In fall 2021 she launched her first project as a bandleader with her suite for sextet, Sweet Tooth, exploring concepts of Indigenous identity, colonization and resistance.
Obomsawin’s diverse background, sharp lyrical wit, and grounded sensibilities reflect extensive experience across several idioms. Known for her sardonic songwriting, Mali’s songs puncture the dream-haze of the capitalist apocalypse with a delicate balance of rock, improvisation and satire.
Beyond the stage Mali is a freelance journalist, published recently in The Boston Globe, National Performance Network, and Smithsonian Folklife Magazine. She is an advocate for Indigenous Sovereignty and collective liberation and works with the organizations Racial Equity and Justice and Sunlight Media Collective. Mali founded Bomazeen Land Trust in 2020, a Wabanaki-led nonprofit for land rematriation and food sovereignty, where she is now Executive Director.
Everybody is welcoming, conversations abound, people connect.
Come with friends, come by yourself. Hangout and talk about art, music and more. Creative Cocktail Hour is a great way to meet new people!
Live music: Big Yuki and Reptar the Man. Checkout this video from Big Yuki.
DJ Mr. Realistic – he rocks.
Four exhibitions
Artmaking for kids and families
Featuring a Holiday Maker’s Market this month. Shop locally at Creative Cocktail Hour!
Real Art Ways welcomes back trombonist, composer and arranger Papo Vázquez for an annual concert and holiday parranda.Band of Pirates
Papo Vázquez – Trombone, Leader
Ivan Renta – Sax
Rick Germanson – Piano
Ariel Robles – Bass
Willy Rodriguez – Drums
Carlos Maldonado – Perc.
Reinaldo DeJesus – Perc.
Jose Mangual – Vocals, Perc.
ATTENTION LOCAL MUSICIANS
Bring your instruments and join in!
¡Músicos – traigan su instrumento y entran gratis!
Papo Vázquez
Trombonist, composer, arranger has 40+ years of career spanning Jazz, Latin and Afro Caribbean music. National Endowment for the Arts Master Artist, Grammy Nominee. Featured in the 2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.
“En fin, Vázquez junto a sus Mighty Pirates Troubadours e invitados exponen un proyecto exquisito y cadencioso que se transforma en un banquete para los amantes del género.” – El Vocero, 2020
(In short, Vázquez along with his Mighty Pirates Troubadours and guests present an exquisite and lilting project that becomes a banquet for lovers of the genre.)
•Musical Director for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Orchestra, (NYC/WABC) 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
•Commissioned by Wynton Marsalis to compose music for Jazz and Art series, conducted and performed with J@LC orchestra, CD release August 2019
•New York Pops Education, Board of Education certified, 2018 and 2019
•Commissioned new music for Afro Latin Jazz Alliance for “Nueva Musica” concert series
•Grammy nominated for Papo Vázquez’ Mighty Pirates, Marooned/Aíslado, 2008
Born in 1958 in Philadelphia, PA, although his young formative years were in Puerto Rico. By age 17, Vazquez headed to New York City, recorded and performed with top artists in the salsa music scene like The Fania All-Stars, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow, and Hector La Voe. Vázquez became a key player in NYC’s burgeoning Latin jazz scene of the late 1970’s.
Went on to perform and/or record with jazz luminaries Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra, Chico O’Farrill, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton’s World of Trombones, Jerry Gonzalez Fort Apache among many others. By the age of 22, Vázquez had traveled the globe.
Vázquez was deeply moved by jazz at a young age. His appreciation and knowledge of the indigenous music of the Caribbean provides him with a unique ability to fuse Afro-Caribbean rhythms with freer melodic and harmonic elements of progressive jazz.
Learn more at his website.
Checkout the whole series!
GEOMETRY
Tomeka Reid – Cello
“New Jazz Power Source”- NYTimes
Kyoko Kitamura – voice
“For this generation, Kitamura in particular continues to extend technique.” – Jazz Thoughts
2019 Music Jazz Critics Pick
Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet
2019 NPR Music Jazz Critics Pick
Joe Morris – guitar
“The future of the instrument.” – Hi Fi News
“As on this group’s vibrant new recording, ‘Geometry of Caves,’ issued by the Relative Pitch imprint, Ms. Kitamura occasionally produced dramatic gusts of overtone singing through quick inhalations. By suggesting both harmony and stridency in the same moment, the arresting technique seemed a succinct representation of this ensemble’s memorable approach — one in which improvisational energy never overshadows the fineness of inner details.”
– New York Times
Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years.
Reid grew up outside of Washington D.C., but her musical career began after moving to Chicago in 2000. Her work with Nicole Mitchell and various Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians-related groups proved influential. By focusing on developing her craft in countless improvisational contexts, Reid has achieved a stunning musical fluency. She is a Foundation of the Arts (2019) and 3Arts Awardee (2016), and received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2017.
Reid released her debut recording as a bandleader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist’s improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in Oct 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative–its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” Another reviewer noted that “while Reid’s compositional and technical gifts transcend jazz, they exemplify the tradition wondrously.”
Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists like Anthony Braxton (ZIM SEXTET) and Roscoe Mitchell (ROSCOE MITCHELL QUARTET, ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO), as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell (BLACK EARTH ENSEMBLE, ARTIFACTS), vocalist Dee Alexander (EVOLUTION ENSEMBLE), and drummer Mike Reed (LOOSE ASSEMBLY, LIVING BY LANTERNS, ARTIFACTS). She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW, with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi, and in 2013 launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a semi-annual three-day international festival of cutting edge string players held in Chicago. In the Fall of 2019 Tomeka Reid received a teaching appointment at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud chair in composition.
Kyoko Kitamura is a vocal improviser, bandleader and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. She leads her ensemble Tidepool Fauna (featuring saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Dayeon Seok), co-leads Geometry (with Taylor Ho Bynum, Joe Morris, Tomeka Reid) and is an active side person with recent appearances on albums by William Parker, Cory Smythe and Russ Lossing for which she has garnered stellar reviews.
Kitamura is also known for her decade-long association with legendary musician, composer and thinker Anthony Braxton, and is featured on many of his releases including GTM (Syntax) 2017, the 12-hour recording of his vocal works performed by the Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble which she directed and co-produced, as well as his operas Trillium E and Trillium J.
Separate from her work in music, Kitamura has had a career as a media professional. She was a reporter for Fuji Television Japan, was their foreign news correspondent based in Paris, did a stint as a Gulf War reporter in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and also wrote for numerous Japanese magazines. Between 2010 and 2018, she was the director of communications for Anthony Braxton’s nonprofit organization, the Tri-Centric Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), and then the executive director of the same organization until April 2021.
As an educator, she teaches composition for improvisers, the business side of music and the application of musical creativity to other real-life situations. She has taught and led workshops at various institutions including Dartmouth College, Face the Music (Kaufman Music Center), Arts for Art’s Visionary Youth Orchestra and The New School. Kitamura is scheduled to be a visiting faculty at Bennington College in spring 2022.
Kyoko studied piano at Juilliard Pre-College with Ms. Jane Carlson, and privately studied counterpoint and Schoenberg harmony with Mr. Paul Caputo. She was born in NYC (U.S.A.), raised partially in Tokyo (Japan), spent a few summers in Melbourne (Australia), lived and worked for many years in Paris (France), currently resides in Brooklyn, NY (U.S.A.).
Taylor Ho Bynum (b. 1975) has spent his career navigating the intersections between structure and improvisation – through musical composition, performance and interdisciplinary collaboration, and through production, organizing, teaching, writing and advocacy. Bynum’s expressionistic playing on cornet and his expansive vision as composer have garnered him critical attention on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and dozens more as a sideman. Recent releases on the Firehouse 12 Records label include the 4-album set “Navigation” (2013) with his Sextet and 7-tette, and “Enter the Plustet” (2016), the debut recording of his 15-piece creative orchestra. “The Ambiguity Manifesto“, featuring Bynum’s 9-tette, was released in 2019 and celebrated as one of the top releases of the year in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll. He is also recognized for his “Acoustic Bicycle Tours“, where he travels to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles.
Current collective projects include his long-running duo with drummer Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Mary Halvorson, and Benoit Delbecq) and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris). Other well-documented projects have included Bynum’s SpiderMonkey Strings, Masters of Ceremony (an interdisciplinary dance/music quartet with Rachel Bernsen, Melanie Maar, and Abraham Gomez-Delgado), Positive Catastrophe (a 10-piece Latin free-jazz band co-led with Gomez-Delgado), and the collective ensembles the Thirteenth Assembly (Fujiwara, Halvorson, and Jessica Pavone), the Convergence Quartet (Alexander Hawkins, Dominic Lash, and Harris Eisenstadt), and Book of Three (John Hebert and Gerald Cleaver). Bynum’s two decades of work with Anthony Braxton is recognized as one of the most generative partnerships of that legendary composer’s career, with projects ranging from duos to orchestras and everything in between. During Bynum’s stewardship of the Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive director from 2010-2018), he produced many major Braxton projects, including two massive Trillium operas, two immersive Sonic Genome performances, and multiple festivals. He has also worked closely with such departed masters as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor, with other recent sideman credits including Nels Cline, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Tomas Fujiwara, Jim Hobbs, Jason Kao Hwang, Ingrid Laubrock, Bill Lowe, Nicole Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, and Yo La Tengo.
In 2017, Bynum became the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College, where he also teaches composition, improvisation, and music history. He regularly travels to conduct explorations of new creative orchestra music, with works premiered by the Scottish BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Tri-Centric Orchestra, and has taught at universities and workshops worldwide. Bynum’s writing has been published in the New Yorker, Point of Departure and Sound American, and he has served as a panelist, board member and consultant for arts organizations and individual artists. He is the co-founder of the Firehouse 12 Records label, a former curator for the Festival of New Trumpet Music, and a board member for the New England Foundation for the Arts. His work has received support from Creative Capital, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, USArtists International, the Herb Alpert Foundation, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
A monthly gathering of creative souls. People from all ages and backgrounds gather to celebrate art, music, life and community.
This month, we invite you to an evening of musical exploration by four CT-based artists:
Dreamvoid, Sonia Morant, Brandon Seradino & Jaden Castro.
And three visual art exhibitions: Then The Morning Comes by Lydia Viscardi, 무: 無: Nothing by Seunghwui Koo, and Maxim Schmidt on the Real Wall.
Food truck: Baba Ghanoush, bar/café.
An experience of music imagined and created in real time. A journey with preconditions through waves of sonic discovery.
Checkout the whole series!
Ken Vandermark (USA 1964) is an improvising musician and composer who plays tenor and baritone saxophone, and bass clarinet. He moved to Chicago from Boston in 1989, and has worked from the early 1990s onward, both as a performer and organizer in North America and Europe, recording in an array of contexts with many internationally renowned musicians (such as Fred Anderson, Ab Baars, Peter Brötzmann, Sylvie Courvoisier, Tim Daisy, Kris Davis, Hamid Drake, Terrie Ex, Mats Gustafsson, Elisabeth Harnik, Steve Heather, Didi Kern, Kent Kessler, Christof Kurzmann, Paul Lytton, Joe McPhee, Andy Moor, Jason Moran, Ikue Mori, Joe Morris, Paal Nilssen-Love, Eddie Prevóst, Mette Rasmussen, Tom Rainey, Eric Revis, Jasper Stadhouders, Chad Taylor, John Tilbury, Mars Williams, Nate Wooley).
His current group activity includes the bands Marker, Made To Break, Lean Left, Shelter, The DKV Trio, The Eric Revis Quartet, VWCR, DEK, his large ensemble Entr’acte, the ongoing Momentum projects; duos with Terrie Ex, Christof Kurzmann, Damon Locks, Paal Nilssen-Love, Mars Williams, and Nate Wooley; and work as a solo performer. Ken co-founded Catalytic Sound in 2012, an organization dedicated to the economic sustainability of creative improvising musicians, and since then has been its director. In 2014 he began Audiographic Records, an independent music label. Since June of 2015 Ken has been co-curator of Option, a weekly music and interview series held at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. Half of each year is spent touring in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Japan; his concerts and numerous recordings have been critically acclaimed at home and abroad. Ken’s activity as a writer includes liner notes for a variety of recordings; and contributions to the eighth edition of John Zorn’s Arcana: musicians on music, the Spanish language journal, “El Esatdo Mental,” and “Catalytic Quarterly.” In 1999 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in music.
MORE INFO:
Facebook
Instagram: ken_vandermark
Audiographic Records
Website
Downbeat Magazine called guitarist/composer/improviser Joe Morris, “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in WIRE magazine, called him, “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.”
He was born in New Haven Connecticut in 1955. He began playing guitar at the age of 14 first playing rock music, progressing to blues, then to jazz, free jazz and free improvisation. He released his first record Wraparound (riti) in 1983. He has composed over 200 original pieces of music.
Morris has performed and/or recorded with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music including, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, John Zorn, Ken Vandermark, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Tomeka Reid, Fay Victor, Tim Berne, William Parker, Sylvie Courvoisier, Agusti Fernandez, Peter Evans, David S. Ware, Joe Maneri, Dewey Redman, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Marshall Allen, Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and many others.
Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 200 commercially released recordings on the labels ECM, ESPdisk, Clean Feed, Hat Hut, Aum Fidelity, Avant, OkkaDisk, Not Two, Soul Note, Leo, No Business, Rogue Art, Relative Pitch, Incus, RareNoise, Fundacja Sluchaj, and his own labels Riti and Glacial Erratic. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan.
He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation in the US, Canada, and Europe including at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Bard College, University of Alberta, and University of Guelph. He was the recipient of the 2016 Killam Visiting Scholar Award at University of Calgary. He has been on the faculty at Tufts University, Southern Connecticut State University, Longy School of Music of Bard College, and New School. Since 2000, he has been on the faculty in the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory. Morris is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).
Writers and Readers return to Real Art Ways for our FREE on-ground festival on October 22-23, 2021.
October 22: CT Anthology Release Party
Reception 6 pm. Readings 7 pm.
October 23: Festival Doors Open 10 am to 6 pm.
September: low-key Creative Cocktail Hour
With the rise of the Delta Variant, we’re playing it cool.
We’ll be mostly outdoors.
Indoors, we’ll have art exhibitions and plenty of room.
September Creative Cocktail Hour will also be the start of our new COVID vaccination policy.
Beginning Thursday September 16, all visitors to Real Art Ways (for movies, galleries and events) will be required to show:
proof of vaccination
OR
a negative COVID-19 test taken within the last 72 hours,
in combination with a corresponding photo ID.
Children under 12 years old will be required to be masked.
DJ James Hall AKA Mr. Realistic – is a Connecticut and NYC USA based DJ/Producer. Mr. Realistic is no stranger to this thing called house music! He’s been in the game since the late 80’s spinning tribal, deep, soulful and afro house music at events and clubs around the US and Europe, such as PartyCast TV, the Liquid Sol House Events, the Amsterdam Dance Event, and, upcoming in July 2021, The Lago Mio Fest in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Learn more HERE.
DJ Mr. Realistic will be joined by DJ Charles Henry.
“Then the Morning Comes” by Lydia Viscardi
“There were no casseroles…” by Daniela Puliti
“Can you Repeat the Question?” by Chantal Feitosa
“무: 無: Nothing” by Seunghwui Koo
Drawing from meditative experiences in nature, Koo creates meticulous resin, acrylic, plaster, clay, and mixed media works inspired by the daily happenings and intricate moments of her life in New York City. Her work is a commentary on the lives of her fellow New Yorkers, as she has witnessed them. Koo was born in South Korea, where she first thought to combine the forms of the pig’s head and the human body. The significance of the pig’s head plays on the different symbolic meanings in Eastern and Western cultures. Good fortune (Eastern) and greed (Western)—two very different connotations of the pig—are themes that feature prominently in Koo’s work, in tension with the textural and organic qualities of the pieces on view in the Real Room gallery.
&
“to phone a friend” by Maxim Shmidt
“to phone a friend” is a self-portrait of loneliness and not-belonging. It is a collection of memories I could hold dear or hardly remember, trinkets and treasures alongside testaments to unwavering sadness in the form of crumpled unlove letters. It embodies that I feel I am explosively everything, yet also culminating into nothing, where I am so trapped inside of myself that the longest reach to form some sort of connection outside myself is doomed to fail. I am a moment that never comes, as is my relationship with the world and those around me. I feel so marred by my subjectivity and obsession with small, strange objects that I forget (or neglect to try) to help myself. I ignore the fact that maybe someone, somewhere, wants to properly know me, so as to escape the inevitable pain that accompanies a close connection with any other person. I am a museum without visitors, stuffed to the brim with otherwise-nonsense objects and ideas that no one will see. The idea of calling a friend is a hypothetical I do not have.
Cafe/bar
“A multiracial jam army that freestyles with cool telekinesis between the lustrous menace of Miles Davis’ On The Corner, the slash-and-om of 1970s King Crimson, and Jimi Hendrix’ moonwalk across side three of Electric Ladyland.” – Rolling Stone
A territory band, a neo-tribal thang, a community hang, a society music guild aspiring to the condition of all that is molten, glacial, racial, spacial, oceanic, mythic, antiphonal and telepathic. Spicy grooves and lyrics with some “bark” on them are their passions.
Butch Morris’s Conduction System for Orchestral Improvisation is the preferred mode of channeling for this Gotham-based ensemble of pan-ethnic sound warriors.
Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber:
Lewis “Flip” Barnes – trumpets
Ben Tyree – guitar
Leon Gruenbaum – keys
Shelley Nicole – vocals, percussion
Greg Tate – conduction
Andre Lassalle – guitar
V. Jeffrey Smith – saxophone, vocals
Bruce Mack – keyboard, vocals
Paula Henderson – saxophone
Abby Dobson – vocals
Jared Michael Nickerson – bass guitar
LaFrae Sci – drums
The Veldt (from Raleigh N.C.):
Daniel Chavis – guitar/ vocals
Danny Chavis – lead/ guitar
Martin Newman – guitar/ effects
Alex Cox – bass/ loops
Dale Miller – drums/ loops
“With Danny’s enveloping hooks, Daniel’s swooning falsetto… the new songs invite paradoxical praise: serenely assaultive, vertiginously soothing.” – The Guardian
Photo by Matthew Breiner
Photo by Matthew Breiner
DJ Mr. Realistic will be opening.
Food trucks: Bloom Kitchen & Co., Southern Bell Soul Food.
Support for this event comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.
Learn more about the Burnt Sugar and The Veldt.
“Cimafunk’s magic is at its peak when he’s singing live.” – The New Yorker
” […] the crowd’s enthusiastic roar nearly overwhelmed the sound system.” – Rolling Stone
“Cimafunk, el cantante del momento en Cuba (Cimafunk, the top singer in Cuba).” – El País
Cimafunk is one the most exciting new faces in the Latin music space, and a pioneer in bringing Afro-Cuban funk to the world. Singer, composer and producer, the young Cuban sensation offers a subtle and bold mix of funk with Cuban music and African rhythms, which is currently revolutionizing the island’s music scene.
DJ Mr. Realistic will be spinning, too!
Food trucks: Dori’s Latin Inspired Food, Samba Kitchen
Real Art Ways presents a conversation between New York-based artist Alex Dolores Salerno, Puerto Rico-based artist Miguel González Cordero, and exhibiting artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla. On Thursday, July 22 at 6:30 PM EDT, the three artists will present their work and explore the various ways disability, queerness, and Puerto Rican identity collide. The conversation will last about an hour with a question-and-answer portion at the end. This event will be held on Zoom and live-streamed to the Real Art Ways Facebook page.
Accessibility: Automated closed captions will be provided by Zoom, and all images/videos will be visually described.
This panel is supported in part by the Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.
Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.
Alex Dolores Salerno (b. 1994, Washington D.C.) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Informed by themes of care, interdependency, and queer-crip time, they work to critique standards of productivity, notions of normative embodiment and the commodification of rest. Salerno received their M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and their B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College. They have exhibited at The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, the Ford Foundation Gallery, Franklin Street Works, Gibney Dance, among others. Their work has been featured in the New York Times and Art in America. Recently, they participated in Art Beyond Sight’s Art & Disability Residency (2019-2020), and are currently an artist in residence in the Artist Studios Program (cycle 35) at the Museum of Arts and Design.
Miguel González Cordero (b.1993), is an interdisciplinary artist from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. In 2016, Miguel González Cordero received his BA in Visual Arts from the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 2014, he held his first solo exhibition “Danza Coralina”, José Pepín Méndez Gallery at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. González Cordero has participated in group exhibitions such as “DISLOQUE” at AREA Lugar de Proyectos, Caguas, PR (2016), “Video Voces Boricuas” at Tres50 Espacio Cultural, Chiapas, Mexico (2018), “Exploración Corporea: Formas y Movimiento” in Diagonal (2019), and “25 / 25 ”at Galería de Arte de Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2020) both in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He is currently studying a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design at the School of Design and Architecture of the Ana G. Méndez University, Gurabo Campus in Puerto Rico.
Image captions from left:
Kevin Quiles Bonilla
“Untitled (Exposure therapy documentation)”
Analogue photography, 2002/2021
Alex Dolores Salerno
“Pillow Fight”
Used pillow cases and medical ephemera, 2019-ongoing
Miguel González Corderro
“How Do You Shower?”
Pastels on paper, 2020
July 1 – Sep 5
Hours: Wed-Sun from 12-9 PM
-Children (18 and under) plus one accompanying adult receive free admission to our cinema and galleries
-Los niños (menores de 18 años) más un adulto acompañante reciben entrada gratuita a nuestro cine y galerías.
-Cinema tickets MUST be obtained in person at our box office. View our current movie selection HERE
-Las entradas de cine se pueden adquirir personalmente en nuestra taquilla. Vea nuestra selección actual de películas AQUÍ
-We have five spacious galleries open to the public. View our current exhibitions HERE
-Contamos con cinco amplias galerías abiertas al público. Vea nuestras exposiciones actuales AQUÍ
Connecticut Summer at the Museum is made possible through an investment from the federal COVID-19 recovery funding Connecticut is receiving from the American Rescue Plan Act. The program is administered by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts in partnership with Connecticut Humanities.
The series will be streamed to Real Art Ways’ Facebook page on Tuesday, June 22, and Wednesday, June 23.
These talks are in conjunction with their group exhibition, Force Fields, open now through June 25 at the Joseloff Gallery on the University of Hartford’s campus.
Tuesday, June 22 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Mary Mattingly
Grace Poulsen
Aubrey Murdock
Wednesday, June 23 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Tara Long
Elizabeth Deák
Jess Blaustein
In addition to graduating students, artist and educator Mary Mattingly will present on River Labs, an ongoing course in the Nomad MFA program connecting artists with the rivers and waterways they live near. Students in the program have been working with Mattingly since its inception, presenting their findings at Real Art Ways in two previous exhibitions exploring the Park River. This series of talks is a continuation of that collaboration, offering students a chance to present their work to our audience at a crucial moment in their careers.
For more information on the group show Force Fields, click here to visit their website.
Created in 2015, the Nomad MFA program is an accredited, low-residency graduate program offered by the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School. It features a high-impact, field-based curriculum that includes art, ecology, study of place, indigenous knowledge systems, and the craft-to-code technology continuum. The Nomad MFA is the MFA of the future, providing artists deeper ways of engaging with their home community and a network of communities in the Americas. Nomad MFA’s faculty and guest lecturers includes an international range of artists and curators, including Mary Mattingly, Marisa Williamson, Camila Marambio, Nico Wheadon, Mark Dion, and others.
Feature video by Aubrey Murdock
