Fresh Talk: Jason Forrest

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century    

Cathy Byrd connects by Skype with Jason Forrest, aka DJ DonnaSummer, a laptop musician. Based in Berlin for the past eight of years with his wife Jennifer Ray Jason heads back to the U.S. this fall. Jason talks about how he became internationally known and introduces his new platform, Network Awesome.    

Sound Editor: Leo Madriz 
Photos courtesy Jason Forrest
Episode Sound in order of appearance: "New Religion" from The Everything, Jason Forrest; "Close to the Edge" from Close to the Edge, Yes;"The Exquisite Organs" from The Everything, Jason Forrest; "Bring that Beat Back" from Bring that Beat Back, Public Enemy; "Keys to the Door" from The Everything, Jason Forrest; "Utopia" from Utopia, Jason Forrest

Fresh Talk: Jen Ray

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century  

Cathy Byrd connects by Skype with Jennifer Ray, a contemporary artist from North Carolina. Based in Berlin for the past eight of years with her husband Jason Forrest, aka DJ DonnaSummer, Jen heads back to the U.S. this fall. Jen talks about life in Berlin, her recent exhibitions and her new book, Ain't We Got Fun.

Sound Editor: Leo Madriz 
Photos courtesy the artist
Episode Sound:  Jen Ray,  Double Action, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 2010

Fresh Talk: Sasha Dees

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 Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

Cathy Byrd connects on skype with Sasha Dees, an independent curator/producer/consultant who lives and works between Amsterdam and New York. In the Netherlands, Sasha curates the residency program Open Ateliers in the area of Amsterdam known as Zuidoost. In the U.S., Sasha is the producer of a roving video performance project with Sietske Tjallingii who is the protagonist in Miss T - My American Dream. Their road trips in search of mid-century roadside icons have led them to gigantic versions of a guitar, a blue whale, a sombrero and more.

Sound Editor: Leonardo Madriz
Photos courtesy Sasha Dees 
Music: Billy Holliday, All of Me

Cathy Byrd Talks Music with Jason Moran

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

Cathy Byrd spoke on the phone with Jason Moran, a jazz pianist/composer based in New York. The MacArthur Fellow and artistic adviser for jazz at the Kennedy Center talks about when he first started improvising, how he collaborates with contemporary artists and what unfolded during Bleed, the suite of events he created with his wife Alicia Hall Moran during their 2012 Biennial residency at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Sound Editor: Leo Madriz | Known image credits noted | Music: Jason Moran, He Takes His Coat and Leaves

Fresh Talk: Joan Jonas

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Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

In Austin, Texas, Cathy Byrd meets seminal video and performance artist Joan Jonas about how context affects each presentation of The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things, a project commissioned by Dia Beacon in 2004. Joan talks about the evolution of her transmedia process since the 1960s and the inspiration she gets from working with jazz improvisor Jason Moran. Joan's collaborator in The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things (2005-2006), and Reading Dante (2008), Jason will be featured in his own Fresh Talk episode. Joan Jonas and Jason Moran will perform together this September, in Kassel, Germany, during documenta 13.

Sound Editor: Leo Madriz 
Photos: known credits noted 
Music: Jason Moran, He Takes His Coat and Leaves

Fresh Talk: Regina Frank

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

Now living a seaside village just outside Lisbon, German artist Regina Frank has expanded on her central theme, The Artist Is Present, for more than two decades. Regina talks with Cathy Byrd about the political and cultural issues that interest her and how her meditative installation projects explore the tension between analog and digital media. Of Note: For Hermes Mistress(1994), the artist lived inside a remarkable red dress at Exit Art, NYC.

Sound Editor: Jay Agoglia
Photos: Courtesy Regina Frank 
Sound: Astor Piazolla, Tango Milonga del Angel

Actualmente viviendo en un pueblo cerca de Lisboa, la artista alemana Regina Frank ha expandido su tema central The Artist is Present, por más de dos décadas. Regina habla de los temas políticos y culturales que le interesan y cómo sus meditativos proyectos de instalación exploran la tensión entre los medios analógicos y digitales. Para un proyecto en 1994, vivió durante un mes en un gran vestido rojo en Exit Art, NYC.

Fresh Talk: Papo Colo

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Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

This episode features Papo Colo, a Puerto Rican born artist who founded Exit Art, a dynamic nonprofit contemporary art center, with his partner, the late Jeanette Ingberman. Their work as artists and activists has made a tremendous impact on the art scene in New York City since 1982. In May 2012, an exhibition and events in the space mark the closing of Exit Art, as Papo prepares to launch a new venture, a unique finishing school for young Creatives in the Puerto Rican rainforest.

Sound Editor: Leonardo Madriz
Photos courtesy Papo Colo and Exit Art
Music: Papo Colo, Clara Luna

Este episodio cuenta con Papo Colo, un artista nacido en Puerto Rico, que fundó, junto con su mujer Ingberman Jeanette, Exit Art, un dinámico centro de arte contemporáneo. Como artistas y activistas han hecho, desde 1982, un tremendo impacto en la escena artística de Nueva York. En mayo de este año, una exposición y eventos en el espacio marcarán el final de Exit Art, ya que Papo se prepara para un nuevo proyecto: una particular escuela en la selva de Puerto Rico para los jóvenes creativos.

Fresh Talk: Antoni Muntadas

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Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

Living and working in New York and Barcelona, Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas talks about the importance of language and the social body in the multi-media work he's been creating globally since the 1970s. His complex conceptual projects were featured in exhibitions in the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona earlier this year. 

Sound Editor: Leonardo Madriz
Sound: Muntadas, Stadium, 1988

El artista español Antoni Muntadas, que vive y trabaja entre Nueva York y Barcelona, habla de la importancia del lenguaje y el cuerpo social en las obras multimedia que ha ido creando a nivel mundial desde la década de los 70. Sus complejos proyectos conceptuales se presentan este año en exposiciones en el Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, y el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona.

Fresh Talk: Khadijah Queen

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Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

Khadijah Queen, a poet who studied at Antioch University Los Angeles and recently completed a residency at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, MA, talks about what's essential in her creative practice and shares a few poems from her latest book, Black Peculiar. The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Khadijah curates the reading series Courting Risk and is currently working on an illustrated mixed genre project.

Sound Editor: Jay Agoglia
Photos courtesy Khadijah Queen 
Music: Denelda Queen, Lush Life, 2007

Fresh Talk: Kesha Bruce

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Conversations about Creativity in the 21st Century

Artist, curator, art consultant and Fresh Rx contributor, Kesha Bruce talks to Cathy Byrd about her creative platforms and offers advice to artists. 

Sound Editor: Leonardo Madriz
Photos: Kesha Bruce
Music: Slim Harpo

Fresh Talk: Danny Simmons

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Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century

Danny Simmons, a high profile Brooklyn-based artist, shares the essential elements of his creative practice—writing, painting, collecting and, most of all, philanthropy. 

Sound Editor: Leonardo Madriz 
Photos: Mark Blackshear

FAI Looks Back at 2011

This bright beginning anticipates a stellar future for FAI:

Fresh Talk: Janet Biggs

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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.

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.