Fresh Talk: Fred Naucyzciel

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

In this episode, Paris-based artist Frédéric Nauczyciel describes an elusive subculture that he explored in Baltimore, Washington DC and New York City, and introduces his new photo series: Men In Heels.  

Sound Editor: Ira Kip
Photos: Fred Nauczyciel
Music: DDM!, Legendary

Your Cue to Fresh VUE

This logo will be your cue to look for a new Fresh VUE on FreshArtInternational.com.
We encourage FAI subscribers to contribute their Fresh VUEs. Find out how to participate here.

Of note: FAI's inventive graphics are designed by Freya Schlemmer, a graduate student in architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. In Spring 2012, Freya will consider her outlook for the future in a special Gen Y podcast on Art Talk.

Fresh Rx.1 with Kesha Bruce

Solutions to Your Creative Dilemmas

When do I need a web presence, 
and how should it look?

Unknown poet, Prince Edward Island

If you have a body of work to promote and you’re ready to begin the process of getting it in front of people, then this is the perfect time to start thinking about building a website. But the when isn’t nearly as important as the how. Above all, your web presence—whether it be a full website or a blog—absolutely needs to be professional and well designed. Too many Creatives make the mistake of spending time, energy and money on sites that not only display their work poorly, but also aren’t designed to promote and market their work.

The basics:

About or Bio page—This is not the time to hide behind your work. Introduce yourself in a way that gives website visitors the chance to get to know the person behind the work. Your well-crafted bio and professional portrait go a long way towards building a connection to on-line visitors.

Contact Information—If, after viewing your work, a website visitor wants to contact you, but can’t easily find your e-mail address, or phone number, they’ll likely leave and never come back. Make it easy for people to get in contact with you. If you get this part wrong, all of your other hard work will have been in vain.

Portfolio—This is the place to show a small selection of your best and most current work. You don’t need to include everything you’ve ever created here. You only need to show enough work to give a viewer an entryway into your work.

Sign-Up Form—What do you want a website visitor to actually do once they’ve finished viewing your site? How do you intend to get back in touch with them once they click away? A sign-up form of some sort is a simple and easy means to collecting visitors' contact information so that you can invite them back to your website or to an actual event long after they’ve wandered off to another part of the cyber world.

No matter what your field or medium, a website can and should be more than an on-line portfolio. The entire purpose of the website is to introduce yourself, present your work in the best way possible, and most importantly, to begin building relationships with the people that visit your site.

On-line Resources:

Easy and Affordable websites: OtherPeoplesPixels

Sign-up form and mailing list software: Mailchimp

Send me your questions. I'm here to help! Kesha Bruce: freshartinternational@gmail.com

Introducing Fresh Rx

Struggling to find time to create your music?

No traffic on your website?

Trouble meeting the right people?

Find solutions to your creative dilemmas on our new Fresh Rx page.

Because Fresh Art International believes that fresh thinking is essential to building a sustainable professional future, we’re introducing Fresh Rx, an advice column designed for creative people like you. Fresh Rx is here help you visualize AND actualize your potential. 

Kesha Bruce, a dynamic art consultant and one of FAI's Fresh People, is ready to dispense the answers.

You:

Tell us about the kinks in your practice.

Fresh Rx:

Proposes non-prescriptive answers—straightforward advice, with links to professional resources that will help you address the challenges that seem to keep you from reaching your goals.

Send your questions to freshartinternational@gmail.com. 
Subject Line: Fresh Rx

Fresh Talk: Jefferson Pinder

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century


In this episode, Chicago-based video performance artist Jefferson Pinder explains the importance of physical exertion in his work. Hear how his fascination with Houdini and street theater led to his new live performance series: The Escape Artist. 

Jefferson makes his first appearance as the Escape Artist at 8:05pm, Sunday, December 4, 2011, in Salisbury, Maryland. The premiere performance commemorates the death of Matthew Williams, who was confined to a straightjacket when he was lynched in front of the Wicomico courthouse on December 4, 1931. 

Sound Editor: Ira KIp
Photos: Courtesy Jefferson Pinder

Fresh VUE: Jonathan Lerner | Fallingwater

Visit our new contributors' page exclusively designed for FAI subscribers. 
Click on Fresh VUE to see today's posting from Jonathan Lerner.

Fresh VUE
Illuminate the worlds you discover and Enter the spotlight at FAI 

Shouldn’t you be noticed for your Visual Understanding of the Environment? 

Fresh Art International thinks so. We invite you to share your newest finds on our dynamic platform. Surprise us with delectable characters, cultural curiosities, uncommon events, radiant happenings, and fresh scenes that you encounter anywhere on the planet. 

NOTE: This opportunity is available exclusively to FAI Subscribers.

To submit your Fresh VUE for consideration:

Subscribe to Fresh Art International.

Send a maximum 150-word descriptive statement and up to 10 low-res (75 dpi) captioned images to FreshArtInternational@gmail.com. | Subject Line: Fresh VUE

We look forward to hearing from you!

Cathy Byrd, for FAI

Fresh Talk: Janet Biggs

Listen to this episode.

Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

New York-based video artist Janet Biggs makes an extreme sport of her creative expression. In this conversation, Janet considers the power of desire and the physical challenges she met while producing video projects on view in No Limits, her current mid-career survey. Organized by the Tampa Museum of Art, the exhibition runs from October 8, 2011 through January 8, 2012.

Fresh VUE: Jaimes Mayhew | Yoko Ono's Peace Tower

This week, we're launching a contributors' page exclusively designed for FAI subscribers. If you haven't subscribed, now's the time! Click on Fresh VUE to see the  premiere posting from Jaimes Mayhew.

INTRODUCING
Fresh VUE

Illuminate the worlds you discover and Enter the spotlight at Fresh Art International. 

Shouldn’t you be noticed for your Visual Understanding of the Environment? 

Fresh Art International thinks so. We invite you to share your newest finds on our dynamic platform. Surprise us with delectable characters, cultural curiosities, uncommon events, radiant happenings, and fresh scenes that you encounter anywhere on the planet. 

NOTE: This opportunity is available exclusively to FAI Subscribers.

To submit your Fresh VUE for consideration:

Subscribe to Fresh Art International.

Send a maximum 150-word descriptive statement and up to 10 low-res (75 dpi) captioned images to FreshArtInternational@gmail.com. Subject Line: Fresh VUE

We look forward to hearing from you!

Cathy Byrd, for FAI

Fresh Talk: Kate Hers

Listen to this episode.

Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

In this episode of Fresh Talk, Kate Hers, a Korean-born video artist based in Berlin, describes the German art scene and explains how she raised funds through Kickstarter for Dr. Rhee’s Kimtschi Shop. The artist and her partner, physicist Hanjo Rhee, will trade their special version of Korea’s national treasure for cultural artifacts from the shop's customers from November 19 to 25, 2011, at Das Gift, Berlin.

Sound Editor: Ira Kip
Photos: Kate Hers
Music: Kraftwerk, Computer Love

Chicago

Chicago was amazing! Spent time with Torkwase Dyson at Studio South Zero, her solar-powered workspace at The Dorchester Project. A video performance artist new to the city, Jefferson Pinder shared the skinny on his upcoming performance project. FAI will feature each of the artists on Art Talk in the next few weeks.


Explored the city with stops in Hyde Park, South Side, West Loop, Downtown, the Art Institute of Chicago and Millenium Park. No matter how difficult it must be to keep that sculpture shiny, Anish Kapoor's wondrous Cloud Gate is worth every effort. If you're headed to Chicago between now and 23 December, take time to see Unlimited Ocean, Wolfgang Laib's sublime installation in SAIC's Sullivan Galleries. This slide show offers a taste of my encounters.

Fresh Talk: William Pope.L

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century  

William Pope.L, a performance artist and interventionist based in Chicago and Lewiston, Maine, is presenting a magic lantern show titled Blink for Prospect.2 New Orleans, the 2011 U.S. Biennial. For his project, the artist made a film from more than a thousand images donated by the people of New Orleans. On the night of October 22, he projected the film through the back of an old ice cream truck as it was pulled through the streets of the city by volunteers. Blink came to rest at Xavier University where it will remain on view through January 2012. This Fresh Talk episode features a conversation with Pope.L, the sounds of Blink in motion and a hint of Don Quixote.

Of Note: Jeff Byrd played the role of Sound Editor on location in New Orleans.

Prospect.2 Opens in New Orleans

While there's not the same sense of post-Katrina urgency connected with Prospect.2, this year's exhibition offers more of a balanced presentation of local, national and international artist participants. P.2's budget limitations are clear. Less than half the number of projects and no site specific, large scale works to match the scale and ambition of, say, Mark Bradford's three-story ark in the Lower 9th Ward during Prospect.1. In fact, more than a few of the projects on view had debuted in other venues.

Still, NOLA is a magical context for founder Dan Cameron's visionary effort. Opening night news regarding Prospect.3: Franklin Sirmans will be P.3's Curator. Cameron has stepped down from the director position, but will remain involved as a board member.

This afternoon, Joyce Scott performs Miss Veronica @ Cafe Istanbul, and tonight, William Pope.L's Blink, a magic lantern show projected from an ice cream truck, will wend its way through the city. I'll be there and plan to post my conversation with Pope.L within the week.

Fresh Talk: Joyce Scott

Listen to this episode

Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

This fall, Joyce Scott, a venerated visual and performing artist based in Baltimore, Maryland, is participating in Prospect.2, New Orleans, a biennial of international contemporary art. Joyce considers the state of art in her home town and talks about her Prospect.2 projects. Performing at Cafe Istanbul on Saturday, October 22, she will tell the story of Miss V, a worldly incarnation of Saint Veronica, who is frustrated by the chasm between men and women in the 21st century.

Sound Editor: Ira Kip 
Photos courtesy Goya Contemporary 
Music: Joyce Scott

ART TALK Podcast Series Premiere

This week, Fresh Art International launches the ART TALK podcast series.


Special thanks to: Joyce Scott, for starring in FAI's first podcast; Ira Kip, for stellar sound editing; Freya Schlemmer, for a super fresh graphic; Zoe Charlton, for offering FAI a home base; and Shonnell Gibson, for kick starting this site. 

Subscribe now and be the first to hear Joyce's podcast post, this Saturday, October 15.

Ira Kip, during a podcast edit session.

Janet Biggs: No Limits

Janet Biggs, In the Cold, 2010, video still

I’m taking a day trip to view a solo exhibition featuring the video art of Janet Biggs at the Tampa Museum of Art. A mid-career survey, No Limits is beautifully presented. The ponderous amount of technology that made possible the encounter of 12 video projects is almost entirely out of view. I’ve followed Janet's trajectory for the past ten years and couldn’t resist the opportunity to walk through an absolute wonderland of her amazing projects. I’ll be posting a podcast of my conversation with Janet later this month.

No Limits is on view at the Tampa Museum of Art through January 8, 2012. 

Bahar Behbahani: The Chronicle of Her Innocence

 

Bahar Behbahani: Saffron Tea, video, 2010

  I went to  NYU Abu Dhabi for the Sept 29 opening of The Chronicle of Her Innocence, an exhibition of provocative paintings by New York-based Iranian artist Bahar Behbahani. This still is from Bahar's video Saffron Tea, screened in the gallery before her conversation with Sam Bardaouil, Curatorial Director of Art ReOriented. Also in New York:

Artist/curators Kesha Bruce and Charlie Grosso @ Baang+Burne, where their 6 x 6 exhibition series currently features the subversive needlepoint of Stacia Yeapanis. (In 2009-2010, Stacia participated in Losing Yourself in the 21^st Century, one of my collaborative curatorial projects.)

+ White on White, an experimental film noir by Eve Sussman/Rufus Corporation at Cristin Tierney.

+ The Pleasure of Slowness, a group exhibition at Bertrand Delacroix based on one of Milan Kundera’s books. Found a strange disconnect between the art and a wonderfully curious concept.

+ The sculptural lyrics of Do Ho Suh’s Home Within Home at Lehmann Maupin.

 + My first walk on the High Line, beginning with a look in one space beneath its beams—David Byrne’s pulsing Tight Spot, a gigantic inflatable globe wedged into a raw space on 25^th St. that’s about to be built out for Pace Gallery’s new space in Chelsea.

This week: Baltimore. Follow my postings as Fresh Art International unfolds.

Introducing Fresh Art International

You may know me as an independent curator, a university gallery curator/director or the executive director of a contemporary art center. I’ve connected internationally in those roles, and as an art critic, travel writer, and educator since 1995. My raison d'être lies at the intersection of art and life; I can't seem to separate the two.

My creative practice involves an exceptionally dynamic problem-solving process. Fresh Art International (FAI) is one tangible outcome. This experiential public platform taps into a network of amazing professional resources. A work in progress, FAI will offer a series of open conversations that give and take energy and ideas from contemporary artists, curators, producers, writers, performers, designers, architects, entrepreneurs and other cultural outliers.

My belief is that fresh thinking and positivity are essential to construct a truly creative life in the 21st century. This site embodies my desire for your best possible future.