Filed under: ART, DESIGN, INTERVIEWS, WHERE (we) LIVE, WOOD | Tags: 19th, 20th, 21ST, 22, 22nd, BAM, brooklyn, december, funiture, interview, live, magazine, new, prview, the, valencia, victoria, we, where, with, woodworking, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA VALENCIA
By Nell Whittaker
THE 22: I wondered if you could expand a little on how you treat disused spaces and how you approach the challenge of trying to fill them with something suitable.
VICTORIA VALENCIA: A disused space to me; a space you want more from. Sometimes you want a space to hold a feeling, a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is function. Function of a piece can come in many forms. To be pleasing to the eye, hold a feeling or memory, to sit on, rest and think, have a meal, a drink, or get to work. I make things that fill those spaces. My work holds stories, those of its life before this form, marks from who used them before. The stories of why these trees have fallen.
22: Your designs are like a meeting between the natural and the man-made. If the raw materials you use dictate the shape of your final product (‘ the imperfect intentions of [the] varied sourced material’), what purpose does the man-made serve?
VV: I respect its original form, not trying to make it too different. The raw materials are beautiful in themselves. A slab of tree can tell you why it fell or how fast it grew, marks of age. The raw material is nature’s art. The me-made is my art. Its my compliment to the nature.
22: What affect does Brooklyn have on what you create?
VV: I love this place. I use the wood from old watertowers. I use trees that grew in Brooklyn and fell in Brooklyn. I ride my bike through its streets and find inspiration.My friends and fellow artist in Brooklyn inspire me.
22: What is unique about your creative process – what do you think will make it interesting to an audience who has no familiarity already with your work?
VV: I work backwards sometimes…sometimes, I have the material before the design. I have a stack of wood that I’ve collected and been given. I get inspired and it moves forward. If I design (think too much) nothing happens.
22: On the other hand, do you think the audience or the atmosphere will affect what you are creating on the night itself?
VV: Yes. I have ideas of what I can do on that Saturday night, but no plan. I may just be handplaning the whole time. Working a rough piece towards a finished state.
22: Do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make at the show?
VV: Something with wood since it would be a bit complicated to weld on stage. My clear idea is I want to be comfortable, I want to have fun, I want to play.
22: Do you think that being self-taught has enabled you to work without restrictions?
VV: Its enabled me to be in my process. I learn something and I work at it until I feel I’ve improved. Then I move on to the next skill. I’m learning slow but well. I learn what intrigues me, while bypassing the “shoulds.” I learn from the materials, my peers and my experience.
22: What impact do you think a conventional education in furniture making would have had on your work?
VV: I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had. I wouldn’t have lived in many places and found my passion through my love for challenges. I would have judged myself because I am not a traditional classroom student. I probably would know more design history. I would be been more in debt and felt like I need to make my work rather than want to.
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS, MUSIC, WHERE (we) LIVE | Tags: 19, 22, 22nd, brooklyn, Dec, greg, interview, live, magazine, mcmurray, new, Percussion, preview, so, the, we, where, with, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW FROM SO PERCUSSION
By Nell Whittaker
The 22: You have already experimented with industrial sounds in your music and now this project is very much to do with the connection between art/creation and music. What is it about the two which makes them agree with each other so well?
Jason Treuting: I think we think of process very much when we think of this piece. The long process we went through to put it together and the fact that every time it is on stage it looks a bit different because some of the process of creation is real time and different each time are both really important to the core of the piece. It is about making things with people and that interaction is what makes up a community, a home, etc. A different artist will be on stage each night making something new with us or by us or around us and our collaborator Emily Johnson sits on stage each evening and draws different things out of the piece each night by giving us notes to follow. It is a wild experience where much of the creative process is given up to collaborators and guests in the moment. I guess I actually feel like this piece is more about something poetic and less married to the exploration of sound or maybe the exploration of sound is meant to serve a more poetic purpose. In the past, explorations of sound, industrial or otherwise, have been what the whole process was about.
22: How does the city affect your creative process generally?
JT: I definitely have a love hate relationship with this city. t brings energy. It makes me want to work and explore my art. It keeps me moving forward creatively. But…it brings a crazy energy. It makes me work crazy hard and it keeps me moving forward very quickly. Two sides of the same coin, but it is a serious balancing act. In the end, I can’t imagine making art anywhere else right now and I think So owes a lot of its creative energy to the community we are directly and indirectly connected to and this project has been about expanding that community, both to different artists/mediums but also to different geographic communities as well.
22:What selection process did you use to work with the artists involved with the show? What were you looking for?
JT: The process was really organic. We have spent longer creating this project than any of the other evening length projects that we’ve created, like Music for Trains or Imaginary City. The beginning seed was expanding the types of artists we were bringing in to the creative process in hopes that we would be pushed to new places. This meant very informally asking some friends or artists we respected to send video or ideas to contribute.
With Grey Mcmurray, we had played with him lots before. He recorded on Amid the Noise and had sat in on many projects and some of the more improvised forms we started with were easy to bring him in to. But we developed a new relationship with him as a songwriter and that came really slowly. By the end, there are four songs on the record that were co-written in ways that were new for all of us.
With Martin Schmidt, we had collaborated with his duo, Matmos, over a long period of time and are using his video work from that context. He started by sending us videos of him performing in different rooms of his house. These videos were great to write music to and slowly made there way out of the project in favor of shorter art video clips from material gathered in each of our homes. In the end, we found a way to work them in and much of the music transformed through that process as well.
With Emily Johnson, she sent two videos early on that we wrote music to. One was dance in a slightly more traditional sense with two female dancers in a space. The second was from a series she has been working on of face dances—close-ups that deal with facial expressions and instructions to the performers on why/how to make an expression. The idea of the instructions became key and her role evolved into an on stage director of sorts that can give us instructions to inform movement or space or something psychological/emotional.
All of these three collaborators are folks whose work we had respected and loved, but hadn’t worked with them in that way before. And we relied on a new collaborator, Ain Gordon, to kinda pull it all together as a director of this incredibly abstract script.
22: How have you approached this project in comparison to how you’ve approached those in the past which have been solely about the music? What have you had to do differently?
JT: I feel like we have been thinking of things in a larger way for a while now. We always try to think of ways to make the experience about more than just sound, whether that means adding video to moments, getting the audience involved in the performance or just presenting the music on stage in a way that is interesting in a visual way as well. That said, this does feel like the biggest step we have taken to explore all of these elements. Text/words have made their way into the show as a core element along with video and movement and the idea of putting the creative process on display in some way. I think what we did differently was give ourselves time to explore and the freedom to fail—which we did often—and then pushed ourselves through the dead ends to new places. We are proud of what we arrived at. It feels like a collective work that is about all of us and that feels real good.
Where (we) Live Trailer from Eric Bradley Beach on Vimeo.
Filed under: ART, CERAMICS, INTERVIEWS, SCULPTURE, WHERE (we) LIVE | Tags: 19-22nd, 2, BAM, BAM next wave festival, brooklyn, Dec, greif, interview, live, magazine, new, paula, preview, we, where, with, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH PAULA GREIF
By Nell Whittaker
The 22: Do you go into the studio with an idea in mind or do you see what comes to you?
Paula Greif: I work from drawings. I see shapes I like and try to build my versions of them out of clay. My original motivation was to remake everything I had in my kitchen by hand. I took a ceramics class on Columbia street in Red Hook. These are the first things I made. I look at a lot of folk pottery and try to keep things simple and graphic. I was a graphic designer and it is hard for me to go outside the lines.
22: You mention on your website that you listen to the trevor wilkins calypso radio show while you work. do you notice your mood or the music you listen to directly affecting what you create?
PG: I don’t listen to a lot of recorded music but I love DJs like Trevor Wilkins. His obsession with the details and the history are right up my alley. It’s live radio that I love. The Trevor Wilkins show is very emotional and comforting and also quite funny. Its the music of a diaspora. The way he presents the songs and shouts “we’re going home!” It’s a deeply brooklyn kind of show. When I am alone and working, he keeps me company at night and makes me laugh out loud in the studio. I can’t say enough about that show! I also listen to Felix Hernandez Rhythym Review religiously on Saturdays and Sundays when I am working. Felix is another DJ that plays music that always hits me on an emotional level. Every song he plays just knocks me out. Sometimes to the point of distraction! I love his worldview. Something about these guys, these completists, who live their lives around a very specific musical period, their enthusiasm is completely heartwarming and rollicking.
22: What is it that you think makes your artwork work alongside music?
PG: Actually I was shocked to get a call from So Percussion. I’ve been listening to the sounds in my shared ceramic studio like water splashing, dripping, sounds spinning of the wheel, wedging the clay is all very rhythmic…and these sound are general to most makers of things. Workaday stuff really, in the best sense.
22: Equally, do you think opening up your creative process to the audience will affect what you are creating on the night itself? Or do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make?
PG: I’m hoping to make the biggest things I can so the process can be seen and understood. I am planning to throw in sections and build composited pieces and paint with slip and colored oxides. Time is a big part of ceramics…things have to be dry but not too dry. I am trying to figure out what can happen in an hour that feels rhythmic and makes good sounds and looks cool.
22: The idea underlying this project is that of a strong sense of place Brooklyn being home for all the artists involved. Your ceramics however look as if they have been influenced by natural objects (for example, the spoon with the handle that looks like a branch or antlers.) How does the city influence your work?
PG: The natural world does not affect my work at all! I’m an urban potter…my heroes are Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, both Viennese refugees to London during World War ll…but I also look at a lot of useful and simple folk pottery…mostly at the Met and the Brooklyn museum. I’m a brooklyn native, I was born in brighton beach and I took my first art classes at the Brooklyn museum when I was a child. I am attracted to the primitive and basic rather that the natural. Maybe because I’m not that skilled of a potter. I’m really new at it. As a designer i’m always trying to control my environment. I have to let go of the fantasy of better living through design. Better living that comes from soulfulness and humility, not stuff, but I do like the feeling of drinking a glass of wine from a cup I made myself.
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS, PREVIEWS, WHERE (we) LIVE | Tags: 19th, 20th, 21ST, 22, 22nd, BAM, brooklyn, Dec, interview, live, magazine, new, preview, riccardo, the, vecchio, we, where, with, york
On Dec 19-22nd So Percussion will combine the wonderfully unique voices of Ain Gordon, Greg Mcmurray, Martin Schmidt, and Emily Johnson with an alternating artistic “performer” each night to creatively explore the idea of a home onstage in Where (we) Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Artists will include, Paula Greif (ceramics), Marsha Trattner (blacksmith), Ricardo Vecchio (painter), Victoria Valencia (woodworker.) These performances are part of BAM’s 30th Next Wave Festival.
PREVIEW INTERVIEW WITH RICCARDO VECCHIO
By Nell Whittaker
The 22: Portrait painting is often thought of as a sort of intimacy between the artist and his subject. How did you initially respond to the idea of opening that up to an audience?
RV: I was terrified. At the same time, because it will be a new experience for me, I am curious to see how it will influence my process. I am sure the company of the musicians will make me feel at ease.
22: What similarities would you draw between your creative process and music? What do you think links visual artwork (in particular, your artwork) to music?
RV: Perhaps because I am also a drummer, and because I frequently paint while listening to music, I find the process very similar. Especially with percussion instruments, I find the ebb and flow of the rhythm analogous to the way I paint. The accumulation of details and contrasting empty spaces in painted surface mimic the acceleration and deceleration of a beat.
22: Do you think the audience or the atmosphere will affect what you are creating on the night itself? Or do you have a clear idea of what it is you will make?
RV: While a part of the painting will be planned out ahead of time, some parts will be blank and left to be finished during the performance. The final result will certainly be affected by the evening’s performance. It will be interesting to deal with the unpredictability of a fairly short performance. It will be crucial to quickly recognize and save “happy painting accidents,” and quickly paint over a mistake which could potentially lessen the final effect.
22: What is it that you think makes your artwork work alongside music?
RV: I think all artwork can work alongside music. If we are talking about my work in particular, I feel there is almost a structural similarity to my paintings and to the way music looks in written form. The disassembled architectural structures I often use in my work remind me of the dance of notes, keys, time signatures, ornaments and clefs on the staff lines.
22: Do you listen to music as you paint? If so, what music helps to put you in the “right” frame of mind for painting?
RV: I frequently listen to music while I work. But depending on the stage of completion of the piece I might vary the music. For example, in the beginning of a piece I might listen to more orchestral music, while at the end stages I’m more likely to gravitate to music with single instruments and no vocals at all. Almost an anachronistic dynamic. The emptier the canvas the louder and richer the music, the richer fuller the canvas the quieter and minimal the music.
Filed under: INTERVIEWS, MUSIC | Tags: 22, an, and, Eberhardt, from, interview, Isabelle, Le, magazine, Mazzoli, Missy, poisson, rouge, royce, song, the, Uproar, vavrek, with
Abigail Fischer and Now Ensemble and Aaron Roche performed SFTU at Le Poisson Rouge, Dec 2012
Song from the Uproar originally premiered at The Kitchen in Feb 2012 and was reprised at Le Poisson Rouge this past December with the NOW Ensemble and Abigail Fischer. Aaron Roche also preformed and video was shown from Stephen Taylor. The narrative of SFTU revolves around Isabelle Eberhardt, a gender defying Swiss explorer and journalist who kept extensive diaries of her extraordinary lifestyle in the 1800s. In the early 1900s she moved to Algeria where she wore the garb of men and called herself, Si Mahmoud Essadi. She married an Algerian solider, and was eventually killed by a flood in 1904, after an early assassination attempt. Creator Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek were interviewed about the project below.
WATCH SFTU TRAILER.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT.
The 22: What in Isabelle’s character do you identify with? What originally made her unique to you?
Missy/Royce: I identified with her inner conflicts, with this feeling that she was caught between eastern and western culture, between her desire to be with her husband and her need to travel endlessly. At a time when most of what we do is shared and recorded through Facebook, Twitter, etc, I was attracted to the fact that we really don’t know that much about Isabelle. We are left to imagine how she felt while these very extreme things happened to her.
22: Do you know much about how Isabelle’s conversion to Sufism effected her during that era? Is this what lead to her attempted assassination?
M/R: I know that the Sufi sect she was a part of did not typically include women – she was only invited into the group because she chose to live as a man. It was in fact the event that led to her attempted assassination; because she was a European woman she was a very visible member of the sect, and became a target for rival Sufis.
22: In the film you repeat images of a little girl and her father (who appears and disappears) and of a girl swimming and/or drowning. Tell me what those symbolic elements represent to you.
M/R: The films were made by Stephen Taylor – the little girl and her father represent Isabelle and her father, and the water imagery represents the flood that will eventually take her life. To me, the water also represents her life, this force that swept her along down an untrodden path.
22: Tell me a little about your costume choices (which have evolved throughout the shows), particularly Isabelle.
M/R: The costumes were made by our designer Alixandra Englund in consultation with the director Gia Forakis. We wanted to show a mix of genders and also a mix of North African and European influences. The pants reflect what was worn by African men at the turn of the century. The entire opera is actually Isabelle’s memory of what happened, rather than what actually happened – it’s a subtle but important distinction. By placing the work in the sphere of memories and dreams, we opened up the story to ideas and styles that don’t necessarily reflect reality in an accurate way. Isabelle’s costume is a perfect example of that – it’s a sort of dreamy, mis-remembered version of something she would have actually worn.
22: Isabelle seems to have a real kinship with death in the piece, “death moves his hands through me again,” “death is my joy, my happiness,” tell me what you or Isabelle meant by these lines?
M/R: Isabelle’s relationship with death is complicated and fascinating. She wrote about death obsessively in her journals and contemplated suicide at one point, but claims to not fear death because of her Islamic faith. In reality I think she did fear death (she was found drown in a flash flood with her arms raised over her head, as if fighting with the water) but more than that I think she feared being alone. When her family dies early in the opera she repeatedly sings “death moves his hands through me again”, and it is this pain that, in my interpretation, forces her to make the extreme choice of moving to North Africa to find a new life.
22: Through part of the opera, Isabelle is (quite enthusiastically) drinking from a bottle. Was she a big drinker?
M/R: Isabelle did enjoy her liquor and was a known smoker of kif, her liberal consumption of substances is widely discussed.
22: It’s particularly interesting that Isabelle was in a sense a political voice against french colonial rule, a dynamic that is relative today. It seemed her representation of both sides allowed her acceptance into the culture, but also created a great distrust of her. Can you talk a little about this?
M/R: I feel that Isabelle was actually on whatever side would help her most at any given moment. Yes, she was for the most part anti-colonial, but also worked for the French as a census-taker at one point. The impression I got was that she found more acceptance in North African culture than she did as a cross-dressing Arabic-speaking anarchist living in Geneva.
22: What appeals to you about turmoil, the “uproar” or Isabelle’s life? You seem to find both joy and sorrow in it, can you speak of both those elements?
M/R: Isabelle’s journals vacillate between supreme joy and a near-rock-bottom depression. We were really excited to create world that reflected these shifts in Isabelle’s outlook on life, which meant looking at things from both angles: how can so many elements of life cause great happiness and also suffocate you?
22: This piece, in my humble opinion, seems to be asking for interlocking narratives of other woman who broke through gender boundaries throughout centuries. If you were to do opera’s on female role models who might they be?
M/R: This is the first opera in a planned trilogy which will feature strong female protagonists of the 20th and 21st centuries. I will have more news as to the subjects of the 2nd and 3rd operas soon, but they are very much in the initial planning stages!
22: Tell me a little about your work with NOW ensemble and why you felt they were right for this piece?
M/R: I’ve been working with NOW Ensemble for the past five years, and have come to know those performers very well. I felt that the small size of their group, their diverse instrumentation, and their commitment to contemporary music made them a perfect match for this project. I also loved the fact that their ensemble had a piano and an electric guitar, instruments that I felt could anchor the music throughout the work, and could create a rich harmonic tapestry that I felt was necessary for the storyline. I wrote all of the music – the collaborative aspects pertained only to the interpretation of the work. I also worked extensively with the guitarist Mark Dancigers to work on the guitar effects (distortion, looping) for the work.
22: Tell me a little about working with Beth Morrison and how her choreography played a role in the piece?
M/R: Beth Morrison was actually the producer of the piece, the movement was developed by director Gia Forakis in collaboration with the singers through a methodology called “One Thought One Action” in which the text is broken down into micro-beats and gestures are created that become married to the linguistic units. Everything developed very organically, staging wise!
22: Tell me a little Abigail Fischer (Isabelle Eberhardt) and why you felt she was right for this piece?
M/R: I saw Abby perform in Nico Muhly’s piece “Elements of Style” and I was hooked. I could sense, even before talking to her, that she was a complete musician; she’s someone who is committed to understanding her roles in a profound way. She’s a cellist as well as a singer, and is a brilliant, inquisitive person outside of music. I knew I needed someone who could understand Isabelle’s dark side – someone who would be willing to read the journals, and someone who was willing to sound gritty and at times ugly, because that’s what the role demanded.
22: Why did you chose video to create a sense of atmosphere in a story that is meant to take place in the 1800s? Why did you chose to use pictures of more 1920-40s based families, what did they come to represent?
M/R: Here I’m speaking for Stephen Taylor, our filmmaker, but I’ll do my best! We wanted the films to reflect Isabelle’s memories and dreams, and didn’t want them to serve as simple background images within the set. Because we’re dealing with the language of mis-remembered events and surreal dreams, we did not feel bound to use footage from Isabelle’s lifetime. We instead chose to use film footage that gives the impression (to a 21st century audience) of “the past”, and settled on footage from the 30′s and 40′s. This choice also gave us a lot more variety when it comes to selecting footage, since there was very little film shot in the first few years of the 20th century.
22: In the end Isabelle is represented by a picture of a swimmer. Tell me a little about this interplay between the film footage and the character. What moment does it signify for Isabelle?
M/R:The opera ends with Isabelle’s transformation (on film) from a drowning woman into a high-diver. The footage is turned upside-down so it looks as if she is diving into the sky. This image has many potential interpretations – at the most basic level it represents Isabelle’s death and her ascent into that unknown world. To me, it represents her willingness to rise above the uproar and release herself from her tumultuous life. This is a piece that constantly walks the line between ecstatic joy and a dark, unfathomable sorrow. The image of Isabelle as a diver represents this fine line more than any other image in the piece.
Filed under: DANCE, FILM/VIDEO, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, an, bill, brown, Cori, dance, ghost, interview, irwin, lines, magazine, Masarin, Olinghouse, Shona, the, trisha, with
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, an, and, art, bryant, classic, comic, Contemporary, film, interview, jason, magazine, Mirrors, monsters, porter, skateboard, smokea, star, the, with
The 22 Magazine: So first the basics, where are you from, how did you end up in NY?
Jason Bryant: Well, I was born in Wilson, North Carolina. I was introduced to painting and drawing roughly when I was five and my love for art was immediate and without question. I was lucky enough to have people around me support this passion, to give me hope that the dream to be an artist can be a reality. Art was always a bright light that helped me get through a turbulent childhood. After getting my Masters from The Maryland Institute College of Art, my girlfriend at the time got a job in NY. Very reluctant and intimidated to move so quickly, the path was set for me to end up in NY.
The 22: Your bio says you are “heavily influenced by classic film,” tell me a little about that. Where did this love arise from? Who’s are some of your favorites?
JB: Film, to me, has always been an escape. Like painting, it sends us on a journey where we take what we bring into it, but always come out of the viewing process a little more informed and with a different perspective. There is something so elegant and clean about how black and white film translates to the viewer. It is very baseline and straight forward in its approach. Brando, Newman, and Grant are all some of my favorite actors. They were an actor’s actor, not afraid to take chances and capable of delivering powerful performances with effortless delivery.
The 22: Your upcoming show “Smoke and Mirrors,” from what I gathered, is meant to convey the trick of making something seem better than it is while simultaneously conveying its vulnerability? Why did you chose this topic? What relevance does it have for you or the “stars” you portray?
JB: That’s exactly it. For “Smoke and Mirrors” I simply wanted to create a show with a double meaning. Every work in the exhibition is a painting based off a film still where the actor is either smoking or viewing their reflection in the mirror. I wanted to create a show where the paintings are beautiful and lavish, but once you read the title or look to see what is happening on the surface of these polished works, you start to see where there are “cracks in the faux finish.” I did not want to be overly dramatic in trying to convey the concept. I did not want to have paintings where the subjects were like pulling back their skin revealing all of their inner demons–nothing that dramatic and in your face. I wanted the concept to come forward subtly while keeping with the conceptual “sleekness” of my paintings.
The 22: How does skateboarding culture fit into your artistic practice?
JB: I started skateboarding when I was 11. Skateboarding, like art, will be a lifelong love affair. It gave me an identity at a young age and it opened up my world to new ways of artistic expression. Most of all, it gave me lifelong friends who will always be like family. Since I can’t physically skate at the high level I once did, it’s fulfilling for me to bring skate graphics into my work and even paint directly on to skateboards like I’ve been doing the last couple of years. That is where the “Merging Icons” series was born. I wanted to merge iconic skate graphics with iconic film stills, basically combining the two most influential elements in my development as a person and as an artist. I love the effects and changes that my hand brings to the works, like I’m the instrument of combining two great passions. I’m actually working on a piece right now that will bring a third passion into the mix and I’m using a new medium. That’s all I can say at the moment!
The 22: Do you still skateboard?
JB: I still roll around, but at the age of 36, let’s just say I’m not going to go do a Tre-flip down eight stairs. Nowadays landing a kick-flip brings a smile to my face, but that is the point, it’s a joy that never goes 
away.
The 22: What is important to you about breaking the ”frame” of a piece, painting directly on the wall?
JB: With the success of the “Merging Icons” I wanted to push the series forward to where the skate graphics would be breaking outside of the “frame” of the canvas and onto the wall. I got the opportunity to try it out at the Pulse Art Fair here in New York in May and this method will be a big part of “Smoke and Mirrors.” The graphics will be traveling all around the walls of the gallery creating a space in which the paintings and the graphics become the metaphorical “walls” of the environment in which the viewer has entered, bringing the viewer into the world of the paintings where each piece is connected to another through the graphics. The gallery agreed to shut down for a bit so I could do this, which is really great of them.
The 22: You talk about graffiti really brightening up the city in the winter. Are there are specific graffiti artists you admire? What about other painter’s?
JB: My approach is in some ways influenced by graffiti and how street art is used to engage the viewer with the mundane everyday structures we live around. I look at some street artists such as insa and r.o.a. Artists that influence my work are Damien Loeb, McDermott and McGough, Jeremy Fish, Kehinde Wiley, Marylyn Minter, Banks Violette. I do of course have my painting heroes such as Chuck Close and Barbara Kruger.
The 22: There’s one piece in your work that is really interesting, which looks like James Dean being arrested and has the tagline “What’s the matter guys…didn’t you make your quota for the month?” How does this piece fit into your work? Is it a reflection on recent New York events?
JB: I had been developing three different bodies of work for the past four years that were shown in 2010 in a solo exhibition titled “Trilogy.” One piece which was the highlight of the show was a painting titled Paperwork and Quotas. It is a scene from The Wild One starring Marlon Brando. I simply recreated the film still, drawing and painting it in my normal style but then I added my own subtitles as a part of my “Text” series. I added subtitles that illustrated the film still but has a very contemporary meaning. The painting itself is the foundation trying to communicate struggles within any political system, not just law enforcement and how there is a “bottom line” in any profession that is at times unfair and unjust.
The 22: Another compelling piece is the “rainbows don’t mean shit” piece. What’s going on there?
JB: That piece is titled Happiness. The subject is a very elegant image of a woman staring off in sort of a 
daydream type of gaze. Her eyes are covered by a fun graphic of a rainbow bursting into the black and white picture plane. It seems to be a very fun and happy piece until you read the text “rainbows don’t mean shit” beneath the rainbow graphic. I simply wanted to have fun in sort of the sarcastic jaded way we view the world today. At the same time though it is commentating on one’s struggles in dealing with the “politics of a profession.” Maybe it is saying that a strong work ethic, talent, and integrity to how you approach your profession is not enough to fulfill a dream, especially not today. Maybe we have lost sight of those values.
The 22: Since so much of your work is based on counter-culture elements tell me how Porter Contemporary (as a Chelsea gallery) became the home for your work and what they offer to an artist like you.
JB: Although my work is based on counter-culture subjects balanced with elegant black and white cinematic imagery, at the core of my work is a foundation built upon a love for the history of painting. The works are highly technical and refined using a traditional approach to painting. This caught the eye of Porter Contemporary in 2006. They were a young gallery, having just opened, and I had lived in New York for just under a year. We have had a great working relationship because the gallery and my work have been able to grow together. The Gallery owner, Jessica Porter, has an incredible work ethic and integrity that is the backbone of the vision for her gallery. It is very inspirational to be around and it has been very exciting to watch the gallery grow along with my work. It is rare that a gallery and artist get to experience growing together with the same basic principles and a certain amount of integrity intact.
For more information about Jason Bryant and his upcoming show visit Porter Contemporary.
You can visit his Website at: http://jasonbryantpaintings.tumblr.com/
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, adam, american, an, art, artist, artists, arts, brooklyn, french, interview, jade, magazine, new, NIKLEWICZ, ny, nyc, polish, the, with, york
by Jade French
Adam Niklewicz plays with the relationship between identity and nationality with a slice of sausage in the middle. Removing our typical relationship with food (eat and run) Niklewicz forces the viewer to reimagine how we can view food with everything from beautifully rotating chicken bones to musical sausages! His sculptures are multi-faceted creations which resituate objects outside of their normal habitats. We caught up with the artist to find out more…
Jade French: How does your relationship with both Poland and America inform your work?
Adam Nikelwicz: On one hand, there’s the visual vocabulary of my Polish childhood, on the other – the American pop-cultural and commercial iconography. The two clash and blend together (there’s a bit of smoke) and all this occasionally produces some creative leaven.
JF: Do you think through creating art you gain a sense of identity? Or does art incorporate a universal feeling, which negates nationality?
AN: I’d dread to hear that my art is somehow ethnic, hermetic or obscure. True, I often base it on quirky, ethnic, folkish facts but I do hope I’m able to distill these facts into works with universal appeal.
JF: Can you explain more fully how ‘Romantycznosc’ is a reflection on the Polish psyche? How did you create that piece of work? It’s amazing that the sound is so pitch perfect when made out of meat!
AN: It’s hard for me to explain the Polish psyche notion (other than through art itself), I know though it reaches its peak when a Pole plays a polonaise on the instrument. Putting this piece together took a lot of effort and a lot of sausage. And there were these frequent (up to three times a day for a few weeks) visits to my local Polish deli, which confused the store clerk. My appetite for always the same mundane kind of sausage, the shear amounts of the product purchased, the fact that I’d often produce a tape measure from my pocket to check on the sausage’s length before buying – all this made the clerk uneasy. I fought against the instinct of explaining myself. I decided that the explanation (I’m not really weird, I’m only making a musical instrument out of sausage) would not boost my image with the man. In other words, I enjoyed the process and misperceptions it produced. The process has recurred several times since with other projects. What makes the piece utter the right kind of sound must remain a secret.
JF: One thing that strikes me is the manipulation of found objects into functioning equipment- like the Art Forum kaleidoscope. How important is it that your art has a function, as well as an aesthetic value?
AN: I want my work to both look good and to possess content. Yes, I need my objects to function, but their purpose must not adhere to an easy logic.
JF: Is the Art Forum piece a comment on art journalism? I noticed you cut the visuals from the review sections out- how much do art reviews affect an artist?
AN: Perhaps it’s a comment on the nature of art. I truly believe that art is ever-changing (like the kaleidoscope effect used here) and ever-fresh (not unlike nature itself).
JF: Do you think using microscopic visuals forces the viewer to look harder at your artwork, or engages them in a different way?
AN: A small object of art feels precious, like a piece of jewelry. I noticed that people gladly focus their attention on a small work. They feel encouraged to wrap their minds around it.
JF: Would you classify your work as playful?
AN: I’m very happy when someone calls my work playful. I’m equally happy when viewers find it humorous.
JF: Pieces such as ‘Ounce’ have a strong sense of nostalgia and poignancy- does this piece relate directly to personal experiences?
AN: I love that you misspelled the title of this piece! The actual title – ONUCE, stands for a garment of sorts – two pieces of fabric or paper (often a newspaper) designated to be wrapped around feet, usually in addition to socks. All this for an extra protection against cold. I suspect the term made the title partially because it looked like a misspelled English word (e.g. ONCE, OUNCE). I used to wear onuce as a child. Big time!
JF: Pieces such as ‘Calle Lunga’ and ‘Monument to Borscht’, although stationary, seem to incorporate a sense of movement- is that something you recognize yourself?
AN: These two pieces are not really built to last. They appear to face the imminent prospect of collapsing, breaking, sagging. I think, this is where the sense of movement comes from; their fragile nature implies change and change is related to movement.
JF: The kinetic sculpture ‘Chicken Soup’ has a sense of frailty to it – what do you think this piece is trying to say?
AN: I like fantasizing about that chicken I consumed. I assembled its bones in a rather aerial manner. I wonder- is this transformed bird on the verge of taking off?
JF: Why is there a link between food and heritage within your work?
AN: Food is a visible, tactile, sensuous (and surprisingly meaningful) way of experiencing a cultural heritage.
JF: I also read that you ate paint as an art student, which relates to the piece of bread with orange oil paint – can you tell us the story and why you recreated this moment later in life?
AN: The incident happened many years ago during a drinking party of a bunch of 17-year old art students – all ready, perhaps even certain, to conquer the artworld. In my own drunken stupor, I spread orange oil paint over a slice of bread and challenged everyone to take a bite. Nobody did! Meanwhile, I put myself on the spot and now I had to have a good chunk of the slice. The long forgotten incident returned to me quite suddenly, and made me realize that the then display of adolescent stupidity was in fact an act of commitment. A vow. I’m the only participant of that gathering from he past that keeps making art. I recreated that ‘action’ now to renew the old vows.
For more about Adam visit his website.
Filed under: FREE FRIDAY!, INTERVIEWS, MUSIC | Tags: 22, body, brooklyn, edward, FREE, friday, grimes, karate, Kentucky, louisville, magazine, new, noir, parole, records, red, rock, seluah, the, york
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS, SUPPORT THIS PROJECT! | Tags: 22, about, donating, kickstarter, magazine, mike, perry's, project, support, the, this, wandering, wondering
DONATE TO WONDERING ABOUT WANDERING.
Mike Perry is raising money for a new sort of “open door” art exhibit. If you haven’t been introduced to the electric, neon world of Mike Perry you’re in luck. His current kickstarter project is to raise money for an exhibition that will not only celebrate the culmination of his monograph, Wondering Around Wandering, but also offer a place of interaction, socialization and discussion for local artists. As a bonus you’ll probably get to meet the bevy of adorable dogs in Mike’s kickstarter video and his perks are some of the best I’ve seen with amazing prints at the $20 level and one of a kind wood pieces at the $300 level and above.
We asked Mike to take a few moments and talk a little about the project. Check out his interview below and make sure you DONATE!
The 22 Magazine: You’ve worked with a lot of folks and brands. What has been your favorite artistic or design experience in New York so far and why?
Mike Perry: Oh man there have been so many amazing collaborations. I love working with Nike and Target. They have been very supportive. I just started working with Duvel and they have been so great to work for. So supportive of the creative world, excited about my ideas and willing to really push the collaborations.
22: You’ve got a few furry friends running around your studio in the video, what’s your dog’s name?
MP: Bass
22: Where will the WAW space be? Where are you looking if you don’t know yet and why?
MP: I have yet to secure a space but I want something big that people can get lost in. A place where you can just wander around and wonder.
22: Where did the WAW title come from?
MP: I just feel like that is what I am doing with my life. Trying to keep my eyes and mind open.
22: Tell us a little more about that tackle box of paint that started it all?
MP: My grandfather Tom was this eccentric artist in Missouri. We had a very funny relationship. He never really took the opportunity to get to know me but I think he knew that I was the person in the family that would keep the prolific journey he started going. I wish I would have had the chance to get to know him.
22: Why did you want your first Brooklyn exhibition to be interactive? What is important to you about have an “open exhibition”?
MP: When I was young my favorite museums where places that you could touch and get lost in the work. A lot of exhibitions are a little stuffy and hard for people to break into. I want my work to feel open and warm. I want to spark the minds of my young audience and show them that they can do this to. But I also want the art connoisseur to remember that there is another way to experience creativity.
22: Why do you think Brooklyn is the best place for this?
MP: I wouldn’t say Brooklyn is the best place for this but I live here so it seems like a great place to start. I would love for this to be very successful and be able to take this on the road to any city that will welcome it.
22: Will you be recording any of the interactions with people at the space?
MP:Big time.
22: What other artists may be working with you on this project or who would you like to ask?
MP: It really depends on how the fund-raising goes. I am going to build a big sculpture with my good friend Jim Stoten that will be on display. And I am working on a zine with a writer friend Francis Parrilli
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS, WRITING | Tags: 22, art, artist, artists, arts, augustus, brooklyn, carolyn, jeffrey, magazine, new, ny, nyc, project, songco, supinka, the, york
Filed under: FILM/VIDEO, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, art, artist, artists, arts, brooklyn, film, guilhermes, hornet, magazine, marcondes, masters, new, ny, nyc, the, tyger, Video, voice, york
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, academy, art, artist, artists, arts, beer, brooklyn, interview, johnathan, magazine, new, ny, nyc, of, painter, painting, with, york
By Max Evry
Through crisp technique and counterintuitive juxtapositions, Jonathan Beer’s art straddles the line between illustration and full-blown abstraction, often side-by-side. His emphasis is on decay and motifs of memory, with each piece attempting to conjure the reality of the mind, something like a Polaroid snapshot of his mental state.
Fresh off earning an M.F.A., Beer was recently awarded a summer residency in Leipzig, Germany, and he’ll be holding a solo show called “Landscape Revisited” at the Ferst Art Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology from May 17-June 30. His M.F.A. Thesis show at the New York Academy of Art opens on the 15th of May from 6-8pm.
We talked to Beer at his studio in New York about his process, and how it is aided by an intuition that is producing truly striking imagery.
Max Evry: Do you ever look back at a piece and find you’ve overdone it, went one or two steps too far?
Jonathan Beer: Oh yeah, all the time. Learning to not paint is one of the hardest things to do. I remember talking to one of the instructors here about that, and someone told him that a mature artist knows when to not paint. After he said that I started to think about that when I compulsively reach to make a mark on something I hadn’t touched in a while. It’s like, “Wait, is this right?” Now if I’m not sure I let it sit, and a lot of time when
I get the urge to do something it’s because I just want to work, so I’ll just start something new at that point. I get that energy out and it protects the other stuff from a possibly destructive decision.
Filed under: ART, COMICS, DESIGN, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, art, artist, artists, Awesome, boy, brooklyn, chicago, COMICS, drawing, Epic, inkdick, knight, magazine, Naujokaitis, new, ny, nyc, of, panas, quest, t, the, the Brave, Totally, york
Pranas T. Naujokaitis (pronounced Nigh-O-Kite-Us) has been my friend for something like a decade. We both went to the same high school, are both obsessive comics nerds, I even helped name his cat “Ripley,” after the heroine of “Aliens.” It was apparent to anyone with eyeballs in front of their face that the guy was destined to become a cartoonist of epic proportions, but when Pranas announced that his first major published work was going to be a children’s book titled “The Totally Awesome Epic Quest of the Brave Boy Knight,” it took more than a few people by surprise, myself included.
“Here’s the problem: I have a very kid-friendly style but I don’t do kid-friendly stuff.” he tells me,”In “Inkdick“ I draw myself in the shower with my cartoon penis a lot and deal with adult situations. Just don’t tell your kids to go to that site.”
“Anyone who’s seen how you draw noses pretty much knows how you draw a cartoon penis,” I reply.
After a long pause, Pranas sighs, “Yeah.”
Filed under: FILM/VIDEO, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, an, art, artist, artists, arts, brooklyn, davy, heart, idiot, is, magazine, my, new, ny, nyc, rothbart, the, york
David Meiklejohn is the co-creator and director of the film, My Heart is an Idiot (2011), documenting the travels and relationships of Found Magazine creator Davy Rothbart. Found is dedicated to showcasing items (mostly notes and pictures) found and sent in to the magazine from around the world. In the interview David talks about My Heart is an Idiot, working and creating with Davy, and gives his own advice on love. This interview originally took place in the late summer of 2011. My Heart is an Idiot is being released on DVD this April and will screen this Thursday in Houston, Texas. For more information on the movie visit their facebook page or watch the trailer.
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, art, artist, artists, arts, brooklyn, gallery, kristin, magazine, new, ny, nyc, painting, performance, photography, skees, surreal, the, york
THE 22 MAGAZINE: You work focuses on a series called cozies, which are nearly full body knitted coverings for humans. What was the inspiration for this project?
KRISTIN SKEES: In undergrad, I started out as a photo major, and then swiftly fell in love with making things and experimenting with materials. I switched to sculpture. At the time, it felt like the most encompassing specialty for me. I felt pretty limitless as far as what materials and forms I could play with. I did a lot of metal-casting, fabrication, and ceramics but the themes I’ve been pulled to have always been about home, identity, and the social constructs of those two things. As I transitioned into graduate school, I began to play with fiber, installation, and performance/video. At first, I experimented with quilting and embroidery, which were two things I learned from my mother and grandmother, and the materials began to feel more in tune with the ideas I was working with. I taught myself to knit and crochet using an old book I found at a thrift store. (This was before youtube, and before the internet was full of crafters – I’m so jealous of how easy it is to learn these things from experts online these days). The process of knitting was intriguing to me, but I was really more interested in the idea of using it as a covering and what meaning I would derive and exploit from that.
Filed under: EVENTS, INTERVIEWS, ART | Tags: 22, magazine, brooklyn, new, york, ny, nyc, art, surreal, the, john, april, gertler, artist, gallery, charles, arts, jeffery, collage, picture, eduardo, FREE, katherine, Paul, room, jenkins, virginia, ave, gallagher, james, emmanuel, williams, farm, wells, meyer, tom, Valerie, NICOLE, Randy, burgess, UGLY, wilkin, wythe, Echeverria, Gall, Gordon, Magnin, Clarita, Mata, Moglu, Mora, Natri, Julien, PacaudCiara, Phelan, Polanco, Recife, Kareem, Rizk, Javier, Rodriguez, Roybal, Streeter, Leigh, Lionel
Artist and curator, Charles Wilkin took the time to chat with The 22 about the upcoming collage show All That Remains presented by Ugly Art Room at Picture Farm in Brooklyn. Resourcing from a VAST pool of collage artists, the show is dynamic, bold and most of all, really fun. The show opens Oct 21st, with an reception from 7-9pm at Picture Farm (338 Wythe Ave.)
The 22 Magazine: You happen to be a collage artist yourself, correct? Tell me what it is that first got you hooked on collage and what you love about it?
Charles Wilkin: Yes I’m a collage artist. It’s funny because I sort of fell into collage by accident in college. I was late for a drawing class and forgot to bring my pencils and paper. I ran across the hall with nothing more than a stack of photos I’d just printed from my photo class. Instead of smacking my hand with a ruler for being unprepared my instructor said ” well use those photos”. Clearly she saw something in what I had done that day and encouraged me to make more collages. I guess what I love about collage is it’s immediacy and the happy little accidents that happen along the way. I love not knowing where I’m going until I get there and with collage I can sort of get lost in the moment. I think that’s what I really love about it most, for me it’s very freeing.
Filed under: INTERVIEWS, The 22, VOLUME ONE | Tags: 22, april, art, artist, artists, arts, berlin, brooklyn, collage, gertler, holland, magazine, new, ny, nyc, painting, photo, the, york
The month of September is devoted to Vol 1 contributors April Gertler and Dolores Alfieri. April contributed an amazing interview to Vol 1 and you can give it a read below in its entirety or on the magazine site at: http://www.the22magazine.com/Pages/AprilGertler.html
THE 22 MAGAZINE: Why did you choose to live and work in Berlin?
APRIL GERTLER: I finished graduate school and had done an exchange program in Germany and Frankfort at an art school there, and I was sort of weighing my pros and cons. I had always wanted to live in Europe. My father’s from Hungary, and my mother’s from Holland. I thought about living in Holland, but having this chance to be in Frankfort had been really exciting, and Berlin has always been this kind of city of promise. Berlin is really exciting and just offers so much. There is so much vastness and openness. There is still this feeling of opportunity, but the opportunity is very much there for you to develop yourself, which is what I also find really difficult about living in Berlin. There is a huge positive, but the huge negative is that there’s not a lot of energy coming from the city. What I mean is, here, in New York, you walk on the street and there’s sort of this vibration. There’s this buzz because there are so many people in the street; you feel people’s energy and get electrified from that. It doesn’t exist in Berlin. It’s a very slow city. It’s very calm. That is why I really like it, although, it’s very hard to get motivated. So, there’s this challenge with the city.
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 3rd, animation, catching, dinosaur, eddy, feathers, launa, lobster, mache, motion, paiper, sculpture, stop, timber, ward, wolf
Launa Eddy is a sculptor and jewelry maker living in Brooklyn. We were introduced to her via 3rd Ward and inspired by her collabs with Daniel Olshansky, Dinosaur Feathers, and most of all her interesting background. We asked her to elaborate on her timber wolf/lobster-catching youth and tell about some of her current work.
The 22 Magazine: Can you tell me a little about where you are from in Rhode Island, working on a lobster boat and about raising timber wolves ?
Launa Eddy: We lived in Richmond until I was ten, when the state of Rhode Island told us we couldn’t have wolves and gave us an ultimatum – get rid of them, or move out. So we moved to New Hampshire, the Live Free or Die state – my dad continued to run [his] lobster boat between Rhode Island and New Hampshire. While in Rhode Island I spent most of my time off of Point Judith in Narraganset, where most of my family worked as commercial fishermen/women. I spent a lot of time on the boats and the docks growing up – and I actually started working on my father’s boat when I was around eight or nine years old. I would go out with them on fishing trips in the summer and I was their ‘bander’ – I put the rubber bands on the lobster claws and prepped them to be put in the storage tanks on the boat. It was a hard job and being out at sea for three days in all sorts of weather was intense, and eventually when I was sixteen I decided I wasn’t up for the job anymore… mostly because I was prone to sea sickness.When I wasn’t working on the boat, I was often trying to catch fish on the docks, and occasionally I got together with the other fisherman’s kids and we did silly things like arrange lobster and crab races. We’d gamble for curiosities we found on our families boats. Starfish, shells, weird creatures. Everyone would bring a box of things they found and put it in the pot for whoever won the race. As you can imagine, lobsters don’t race very well, and crabs are insane and run all over the place, so it was all very silly. The wolves were pure bred Alaskan timber wolves – my father went to Alaska for a trip to meet a painter who also ran a wolf rescue, and came back with two wolf pups. We named them Sinbad and Sheba, and built them an eight foot tall cage twice the size of our house (it was pretty much a caged off section of forest) and a sweet little dog house inside of it with two stories and Plexiglas windows and a ramp so they could chill on the roof. They had it good.
Filed under: INTERVIEWS, MUSIC | Tags: 22, album, american, amy, and, art, artist, band, break, brian, brooklyn, cancer, collins, david, death, ENDS, EP, gallery, hunsicker, kilgore, luke, magazine, matt, music, netherlands, new, ny, nyc, of, princes, quin, quinn, slade, story, the, tumor, up, way, writing, york
Filed under: ART, INTERVIEWS | Tags: 22, aka, american, art, artist, artists, arts, brooklyn, corporate, evry, fernando, herenu, illustration, latin, magazine, max, new, ny, nyc, pulpo, surreal, the, york
Fernando Herenu (Aka Pulpocorporate): Much of my experience has to do traveling around the different regions. At first I had the strong feeling that my work had nothing to do with Latin American style, but every day that passes I realize it would be impossible to believe that my drawings come from another region. I feel I have a strong presence of Latin spirit in my stuff. I see this as the greatest pride for me. All the different publications and exhibitions gave me this conclusion and have led to me being able to exhibit in Berlin, New York, Barcelona, Porto Alegre and Taiwan and to be published in Communication Art, Juxtapoz, Zupi and Xfunz among others.
Filed under: INTERVIEWS, MUSIC | Tags: 22, art, artist, artists, boards, brooklyn, candy, carl, carson, claws, collins, colorado, cosmo's, dream pop, dreamland, Fort, gallery, gerontology, hidden lands, hover, in, Karen, ketchem, magazine, mckensie, meghan, new, ny, nyc, of canada, rachel, rachell, riley, ryan, sagan's, state, surreal, university, york
