Sunday, December 6, 2009

Beyond Art BASEL

Click on Beyond Art BASEL and see more images!







The art explosion this year did not happen at the Art BASEL Miami Beach. Basel may have been the big top event, but the greatest shows on earth were across the causeway in the Wynwood Arts District. From donated pieces that were shown in thrift shops that were selling for whatever your generosity, or your budget come bare, to the investment pieces that would run upwards of six figures for a token of the artist’s vision.


Sandwiched between NW 20th Street and NW 36th Street, just west of Biscayne Boulevard are a couple of hundred artists spaces and galleries. This week a couple of hundred more artists from around the world and the U.S. called Wynwood home making The District the place to be. Aptly name were a few satellite exhibitions: Scope Miami, Pulse Miami, and ironically Migraciones (Migrations) at a time we when we are witnessing the shift from South Beach to the Magic City.
While not everything appealed to my aesthetic taste, but the running around alongside the lambs, the punks, and couture-clad crowd, made for an exciting time. I even stopped and chatted up a few exceptional street artists hard a work in the shadows of NW 2nd Ave.—their only gripe was a boastful, “We never get paid for what we do!” I returned to see the progress one of these mural masters had accomplished and offered the address of Alternative Gallery, a space not far from where we stood that promotes street art among other new works.

Aside from my preoccupation to the street art, I visited and chatted with: photographer David Dye(he promised I’d be in his next book), the extremely talented Brian Leo and Charlotta Janssen of New York, the half-naked performance artist Myk Henry, and of course a few totally naked performance artists. After all that I went to visit friends who were having openings amid the mayhem that is called Basel’ing !




A Great Dane with poodles? A Butterfly and an Old Wise Ass Owl? Yes, it’s the Carlos Alves Show. “Animal Instincts” at the new Gallery Cafeina will surprised even the diehard collectors of Carlos Alves’s work. Alves accomplishes a group of more intimate pieces for this show; that doesn’t mean they’re small! “Animal Instincts,” is reminiscent of the whimsy of earlier work, while exhibiting a fusion between craft and high art seldom seen. But, that should surprise no one who has followed his career, what does surprise hangs high above our heads in the gallery, “The Lures,”(see image) which float form the ceilings at Cafeina are with out doubt the catch of the day!




“Lapidus Infinitus,” by Carlos Betancourt at Diane Lowenstein Fine Arts was spectacular. Two rooms displaying similar, yet very different approaches to what may be traditionally called assemblage. The White Room holds the bigger than life photographs, which are testament to Betancourt’s eye for detail and composition. The Red Room installation(see image), a colonnade of blue totems fused with pop-culture icons creating a modern day Acropolis. Again, both Lowenstein and Betancourt deliver beyond our expectations and raise the bar.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

More from the Heidelberg Project


More from the Heidelberg Project
Originally uploaded by Derek Farr ( DetroitDerek )

EXPLORED! "Using art to provoke thought, promote discussion, inspire action and heal communities...

The Heidelberg Project is art, energy and community. It’s an open-air art environment in the heart of an urban community on Detroit’s East Side. Tyree Guyton, founder and artistic director uses everyday, discarded objects to create a two block area full of color, symbolism and intrigue. Now in its 21st year, the Heidelberg Project is recognized around the world as a demonstration of the power of creativity to transform all those whose lives it touches.
The Heidelberg Project offers a forum for ideas, a seed of hope, and a bright vision for the future. It's about taking a stand to save forgotten neighborhoods. It's about helping people think outside the box and its about offering solutions. It's about healing communities through art - and it's working! " , Text taken from www.heidelberg.org - please go there and take a look around, buy a book or shirt or make a donation. Tyree and his group have done some amazing things with abandoned houses and discarded items, turning them into art.

Thinkspace at Aqua Art Miami this Dec


Thinkspace at Aqua Art Miami this Dec
Originally uploaded by thinkspace_gallery

Established in November of 2005, Thinkspace exists as a catalyst for the ever expanding new contemporary art movement that is exploding forth from the streets and art schools the world over. We are here to help represent this new generation of artists, to provide them that home base and to aid them in building the right awareness and collector base necessary for long-term growth.

Our aim is to help these new talents shine and to provide them a gallery setting in which to prove themselves. It is our hope and dream that through these opportunities these individuals will prosper and continue to grow to amaze us all for years to come. With the love of and for our community, and with the talents of so many incredible artists involved, we believe that this movement will provide the necessary proving ground for the ideas and dreams of today to become the foundations of a new tomorrow.

thinkspace is located at 4210 Santa Monica Blvd, just east of Virgil before you get to the Sunset Junction in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Míssil Gaza


Míssil Gaza
Originally uploaded by la maw

Extremely interesting!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Alonso Rey


The Singer I and II
When I started this painting, I asked my dad to model for me, assuming that, as in any traditional portrait, the subject would like to dress to be recognized, not just by his face but according to his profession, as well. For example, if he were a soldier he would wear a military uniform. A politician would wear a suit and a doctor would wear a white coat with a stethoscope around the neck. While I was preparing the lights for our photo session, my dad showed up in nothing but his underwear! I invited him into the studio, and we started the photo session. I found out that my dad was extremely photogenic and we had a lot of fun.
My dad passed away two years ago, and I‘ve seen those paintings so many times since. Finally, I have come to understand why my father showed up that day to model in his underwear. My father, a doctor, was a person who dedicated himself to helping people. His view about life was that a person should study what he or she liked and become good at it because at some point that skill could be used to help a lot of people. My dad modeled in his underwear because, at 81 years old, he had a clean conscience. He could smile, laugh and joke all day because he had piece of mind. One day I asked my dad what he regretted and what he did right in his life, and he told me he was satisfied with his life and his actions in his life. That’s why he didn’t need to hide behind some sort of uniform. In his mind and soul he was at peace and ready to face death whenever the time would come. (partial story)

Read complete story at: Alonso Rey on Facebook
See exhibition at: MEXIC-ARTE MUSEUM

LAPIDUS INFINITUS by Carlos Betancourt


Miami, FL. October, 2009- Artist Carlos Betancourt most recent exhibit, LAPIDUS INFINITUS, will open at Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts in Wynwood, Miami, Florida, during Art Basel Miami Beach. A special celebration will take place Saturday, December 5th, 2009. The exhibition will be on view through February 6th, 2010.

Miami Beach October 2009


Miami Beach October 2009
Originally uploaded by ActivistArtistA

Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz


An inside look at Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz Home. Courtesy of www.ARTVI.com

Rosa de la Cruz takes throughout the various works and installations by various artists.
The works are collectively know as their home. Please enjoy the tour TOUR

Video rights: Artiv Art in motion

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Pease Park Images



The Palermo Flower, Argentina


This metal sculpture is called Floralis Generica, located in a water basin at the United Nations Plaza in Palermo, Buenos Aires. The sculpture was created by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano is made of stainless steel and aluminum. The six pedals of this huge flower open and close according to the sun.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Mr. Mule: Art Brut

Birds: Art Brut

Carlos Alves: Prolific Works


Carlos Alves has been serious about art since he was a child and it shows in his passion for making things out of clay, glass, salvaged artifacts, broken shards and recycled ceramic knick–knacks. Alves has created mosaic murals for walls, floors, driveways, and swimming pools. Alves is now applying his artistry to large public and private artwork projects throughout the US and abroad. Most recently Alves finished the fountain on Miami Beaches’ Lincoln Road, in front of the Colony Theater. He originally tiled the fountain after Hurricane Andrew and when the City of Miami Beach installed a new water feature to the fountain, they called Carlos to embellish the new fountain.
It is a magnificent coral reef theme, one Alves uses throughout a lot of his work. Many of you may recognize his work as you walk thru Art Center
South Florida, Miami Beach City Hall, Miami’s 8th Street Metro Mover
station and the 40’ Sand Castle at the Miami Children’s Museum.

Broadcasting in Sepia


By ActivistArtistA

Damian Rojo


Excellent Work!

Carlos Betancourt


Artist Carlos Betancourt was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1981 he moved to Miami, Florida.

Mr. Betancourt’s artwork is part of public collections such as the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in the Canary Islands, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo, San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas, the Miami Art Museum, the Bass Museum in Miami Beach, the Lowe Art Museum at the Univesity of Miami, and the Museum of Latin American Art in California.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

ActivistArtistA

Photo 65
Photo 65,
originally uploaded by rolychang.
Self Portrait

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Exhibitions CuratedBy Roly Chang Barrero


All Florida Exhibition, June 2016

KeroWACKED: Homage to Neal Cassady, April 24, 2016

Havana Soiree, April 20, 2016, at Benvenuto, Boynton Beach

Richard W. Dempsey March 23- April 15, 2016  at Rolando Chang Barrero Fine Art, Lake Worth, Florida 

4 Visions: Fine Art PhotographyPhilip Ross Munro, Brian Cattelle,Pat Swain, Adam Collier Noel,Joanne Urban, Ali Miranda, Paul Solovay, David Snow ( March 19-April 15, 2016), Rolando Chang Barrero Fine Art Gallery, Lake Worth, Florida
See:
SunSentinel Article   
  
TINYworks, Group Exhibition of miniature works, (March 24-March 31, 2016) at ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach, Florida

Art Frenzy: Indoor Trunk Show, various artists, February 25, 2016 at ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach, Florida

Wet Foot/ Dry Foot, Juan Erman Gonzalez, Patricio Rodriguez, Alejando Justiz,  Noel C. Hernandez, at Rolando Chang Barrero Fine Art, Lake Worth, Florida 

Snapshots: The Artist Gaze, January 2016

#LoveWins Exhibition, July 2015

Arté Cuba, April 24- May 15, 2016, Rolando Chang Barrero Fine Art, Lake Worth, Florida 

Prodigy and A Master, April 2015

Girls' School: A Political Disregard of a  Gender, Co-curated, (March 2015)

Monochrome Works February 2015

Serafima Sokolov, January 2015

B/W Affair, Uta Brauser and James Rabidoux, Dec. 27-Jan. 15, 2015

Golden, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach



Valn Calhoun Retrospective, August 22-Septrmber 27, 2013

Bird’s are Nice, July, 2013

Printed Matters: Cary Polkovitz, June 26-July 10, 2013

Paper Plane: To Ecuador and Back, May 2013 

Baby Whores and Other Politcal Commentaries, March 28-April 19, 2013

2nd Annual KeroWACKED Multimedia Festival, February 17th, 2013 

International Kinetic Art Exhibit and Symposium, February 09-10, 2013

Opus Majus: An Exhibition of Works by Kim Fay, February 6, 2013-March 1, 2013

Black and White Exhibition, December 28, 2012-January 24, 2013

ActivistArtistA, Art and Wine Promanade, West Palm Beach

Golden Celebration , Group Exhibition and Music Festival at ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach,
(Oct. 7, 2012 to October 13, 2012)

The Sacredness and Profanity of it All, Pam Trent, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach, 
(Sept. 27, 2012)

Paint UNITED Project at United Way PBC, 2600 Quantum Blvd.,Boynton Beach, 
(Sept. 15, 2012)

The Writing's on the Wall, Renda Writer, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach (Aug, 23- Sept. 20, 2012)

Symbolism: Pushing Boundaries, Garcia, Gonzalez, Mostel, Saraiva,Walter, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach  (June 28, 2012 to August 9, 2012)

Rolando Barrero Recent Works, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach ( May 24, 2012 to June 21, 2012)

Packaging Nature, Bentivegna, Wendy Doscher-Smith, Kim Fay,  Juan Gonzalez,  Brian Lewis ,  Saramati Narasimhan, Elle Schorr, Vicki Siegel, Serafima Sokolov , Ryan Spinelli,  Karla Walter, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach  (April 26, 2012 to May 17, 2012)

Journalist/Vouyeur, Michael Herb & Jonathan Dvoretz , ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach  (March 23, 2012 to April 20, 2012)

KeroWACKED, (Feb. 26 to March 15, 2012)

Stroke of Genius, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach (Jan. 26, 2012 to Feb. 16, 2012

Kim Fay & Robert Catapano, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach (11-11-11 to 1-6-12)

Pre-Opening Exhibition, Sonday, Barrero, Bentivegna, Alves, Carroll, Hitz, Writer, Delgado, Reed, ActivistArtistA Gallery, Boynton Beach (Sept 9,2012 to Oct. 23,2012)

Personal Prophecies, Nereyda Garcia-Ferraz, Sylvia Gruner, and Eugenia Vargas-Daniels,
Center Gallery, Miami (Sep 10 - Oct 10, 1991), 1988-1991
(includes a typescript about Gruner; 6 folders)

Abstractions, Juan Carlos Garcia-Lavin, Jose Iraola, and Luis Marin, Inter American Gallery, Miami (Sep 12 - Oct 17,
1991), 1991

Porkopolis, Sue Coe, Inter American Gallery, Miami (Oct 29 - Dec 10, 1991), 1990-1992

Art Against AIDS III , Central Gallery, Miami (Dec 7, 1991), 1991

Memorial/Remembrance, Nat Dean , Inter Amercan Gallery (Nov 7 - Dec 13, 1991), 1991

David Kruger Recent Works, Frances Wolfson Art Gallery, May 9-June 7, 1991.

WE ARE HABLANDO


WE ARE HABLANDO



Featuring: Roly Chang Barrero Roberto Rodriguez-Montoya
Videography: Raul Ferrera-Balanquet and Joe Castel

Music: La Tarima de Locombia

Video 3/4", Duration 14 min., color, 1991

SYNOPSIS
: Produced during the Gulf war, this experimental documentary brings the issues of censorship, family values, gay relationship, language, and culture within the US/Latino Diaspora to a global level. Mexican American Roberto Rodriguez and Cuban American Roly Chang Barrero speak about artistic censorship, identity, and sexuality from their personal experience.

Ferrera-Balanquet's "experimental documentary" offers a multi-layered examination of personal, artistic and global censorship. Cuban-American artist Roly Chang Barrero recounts two occasions when his work was censored, once by a curator in Florida who feared that his treatment of the clashes between the Marielitos and first-generation Cuban immigrants would fan the flame of the controversy, and once when a gallery owned by the United Methodist Church rejected his piece on the AIDS crisis. Roberto Rodriguez, a gay Chicano man, recalls his initial subjection to censorship when he was forbidden by family members to speak English at home, a censoring similarly invoked at school where he was discouraged from speaking Spanish. Roberto also encountered censorship in the purported "liberal" atmosphere of the university campus where he was chagrined to experience a negation of his sexuality and, perhaps most surprising, a denial of his working-class identity. The testimonies of Barrero and Rodriguez are intertwined with videotext concerning the sexual/ethnic identity of the videomaker, culturally informed footage of a Latino celebration and the media-censored broadcasts of the Gulf War

Credits: Producer/Director: Raúl Ferrera-Balanquet; Videography: Joe Castel, Raúl Ferrera-Balanquet; Music: La Tarima de Locombia

Glimpses of a Journey:Videos By Raul Ferrera Balaquet*

GLIMPSES OF A JOURNEY: Videos Produced, Directed and Edited by Raul Ferrera Balanquet*
TRAIGO UN CANTAR
Video, 3/4"/4 min./color/1989

SYNOPSIS: A combination of animation, collage, cut out images from the Cuban National Ballet, and performance to the music of the well know Cuban singer and composer Carlos Puebla.

MERIDA PROSCRITA(*)

Video 3/4" Duration: 7 min., color, 1990.

Featuring: Eligio Romero and Gabriel Arroyo

SYNOPSIS: When one of the lover refuse to kiss , a narrative unfold exploring the past of the characters, the imposition of heterosexual roles in Latino men relationship, classism and the archeology of desire.

WE ARE HABLANDO

Featuring: Roly Chang Barrero Roberto Rodriguez-Montoya

Videography: Raul Ferrera-Balanquet and Joe Castel

Music: La Tarima de Locombia

Video 3/4", Duration 14 min., color, 1991

SYNOPSIS: Produced during the Gulf war, this experimental documentary brings the issues of censorship, family values, gay relationship, language, and culture within the US/Latino Diaspora to a global level. Mexican American Roberto Rodriguez and Cuban American Roly Chang Barrero speak about artistic censorship, identity, and sexuality from their personal experience.

CAMINAMOS SOBRE LAS OLAS

Video 3/4"/7 min./color/1992

SYNOPSIS: An experimental video structured around a never ending trip to a Caribbean island. Shot in the island of Holbox, north of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

EBBO FOR ELEGUA

Featuring: Roman Pacheco

Videography: Ju Pung Lin, Bonnie Sparling, and Raul Ferrera-Balanquet

Video 3/4" Duration 15 min.

SYNOPSIS: Ebbo for Elegua is an experimental documentary tracing the life of Cuban exile sent alone to the United States when he was seven years old. The video intercut interviews, graphics, and a body painting performance to present issues of the family, memory, migration, desire, and ethnicity within the Cuban exile experience.

OLUFINA ABUELA BALANQUET
Video 3/4" 5 min. color 1994

SYNOPSIS: A compositional investigation of a ritualistic space. This stylized video recreates the myth of Shango, the Afro-Cuban deity of the thunder and the presence of the the ancestors in the Cuban imagination.

NUBES SOLEADAS AT THE CROSSROAD

(SUNNY CLOUDS EN LA ENCRUCIJADA)

Cuba/Mexico/USA, 28 min., color, 1996

Featuring: Moises Abrahams, Tony Jackson, Jorge Savedra, Alfredo Vergara, Dione D Love, Surama Balanquet, Hugo Ferrera-Balanquet, Ernesto Pujol de la Vega, and Raul Ferrera-Balanquet.

videography: Raul Ferrera-Balanquet, Enrique Novelo Cascante, Olivero Rivera Davila, Carlos Rojas Cardona

script: Raul Ferrera-Balanquet and Enrique Novelo Cascante.

music: Aron Villanueva and Raul Ferrera-Balanquet.

SYNOPSIS:A recollection of fragmented memories from childhood to the present are intercut with historical and fictional events to reconstruct the exile self of a Cuban immigrant. After years in the exile Ernesto wants to understand how his emotional instability is linked to the historical moment he is living. Colliding, juxtaposing, spinning from and jumping into different levels of narrative, the video creates a layering of images which recreates the accumulation of experience and the multiplicity of the self created by the exile. Shoot in Havana, Cuba, Merida, Yucatan, Chicago and Iowa City, the United States.

*Merida Poscrita was written and Directed by Raúl Ferrera-Balanquet and Enrique Novelo Cascante.
©LMVC- krosrods moarquech, 1990-1996

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Out and About in Austin July 18 2009








First Stop: Chain Drive Austin's iconic institution, a great place to connect with the bear/leather community! Fun was had, drinks were pored, drag shows were seen, and off to the next bar..Rusty Spurs then off to Kiss & Fly.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

A PLACE FOR ART THAT'S EXPERIENCED RATHER THAN BOUGHT

A PLACE FOR ART THAT'S EXPERIENCED RATHER THAN BOUGHT
HELEN L. KOHEN Herald Art Critic
Ground Level, the newest art place to sprout in a storefront on Lincoln Road, is also the latest project of the South Florida Art Center.
A gallery and a performance site that will play host to programs from poetry readings to New Music events, the new alternative space marks the center's official entry into
the superactive world of experimental art, a showplace for art forms that audiences support rather than buy.
The young professionals programming the space feel part of an evolving activity.
"We plan to make Ground Level a place where people can experience new art, the art that is making history," says Jenni Person, a part-time program staffer at the
center and its director of performance art. "What we present will be recorded as part of a great movement."
That it's been a movement with limited local exposure is why the space has been fired up before such establishment things as a detailed program schedule and a solid
ongoing funding base are in place. "This is our shakedown period," says SFAC Executive Director Pat Jones, who envisions annual summer shows -- "reminiscent of
garden objects, beach towels, sand castles and lifeguards."
The kickoff presentation earlier this month was a visual arts exhibition (South Florida Collective II), performances involving South Florida's poets, dancers, musicians and
performance artists, and an open forum. It taught Person and ceramic artist James Herring, her counterpart in the visual arts, one thing: You can't open an exhibition and
inaugurate a series of performances in the same space on the same night. "There was too much going on," says Herring, who envisions bleachers to hold an indoor
audience of 65 to 100.
The gallery/performance space easily accommodates the 13 works by 10 area artists now hanging there. Organized by Roly Chang and juried by Olga Garay and Cesar Trasobares, the exhibition brings together new names (Clive King, for example, the new chair of the visual arts department at
Florida International University), fairly new names (Rowena Luna, Silvia Espinosa, William Villanueva), and familiar names (Mario Algaze, Jens Diercks, Claire Garrett,
Robert Calvo, Sherri Tan, Betty Fleisher).
While there is no breaking history here (some of the work is literally tired), it is always interesting to see what happens to an artist's work when the magic of Florida sets
in.
That magic has opened up and loosened the graphite drawings of King, a Welshman who, under the spell of the state's lushness and light, has turned away from limning
bony, skeletal forms in minutely marked voids to creating roomy spaces for his own
vision of the tropics.
There's interest, too, in Espinosa's abstract paintings, done with oil and wax on shaped pieces of wood, which escape looking overly decorative by keeping up the
inevitable play between smoothness and grit.
And though her punch lines are barely worth the elaborate setups, Luna's photographic interpretation of the myth of feminine equality in the corporate workplace (an equal
Roly Chang AND Art
Miami Herald: Document View 1/28/09 9:29 AM
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid…olandobarrero&s_accountid=AC0109012815100727043&s_upgradeable=no Page 2 of 2
chance to become a plastic person) adds irony.
Clearly, the role the gallery will play in Ground Level projects needs the same kind of vision the presenters are refining for what else will happen there. Jones, who
expects it will become a place where art activities are always happening, talks about partnering with other alternative spaces across the country in both organizing events
to travel the performance art network and providing a venue for those launched elsewhere. Person and Herring are eager to plug into such events as the Subtropics
festival and the Miami International Book Fair, to do more than one kind of presentation around themes or issues, to combine art forms with activism and culturalism.
Ground Level, Person says, is about creating an arts community and creating a forum: "People must feel that this a place where they can be stimulated and embraced.
Above all, I hope it will become a place where work will grow."
South Florida Collective II will be on view through May at Ground Level, 922 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

ART IMITATES LIFE IN A CELEBRATION OF CHANGE A DOZEN ARTISTS TO PARTICIPATE IN SOLAR CYCLES



As the years go by and I look back I realize that I can pin point parts of my life where I learned great lessons.

It was during my years spent with Marilyn Gottlieb-Roberts that I leaned about collaboration, unity, altruism, but most of all I learned how to have fun.

I don't recall if any of those gifts were on the curriculum per se, but teaching by example seemed to work for this life long student.



January 14, 1988

Section: NEIGHBORS MB

Edition: FINAL

Page: 18

Memo:LIFE STYLES


Miami Herald, The (FL)


ART IMITATES LIFE IN A CELEBRATION OF CHANGE A DOZEN ARTISTS TO PARTICIPATE IN SOLAR CYCLES

IRENE LACHER Herald Staff Writer


Marilyn Arsem is looking for a few good ironers.

Here's her vision: At precisely 8:57 a.m. Sunday, armies of people will iron and mutter in front of Woolworth's on the Lincoln Road Mall.

Arsem has been recruiting people off the street for her volunteer army. That's where she met aspiring ironer Ruth Martin, 60, a woman expansive and old enough to say

what's on her mind. Which is precisely what she did when she spotted Arsem sipping coffee at a restaurant on the mall last week.

"Oh, you're having a snik-snack," Martin called out.

"I just want her to talk to people," Arsem confided.

Turning Lincoln Road askew is on the menu when Arsem, a Boston artist, orchestrates a 13-hour performance art piece on the mall as part of the Miami Waves avant-garde

art festival.

Solar Cycles will involve a dozen artists and countless passers-by when it unfolds from exactly 6:25 a.m. to 5:53 p.m.

"It's a sunrise-to-sunset event from Miami Beach to Biscayne Bay," said Arsem, 36, founder of Mobius Inc., a performance art space in Boston.

"It celebrates change. We all try to pretend change doesn't happen or avoid it or resist it and it is the way of the world."

The piece springs out of the new Lincoln Road presence of Miami-Dade Community College, which sponsors the Miami Waves Festival. The college wanted to spur more arts

events on the mall, said Marilyn Gottlieb-Roberts, an Miami-Dade Arts Department associate professor.

"It's not just a cultural decision," said Gottliebd -Roberts. "It's become part of the piece now, the notion of moving from sunrise to sunset and using Lincoln Road as a giant

gnomon, a sundial. It's beautiful.

"Sometimes you start off with a bureaucratic decision and bureaucracy melts into poetry and that's what you want."

To compose the piece, Arsem made a chart, first listing every kind of cycle she could think of -- lunar and solar cycles, the color spectrum, life cycles and Chinese year cycles,

cycles built around how we spend our days and weeks.

She divided the day into 13 parts, "which makes odd times for the performance," and assigned participating artists to create an event that correlates with their point in these

various cycles.

The events move across the mall, starting with Charles Recher's arrival by boat on the beach at 6:25 a.m. and ending with the two Marilyns performing at the bayside park at

5:53 p.m.

"So you get birth and waking up at sunrise and death and rebirth at sunset," said Arsem, who worked with Miami-Dade student Roly Chang.

Ironing day is the second stop, inspired by an old nursery rhyme that assigns that task to Tuesday. Later, at 12:31 p.m., Celeste Miller, an Atlanta artist who flies in each year

for Miami Waves, will do a summer solstice dance at Euclid Avenue.

Kim Irwin, a North Carolina artist whose daily cycle point hits coffee break at 9:50 a.m., will serve the brew to an audience at Burger King, where she will interview people

about their jobs. That's because her life-cycle point hits the age of 18, when young people set out in the working world.

"The idea is to have fun, to think about cycles in your life, to recognize more of the world functions in cycles rather than literally," Arsem said.

The seed for the piece was Vulture Kulture, Beach artist Gottlieb-Roberts' tongue-in-cheek homage to Miami vultures' annual return from Hinckley, Ohio.

"The truth is they don't migrate farther than 80 miles radius, but it's wonderful to think they go as far as Hinckley, Ohio."

Miami Herald: Document View http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_d...

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The MIX Festival 1987-2001

It's strange to find out that your work has been in a awesome festival and you find out totally by accident one day...years later.
My film , transfered to VHS, "La FRUTA" was programed and shown. I have a feeling I know who was responsible; thank you Raul!
Summary
Creator: The Mix Festival
Title: The Mix Collection
Dates: 1987-2001
Abstract: The Mix Collection contains the paper and media files for the Mix: New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film and Video Festival. Started in 1987 by filmmaker Jim Hubbard and novelist Sarah Schulman, Mix is the longest-running experimental film festival and the largest queer film festival in the United States. The Festival has been instrumental in both launching the careers of filmmakers such as Todd Haynes and Sadie Benning and in providing an exhibition space for and preservation of the work of older filmmakers such as Barbara Hammer and James Broughton. Mix was also one of the first film festivals to embrace installations and online artwork to showcase the depth and breadth of queer digital media. The Festival has traditionally been held annually at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City.
Quantity: 175 linear ft. (41 boxes of paper files, 82 boxes of videocassettes)
Call Phrase: MSS 143
Return to top
Historical Note

The Mix Festival, originally known as the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival, was created in 1987 by filmmaker Jim Hubbard and novelist Sarah Schulman. The purpose of the festival was to create an alternative to mainstream gay and lesbian film festivals and to highlight the important contributions that queer filmmakers have made to experimental and avant-garde film practices. The program of the initial festival, which was first held at the Millennium Film Workshop, included a number of both classic and new works by queer filmmakers, including Todd Haynes' very first film, Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud, showcases of films by Barbara Hammer, Roger Jacoby and James Broughton and Joel Singer, and a program containing "Gay Films of the 1890's," all of which demonstrated the various strains of queer representation in film history. The festival was curated by Hubbard and Schulman themselves. A small group of unpaid volunteers helped out during the festival. The following year, the festival was once again held at Millennium, with films by Chantal Akerman, Abigail Child, Tom Chomont, and a panel moderated by Barbara Hammer entitled "Does Radical Content Require Radical Form?".

The third festival was held in 1989 at the Anthology Film Archives, where it has more or less been held ever since. The focus of the 1989 festival was on representations of the AIDS crisis, including several works by experimental filmmakers who had succumbed to AIDS and many others who were fighting the virus themselves (as if to illustrate the tragedy the virus had wrought on the gay arts community, filmmaker and performance artist Jack Smith died the night before the festival opened that year). The fourth festival included a special emphasis on films by and about black gay men, such as Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied, Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston, and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason. Jennie Livingston's documentary Paris Is Burning, about drag ball culture in Harlem, was the closing night feature at this festival, and would shortly go on to much wider critical acclaim. In 1991, like many arts organizations around New York, the festival suffered a severe cut in funding from the New York State Council of the Arts. Nevertheless, the festival continued to show films that posited themselves against mainstream representations of homosexuality and AIDS.

After the 1991 festival, Schulman left to spend more time writing. Hubbard, Marguerite Paris and Jerry Tartaglia curated the 1992 festival, recruiting a group of guest curators including Thomas Allen Harris, Cheryl Dunye, Daryl Chin and Tania Cypriano to program 5 of the shows. In 1993, Shari Frilot and Karim Ainouz became the festival directors. Shari continued to direct the festival through 1996. With the change in membership came a change in name - the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival was now known as Mix. The festival also started to focus more on showing films by and reaching out to younger queer filmmakers of color. Additionally, the festival began to depend more on having guest curators create and exhibit programs. In 1993, Mix became the first lesbian and gay film festival to feature video installations with both the 1000 Dreams of Desire "queer co-ed porn extravaganza" at the Ann Street Bookstore, co-curated by Jim Lyons and Christine Vachon, and the Go!Go!Spot! cafe/installation showcase. 1993 also saw the launch of Mix Brasil, an international extension of Mix and the first lesbian and gay film festival in the history of Brazil. Mix 94 was a joint venture with the LOOKOUT Festival, held at both Anthology and the Downtown Community Television Center. Among the innovations that year was the Cyberqueer installation, which showcased the emergence of interactive multimedia and queer digital media.

1995 marked the beginning of the festival's partnership with Free Speech TV, which broadcast activist media on local cable and community access networks. Another highlight of Mix 95 was the 100 Years of Cinema/100 Years of Sodomy tribute program to the centenary of cinema. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Mix 96 expanded to 4 venues, NYU's Cantor Film Center, the Knitting Factory, and Harlem's Victoria 5 Theatre, where Victoria MIX, Harlem's first gay and lesbian film festival showcase, took place. 1997 saw the departure of Shari Frilot as Festival Director, with Rajendra Roy taking her place. This year also saw the development of Mix Mexico, Mexico's first ever gay and lesbian film festival, and a collaboration with the PlanetOut website to present the first ever online queer film festival.

Mix 98 witnessed an increased push toward corporate sponsorship and support from grant foundations. Anie S8 Stanley became Mix's Artistic Director, and the Festival that year showcased films that documented the vogue for reclaiming "antiquated" forms of film technology, such as hand-processed and super 8mm films. The theme of Mix 99 was "Get Lucky," with programming that "gambled" on promising new work by upcoming filmmakers. Memorizing Mix, a gay and lesbian film and video preservation project launched in collaboration with the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS and the Guggenheim Museum, and the HONCHO Blue Movie Midnight Series, were both prominent features of the festival this year. In 2000, the festival instituted screening and programming committees to review the abundance of film submissions. Among the special attractions this year were the ACCESS digital media series and the Innovations Features Series, which showcased full-length feature work by Mix alumni. In 2001, Hubbard, Frilot, and Roy each curated guest programs as part of the Memorizing Mix series, with each showing work that highlighted films from festivals past.

In recent years, Mix has continued its dedication to providing downtown New York with a venue for formally challenging gay and lesbian film and video. The 2002 festival included a showing of James Wentzy's AIDS activism tribute video Fight Back, Fight AIDS: Fifteen Years of ACT-UP on Video. In 2003, Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation had its world premiere at Mix and would eventually foist Caouette into the indie-film spotlight. While the Mix Festival has most often been held every November at the Anthology Film Archives, in 2006 the festival opened at Manhattan's 3LD Art and Technology Center. It is currently directed by Stephen Kent Jusick with co-directors Szu Burgess, Andre Hereford and Kate Huh.

La FRUTA : Video by Roly Chang

It seems like a lifetime ago, I released the only two films I was ever satisfied with"El Pajaro" and "La Fruta." What remains is the following:

Fales Library and Special Collections
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© 2006 Fales Library and Special Collections . All rights reserved.
New York University Libraries, Publisher
Processed by Joseph Gallucci, 2005-2006, Joe Ketner, 2005. Megan Wacha, 2006, Luke Martin, 2008, and Brent Phillips, 2008.
Machine-readable finding aid created by Joseph Gallucci, 2006. Description is in English.

Subseries L: Media - Video and Audio


80 143.1591 Title: La Fruta Screened: [1991]

Old number: MT 02

Director: Barrero, Roly Chang

Distributor:

Format: VHS
Duration: 15 minutes