Fresh Art International

Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea and American art collectors Patricia and Howard Farber talk about the first-ever international Cuban Art Awards sponsored by the Farber Foundation. We recorded this conversation at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center during the opening event of the 12th Havana Biennial art exhibition. 

 Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Music: Septeto Habanero

Nigerian-born curator Okwui Enwezor, director of the 56th Venice Art Biennale, sparked this conversation about the expanded black presence in the global contemporary art scene. Recording in Venice, during preview days the international exhibition, Cathy Byrd connects with Canadian curators Camille Turner, Andrea Fatona, Sally Frater, and Pamela Edmonds to speak about this new development. 

Argentinean artist Agustina Woodgate is based in Miami, Florida, and Buenos Aires. In a recent project, she and her team produced Radio Espacio Estacion (Radio EE), a 4-day online radio show for Auto Body, a performance-based exhibition featuring the work of more than 30 women artists. Our conversation—and Woodgate's temporal Auto Body broadcast—took place on Miami Beach, during Miami Art Week, December 2014.

Chicago-based artist Cheryl Pope tells the back story of UpAgainst, a performance she presented on Miami Beach in late2014. Pope used only her head to box down 700transparent water-filled balloons that were suspended from the ceiling ina former auto body shop. The context for UpAgainst was AUTO BODY, afour-day video and performance project that took place during Miami Art Week 2014.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Performance audio courtesy the artist and Spinello Projects

From El Salvador, Cuba, and Israel, Simón Vega, Candelario, and Gil Yefman talk about their experiences as artists-in-residence at the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, Florida. Launched in 2008 by Kathryn and Dan Mikesell, Fountainhead is one of the local efforts to build a sustainable art scene in Miami. Our conversation takes place in the house and garden where the artists live and work.

Tameka Norris just produced her first feature-length film. She plays herself in Meka Jean: How She Got Good. The narrative has a lot in common with The Moviegover, a novel by Walker Percy. Like Walker Percy, Norris grew up in the Deep South, and went away to seek her fortune. Like Binx Bolling, the book’s protagonist, Meka Jean reveals what it means when New Orleans is the city you call home.

We recorded this conversation with Norris when her film debuted during the international exhibition Prospect.3 New Orleans, in 2014. She presented the project as a multi-chambered installation at May Gallery, a nonprofit art space in the district known as the Upper 9th Ward.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Soundtrack excerpts courtesy the artist

New York-based artist Lynda Benglis has been pouring, dripping, and splattering her way through unexpected media, color, and texture for decades. Her work sometimes shocks, and always surprises. Forty years after posing nude with a dildo for the photo that appeared in a full-page ArtForum advertisement, Lynda is at last being recognized for her significant impact on contemporary art. In this episode, we talk about her passion for creating and resurrecting fountains.

Prospect New Orleans, a city-wide international art exhibition in its third iteration, is starting to feel at home. This episode features two project sites where we found a deep connection between art and community. In the order of their appearance, Timothy Levitch, Tavares Strachan, Margaret Thomas, and Gary Simmons reveal why Prospect makes perfect sense for the Crescent City.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie 

Episode sound: The Roots of Music Brass Band's performance of “Go to the Mardi Gras” by Professor Longhair during the live WWOZ broadcast from Jazz Fest on May 1, 2014; and Beans performing for Gary Simmons “Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark,” 2014, at Tremé Market Branch on the occasion of the opening of Prospect.3: Notes for Now, New Orleans, October 25, 2014.