Vidas Perfectas premieres tomorrow at the Whitney Biennial and many have taken this opportunity to reflect on Robert Ashley’s legacy and the great works he left behind, particularly this recent three-opera series at the Whitney.

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Corinne Ramey discusses with director Alex Waterman what drew him to Ashley’s operas:

“That’s the genius of Bob’s work,” said Mr. Waterman, in the Williamsburg apartment he shares with his wife Elisa Santiago, who performs in “Vidas Perfectas,” and their toddler son. “His idea of an opera is that it’s characters in a landscape telling stories musically.”

For Mr. Waterman, a major attraction of Ashley’s work is the idea of music as a social and collaborative process, where a less formal interpretation—like that of the performance collective Varispeed, which produced a site-specific “Perfect Lives” in the Catskills—is just as valid as Mr. Waterman’s more formal one.

“I’m interested in music not just as a way of organizing sound,” said Mr. Waterman, “but as a way of thinking about who we are when we gather together, and how we listen and speak together, and how we produce things together.”

Paul Grimstad focuses on the importance of Ashley’s Perfect Lives: A Television Opera for N+1 Magazine. An excerpt:

While the operas for television might seem yet another way in which the calculatedly outrageous became a commonplace of 20th-century art, Ashley’s work looks more like an ingenious trick of defamiliarization whereby that quaint banality “television” is transformed into a medium for opera. In the end, I think, Ashley was mostly interested in the sound of Americans talking to each other, or talking to themselves: insistent, often indistinct, never meaningless, demotic. In these voices can be heard something revelatory and strange, as if someone took the lid off life and let us see the works.

Finally, Steve Smith eulogizes Ashley in The New York Times. Finding comfort in the fact that Waterman’s new productions of Ashley’s work manage to both be faithful to Ashley’s vision while cleverly building upon them. An excerpt:

What I have appreciated most about previous reconceptions of Ashley’s operas was the extent to which newcomers found fresh possibilities. Already in “Crash,” broadened horizons were evident. Ms. Bell’s inquisitive “yeah” was not Mr. Pinto’s hipster aside. Mr. McCorkle’s stammer was more pronounced than Ms. Kidambi’s. Ms. Simons and Mr. Ruder employed distinct hues of wistfulness. If the specter of death haunted this wistful, articulate swan song, prospects of preservation and renewal were also at hand.

After extensive filming on location in Marfa, Vidas Perfectas will debut at the Whitney Biennial tomorrow, April 17, 2014. Please join us here in Far West Texas as the production returns to Marfa and El Paso from July 10-14.

All images courtesy of SCO.

Comic Future artist Erik Parker recently opened up his studio to a group of students from the Family Dynamics after-school art program, where he invited them to ask questions and take a closer look at his work. Parker, who is 2014’s Honorary Chair for the 4th Annual SCO/Family Dynamics Art Auction & Cocktail Party, has donated his piece New Knowledge to the live auction in order to support art instruction in the high-need Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

From the SCO website:

Parker encouraged the students to get a close look at his works in progress on the walls of his Williamsburg studio, ask questions about his methods and style (“Contemporary, because I’m still alive!”) The students carefully studied the canvasses and even sketched a bit of what they were seeing. “I love the colors he uses,” said Shaunessy Dungee.

He discussed where he gets his inspiration (old magazines, cartoons like “The Simpsons,” the internet.) “Actually, I’m afraid to talk about where the ideas come from – I’m afraid they’ll go away,” Parker said. He also took time to look over the sketchpads that the students brought to show him their own works in progress.

To learn more and buy tickets to the Art Auction and Cocktail Party, which takes place on April 28th, visit SCO.org.

But we not going in saying we (definitely) have to make changesNJ Republicans seek gains in Legislature but can Chris Christie help EST February 2, 2015 The top Republican in the Assembly and organizer of the event, Jon Bramnick of Union County, said he is confident Christie will “100 percent” work for state GOP candidates this fall. Smaller sizes are available for toddlers, pre schoolers and grade school pupils. Lorsque Dieu programmera la leur, un simple SMS pr la famille. And that would only come about if every team chipped in $2 million or $3 million because that how much it would mean. Report number 54, 2005, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham. Unless and until the ‘ruling political elite’, elected to govern this country, understands the true nature and character of the Islamic threat, we will never defeat it. Open plan kitchen/dining and family room. Pringle of Preston,

Giant.
Image by Fredrik Nilsen.

During the second month of Hubbard/Birchler’s exhibition, Sound Speed Marker, Ballroom Marfa’s intern, Francesca Altamura, spoke with the artist duo about the works featured in the exhibition, comprising of three films, nine photographs and an installation located in the courtyard.

Teresa Hubbard, born in Dublin, Ireland 1965 and and Alexander Birchler, born in Baden, Switzerland 1962 have been working collaboratively in video, photography and sculpture since 1990. The exhibition Sound Speed Marker will be on view at Ballroom Marfa until July 31, 2014, traveling next to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland in December 2014 and the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, Texas in May 2015.

Francesca Altamura: How would you describe the three featured video works, Grand Paris Texas (2009), Movie Mountain (Méliès) (2011) and Giant (2014) to viewers who may not have been introduced to your work before?

Alexander Birchler: There are three video installations, a trilogy, presented at Ballroom, including the premiere of Giant which was commissioned by Ballroom Marfa. All three works explore, in different ways, the physical and social traces that movies and movie making leaves behind.

FA: How has living in Austin, influenced the direction of your current, and future, works?

Teresa Hubbard: We’ve lived and worked in many places and we’ve moved around a lot over the time we’ve known each other — different cities and towns in Canada, Switzerland, Germany and the United States. During the past decade that we’ve been primarily based in Austin, we’ve gotten close to a number of people who are also based in Austin, and they work with us during the research phase, on location and in post production. These are long-term relationships which we really appreciate and have become such an important part of our community.

FA: What was your initial intrigue with the films Paris, Texas and Giant (1956)? Do these films evoke a sense of nostalgic reminiscence for you both?

Image Copyright © 2014 Tattfoo Studio, All rights reserved

Marfa Dialogues/New York alum, Tattfoo Tan, recently unveiled his newest project, Nature Matching System at Seymour Dual Language Academy in Syracuse, New York. As described by the artist: “The Nature Matching System is a color chart… used to remind us to consume our recommended daily dose of fruits and vegetables.”

The project, which is composed of a “curriculum” booklet and a mural, was a result of Tan’s collaboration with Professor Marion Wilson, who teaches a class about community engagement at Syracuse University. For Nature Matching System, Wilson’s students, inspired by Tan’s work, designed a curriculum and were then required to teach it to a 3rd grader at the local elementary school.

Tan hopes to spread his “colorful and healthy effort” to other schools by allowing the booklet to be downloaded for free.

To learn more about Tan and his practice, read his recent article “Nutrition Isn’t Pretty” for Creative Time Reports. In “Nutrition”, Tan discusses the effects climate change has on our agriculture and asks us to “reduce food waste by rethinking what produce should look like.”

Photo by Tattfoo Tan, 2013

I have had my ups and I have had my downs”They gave me a chance. Although the CDC recommends that infants and young children follow a normal vaccination schedule, children may need to be placed on an accelerated vaccination schedule if you must travel with them. National Academy’s Sixth Annual Conference and the Fourth Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference, Cork, Ireland: NAIRTL. “Those are the things we have got to clean up,” Ryan said of the shortstop. The reception was held at the Commercial Club. Lettre(s) ; Kellogg, Charlotte,

Since March 1st, Quiet Earth artist, Trevor Paglen has been blogging for Fotomuseum Winterthur as part of their ongoing series Still Searching: An Online Discourse on Photography. Paglen will be posting until April 15th, 2014.

If you have time to explore the site further, be sure to check out past entries by a number of contemporary artists who deal with photography, including Comic Future‘s Walead Beshty.

Rosy Keyser in her Brooklyn studio. Photo by Britt Winterer.

In an article for ARTnews, Barbara A. MacAdam discusses the evolution of Immaterial artist Rosy Keyser’s work. MacAdam also explores the artist’s various inspirations including living in rural Maryland, while attending school in Baltimore city; her time in upstate New York; and her experience at Ballroom Marfa, noting:

Other recent activities include her participation last May in an exhibition at the Zabludowicz Collection in London as well as the show at Halsey McKay Gallery. But it was a 2010–11 exhibition at Ballroom Marfa in remote West Texas that Keyser says really had a big impact on the way she thinks about “the reflexive qualities of matter and atmosphere where familiar landmarks are scarce.”

According to the Repubs, you should let a mother that has TWO kids dieHer hubby is 41st in line to the throne, thanks to his dad being Queen Elizabeth cousin. The 2015 NFL salary cap is confirmed at $143. Wack worked as a technician at Marlborough Ford in Calgary and was set to start studies at SAIT as an apprentice on Monday, according to the dealership’s service manager David McWilliam. Stephensen also suggested all the injuries sustained by Meika could have been caused by a fall down stairs. Read: NIGER: Le Sahel Quotidien reported on 10 March that during the commemoration of the International Women’s Day, the UNFPA Country Office in Niger received, from the Minister of Population, Women’s Promotion and Children’s Protection, Sanady Tchimaden Hadattan,

Ballroom’s traveling exhibition Rashid Johnson:New Growth opened at the MCA Denver on February 21st. Here are some of the images of the show (which closes on June 15, 2014) by Luke Stettner and courtesy of the museum.

Above photo, production still shot on location in Marfa, TX, February 2014 Courtesy of Alex Waterman and Peter Szollosi

Waterman, the director of Vidas Perfectas, a co-production with Ballroom Marfa and the El Paso Opera, recently shared this letter via email with friends and supporters after Robert Ashley’s passing on March 3. The subject was “Celebrating Robert Ashley’s Life and Work”:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

On February 21, 2014, we launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to compensate the extraordinary talent and to cover the costs of all the technical equipment we need to stage 3 Operas by Robert Ashley at the Whitney Biennial.

On March 3, 2014, our friend, inspiration, and the composer of these incredible operas, Robert Ashley, passed away.

As we grieve and come to accept the new reality of these productions without Bob, we still face the daunting and awkward task of fundraising.

What’s clear to us is that these operas need to be staged. Bob would not have wanted a memorial concert. What he would want is for his work to be appreciated and performed with love and care, with a thoughtfulness that comes from spending days, months, years… working together and sharing these stories.

At the Whitney Biennial, we don’t want to grieve, we want to celebrate. Bob’s work has always been grounded in an every day life, even when the music veers to the cosmic. His operas are about the people he knew, the stories shared, the books read, the questions asked, the revelations unveiled. By staging his work, we celebrate a mind keen to the nuances of conversation and thought, and a life lived fully.

As difficult as it is to ask under these circumstances, we do need your help. We want these operas to be staged with the best possible sound, lighting, video, and sets, in order to honor Robert Ashley and his work. 12 days remain to raise nearly $35,000. My gratitude goes to those who have already donated. If we don’t reach our goal, we lose it all.

Left: Artists Space’s cowboys at Paramount Ranch. Right: Paramount Ranch organizers Liz Craft and Pentti Monkkonen at Paramount Ranch. (both photos: Kate Sutton)

Comic Future artist Liz Craft and her Paradise Garage co-founder, Penti Monkkonen, are responsible for organizing “Los Angeles’s newest” (and coolest) art fair: Paramount Ranch. Artforum recaps the festivities:

It was the weekend of the Big Game and tensions were high.

“Stoooners!”

“Where’s the Stoned team?”

“Seriously, guys—get on the field! It’s game time!”

Emerald-teed Team Stoned stumbled onto the part of a dusty parking lot marked up to resemble a soccer field, as their red-shirted opponents—Team Drunk—roared cheers from a formidable-looking huddle. Less than ten seconds after the first whistle, one of Drunk’s forwards sent an impassioned kick toward the Stoned goalie, who was casually chatting with a passing stranger. The ball flew by him, easily sailing through the parking cone goalposts. Team Drunk erupted into howls and fist-pumps. Team Stoned dissolved into disparaging grumbles: “Cooome on, man! You gotta watch the goal, if you’re going to play…” “That guy asked me a question!” the goalie protested. Needless to say, what followed was a pummeling akin to that of this weekend’s other big game (The Puppy Bowl).

Drunk vs Stoned was Scott Reeder and Tyson Reeder’s contribution to Paramount Ranch, Los Angeles’s newest art fair, masterminded by Paradise Garage’s Liz Craft and Pentti Monkkonen and fresh transplants Robbie Fitzpatrick and Alex Freedman. Paramount Ranch eschewed the convention centers, expo halls, and airport hangers of other fairs, installing thirty-some galleries and artists-run spaces in an eponymous prop Western town tucked into the Santa Monica Mountains. Once known as Rancho Las Virgenes, in its sixty years as a movie set the ranch has appeared on screen as everything from Old Salem to an isle in the South Pacific. Most attendees knew it—if at all—as the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, but apparently it’s also a hotspot for theme weddings.

The fair was free to all who made the journey, and closed at sundown. (The latter was less a nod to cinematic tropes than deference to the National Park Service, who maintains the site.) “We prefer to think of it not so much as a commercial fair than as a community street festival,” Fitzpatrick explained. “Our mission has really been to connect these new, young, globetrotting galleries, but in a way that’s more interesting than just another white-cube fair.” Outfits like Supportico Lopez, Neue Alte Brücke, Misako & Rosen, and Essex Street settled behind the old-timey facades of the General Store, the Great Bend Jail, and Hotel Mud Bug, while 356 Mission/Ooga Booga headquartered in the open-air Depot (where Teams Drunk and Stoned pre-gamed at a finger-painting station).

“If you’re going to have to have a hangover, this is a pretty sweet place to spend it,” dealer François Ghebaly mused from the sun-soaked porch of the Barn, where he was showing some coltish Mike Kuchar drawings. Over outside the Saloon, two cowboys wearing little more than their hats, boots, and limited edition Artists Space Stewart Uoo scarves sunned themselves in front of a red pick-up truck. “I tried to get us some Hollister models, but we ended up with porn stars,” director Stefan Kalmár admitted.

Aperture Magazine Issue 214 Spring 2014

Congratulations to Immaterial artist Barbara Kasten, who has a number of exciting events coming up.

First, Kasten’s work is currently featured in A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art. The show strives to bring together:

Photographs, films, videos, and works in other mediums, A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio examines the ways in which photographers and artists using photography have worked and experimented within the four walls of the studio space, from photography’s inception to today. Featuring both new acquisitions and works from the Museum’s collection that have not been on view in recent years, A World of Its Own includes approximately 180 works, by approximately 90 artists, such as Berenice Abbott, Uta Barth, Zeke Berman, Karl Blossfeldt, Constantin Brancusi, Geta Brătescu, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank, Jan Groover, Barbara Kasten, Man Ray, Bruce Nauman, Paul Outerbridge, Irving Penn, Adrian Piper, Edward Steichen, William Wegman, and Edward Weston.

Second, Kasten is part of another current show at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, NY. The exhibition is entitled: 1980’s Style: Image and Design in The Dorsky Museum Collection.
From the museum:

The 1980s had a look all its own. 1980s Style includes prints, photographs, and jewelry from the collection of The Dorsky Museum that exemplify the stark geometries and vibrant colors of the decade. The exhibition asks to what extent are bold shapes, bright colors, asymmetry, and cartoonish figuration the visual and formal manifestations of emotional turmoil and artistic activism? Featuring work by Tina Barney, Richard Bosman, Frank Gillette, Lisa Gralnick, Barbara Kasten, George McNeil, Judy Pfaff, Andy Warhol, and others.

Finally, for those of us unable to get to New York, the artist will also be the subject of a feature article in the upcoming issue of Aperture Magazine (Issue #214, Spring 2014).

A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio opened on February 8 and is on display until October 5, 2014.

1980’s Style: Image and Design in The Dorsky Museum Collection opened on February 5 and will close on July 13, 2014.

For additional information and to look at Kasten’s work,