Jerry Saltz. Image courtesy of Art and Culture Center of Hollywood.

Jerry Saltz: senior art critic for New York Magazine, judge of Bravo’s Work of Art, and compulsive facebook user. There is little introduction to made for one of the most magnetic personalities in the contemporary art world. In anticipation for his lecture just past at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Jane Hart, Curator of Exhibitions facilitated a little interview for me with Jerry. We spoke over the phone and discussed his take on everything from facebook to the meaning of honesty in art criticism and his daily ritual of sitting in front of the computer from 7:30 am to 1 am.

Art criticism is such a funny animal and with the supersonic spread of blogging, tweeting, facebook status updates, etc it’s become even more so. You use both shorthand and longer prose formats and I wonder if you have a preference for one or the other?

JS: I would like to collapse both formats. I don’t make a distinction between “serious” and “not serious” writing. I always write about serious stuff that I’m thinking about in either format. I write for the reader. Most things I read are too long and don’t get to the point. You can go through five paragraphs before you get to one critical adjective that maybe has a point. Density in all things is good.

An art critic has to make themselves as vulnerable as what you’re writing about. You have to get out there and make yourself as available as possible. I don’t like being the critic on top of the mountain, speaking down to the masses. I want the many to speak to one another… to create a horizontal conversation. Art criticism should be chaotic and should recreate the experience of looking at art. It should not be easy to process, because looking at art is not easy to process.

And besides, art criticism doesn’t pay anything. And in all likelihood in the future it will pay even less so. So what that means is that you have total freedom in what you write about. There is no writing for money. You’re writing for the reader and reading about art can be as exciting as looking and talking about art.

Going back to what you had mentioned about the vulnerability, which format to find to be most honest?

JS: Every format! Look, if you’re not honest, the reader will know it in two seconds. You fall into the Mitt Romney role. Artforum is pornography. I can’t understand what they’re saying and they’re not taking any kind of a risk.

And beyond that honesty is really only a lie. A critic is like an artist inventing their ideas, language, persona, syntax, etc. It’s a fabrication. It’s really the idea of Wallace Stevens’ “supreme fiction.”

The effects of the onslaught of Art Basel Miami Beach have been widely discussed among locals in the art community as both a blessing and a curse. Based on your previous discussion on art fairs in general and their relationship to artists and art-making what are some of the positive and negative/ social and economic ramifications of this kind of event on a relatively young art community?

JS: Ok, Art Basel Miami Beach: good for emerging artists, good for the blood, good for parties and touching antennae and having a good time. How can it be bad, if you have the entire volunteer army of the art world at your doorstep? To say it’s a bad thing is being ungenerous. Even as fucked up as things have gotten, as horrendous as the equation between capital and quality has become within this system.

And it has to die; in fact it’s dying as we speak. I just posted an article today in response to Adam Lindemann and Charles Saatchi already turning on the system they helped to create. But this doesn’t mean we have to throw out the baby with the bastards. In fact, the babies need the bastards and vice versa.

One of his recent posts in New York Magazine is a sharp lashing of  Adam Lindemann’s supposed moratorium on this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach (he did in fact attend), and Charles Saatchi’s harsh criticism of the current state of the art world and collecting.

After we spoke, Adam Lindemann posted this response in the NY Observer.

“More on Miami – I’ve heard complaints from a lot of local artists about the void in Miami after Art Basel. Is it a viable place for an artist to work and hope to enjoy some success beyond our swamps and beaches? Is New York still the Shangri-La of the art world?”

JS: In Miami you can have a life, a studio and afford to work. Wherever you are, an artist needs to test your ideas out on strangers on a regular basis.

If you move to New York you won’t die, you’ll live in a shit hole, and you will have an inner life, but your outer life will die. In Miami, you can have an outer life and an inner life. I have no outer life, which is why I look the way I do. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

(Jerry’s concept of the inner life refers to artistic practices and time spent thinking, talking and working, while the outer life could possibly include everything else.)

So what’s better? Do you have to move to New York to get rich and famous? I don’t know… it helps.

I have two secrets. I am going to tell you the second one first. I have very thick skin. I never take criticism personally because I know that there is probably a grain of truth to it. Even though it hurts, I always address them back. If you’re writing to be loved, then you’ve got trouble. I’ve never been asked to write for Artforum and they would never ask me to either. My voice would make no sense there.

The first secret is energy. Put yourself out there and produce, produce, produce. I have no degree (except my three honorary PhDs), and started in my forties, I’m a late bloomer. But I just put myself out there every day.

Finally, who is your favorite comedian?

JS: Sarah Silverman, Larry David, and I’m old school so Chris Rock.

One could argue this point, but Jerry Saltz is one of the art world’s most distinct figures. He is known for his unabashed critical observations of the contemporary art world and of course his wit. People either love him or hate him… either way they find themselves reading what he has to say. Saltz’s approach to art criticism is considered brazenly honest and straightforward, and he is not one to squirrel away from voicing his opinion, a quality that has also gained him cult status among fans.  Jerry credits his self-proclaimed “privileged” role and unique approach to beginning his career late in life. If you can imagine it, he once drove semi trucks across country and did not begin writing about art until his forties. Even now, when asked about being an art critic and how he came to be, Jerry has this to say:

JS: I feel lucky to get whatever I get. I’m where I am partly out of desperation. I came into the game so late, and I had to admit how badly I wanted to be in the art world. And I don’t consider myself a critic. At best, I consider myself a folk critic.

Upon finishing up the interview, Jerry invited me to communicate on facebook and exchange ideas with him on his page. I may be taking liberties here, but I invite all you facebookers (even the ones with the secret accounts) to do the same. Even if you hate him, go ahead, he can take it[.]

This past Saturday Jerry Saltz gave a lecture as part of the Hot Topics Discussion Series at Art and Culture Center of Hollywood.  For more information about past and future lectures in this series please go to: http://artandculturecenter.org/hot-topics.

This post was contributed by Melissa Diaz.

Here follows an interview with MoCA North Miami Associate Curator Ruba Katrib and the University of Wynwood and O Miami Founder and Director P. Scott Cunningham on the subject of Reality Conference 2011, a conference about reality television organized by Cunningham and Katrib and presented by the University of Wynwood, a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to advancing contemporary literature in Miami. The responses to the questions below were generated jointly by Cunningham and Katrib.

How do you qualify/define Reality TV?

In its infancy, reality TV was just TV that didn’t use actors. In other words, it didn’t pay the participants at a market rate. (Though a handful of people did make some real money off of game shows.) What’s happened since the debut of The Real World is that reality TV became a genre with conventions that are as defined as those in a Western, and the line between actor and “real person” has been continually eroded. I think in the next ten years we’ll see that line eroded even further, at least in terms of the market. With the advent of social media, many, many “average” people have made themselves into marketable personalities in the manner of 1930s actors.

The release on Reality Conference 2011 seems deliberately open ended. Does Reality Conference 2011 seek to qualify/define Reality TV through attendee participation?

No. It’s open-ended because this is the first time we’re doing something like this. We also realize that everyone has their own unique relationship to reality TV, so we hope to present a range of interests and investments in the genre during the conference without any qualifying intention.

Considering that those in attendance at the conference will have been exposed to reality TV shows, many of which begin “America’s…” can we expect a jaundice appreciation for the genre of reality TV? And if so, is this important? And if so, are you taking steps to broaden the vista?

Some people may dismiss reality TV as an inadequate subject matter, but if so, why attend? Unless it’s to come and argue, which is great.  But simply saying, “reality TV” is dumb, is a conversation-ender. Lots of very, very intelligent people are involved in the creation of these shows. If Barthes can find something interesting in fake wrestling, we can find plenty of material in reality TV. We’re really not interested in broadening anyone’s vista. That’s his/her problem.

In terms of format, for the sake of discussion, do you feel it is important to subjugate this expanding genre by differentiating and subsequently pigeon holing its many incantations into ‘types’ such as fly on the wall programming (focused on industry – restaurants, fishing fleets airlines hotels etc), skill based, often individual starred shows (such as Man Vs Wild and various instructional/dramatic home improvement shows) and contest based shows (like Big Brother, American Idol/Top Model, Art Star, Survivor and The Batchelor)?

That could be very useful, yes, but we also wouldn’t want to reduce comparisons between shows just because of an arbitrary distinction. In general, as organizers, we’re not interested in classifying anything. For most part, the presenters generate the specific topics; we are more interested in what specific angle fascinates them and this is an opportunity to share. We just want to open up the discussion.

The concept of reality TV is by no means new and subjects covered by reality TV include many industries, even within the art world such programming has seen multiple epochs. What makes now a pertinent time to discuss reality TV?

TV has become the dominant American art form, supplanting film, which long ago supplanted the novel. The high art of TV (The Wire, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, etc.) is well-discussed but the low art of reality TV has not received as much critical attention, which is a shame because it says much more about us than any of the high art shows. Also, reality TV is increasingly pervasive as a genre. There was a point when maybe it seemed it would wear it self out, but we all know with the increasing success of many shows and the endless spin-offs, the novelty is gone and reality TV is here to stay.

Considering that “Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, at times utilizing sensationalism to attract audience viewers and increase advertising revenue profits.” (Wikipedia) will it be a priority to of Reality Conference 2011 to illuminate the inherent irony of reality TV?

Again, as organizers, we don’t have any priorities, other than getting smart people involved and having a good time with it. We think the irony of reality TV is obvious to everyone involved.  Irony in general is so pervasive at this point we’re not even sure we can call it irony, and certainly not in any classical sense.  Again, the novelty of reality TV has really worn off, and increasingly many people are “coming out of the closet,” admitting that they are avid watchers of particular shows, which do have a cultural and social impact. The Reality Conference is an occasion to publicly share what most interests us about this captivating genre that we spend so much time pretending to despise, even while we rush home to catch the latest episode of the Kardashians[.]

Excerpt from Nov 21st Release:

REALITY CONFERENCE 2011, December 10, 2011 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. Lester’s Bar 2519 NW 2nd Ave. Miami, FL 33127 (map)

The Problem
Why is “reality television” so awesome? Discuss.

How Do I Attend?
Attendance at REALITY CONFERENCE is free but space is limited. Register here.

Call for Abstracts
If you’re interested in participating, please send a brief description, no more than 300 words, outlining a presentation, paper, panel, or performance on any topic related to “reality TV.” Abstracts are due on November 23rd. The presentations will be no longer than 15 minutes long with 5 minutes of questions from the audience. Prior experience in academia is not required. Please put “Reality Conference” in the subject heading and send abstracts and inquires to: scott@universityofwynwood.org. Submitters will be notified by Monday, November 28th.

This post was contributed by Thomas Hollingworth.

Installation view of “Entering the Republic of Misery” image courtesy Dorsch Gallery.

Interview with Richard Haden and Bill Bilowit on “Entering the Republic of Misery” a collaborative video on the life of Mercedes, an Argentinian-born, crack-smoking sex worker in Miami currently on exhibition at Dorsch Gallery as part of the exhibition (RAD) Running à Dérive by Richard Haden.

David Rohn:  The video is gritty, personal, and in some ways uncomfortably intimate. Since I know you both and your past work I expected a certain level of detail, and nuance from this production, particularly, if I may say so, in the realm of technical refinement; Bill, you are synonymous with complex video software, and Richard, your mastery of material craftsmanship to create hyper-realistic sculpture is blatant, even to the point of being invisible. In contemporary art culture, where individual vision is so highly regarded, collaboration is evident as a satisfying yet potentially difficult undertaking. It is from this interest in mind that I ask the following questions in an attempt to go behind the scenes of your collaboration and this engaging video.

Since I understand that it was Richard’s original decision to generate the actual content around the life of the video’s protagonist Mercedes, I am curious to know from him what got that started, and then from Bill how he related to the footage; what struck him about it’s content, the way it was shot, what he saw as it’s greatest strengths and how he approached refining the raw content.

Richard Haden: The exhibition at the Dorsch gallery has to do with running and the discoveries that solicit me as I run long distance through the Miami area. I had started running to get in shape, but quickly became bored, so I started looking for routes that were more engaging. I found that railroad easements were great because of the marginalized pathways that become short cuts through industrial, commercial, and residential areas, mixing urban zones, habitats, and neighborhoods.

As my practice of running improved I found myself going farther and farther…then I started noticing discarded objects along the way, that I could carry, running, back to my studio to use as models for carving… then I started carrying a still camera with me so that I could take pictures of interesting sites, objects, path ways, vectors, people and so on. After I got used to stopping to take pictures and running again I tried carrying a video recording device with me. I borrowed a GOPRO HD camera from Jake Kooser. The camera came with a harness, which enabled me to mount it on my chest or head. However, I found it difficult to keep the footage from being to jumpy and jarring when I ran, so I managed to hold it in my hand to steady it as I recorded while I ran. That worked better. Then I had the epiphany to expand my practice to include recording people that I met running without running. That is when I met Mercedes-whom I ran into several times while running through the Wynwood arts district. Eventually, after some time I got to know her and we began a relationship, based on trust and her knowing that she could depend on me to help her out with everyday things, like a pimp might do, but without me being a pimp.

Bill Bilowit: From the very first clip I could see Richard had captured exceptional, visually beautiful, and what I’d call preternaturally authentic situations. That authenticity came from many things. The compression and deep focus of that little camera amplified the Miami atmosphere in ways that evoked its true density and particularity. Richard’s encounters with Mercedes played out as a heightened reality because she’s utterly unhindered and trusting of Richard’s presence. And the camera’s tininess magnified every subtle, faint nuance of Richard’s grasp – unmistakably human motions – layered on top of his rattling pick-up truck’s jouncing on pitted streets and railroad tracks. Plus, the GOPRO Richard was using did not have a viewfinder or LCD screen which meant he had no way of knowing what was recorded until later. This lack of a viewfinder eliminated a huge task in shooting scenes, freeing him up to be more completely in the moment.

I watched every clip Richard shot during his month-long loan of the camera, and altogether it was an expressly cyclical narrative. Jail – rants – strategizing – drugs – rehab – Burger King – clothing acquisitions – beauty supplies – repeat. Yet every cycle I saw was fresh and suspenseful; that plus the subjects’ characters made it an irresistible project. Mercedes is not a stereotype version street prostitute. She’s a distinctly exuberant and vexing personality. Richard is not a white knight, John, or sucker; he’s a sincere, idiosyncratic and generally fearless traveler.

Image courtesy Richard Haden, Bill Bilowit and Dorsch Gallery.

David: It would be interesting for the sake of understanding the dynamics of your collaboration, to hear some description about the early conversations you had on how to refine the project. I am wondering, for example, what Richard may have had in mind in approaching Bill and perhaps Bill’s own response to this, and to the footage. Ultimately how perhaps your notions differed and what you both may have agreed on from the start.

Richard: It’s like this: I had hours of clips and little experience with video or film, yet I knew that I had some good stuff, so I approached Bill because I knew he had experience with making and producing documentaries. At first I just wanted feed back on the 28 or so clips that I had (hours of video recording…) then, after I sensed that Bill seemed enthusiastic about what I had, I asked Bill if he could help edit…which turned into more of a collaboration than just taking an editor on board a video project.

I knew that I didn’t want just a documentary in the traditional sociological sense, and I knew roughly some effects that I thought would free the video from a simple Documentary genre… so, I suggested this or that temporal shift that might engage a viewers stream of consciousness–and Bill was already ahead of me with the same ideas. What we came up with is what you see in the video–its analogous to how we view, interpret, muse, and savor short sequences of everyday encounters as though they were atemporal passages of time while at the same time contrasting the narrative moment with an inevitable destination. We wanted a strong visual presence mixed with a cyclical narrative.

Bill: In the manner he captured these clips, Richard rejected all the traditional documentary film precepts of defining, framing, and contextualizing a subject, and the result is an extraordinary authenticity. That was exactly his goal, to avoid classifying and moralizing and create instead something “lifelike,” an experience yielding to the indefinable aspects of an encounter, a place, a relationship.

That idea was right up my alley so there wasn’t any differing of notions in the slightest. It’s like he returned from a month in unexplored territory, handed me raw footage of new life forms, and missioned me with revealing it to the world. He was generously trustful and motivational, which makes for better results than worrisome and micro-managing. Rather than assigning me an edit, it’s like he was giving me my turn.

Image courtesy Richard Haden, Bill Bilowit and Dorsch Gallery.

David: The video is not short by art gallery video standards (26 minutes). Some might argue that shorter is better. My own view here is that the piece is like a cyclic saga, and worth every minute. Since editing and the addition of post production effects are arguably the most rigorous aspects of producing a video, it would be interesting to hear about your individual ideas about the length and other decisions around general structure of the piece.

Richard: At first, I didn’t even think much about the length. I wanted a stand alone work that could be viewed in more than an art gallery setting. Plus, with so much raw “footage”, it was hard to even keep the length to 26 minutes. I could see it being even longer. As well, I didn’t want to cater to the limited attention span of much of today’s audience while at the same time I didn’t want it to be an exercise in endurance either…

Bill: After I realized how dense and detailed the clips were, I decided not to worry about duration until there was a shape and rhythm to the edit. I showed Richard an initial 8-minute segment and he told me not to be afraid of a long run (speaking of which, Richard will run in the New York Marathon this November).

What’s especially cool is that the piece is a seamlessly looped narrative with variable temporal dimensions. It can be experienced in a bite-sized, two-minute gallery walk-by and still be engaging; on the way out, they’ll stop for another hit. As a sit-down exhibit, any starting point is a beginning and any departure point is an ending, five minutes or ten, whatever. Of course, I recommend the full 26 minutes– any 26 minutes; when you see the scene you walked in on in its new context, you’re full circle.

Image courtesy Richard Haden, Bill Bilowit and Dorsch Gallery.

David: In regard to the post production effects, specifically the slowing down of some sequences, particularly around Mercedes’ arms and hands, I felt these really gave the piece more resonance and helped keep the distance from an exercise in ‘Cinema Verite’. I also thought the time sequence breaks that announced for example ’6 hours later’ or ’10 minutes later’ really helped the narrative. It might be interesting to hear how these decisions came about, what motivated them and what may have been seen as downside risks to these decisions.

Bill: There are many temporal effects in the piece that expand and contract moments, gestures and moods. The brief “elapsed time” titles that separate certain sequences are another form of this effect, heightening awareness of time invested by the subjects, and, by implication, distance covered. Seconds or weeks go by instantaneously, the urban panorama rolls by in the background, stretching (circuitously) for endless blocks. The main risk with any of these techniques is that they’re applied intellectually, forcing a distance from the subject. That would likely obstruct the stream. So I was relentless that every apparent and invisible edit, every effect, every iota of intervention in the raw footage was an extension of my seduction by something I saw or heard, and with that approach I really enjoyed bringing to each of those actions a meticulous care.

Richard: To put it simply, I wanted to produce a visually strong work that reflected Mercedes. I wanted an estranged view, like, how I think our stream of consciousness deals with everyday encounters of unusual everyday experiences, of people and things ready to hand, that give us our daily sense of being alive. We want to highlight those moments that often go unnoticed or don’t remain in long-term conscious memory.

Mercedes, to me, has the ability to seem indestructible –loaded with the most amazing charisma and energy despite her role– self cast as the self-destructible protagonist. Her lifestyle, on the other hand, with all the performative aspects that go with being who she is, is still real and authentic in that she is a woman with the skills to live on the street and in ‘the hood’. Mercedes seems to have this natural tenacity and ability to survive in a situation that most can’t even imagine. Given this, I still do not want this video work to necessarily be a moralizing document of someone living this way or that… my aim is to show a small part of her life as it is… as extremely real, colorful, tragic, humorous and, maybe after all is said and done, not really all that much different from our own daily sojourns into the “Republics of Misery”.

Image courtesy Richard Haden, Bill Bilowit and Dorsch Gallery.

David: What other general or significant observations do each of you have on this collaboration and on collaboration as a general undertaking?

Bill: Lewis and Clark, Ben and Jerry, Abbott and Costello, Brakhage and Cornell.

Richard: Collaborations are cool.

(RAD) Running à Dérive by Richard Haden on exhibition at Dorsch Gallery, Miami, through November 12, 2011.

This post was contributed by David Rohn.

Bespoke cupcakes, made fresh and local for O Cinema by Iris from Cupcake World.

After a sneak peak in the form of Scissors and Glue: The Miami Project, during this past Art Basel Miami Beach, O Cinema, a non profit, cutting-edge independent cinema art house located in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, is finally screening proper. The brainchild of Vivian Marthell and Kareem Tabsch, co-directors of Living Arts Trust, who were awarded a $400,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to establish the cinema’s presence in the South Florida entertainment and arts marketplace, O Cinema specializes in showing first-run independent, foreign, art, and niche market films as well as being a visual and video art gallery.

For the past two nights O Cinema have screened their inaugural movie, Tina Malbry’s Mississippi Damned, and will again today, tonight and tomorrow from 1pm until 10pm at their theater on NW 29th street opposite the Rubell Family Collection. In the midst of their debugging, with the smell of fresh cupcakes in the air, and before their seats get completely stuckup with gum, Vivian and Kareem took time out to answer a few questions for us:

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Speaking on behalf of your funding body, The Knight Foundation, why do you feel you were given the opportunity to create such a venue?

The Knight Arts Partnership was created to help fund creative ideas that transform the community.  Ultimately we think that the real reason we were chosen for funding comes down to the fact that their has been a true need and hunger in the community for what O Cinema is bringing; a forum for indie, foreign, art and niche film in Miami’s urban core. The magic of movies can transform lives. It may sound corny and cliche but it’s true. The value of seeing stories like your own… whether from a neighboring state or a remote village across the world, can be an immensely powerful experience.  So we think that the Knight Foundation gets that and want to help make it happen. Also, we’re hoping that the fact that we’re pretty and charming had something to do with it.

Can you summarize your 150 word grant application?

We obsessed over each and every one of those 150 words, but ultimately what it boiled down to was: ‘We want to bring amazing movies that otherwise wouldn’t be seen here to the epicenter of our amazing city. Please help’

Kareem and Vivian.

How does O Cinema differ from other South Floridian art house cinemas such as Miami Beach Cinematheque?

There are now five different indie cinemas in the Miami area. Each one of them great in their own right, but I definitely think that O Cinema is the funkiest place in town to watch a movie. From the handmade ceramic countertop concession by artist Carlos Alves, to the regularly curated art in our gallery space there is really something to see everywhere you look. Our dedicated monitoring art video gallery, our in house artist galleries and art boutiques all help make a visit here a sensory experience.

So that’s something that certainly sets us apart but also our geographic location and the audience that we draw set us apart. The Wynwood Arts District and our surrounding neighborhoods like the Design District, Midtown, the Upper East Side and Downtown cater to a younger audience, so what you’ll see at O are films that are reflective of that. Also, we’re in the midst of one of the largest and most important arts districts in the world, so with that comes a responsibility to showcase films that are not only international in scope but that push the artistic boundaries of the medium.  So while you’ll see an array of different kind of films at O, you’re going to see programming that mirrors the uniqueness of our neighborhood and our crowd.

O Cinema, 90 NW 29th Street Miami, FL 33127.

With the various ‘film nights’ that have come and gone there is is obviously a market, but can you speak about the need in South Florida for art house cinema?

Both of us spend a lot of time traveling throughout the states and North America and every time we were in New York,  LA, San Francisco or Toronto there would always be a whole slew of films playing that would never see the light of day back home in Miami. So we knew we had to do something to change that. The whole cannon of artistic expression has really come to its own in the city over the least decade in particular, but film has needed to catch up and thats what we wanted to do, provide a year round forum for great movies.  So why is there a need?  Because people like to see good movies in their own neighborhoods. Sometimes you’re in the mood to see the new Harry Potter film and sometimes you’re in the mood to see Jean Luc
Goddard… or better… discover the next Jean Luc Goddard in the making.

Still from Mississippi Damned.

Do you preference any specific genres?

I don’t know if we have a particular favorite but as we say our focus is indie, foreign, art, and niche films. We are pretty passionate people with very different tastes… so more than a specific genre you may see stuff that speak to us in its uniqueness. We like interesting topics that are dealt with in interesting ways… I think the films we’ve already showed or the ones we’ve schedules are a pretty good indicator of that… from movies about the Punk Islam scene and rural African-American families fighting a cycle of abuse to dark comedies about suicide bombers and their failed terrorists plots to a Scandinavian murderer on the road to reformation who turns into the unlikely town stud. There will be a little bit of everything at O…except for anything with Sylvester Stallone in it… unless its directed by David Lynch, and then we’ll consider it[.]

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Remaining show times for this weekends film are as follows:

Deathprint still, courtesy Aiden Dillard.

H ere follows a letter from Aiden Dillard, a Director of weird low-budget movies and a resident of Miami. While studying visual arts in New York at Cooper Union in 2003, Dillard transitioned from painting into film making. In 2006, while living in upstate New York, Dillard made his first feature film Meat Weed Madness, followed by its sequel Meat Weed America one year later. After relocating to Miami, Dilalrd made Deathprint (2009), and most recently Hell Glades (2012). Dillard also collaborates with Jay Hines (agurari) in noise music performances with their band Ballscarf.

Dear Artlurker,

Two years ago, I finished and presented my movie “Deathprint” to my adopted hometown of Miami, FL with a grand screening at The Colony Theater in South Beach to a sold out crowd. The movie featured many Miami scenesters, musicians, artists, and performers, whom I was honored to have collaborated with. The idea was fairly simple; to spoof the Charles Bronson helmed revenge classic “Deathwish”, using local car dealer Ted Vernon as the star, and Miami’s culturati as the pseudo Communist filth that he sought to destroy after the murder of his daughter at the hands of an insane artist named Arthur Basel, played by club promoter and actor Nassie Shahoulian. Famed fetish model RubberDoll lent her beauty and sex appeal to embody my ideal Miami policewoman, and the globe-trotting musician Otto Von Schirach’s charisma made him the perfect intermediary friend to both the hero Ted Vernon, and the villain Arthur Basel. The TM Sisters provided their unique artistic and performance talents to the production in their search for the killer of Ted’s daughter, which was orchestrated by the uncanny Clifton Childree who knew more then he was willing to share. Jillian Mayer played Ted Vernon’s murdered daughter with great innocence. A splendid art show called “Schadenfreude” was curated by my former Cooper Union classmate Daniel Newman, and featured literally dozens of Miami artists such as Jim Drain, Dara Friedman, Mark Handforth, Aramis Gutierrez, Daniel Arsham, Nicolas Lobo, Justin Long, Beatriz Monteavoro, Gavin Perry, Martin Oppel, Oliver Sanchez, and more. Gean Moreno also contributed to the show and made many faux “Communist Chic” props for the film such as glittery sickles and hammers and Castro silhouettes. There were many cameos that you all will enjoy, including one by Artlurker’s own Tom Hollingworth at the opening night of the “Schadenfreude” art show scene.

Deathprint still at the Schadenfreude exhibition, courtesy Aiden Dillard.

It was an honor to be trusted to represent so many creative people within this movie “Deathprint”, and I hope that none of my collaborators were ever disappointed with the final product. However, I do openly acknowledge that it was a great disappointment that the movie was not more commercially successful, and was never picked up for major distribution. I spent years trying to market it to major DVD distributors, but was not successful. When I was offered deals, there was not enough money involved to justify the release of exclusive rights as deemed by the film’s executive producers, who also grew very embarrassed with the film when they realized that it’s political commentary was satirical. Thus for years the film was essentially doomed to be imprisoned to a storage shelf, with no possibility of being seen ever, and with the executive producers determined to never let it be seen. It was heartbreaking to spend two years of my life to make a movie that was only seen for one night, and it even began to affect me emotionally and socially as I felt continually harassed by the film’s many participants to let them see it or to let them know when it would be available for distribution, when I myself was forbidden ever to even see it.

Aiden Dillard selling DVD’s, courtesy Aiden Dillard.

Those days are over now though, I have detached myself economically from my former producers, and I have fought for the right to release “Deathprint” into the world by selling and presenting it myself. To celebrate my new economic and creative freedom, I will be having a “Deathprint DVD Release Party and Screening” at O Cinema in downtown Miami at 90 NW 29th ST on Saturday February 11th at midnight after the Wynwood Artwalk. The tickets are $5 each, and I will be selling DVDs for $5 and t-shirts for $12, which is at a great discount from the typical online prices (DVD $12 & t-shirts $20). Please come out and party with me and the cast and crew of the film to see this unique oddity of Miami culture on the big screen. If it is absolutely impossible for you to attend the event then you can also find the film online. I listed it for sale on the film’s website at www.watchdeathprint.com, as well as listing it on my new distribution company’s website www.meatweed.com where you can find my other movies “Meat Weed Madness” & “Meat Weed America”, and my movies are also now listed on Amazon, and eBay, and in the real physical location of Sweat Records. As always, thank you for your support Artlurker. You can view the official trailer for “Deathprint” on Youtube with this LINK.

Sincerely,

Aiden Dillard.

Film still from a documentary filmed by Kirmaya Cevallos produced by Knight Foundation. Image courtesy of Knight Foundation.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are now accepting applications for the penultimate year of the Knight Arts Challenge, a grant initiative begun in Miami, now also in Philadelphia, that has to date granted 17.5 million dollars to a total of 78 ideas in South Florida and another 20 million dollars in endowments to cultural organizations in Miami. With just one more year of the challenge to go we spoke with Dennis Scholl, Miami Program Director and Vice President of Arts for The Knight Foundation, about how the Knight Arts Challenge benefits the growth and development of the arts in Miami by fostering community engagement.

•

Thomas Hollingworth: Can you begin by introducing yourself and summarizing in your own words what the Knight Foundation is and what the Knight Arts Challenge is?

Dennis Scholl: Sure. I’m Dennis Scholl. My role at the Knight Foundation is two fold, I am the Vice President / Arts and also the Miami Program Director. For the purpose of this conversation I oversee the Knight Arts Challenge in Miami, part of the National Arts Program of the Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation is a foundation created by the Knight Brothers John S. and James L. Knight, two gentlemen who owned upwards of 30 newspapers throughout America, and seeks to work in journalism and the arts with the aim of providing assistance to, informing, and engaging communities. The Knight Arts Challenge is a 40 million dollar, five-year grant program in Miami that asks members of the community to generate and submit their best idea.

TH: I understand that the application process for the Knight Arts challenge is more user friendly than most grants, a factor that encourages a much broader scope of applicants, but with such an opening being made available to South Florida, and with a certain amount of dollars than need to be shared, is it in turn a challenge for the Knight Foundation to remain inclusive and loyal, for want of a better word, to the communities or potentially infinite demographic you invite to apply while still ensuring a finite number of quality winners?

DS: Well, the idea behind the contest is that everybody is invited to contribute their ideas. We as an organization do not feel that we can tell the community what the best art ideas are and we as an organization have chosen to make the contest very inclusive. It’s only a one hundred and fifty word maximum application to apply and the rules are very simple: 1. Your idea must be about art, 2. It must take place in and benefit South Florida and 3. If your idea is chosen as a Knight Arts Challenge winner you must find matching funds for the Knight Grant. In the three years that I have been involved in the contest I have personally read forty two hundred applications from the South Florida community and I never fail to be dazzled by the breadth of the ideas. The other thing that’s happened is, the simple act of encouraging anybody, a corporation, an individual, a collective like the Borscht Film Festival and of course what we call the 501c3’s in our community, the certified non-profit organization with tax exempt status, has caused, I would submit to you, dozens of people put ideas to paper and then go out and do them regardless if whether or not they became Knight Arts Challenge winners. And we love that as a sidebar result of the contest, that it helps people kind of get some place in terms of their artistic ideas. So we feel like we’re engaging the community by making the contest so open and by not limiting it to the usual suspects.

TH: As someone working to foster hotbeds for human expression through a selective process do you see your role more as a facilitator, a cultural censor or a bit of both?

DS: That’s a good question. When I think about what we are trying to do with the Knight Arts Challenge, and if you look at the list of winners, we are trying to encourage and provide fuel to ideas that have momentum. Many of the ideas that have been successful are from organizations or people who have a little bit of a track record, in other words they look suited for the idea, they have momentum and we try to fuel that.

TH: So when reviewing applications there is no consideration to be politically correct to different types of applicants?

DS: Its an idea contest, so were really always looking for the best ideas. I do believe that if you look at the winners, that those ideas come from all segments of our community and we’re thrilled about that.

TH: Can you tell me briefly about the Philadelphia connection, why the Knight Foundation chose Philadelphia and how the entrants and selection process differ from South Florida if at all?

DS: Absolutely. The Philadelphia Knight Arts Challenge is a 3 year, nine million dollar project that Knight took on based upon the overwhelming response of the community in Miami, in essence the success of the challenge. The Knight Arts program has Program Directors on the ground in eight communities around America; Akron, Charlotte, Detroit, Macon, Philadelphia, Miami, San Jose and St Paul, Minnesota. The Philadelphia community is very unlike Miami, it’s culturally mature with tremendous assets and we thought it would make for an interesting laboratory. By contrast Miami is such a teenager, in terms of its curve. I actually think Miami is ahead in terms of visual arts, but nowhere near equivalent in terms of classical music or theater. Philadelphia has had hundreds of years to develop as a community, the artistic capital there is very high.

TH: Do you share any personal goals for the Knight Foundation’s national arts program outside of those publically touted by the foundation?

DS: The foundation is really seeking to weave the arts into the fabric of the eight Knight communities. That’s really what we are seeking to do with the arts program and the reason I’ve been given the opportunity to do this job is because my personal interest coincide with the goals of the Knight Foundation. From a personal perspective I am concerned that we’ve got to find a way to help organizations engage with their audiences. If you look at the NEA study, Participation 2.0, it talks about the fact that people who engage with the arts on line are three times as likely to go to the performance hall. Well that’s a huge, huge discovery because the old excuse by legacy institutions used to be ‘if we give it to them for free on the web then they wont come to the hall’ and that’s just not true. I am very interested in audience engagement and the technology to facilitate that.

Dennis Scholl speaking recently at the Macon Arts luncheon. Image courtesy Danny Gilleland and Knight Foundation.

TH: Coming back to the present challenge, I have heard many applicants grumble over the need to match funds, that it’s a lot of work compared for example to the Florida Consortium grant, which by the way I have also heard people grumble is too small. Do you have any thing to say to these people?

DS: That is a fair question. Our goal with the match is two fold. This is a project to engage the community and what better way to engage the community than to say ‘here is an opportunity for a significant grant, but we want you to go out into the community and find those who will help you match it.’ The second part of that frankly is that we want to make sure that those who have this momentum, and who we are encouraging with this funding, learn what it is to go out and seek funding for artistic projects. It’s the old give a man fish teach a man a fish axiom. We are literally trying to encourage folks within the community to learn this process. A good example is a guy like Gean Moreno. Gean is a fellow who had never sought funding philanthropically or from the community before, but when he wanted to start [NAME] Publications he said “wow, this is going to be really difficult, but I am going to reach out to my friends ask them to help me with an edition” and he got ten artists to do editions of ten and he had a fundraising event, I actually offered to host it for him at World Class Boxing because I was so excited by the idea, and he raised his match.  So it’s about being committed to the process and finding non traditional ways to find a match other than asking patrons that normally give to these kinds of things. Now I agree that some of the individual artists might not have patrons, but they have the ability to raise the match if they put their minds to it and the proof is in the results that we’ve had. Virtually everyone has matched which is testament both to the hard work of the winners and to the community for stepping up for the winners. And you know what else? It makes people right-size their requests.

TH: So roughly what percentage of winning entrants go on to fulfill their goals both in terms of matching funds and realizing the projects they outlined in their applications?

DS: More than 95%

TH: And in what ways does the Knight Foundation continue to support winners in terms of matching funds, making exceptions and promoting projects?

DS: The most important thing I think we do during the matching process is that we give a lot of guidance as to what qualifies as a match. You may or not know Stuart Kennedy, he’s the program associate here that’s worked with me hand-in-hand since the contest started and he has a direct relationship with every one of the winners and there are times when people say to us “gee I’d be interested in supporting something in this area” and we say “wow you might want to go look at the Miami Music Project or Naomi Fisher’s individual artist project.” We are a foundation whose primary objective is grant making, but I will confess that we have spent a significant amount of time working closely with small organizations, individual artists and the collectives to both encourage them, guide them and even in some cases create opportunities for them.

TH: Nurturing

DS: Nurturing is a perfect word.

TH: Finally can you paint a picture for us of South Florida arts in ten years and then another picture of the same time and place highlighting the differences had the Knight Arts Challenge never existed?

DS: It’s a fair question, but I’m afraid I’m going to punt a little bit on the answer. I think this community is going through a rich and vibrant period for culture like never before. That’s the first thing I would say. The other thing I would say that it is dangerous to draw a bright line from the Knight Foundations efforts in the community and point to that and say “we did this ergo that happened.” I think that would be a mistake on our part. I think there are lots of people in the community who are incredibly enthusiastic about culture who are helping in all sorts of different ways, and it is not just about funding projects and it is not just about making art. There is an eco system here that is bubbling along in a wonderful and joyful way right now. It started a decade ago with the emergence of the visual arts community that you and I are fully engaged in and I think that it is dangerous to draw a bright line between what Knight has contributed to that process and the result of that process. I have lived here for almost fifty years now and suffice it to say that for most of that time the community was very different, but now it is accurate to say that we are a true cultural destination and that is not something that many of us who have labored in obscurity for many decades take lightly. So I’m not able to do that whole take-us-away-and-what-would-have-happened thing. There are so many people working so hard and we’re just one part of that. I am just so excited, and proud really, that the Knight Foundation has played some role in that process[.]

•

Applications for the Knight Arts Challenge are now being taken. To submit your ideas or for information on how to submit please visit http://www.knightarts.org/knight-arts-challenge. Applications are being taken through March 2nd.

In the interim, next Wednesday (February 23rd), a Town Hall meeting is being held to answer questions about the Knight Arts Challenge. 5:30 p.m. Feb. 23, 2011, Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 NE 59th Terr., Miami. Dennis Scholl, Vice President/Arts, Knight Foundation and Stuart Kennedy, Program Associate, Knight Foundation, will be on hand to field your inquiries.

•

This post was contributed by Thomas Hollingworth.

Derrick Adams, ‘sometimes i just don’t feel like myself’. Installation and performance. Courtesy of Collette Blanchard, New York.

The first words out of my mouth as I picked up Derrick Adams from the Floridian condo on West Avenue was ‘Man, that shirt is totally Kehinde Wiley!’ He laughed and agreed that the bright, Oriental-type floral pattern reminded us both of his friend’s aristocratic renderings of urban youths amongst Victorian wallpapers. “Yeah! Especially since he just came back from China.” Thus began an afternoon packed with art world theory and rants regarding some of the beauteous and bestial personalities we’d both encountered thus far in the commercial art sphere.

Adams was born and educated in New York, earning his BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, moving into the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine and then achieving an MFA from Columbia. Adams cites his artistic origins with two-dimensional works and live performances in costume pulled from the childlike world of fantasy cartoons coupled with the burdens of ‘adult’ societal constraints, protocols and taboos. Films and live performances would expand to include more complex social psychologies within the fantasy-world sphere, incorporating traces of African-American film, music and sporting reference (one of note entitled ‘I’m Smoke, You’re Mirror’ (2005) at Participant Inc. would feature recent MOCA solo exhibitor Shinique Smith).

Derrick Adams, ‘The Statue’ (2009). Mixed Media, 27″ x 17″. Courtesy of Collette Blanchard, New York.

Just the day before we met Adams had delivered a talk at Bas Fisher Invitational – an artist run space that gained recognition recently for its tour/exhibition ‘Weird Miami’ – regarding the development of this career from drawing, experimental video and installation, to teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), a solo performance at last year’s NADA Art Fair (entitled ‘Bizarro Wiz’), and the honor of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award.

When asked about the burgeoning arts culture in Miami, Adams pauses and says, “Miami doesn’t have the same diversity in the style of works yet, like in New York. There isn’t that environment for jam sessions, coffee houses and public projects just yet. But it’s exciting so far, it’s coming along.” Adams had been a resident of Miami for six weeks at the groundbreaking Fountainhead Residency and acknowledged a kernel of possibility for those genuinely seeking the academic solidification of Miami as a global hub for contemporary art. “I haven’t really had the opportunity to explore all of Miami’s offerings in terms of its artists, but from what I’ve seen, there’s some really dedicated people out there.” Now, there’s a bit of hope for the art-minded few and faithful here. The presence of Adams at Bas Fisher was one of several signs that Miami may be ready to discover a sense of maturity and focus in the contemporary art establishment, but the way Adams talks about the vibrant, buzzing community of art-goers in New York, it seems like a far cry from the purported drunken buffoonery within Wynwood’s Second Saturdays.

Derrick Adams, installation view at NADA, Miami (2009). Courtesy of Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York.

“I still go to the coffeehouses to check out young musicians, poets and artists,” says Adams, “both in Chelsea and the Lower East Side. But people in the galleries are pretty serious. When they step inside, it’s a business, not a party.”
Sipping at my bok choi noodle soup, I asked “But even the younger people seem to have a quiet respect for these spaces, they know that the works are special and the gallery isn’t a bar.”
Adams nods. “Yeah, I mean there are plenty of places for the after-party crowd and all that. But the commercial space is for business, deals are made. People are coming in to buy works and ask questions.”
“And how about this cold persona of gallery consultants not speaking to you when you walk in. I don’t know about you, but I’m there for the art, not for the spa treatment!”
With a laugh, Adams replies, “Sure, I mean the person sitting at the front is there if you need them, but you’re there to look and absorb it. They’re not going to hold your hand the minute you walk in.”

Perhaps Miami isn’t quite prepared for that type of gallery atmosphere, but the point is that there shouldn’t be much of a surprise when you’re not coddled by the director or consultant. What Miami is ready for, I’m sure, is to have more distinguished, young artists like Adams return to inject some hardcore understanding and insight into the atmosphere to combat the threat of kitschy, commercial demons such as (dare I say it) Britto and Gamson[.]

This post was contributed by Shana Beth Mason.

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Oliver Sanchez with his Nunsmoke, 2009

If you’ve spent any time exploring Miami’s contemporary art scene over the past few years, then you’ve seen the handiwork of Oliver Sanchez. From exhibitions at the Miami Art Museum to the Rubell Family Collection, Sanchez’s craftsmanship has been on prominent display. Just don’t look for his name on any of the accompanying wall text.

One of the art world’s best-kept secrets, Sanchez has become South Florida’s go-to person for fabricating sculptures for Miami’s current crop of art stars—including Daniel Arsham, Bhakti Baxter and the team ofRoberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt—as well as for acclaimed artists well beyond the Magic City, such as New York’s Peter Coffin, Poland’s Piotr Uklanski and the Scandinavian duo of Michael Elmgreen andIngar Dragset. They envision it, Sanchez builds it—whether it’s Arsham’s partially melted, shudder-inducing furniture or Elmgreen and Dragset’s tarred-andfeathered Rolls-Royce convertible.

So how does Sanchez feel about putting in all that time molding, carving and hammering, only to have another artist reap all the glory? “I’m an artist’s artist,” he explains with a good-natured shrug. “I don’t have any reservations about it. I facilitate and help other artists realize their dreams.” Flashing a playful grin, he adds, “Especially when they come to me with tricky stuff, stuff nobody else wants to touch.”

That willingness to experiment, to tackle an artist’s offbeat design even if the blueprints seem to challenge the laws of basic physics, is writ large throughout Sanchez’s Design District studio. Walking inside it is like entering a fun house upended by a tornado: A top-hatted mannequin torso competes for attention with a ceiling-suspended hobbyhorse, alien-like assemblages lurk underneath worktables piled high with colorful thrift-store finds, and the walls are plastered with inventive collages. Punctuating the visual chaos, a rooster struts across the floor, breaking the din of sawing with earsplitting cock-a-doodle-dos.

“He’s practicing for tomorrow morning, just another emerging artist,” Sanchez laughs as the rooster lets loose with a fresh volley of crows—a siren call for the afternoon’s visitors. Some mosey over for a cigarette break from a neighboring warren of studios, others are en route to the nearby Spinello Gallery, Locust Projects, Dimensions Variable or Bas Fisher Invitational exhibition spaces. In fact, with the front entryway of Sanchez’s studio transformed into his own Swampspace Gallery, this corner of Miami is beginning to rival Wynwood as a nexus of art action.

This Design District setting is both intimately familiar—Sanchez grew up in a home just 10 blocks from his studio’s front door—and altogether foreign. Arriving in Miami in 1967 as a nine-year-old Cuban exile, “I didn’t have exposure to anything remotely similar to Art Basel or the ‘refinement industry,’” Sanchez recalls. “No one took me to museums because there were no museums in Miami.”

That’s not entirely an overstatement. The local cultural “refinement” offerings were indeed scarce on the ground in the early ’70s. Beyond the hermetic academic milieus of Miami Dade College and the University of Miami, there was little in the way of a homegrown art scene. “When I was a kid in 1977, I really had the sensation that I had to get out. There was something telling me, You gotta go, this is not the place to be an artist!”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Sculpture fabrication work for Daniel Arsham in the studio and on stage (INSET); Sanchez’s studio with his Warbath, 2009, in the foreground; Block Island, 1983: (FROM LEFT) Bruno Schmidt, Kurt Thometz, Oliver Sanchez, Kenny Scharf, Min Thometz, Tereza Goncalves, Carmel Johnson and Adolfo Sanchez; The Sanchez-erected sculpture Kids during production (LEFT) and on display at Design Architecture Senior High; Kenny Scharf, Timothy Leary and Sanchez at Scharf’s New York studio in 1991; in-progress work for Daniel Arsham at Sanchez’s studio

In May of that year, Sanchez followed the lead of older brother Adolfo, decamping for Manhattan before the ink was barely dry on his Miami Dade College architecture diploma. Rent was cheap—$350 for a two-bedroom Upper West Side apartment with sweeping Broadway views— and commercial work on Madison Avenue was plentiful. By day you could find the Sanchez brothers putting their graphic design skills to use on a Condé Nast magazine ad layout, or on a quarterly report for a Wall Street firm. (“This was before desktop computers—all those bars and charts had to be done by hand,” Sanchez explains.) By night, the brothers threw themselves into what became the fabled ’80s East Village art explosion.

“I’ll never forget what Jean-Michel [Basquiat] said to me while we were walking on the street one night: ‘I’ll learn to draw later. First I want to get famous.’ Soon enough, there he was with a big show at [the gallery of] Annina Nosei,” Sanchez recalls of that famed painter’s breakout opening in 1981. “Everything was ripe, and everything was converging.” Musicians were making art, artists were staging plays, camera crews were flying in from Japan and newly wealthy collectors were driving in from New Jersey with outstretched checkbooks. Indeed, glancing at the exhibitions highlighted on Sanchez’s CV is like a documentary tour of that era’s hallmark shows: Sometimes solo, sometimes in collaboration, you could find the Sanchez brothers’ artwork at the Gracie Mansion Gallery’s “Famous Show” and the Downtowngoes- Uptown gala at the Holly Solomon Gallery’s “57th Street Between A and D,” as well as a string of events at the hallowed nightspots Club 57, Danceteria and The Mudd Club.

It’s a period that Sanchez looks back on with bittersweet feelings. Many of his closest friends were lost to AIDS, including his brother Adolfo. Others, such as Basquiat, died from drug overdoses. By decade’s end, the party was most certainly over: Working as a studio assistant for Day-Glo expressionist painter Kenny Scharf may have kept him at the heart of the East Village art scene, but Sanchez says walking around the neighborhood often felt like visiting a graveyard.

When Scharf decided to move to Miami Beach in 1992, it didn’t take much to convince Sanchez, his wife and their newborn daughter to follow. However, the city that greeted them was a far cry from the sleepy burg Sanchez left in 1977. And if the transformation of South Beach from a retiree haven into the American Riviera wasn’t jarring enough, Art Basel has helped make Miami into a bona fide art city. “Today, an artist doesn’t need to leave Miami to find a viable industry.”

Lately Sanchez has even found time to focus on his own artwork. Hanging in his studio is a series of figurative paintings based on iconic postwar photos, many recasting an uplifting moment—the inoculation of a small child, scientists gleefully perched over a primitive robot—in a more ominous light. “We’re in the age of recreation,” Sanchez says. “These are pictures that strike me, that I want to bring to the forefront.” A familiar mischievous smile returns to his face: “I’m not trying to outdo the original photo. A painting of a rose will never match the power of an actual rose. But something happens along the way. And that’s the beauty of making art—it’s not finite. It’s an ongoing conversation.”

E-mail: brett@oceandrive.com

Swampspace Gallery (3821 NE First Ct., Miami) features new work by David Rohn on Saturday, October 9, from 6 to 11 PM. For information, visit swampspace.blogspot.com.

Via www.oceandrive.com

Check out our 2009 studio visit with Sanchez here and his blog, Swampstyle.

Flyers for ‘Now Playing.’

The following text was featured in one of three tabloids edited by Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza that were recently published on the occasion of the exhibition New Work Miami 2010 currently on view at MAM. The tabloids are available at locations throughout the city of Miami.

NL: When did “The End” start?

DC: April and May of this year we took 2 or 3 weeks to organize everything and then we started with a screening of Rosemary’s baby and then went from there.

NL: So what is it? The End I mean.

DC: Basically its a nomadic space for the presentation of ideas, screenings, shows, lectures etcetera. and moving from one location to the next because every place has a different influence on what we do there and we always want to find different ways of working around new spaces.

KF: I would say what we are most interested in is constant programing, we do allot of screenings but we also do allot of other things as well, we want to have things happening all the time. We also want the project to move constantly to keep the ideas fresh.

NL: OK I want to go back to that but I want to ask first how the project came about?

KF: Well Domingo and I were living in New York… actually it began really with a space we did a few years ago with Carlos Azcura here in Miami called La Cueva which was a gallery space and we did workshops, lectures and things like that.  Patti participated in what we were doing then. We have always been interested in making spaces were dialogue happens.

NL:  Yes i remember it was above “El Gato Tuerto” liquor store.

KF: Right, so Domingo conceived the Idea and asked me to be part of this new project.  But New York didn’t seem like the right place, we wanted to do it in Miami because there is more opportunity for mobility here and more access to people in a way.  Once we got back here Patti joined and we started.

NL: So what’s the idea behind the dual names? The End/Spring Break?

DC: Well it changes back and forth every six months.

NL: So its a seasonal name

DC: Yes

NL: Is the name change connected to the way the project works?

DC: Yes the name like the project reflects how this city works, how people use this city.  Now its summer and we are at the end, usually nothing happens here, later when the weather gets better the city becomes more active, people come for entertainment and recreation.

NL: I see…  the project is conceived as a cell within the activities of the city?

DC: Yes, that’s one of the ideas.

KF: What I like about the juxtaposition of those two names is how it reflects two approaches, The End being an over analysis, critical theory type of  mentality and Spring Break is the love affair with kitsch.

NL: Two of the main threads in art right now kind of…

KF: Yeah i think the painter Steven Parrinos’ work kind of sits like that on both sides.  I’m into that.

NL: So all three of you have your own practices separate from this project?

DC: Yes

KF: Yes

PH: Yes

NL: And would you describe it as an art project of yours or more of a peripheral organizational activity?

DC: I think it changes for everyone, this is part of my practice, my train of thought… so to me there is no difference.

NL: OK let me ask it this way, If an institutional space asks you to bring the project there, do you treat it as just another temporary place for the project? Or do you try to consolidate and make a display of the project in a kind of past tense?

Flyer for Dino Felipe’s ‘Desert Animals.’

KF: No

DC: Definitively take over the space in an active way.

KF: And just run The End in that space.

NL: So The End and.. Spring break, how should I refer to it?  I’ll just call it The End. As you said the name and project is very connected to this city… So what happens if you are invited to bring it to another city or country? How would it operate?

DC: Well it can operate in both cities at the same time, it would not stop functioning here. It would just develop itself there as well.

NL: So the geographic boundary of the city of Miami is not much of a concern?

KF: No not really.

NL: So is there an agenda, a program in a gallery sense or is the program not to have a program?

KF: We are kind of on the edge of that because we are now in the process of preparing to apply for grants.

NL: OK that leads to my next question, what is the furthest planned evolution of the project?

PH: Right now we are just looking at the next 6 months.

NL: OK so six months at a time, and that seems to be part of the program for the space the fluidity of it?

PH: Yes that’s the beauty of it,  if someone is fascinated by a strange subject and they want to share it, we can respond quickly to that.  And I think that’s why we wouldn’t want to become more institutional.

NL: Well I meant institution in the looser sense, not some kind of museum but more like a non-profit something like Locust Projects or Light Industry in New York, spaces that came out of activities like what you are doing now and the activities lasted 10-20 years and they are now a more fixed part of the city.

KF: It would be great if the project became self-sustaining, we would be excited about that.

NL: So could it eventually become Non-nomadic or is that part of the mandate of the project?

DC: Yes it has to remain nomadic.  The movement creates relationships, It makes it that much easier for information to pass from one place to the next.

NL: OK I’m starting to see an aesthetic, a social aesthetic I guess. Is there some other aesthetic concern the project is involved with under the surface? A certain look or feel to things?

DC: I don’t know… I wanted to start with Rosemary’s Baby because I wanted to focus on the birth of pure evil.  Then I wanted to continue with films that featured women in power.  After that I think one thing will just lead to another.

KF: We want to work with different people who have different types of extreme tastes, that way it will cover a lot of ground.

NL: So this is kind of like the new model for art spaces right now because it focuses on activity.  I think maybe twenty years ago the idea of an alternative space was very popular.  It was clearly defined as a space for art outside of a commercial context.  This is now defined by activity, a framework for activity?  I see other cities doing this, I can think of Cleopatras in New York and other projects in Los Angeles.  Not to mention other countries.

DC: There is allot going on like this elsewhere especially in Europe right now…

Now Playing installation view.

NL: Is The End anti academic?

DC: The End is sponsoring all the things that academic institutions don’t do.  When people give lectures, we are not interested in having them lecture about their art practice.  We want the lecturers to impart a bulk of knowledge they have outside of their practice.  So for example if an artist has researched Gregorian chants and has allot of knowledge on that subject, that’s what we would like them to talk about.

NL: So its not so much anti-academic as it is post academic?  Does it  try to fill a graduate school void here in any way?

KF: It would be cool to think of it that way…

DC: It kind of depends because… well we’ve had Abel Folgar doing this four part series on the history of Punk music and underground music in South Florida.  Anyway people we have been inviting have been dealing with South Floridian topics.

PH: Have you heard of Skwee?

NL: Well I’ve been following the lecture program and I saw you had one on that subject..

DC: Timothy used to do the Electric Kingdom radio show on 90.5 WVUM…

KF: I think who will make a really good example was when we had a workshop with Denise Delgado from the Miami-Dade Library system.  She is actually in grad school and this workshop she presented was a lesson plan for a class she teaches at her school about charged objects in fiction. She was sort of testing out the lesson plan with us.  Kind of a writers workshop without the writing, more just a conversation about the subject matter.

NL: So it had more of an educational position…

DC: Yes but its important that it remain open for everyone to come and participate in any aspect of it.  Even if its a lose idea, lets get together and figure it out.  Denise approached me about two and a half weeks before she did her workshop and everything just kind of fell into place.

KF: With that being said, one thing that we find interesting and that we want to do is reach out beyond the usual suspects in the art circle. I mean we find it really rewarding when people who are outside of the art circle come and participate.  With Denise a group of writers showed up and  it was just me and Domingo and allot of people we had never seen before.  We’ve had that happen in a few instances.

PH: Actually with every event we usually get  a different group of people.

NL: It’s funny because people go to MFA programs to get connected in the art industry, but when you talk about what makes this project tick, one of the things seems to be a connection to those outside the art  circle.

KF: yes we are tired of regurgitation on the subject of art. At some point you have to try and start fresh[.]

This text was contributed by Nicolas Lobo. All images courtesy of The End/Spring Break.

Image courtesy of Viking Funeral.

Nicolas Lobo, a Miami based artist, interviews Viking Funeral, a Miami based duo (Carlos Ascurra and Juan González), who have operated in various ways over the past 2 years, transecting the local cultural landscape with a variety of strategies. Their output includes live noise shows, sound installations, video and other more arcane products.

Nicolas Lobo: So why Viking funeral and not Juan and Carlos?

Carlos: First I think it’s a really ridiculous name like a high school band name…. You know you think of band names in high school looking for the best one

NL: So Viking Funeral is the ultimate high school band name?

C: I don’t know about that but it is definitely a band name.

Juan: And it has angst in it.

NL: But you guys are only %40 band right? Because the meat of it is the installations and the stages?

J: Well we play as a band also, we play at Churchill’s, we do noise shows, stuff like that…. I’d say its about 50/50

NL: So are you trying to make moves in the music world as well as the art world?

C: I don’t think we’re making any moves, I think we’re just playing and then we’re also making art. You know?

NL: So you guys are basically riding both sides of the fence.

J: Pretty much.

Image courtesy of Viking Funeral.

NL: OK. For me, on the surface, your work has this super goth dark veneer, but then there is other stuff that goes on afterward. I’m not going to bring up the Nirvana T-shirt thing at all…

C: Cool.

N: …but I’ve only seen maybe 4 things you guys have done…

J: Man we’ve only done like 6 things total so that’s pretty good!

C: You are one of our biggest fans probably!

J: The way it works is we send a proposal out and then it gets picked up and then we do a piece, site specific or something like that.

NL: So the first thing was at The Freedom Tower or was there something before that?

C: No, we made a piece before that where we tried to imitate different sounds and do it in surround sound.

J: It was called The Forest of Echoes, we did it really haphazard, like a traditional sound work, but with homemade speakers in a circle – really cheap looking. Not your usual 30 point speaker setup that you might see.

NL: So do you guys feel it worked out?

J: Well with a first piece you always feel you could have done better… once you get more experience. But we were pretty happy with it at the time.

C: I think it worked out for what it was. Later on you just want to rework everything.

J: But then you already did it so you have to move on; you can’t dwell on it.

Image courtesy of Viking Funeral.

NL: So, coming back to the show at The Freedom Tower that Gean Moreno put together two years ago: I think very few people had heard of you at that time, but there you were smack bang in the middle of a show about making a scene…

J: That’s all thanks to Gean, I guess we were kind of like his little bomb to drop.

NL: That was good, but it was also different from the other things I’ve seen since. That first work was pretty Rock-ish, but now the newer stuff has nothing to do with Rock really.

C: When you say Rock you mean music?

NL: I mean it like Rock with the capital R, like the aesthetic.

J: Yeah like the rock band drum set, a bunch of guitars, the fliers.

NL: The next thing I saw was the Locust Projects installation…

Image courtesy of Locust Projects.

J: Well everything we do is related to the idea of music.

NL: Sure, but the whole Rock thing is very separate.

J: Definitely, it changed from a rock band thing to a concrete thing with homemade instruments.

NL: It was also much more immersive and art oriented at Locust Projects, like a dark tropicalia.

C: Well when someone sees an acoustic guitar the may think Funk and when they see an electric guitar the may think Rock, but they can’t see it as an instrument, as an object that creates a certain type of tone.

NL: Fine, but you have to admit that the project for The Freedom Tower was an all out Rock aesthetic, the photocopied fliers the drum kit…

C: Yeah OK.

NL: And what about the Moore space project where I came in and you guys said “get out, we are busy!”

C: Well we were having internal problems at that point so it had noting to do with you. You just showed up at the wrong time when we were having issues with the Spanish people.

NL: I just saw drinks and thought I’d have one and then they didn’t have a mixing spoon so I went back to the studio and made a wooden spoon.

J: Nothing personal, really.

Image courtesy of Viking Funeral.

NL: OK, is ibett yanez your manager, is she part of the group or what?

J: Well, you know there is always a fifth Beatle…

C: We can’t help but ask all our friends, people we know, what they think about things we are working on and Ibett is a close friend so how could she not play a part. Were always working on things.

NL: Do you think if you start to get successful-ish things will start to break apart? Like most collectives do?

J: It would be nice to become so successful that we become dickheads and we can’t talk to each other. Rich you know to the point were we can only communicate by E-mail.

C: Yes looking out over a beautiful view wishing we could still be in some stinky van together.

NL: The thing about Viking Funeral is the name sounds like a kind of music that’s already past, there is some nostalgia there, I don’t know what to call it, but that thing that happened in Sweden in the early 90’s.

J: When we came up with the name it was just funny that a Peruvian and a Puerto Rican would call themselves Vikings and go at the art aggressively.

C: Also I think if you think of yourself as a band instead of a collective then your approach changes too.

J: Yes artists always seem to have more of a stick in their ass than a musician would. So if you think like musicians maybe you’ll work out as artists.

Image courtesy of Thomas Hollingworth.

NL: You guys play at Churchill’s and there is this glow around Churchill’s, this scene… formed around a single bar. Do you guys feel part of that scene? Or are you playing there because it’s the only place that will let you play?

C: When we’ve played there it’s because we were asked to play there, to us its just a venue really. But I think a lot of people really hold something to it because…

J: Well its one of the only places you can go here in Miami without seeing an Ed Hardy shirt so its refreshing that way. Nobody has a sweater over their shoulders you know?

NL: So what are some other places you’d like to play besides Churchill’s?

J: Churchill’s and if not there then get noisy at galleries.

NL: How about Shuckers on 79th street?

J: Yeah Shuckers or the Alehouse might be kind of fun…

NL: What about The Ukelele bar on Biscayne?

C: Is that by Secrets?

NL: Yeah not far from Secrets.

J: We’re Hams, we’ll play anywhere.

NL: But you are not trying to manage yourselves…

J: We try to manage as much as possible, but as people who’ve never managed anything really… We try to do the best we can.

NL: So would you want a manager who could see what you are trying to accomplish and help you do it?

J: It would be nice to have someone with a set direction.

C: I think also Viking Funeral comes from a direction where… well, you’ve been using this word “Scene”, we ask, what is a scene really? Are you part of a scene? Am I part of a scene? Is anyone part of anything really? And so Viking Funeral has to do with that also. Just making your own thing, if Churchill’s lets you play, cool, play there. And if another place happens then great, play there too, and if five more become available to us? Sweet! We’ll do that also.

J: Yeah Goo was around for a hot minute.

NL: Who?

J: Goo, it was up the block from Churchill’s, and it was a venue. But it was so quick… That by the time we heard about it, it was already closing down.

NL: Yeah…

Image courtesy of Viking Funeral.

J: But we’re much more prone to playing anywhere than showing artwork anywhere.

NL: You wouldn’t show artwork anywhere? It’s funny because there seems to be a trend here in town of showing anywhere on purpose, anywhere with a capital “A”. It might even be called a strategy.

J: Yes but we can’t do what we do just anywhere.

NL: So no ArtFusion for you guys?

J: What is that?

NL: ArtFusion is the gallery which is part of the Bang Bros. Conglomerate who are the inventors of the pornography phenomenon the Bang Bus.

J: OK I’ve heard of that.

NL: So Bang Bus was a huge success and it spawned Bang Bros. that is an entertainment company and they do adult entertainment, but other things as well such as ArtFusion Gallery.

C: You know a lot about it have you shown there?

NL: Yes I would like to.

J: What do you want to show there?

NL: Ha Ha. That is a perfect example of ‘anywhere’ though.

C: I think we’re more interested in making our own space, not so loaded… we like empty spaces with not so much history usually. Which is different than going somewhere were people are banging in buses for example.

J: Which does not sound bad by the way. So yeah, basically we like to work in a site specific way.

Image courtesy of Locust Projects.

NL: OK noted. What about the underground issue? Its such a reactionary polarized thing, you have the choice of The Opium Groups’ clubs or you can opt for the “Underground Scene”.

C: Of course, but lets not forget that “Underground” is here to sell too.

J: And what is “Underground” anyway?

C: Yes, what do you mean by “Underground”?

NL: That which we just spoke of, the “Underground” created to sell…

C: You mean like ArtFusion?

NL: No, they seem closer to the original meaning of “Underground” than the perversion we are talking about.

C: So which “Underground” are we talking about?

NL: The one in which Paramount makes an Indy film for example. The seller’s “Underground,” a kind of simulated black market. Whereas ArtFusion is just “Underground” because no one knows about it. (Its on the corner of North Miami Ave. and NE 40th St.)

J: Yeah but you figure; nice space, decent budget, good lighting. And they may not be so stressed about selling.

NL: I heard some of their actors show there which is really interesting.

C: Like photography? Or video work?

NL: No… I think you need to go to one of the openings.

NL: And then there is Adamar…

J: Well we would not be interested in showing in a place like that. But then again they probably wouldn’t be interested in showing us either.

NL: Probably not.

J: Yes.

NL: You don’t have to tell me anything specific about what your working on, but whats the general idea for the future?

C: Were trying not to make objects. That’s what the installations are trying to get to.

J: We also want to get back to typical stuff like music and cheap little pamphlets. Maybe some CD’s, EP’s, because, yeah, it has been feeling a bit too artsy. Back to the fortress of solitude.

NL: Will you be pressing a record?

J: We would love to but it does cost money.

NL: Not that much…

J: About a thousand bucks, I think all of our projects together amount to about a $1000.

C: Yeah we have this old photocopy machine that’s how we made all the fliers for the show with Gean anyway. We also invested in pens and Sotheby’s catalogs[.]

For more information please visit: www.thevikingfuneral.com

This post was contributed by Nicolas Lobo.