New Museum

AUNTSforcamera

08 Sep 2014 - 15 Feb 2015

“AUNTSforcamera” Production Week: Open Studios (September 10–14, 2014). Photo: Travis Chamberlain
AUNTSforcamera
8 September 2014 - 15 February 2015

The New Museum presents an exhibition of nine new dance-for-camera works created through a shared open-studio process.

Presented as part of the New Museum R&D Season: CHOREOGRAPHY

Originating in Brooklyn, AUNTS is both a growing community of artists and a choreographic structure for organizing simultaneous performance and art activities in shared spaces. Produced in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum and the arts space and nightclub TrouwAmsterdam, “AUNTSforcamera” is a special multi-venue, international dance-for-camera edition of AUNTS. Created through a shared open-studio process in the New Museum Theater (September 10–14, 2014), the nine works that comprise this exhibition were first presented as an immersive moving-image installation for the club environment of Trouw (November 6–30, 2014) and have now returned to the New Museum where they can be viewed on monitors installed in a dispersed exhibition format in various interstitial non-gallery spaces throughout the building.

“AUNTSforcamera” presents new work by Cara Francis, IMMA/MESS, Vanessa Justice, Anya Liftig, Karl Scholz, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Gillian Walsh, Collective Settlement (Felicia Ballos, Jean Brennan, and T. Charnan Lewis), and collaborators Salome Asega, Chrybaby Cozie, and Ali Rosa-Salas. Select works include an interactive game utilizing hacked Kinect software that rewards players for learning the original Harlem Shake dance; an interactive social media platform that utilizes a downloadable app to accumulate eight-second viewer-generated dance videos into a single-channel loop (#auntsforcamera); a multichannel sculptural installation reconstituting the dancing bodies of its creators into a single “exquisite corpse” moving-image form; and a single-channel video combining hand-dance and interviews with aerial footage shot by an AR Drone flown inside the New Museum Theater. New material produced with artists and audiences at the New Museum and Trouw continues to accumulate over the course of the multi-venue project, with new content to be added throughout the duration of the exhibition at the New Museum. Descriptions of all nine works follow below.

Contribute your own dance-for-camera content to this project at Ocho.co: #auntsforcamera

An important component of the installation at the New Museum includes a series of nine artist-led tours, which have been organized using AUNTS’ chain-curation model. Using this model, tours are led by artists who have been invited by “AUNTSforcamera” artists to create a response to the exhibition in the form of a tour, which will be performed exclusively for participating audiences. In keeping with the spirit of AUNTS, the currency of exchange for attending these tours is not monetary. To participate, visitors must provide proof of submission to #auntsforcamera, an interactive work by Karl Scholz included in the “AUNTSforcamera” exhibition. For submission guidelines, tour dates, and further information, visit the project tour page.

“AUNTSforcamera” is presented as part of the New Museum’s 2014 Fall R&D Season: CHOREOGRAPHY, spearheaded by Johanna Burton, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement. It is organized on behalf of the New Museum by Travis Chamberlain, Associate Curator of Performance and Manager of Public Programs, in collaboration with Laurie Berg and Liliana Dirks-Goodman, organizers of AUNTS. The project was originally commissioned by the Stedelijk Museum and TrouwAmsterdam as part of the “Trouw Invites...” exhibition series, made possible by support from De Verdieping, TrouwAmsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, AFK, SNS Reaal Fonds, Stichting DOEN, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, IAmsterdam, Stadsdeel Oost, ABNAMRO, and Lloyd Hotel.

ABOUT AUNTS

AUNTS was founded by James Kidd and Rebecca Brooks in 2005 and has been organized by Laurie Berg and Liliana Dirks-Goodman since 2009. Adapting to any architecture that might temporarily house its current activities and guided by core principles of collectivity, cooperation, and sharing, AUNTS generates a constantly shifting environment where artists negotiate the simultaneous production and/or presentation of their work in relationship to one another. Often taking the form of a live event, AUNTS allows audiences to freely move about the spaces it inhabits, engaging with as many or as few of its offerings as they like, choosing their own path through the event and creating their own experiences through chance encounters. The whole can be viewed as a work independent from, but no more or less important than, its individual constituent parts.
 

Tags: Keith Haring