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Making More Room: CIVA Making Blog

November 4th, 2016
foodbank

The food bank warehouse where Liza worked, and Liza running a food drive at a local grocery store.

I recently interviewed the artist Liza Cucco for an October posting on CIVA’s “Making” blog.

We talked at length about making more room in our art practice for skepticism, accessibility, representation, change, rest, and dialogue, but it was a challenge to get that into a mere 1700 words.

For me, there was a strong connection between what I was hearing in our conversation and my experience at the recent Creative Time Summit in DC, Occupying the Future. There, artist Tania Bruguera announced that she will be running for President of Cuba. I witnessed the premiere of her announcement, and also observed presentations by Peter Svarzbein about his creative projects as an elected city councilman of El Paso, Pedro Reyes, Carrie Mae Weems, and, quite notably, Alicia Garza who is the co-creator of the Black Lives Matter movement, among others.

Ultimately, I hope that in sharing Liza’s words, readers might also be inspired to continue to push the limits of what art can “do” in their communities.

Here is the exclusive, full interview transcript from our Skype conversation on August 16, 2016:

MAKING MORE ROOM IN OUR ART

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Cynthia’s Technicolor Dream

December 10th, 2013

Process Video, by Cynthia Stanchak

 

My encounter with Cynthia Stanchak was a long time coming. We’d had some near misses with emails and friends recommending that we connect. Finally, in October 2013, we sat together in the 38|39 gallery space, which was filled with a collection of her paintings, both new and old.

Cynthia’s painting process was formatively developed around a collaboration with freelance photographer, Bill Daniels, on his farm property in Iowa. Their relationship was one of easy attraction. Their process naturally flowed from Cynthia’s artistic vision, balanced with Bill’s photographic know-how, and the physical inspiration at their fingertips. (Namely, a panoply of rusted metal tools and scraps.)

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“Plethora” Collaboration @Soapbox

August 21st, 2013

image-3PLETHORA is a collaborative performance work by three female artists: New York-based performance artist Lia Chavez; and Los Angeles-based painter Linnea Spransy and sculptor Maggie Hazen. “During the course of Plethora, vacant space will become a complex installation art piece via small repetitions, endurance performance and hidden activity.” The cumulative exhibit is on view August 15- 30, at Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn. 

Plethora brings together the presence of three complex women and their artistic production. Throughout the duration of the exhibit objects will be added, illustrations will grow, and all three artists will spend significant time within the white cube and interior gallery space. Mingled together, the result of intertwined efforts is something akin to a fairy-tale pop-up book, a battle ground, and a kind of vigil.

I was so honored, this week, by the opportunity to glimpse their physical (and thoughtful) processes.

Like many women, their paths have been informed by the presence (and absence) of other women. Their models range from canonical artists, teachers, authors, philosophers, and bold political figures. Lia, Linnea, and Maggie have developed distinct practices through personal moments of curiosity, creative prowess, and through collaborative interactivity, such as Plethora.

Below are some of their own words. EXPAND POST

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Lauren Gregory: The portrait’s new journey

June 26th, 2013

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How many ways come to your mind when you think about painting on canvas? Using brushes to create strokes, using a painting knife to paint in a thick paint? By letting fate and gravity lead the way, Pollock creates a new chapter in history of two-dimensional art with the revolutionary drip painting. Amongst painting genres, portraiture can be considered as the oldest art genre in painting. The evolution of portrait painting seems minimal despite its long history.

Lauren Gregory, a Tennessee-based painter, is the third generation from female artist family:  Lauren’s grandmother (Sally Wheat), her mother (Jean Wheat Gregory), and Lauren herself.

Influenced from her life surrounding by portraits and sitters, Lauren creates her own language in portraiture on canvas using fingers. The artist render another dimension of portraiture into a living soul which later transforms into the new facet of portraiture with animated painting.

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Art, Curating, and Thoughts with Cecelia Stucker

June 19th, 2013

Cecelia StuckerI first met Cecelia on the last evening of the Spring/Break Show,a curator-driven art fair at the Old School (a NoLIta schoolhouse turned venue.) Though we had just met, in typical New York fashion, it did not take us long as our conversation almost instantly led to our exchange of thoughts about art and artist circles. Because the night was rather short, we decided to meet again on a sunny day afternoon, the first sunny day of spring.

Cecelia Stucker  is an independent curator and the director of CC: Curating & Collections, traveling back and forth between New York and Los Angeles while curating shows in the United States and Europe. Wearing several hats in the art world, she has a background in art conservation, art business, and art history. Cecelia is a hybrid or  jack of all trades – but in her case, a master of all. Let us step into the world of visual art, curating, and thinking through Cecelia’s lens, where life and curating meet.

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Robin Kang’s Lady Bits

May 5th, 2013

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Robin Kang with inspiration materials in her studio.

Born in Kerrville, Texas, Robin Kang has developed an artistic trajectory that honors her southwestern roots and ventures boldly into the future. My relationship with Robin goes back to 2008, and her practice has developed significantly since then. Over the last several years Robin has participated in artist residencies such as AIR Projects – Beijing, and at Ox-Bow. She has organized art events in Texas, Florida, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and  in her Chicago apartment gallery project, Carousel Space. Her current practice, based in NY, encompasses sculptural brick-laying, stacking plywood, electronic forms, and a practice of weaving. In effect, her art transcends the culturally gendered nature of many forms of work.

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Nancy Hubbard: Fiction and Science

March 20th, 2013

portrait for bonnie 2This is Nancy Hubbard. She is a resident artist at The Invisible Dog Art Center, where we recently met and struck up a conversation about our work and common interests. What impressed me about Nancy was her relative non-eccentricity. Soon after we met, I was able to have a studio visit with her. Perhaps due to the art history training that has framed her pursuit of art, I found the conversation to be well articulated and her process well placed. She cited sources for inspiration and she possesses experience that buttresses her thinking. Though Nancy is working with a few different techniques, there is a cohesion to her body of work that reflects a thoughtful approach, one that considers natural conclusions and how they inevitably can wrap back around on themselves. trans EXPAND POST

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Artist and Activist: Tracy Ann Essoglou, PhD

February 27th, 2013

I met Tracy Ann Essoglou at the Creative Time Summit last year which focused on “confronting inequity.” We connected after attending a seminar that was lead by Steve Lambert. Like magnets, Tracy and I, along with two representatives of Reel Grrls, were drawn together to exchange statistics and contact information.

Tracy had been a part of the Women’s Action Coalition (or WAC) in the nineties which is associated with the beginnings of Third Wave Feminism. You could place WAC alongside the Guerilla Girls (still active today) and ACT UP! as another activist organization that was using strategy and aesthetics to give a voice to politically charged issues of the time.
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Lesley Flanigan & THE PHYSICALITY OF SOUND

February 20th, 2013

5449437674_8418769b16_bImage courtesy of the artist.

Lesley Flanigan was born and raised in Florida. “I did not grow up in a family of artists. My mother was somewhat whimsical person and she loved books… she very much encouraged my imagination and creativity, such as building these elaborate structures out of wooden blocks (would sometimes take days!), but my leaning towards music and visual art, that was something I kind of pioneered on my own.” Pioneer is a good word for her, as Ms. Flanigan has forged her own way in the experimental electronic music scene in her practice of ‘sound sculpting’. EXPAND POST

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Morgan O’Hara

February 13th, 2013

2013-2_MorganO'HaraTo observe Morgan O’Hara at work in her Midtown Manhattan studio is to witness power, something like a tornado with dancingly fluid limbs, poignant speech, and intense blue eyes that smile as they inquire under a neat crop of jagged, burgundy hair. As a seasoned, internationally acclaimed “live transmission” artist – faithfully hardworking since her undergraduate years of the early 60s’ in California, when she first met and became irrevocably influenced by the life and work of John Cage – she epitomizes the phrase “a force to be reckoned with”. Contrary to common associations with the phrase, however, she imbues it with grace.

Recently, while sauntering through Seattle’s Pike Place Market with Morgan, I noted the quiet intensity with which she absorbed the place. We stood in front of a French bakery window for several minutes, watching a young man methodically fold strands of dough between his floured fingers. The baker, at first amusedly self-conscious of his movements upon noticing her observations, eventually met her eyes, smiled, and the silent exchange as we watched his meticulous motions in weaving the pastry took on a ceremonious quality. EXPAND POST

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