MOVE ON

food for thought
from futura in prague
http://www.futuraprojekt.cz/en/exhibitions/move_on/index.htm

participating artists: Silvina Arismendi (UY),Vasil Artamonov & Alexey Klyuykov (CZ), Matei Bejenaru (RO) Ondřej Brody (CZ),Valentino Diego (IT), Tomáš Džadoň (SK), Amande In (FR), Eva Jiřička (CZ), Jaroslav Kyša (SK), Dominik Lang (CZ), Anna Orlikowska (PL),Tereza Severová (CZ), Julia Vécsei (HU), Liang Yue (CN)

Travelling and meeting different cultures as a way of finding one's own identity, through the mirror of diversity, has been expected from visual artists for longer than we normally think. From the XVI to the XVIII century Italian cities (specially Rome and Florence) were supposed to be the best places for artists to travel to, where to spend months or years copying from antique models and getting acquainted with the most recent artistic trends. In XIX century and until the Sixties Paris became the place to be, with most of the new art movements being started here, and attracting an accordingly large numbers of artists from the whole world, to be followed by New York in the Seventies and Eighties.

In an age of multipolar development and multicultural societies there are no clear cut centres to take the lead. The art process itself has changed, and the role of models in art making is much less appreciated or cared for, at least at a conscious level. The main art cities attract of course large communities of international artists, but the accent is rather on the diversity of the individual art scenes, which are appreciated in their individuality and specific values. Some of the most interesting art works are indeed being created in peripheric locations and have a very hybrid parentage. Artists - specially young ones - are on the move, and welcome travelling to different cultures as a way of experiencing different life styles and questioning accepted values.

The accent is more on the movement than on the stay : long term, year-long residences are not accessible or attractive to many young artists for various reasons, whereas shorter stays of months or weeks are increasingly common and have come to be accepted as an indispensable "rite of passage" in the career of (almost) any self respecting young artist. Artists' mobility has become a priority that many art institutions cherish and cater for. Artists themselves welcome any interesting chance of getting out of their studios and circles to meet.. what? The large world outside. The deep aspiration of many artists to escape the narrowness of the art ghettos - as contemporary art increasingly cut itself out of mainstream society - seems to be fulfilled, or at least attenuated, by full immersion in the everyday of different cultures. So the artists turn into self-taught urban ethnographers and leave to explore - usually with irony and critical detachment, but often with participation and enthusiasm too - the uses and customs of the visited cities, be they a few hundred kilometres from their own city, or on the other side of the world.

The exhibition presents recent artworks from Czech and international artists who have taken part, during 2008, in the residences run by Futura and its partners in Prague, Castle Trebesice, Bratislava, Budapest, Birmingham, Warsaw and Shanghai.

"split sky"

gravity split sky

spilling droplets of our love

your face moist with pain

-selene

our family writes haiku

I long for bright air
and the scent of wilderness;
it longs for me, too.

stephen

our family writes haiku

Words Fail Me when I
Describe my Desire for this
Blessed Neighborhood.

ryan lucchesi

hello and haiku and dawn

hey, hello, hola to an extension of my artistic family.  i look forward to creating with you all at some point or another and beyond...so, as my first entry, i give you a haiku from yesterday and the painting "dawn" from one of my favorite artists, odd nerdrum.

fractured, a bit torn

love binds its mangled, bruised wings

flapping, flapping, still

-selene

lovely tour

the beckoning of lovely is having a tour of lovely gatherings across the u.s. (if you don't know what lovely is, maybe start here)!

this is the latest underground update from amy, to the neighborhood and beyond:

"If you live nearby or have friends/family that do, I hope you'll join us for '60 minutes of Lovely.' The gatherings will be held in all kinds of cool places, and we'll be doing stuff together for the sake of the final movie (perhaps even shooting scenes) and for the sake of simply having a good time and connecting."

Friday March 13
City: Portland, Oregon
Where: location TBD
Time: 6:30-7:30 pm

Sunday March 15
City: Portland, Oregon
Where: Grasshopper Store, 1816 NE Alberta St
Time: 11:00 am - noon

Tuesday March 31
City: Houston, TX
Where: Blue Willow Bookshop
Time: 6:00-7:00 pm

Saturday April 25
City: Los Angeles
Where: L.A. Times Book Festival, at the Target Kids' stage
Time: 3:45 pm

Monday April 27
City: Los Angeles
Where: Children’s Book World
Time: 10:30 am

Tuesday April 28
City: LaVerne, CA
Where: Mrs. Nelson’s Shop
Time: TBD

Tuesday April 28th
City: Irvine, CA
Where: Location TBD
Time: 6:00-7:00 pm

Friday May 1st
City: San Francisco
Where: Location TBD
Time: 6:00-7:00 pm

Saturday May 2nd
City: San Francisco
Where: Books, Inc. 2215 Chestnut (in Marina)
Time: 11:00 am
Also: early evening event/gathering TBD

That's enough for now. Please know that I will also be touring in Baltimore (May 17th), Washington D.C. (May 18-19), Cambridge/Boston (May 21) and New York city (May 30). Details forthcoming.

leaving praha

we have one odd hour to kill before i take my train. L. laying on the ground, singing "little person" to herself while czech announcements play (always preluded by organ music) and drilling from the station construction rattles. we are sitting on cold concrete indoors and i'm reminded of katka in slovakia eight years ago, when she told all of the girls in our group the superstition about how your ovaries will freeze over if you sit on the ground. i wonder if the czech republic has the same superstition, since they were once part of the same country.

we are still bundled up, even though we are indoors. it's cold. now L. is sitting up and putting on her headphones because she just has to actually hear the song. she has red yarn in her hair but the rest of her clothes are gray and pale blue. she is singing along to the music, kind of loudly, like an eight year old little girl, and sometimes looking at me and beaming a big smile as she goes. sometimes i think we must look like a pair of mismatched "american girls" dolls together, she in her soft pastels and country fabrics, skirt layers over courderoys, pale rose porcelain skin, long curly tangles, and me in my dirty city boots and legwarmers, tights, browns and blacks and bright teal, kitchen scissor bangs, mascara, red scarf.

she is in a daze now, watching strangers and absently singing to herself, and i'm tempted to pick up my book, because i can't get tomas and tereza out of my mind. but it is our last hour together until, when, we're not sure, maybe two weeks or maybe six months, and i think we both want to be present with each other and talk, or something. i already passed her the cuff, and she gave me a beautiful drawing (of winter now, and spring soon), and we talked about our time in wroclaw and in prague and also about all that is yet to come, and we made long lists and thin sandwiches. but there's still time left and really mostly, it just feels normal to just be normal.

straight ahead is a deli with a sign reading "obcerstvem lahudky," selling rolls and bottled water, and to its left is a money exchange place where everything seems to be in english. and between here and there are payphones and WCs that are no longer in order (L. checked, there are only new ones around the corner, but they charge money, and we're out). pigeons, flying around indoors and waddling close, curious what crumbs we may have dropped from our very carefully rationed cheese and jam concoctions. construction zone blocked off and geometric red ceiling. a sign for the narodni divadlo opera - evzen oregin. the photo is of a man's dress shirt (white), unbuttoned on a coat hanger, with an old dingy letter sticking out of the pocket. shadows behind and a cast of greenish light over the whole thing. premiery: 20 a. 22.3.2009. suitcases rolling past us, and more organ music, and more drilling.

"okay, ready?" she says. "this line is for us!"

as she starts to sing it, i realize that she has moved on to denison witmer, and we look at each other with understanding eyes and grin as we mouth the words together:

"and it's easier, i'm sure, to use a city map
but can't you find yourself by wandering till the parts connect?"

our family writes haiku

making numbers flow
watching digits dance on screen
balance is my goal

lee lawlor

Everything moves real slow when it's 40 below

This is my foray into the Traveling Neighbourhood, aside from thinking about it alot. I only know one of the family by face, but I think that I know the community by heart. In a far flung community inspiration is so important to growing ideas & new ways to live & old ways to dream. In the middle of winter when it's -44 degrees C

(my eyelashes literally froze together today. I spoke with a lady from Siberia who told me that it was colder in Regina... then she told me the the key to a better life was a husband... sigh) & all we want to do is hibernate & sleep. So we make lists of things that make things better: 

 

& dream of other times & places & people. And continue to believe that when my energy can be devoted to things other than keeping my internal organs from freezing solid... I will create again.

Being brave in the hardest year in colder Canada.

"Everything moves real slow when it's 40 below" - The Canadian Dream by Sam Roberts 

our family writes haiku

river humid light
in gentle evening whispers
you are welcome here

amy delap jendrzejewski