Interviews by Brainard Carey

Dan Hill, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the role of emotions in politics, business, sports and culture. He pioneered the use of facial coding in business to capture emotional dynamics and has done work for over 50% of the world’s top 100 B2C companies. He’s also been a political pundit for CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, Fox, and MSNBC, among other media outlets, since the 2004 presidential race. His eight books include Emotionomics, chosen by Advertising Age as a top 10 must-read book of 2009 and featuring a foreword by Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons; and among his three most recent books, First Blush: People’s Intuitive Reactions to Famous Art. Dan holds a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University, following a M.A. in Creative Writing from Brown University and has thrice been noted with commendation in The Best American Essays series.

The conservative scientific estimation is that 95% of people’s mental activity isn’t fully conscious. First Blush is by far the largest study ever done involving eye tracking and art – plus facial coding, to capture how participants felt about what they were precisely seeing (and experiencing).

This handout picture received from Christies auction house on May 27, 2014 shows an artwork entitled "My Bed" by British artist Tracey Emin. Tracey Emin's unmade bed artfully littered with condoms, cigarette packs and underwear is expected to fetch around £1 million (1.2 million euros, $1.7 million) at auction. The work, called simply "My Bed", cemented Emin's notoriety when it was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize, although the British artist eventually lost out to future Oscar winner Steve McQueen, who directed "12 Years a Slave".  AFP PHOTO / CHRISTIES

Caption for Tracy Emin eye-tracking results for My Bed – Tracy Emin’s installation piece, My Bed, was the top-performing art work in First Blush. That result is based on both driving a high volume of fixations (where the eye stays with a detail long enough for it to mentally register) and a high volume of emotional engagement (when facial muscle activity reflects interest).

Leila Seyedzadeh lives and works in New York. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from The University of Science and Culture in 2014 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2019.

Seyedzadeh was a recipient of the H.Lee Hirsche prize at Yale School of Art. She has been invited to participate in exhibitions which include shows at WhiteBox in New York, and Dastan Basement Gallery in Art Dubai 2019. Her work is represented in institutional exhibitions in the US and Iran which includes Green Hall Gallery at Yale University and Ahvaz Contemporary Art museum in Iran.

Seyedzadeh’s work addresses imaginary landscapes and focuses on natural subjects such as mountains that are extracted from subconscious. It is as if she is attaching together pieces of her memories, and by doing so she is destroying their meaning, and thus creating a landscape that is immersed in placelessness.

The books mentioned in the interview are In Praise of Shadows and Mount Analogue.

Mount Qaf, hand dyed cotton rope, 2020

A memory of a view from my homeland, hand dyed cotton cloth, found cloth, hand dyed fringe, ribbon, string, 2018

The landscape of my voice, sound drawing based on Farsi and English, glass, fringe, wood pole, 2019

Detail, the landscape of my voice

Desi Mundo is an Oakland-based spray paint educator, hip-hop cultural diplomat and the founder of the Community Rejuvenation Project, a pavement to policy mural organization that has produced more than 250 murals, throughout the Bay Area as well as nationally and internationally.

His largest mural, the “Universal Language” galvanized the Oakland community in the struggle against gentrification resulting in $20 million in community benefits, as documented in the feature documentary film “Alice Street.” Desi’s legacy as an educator and youth worker in K-12 schools spans two decades. He received the “Rising Leaders” Fellowship from the Youth Leadership Institute in 2005 and has been awarded the Individual Artist grant from the City of Oakland eight times.

The Universal Language mural discussed in the interview.

The Universal Language mural with Destiny Muhammad, the "Harpist from the Hood".

S Surface is a Seattle-based curator of art, design and architecture, and the King Street Station Program Lead with ARTS. Previously, Surface was co-curator of The Alice, an artist-run exhibition space and writers' residency, and Out Of Sight 2017, a regional survey of Pacific Northwest artists. As Program Director at Design in Public, Surface organized the annual city-wide Seattle Design Festival and curated at the Center for Architecture & Design. Trained in graphic design, photography and entrepreneurship at Parsons School of Design, and with a M.Arch from Yale School of Architecture, research coordinator and editor with C-LAB, Volume Architectural Journal, and the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; and a teaching fellow in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department at Yale University. Surface served on the Seattle Arts Commission and on the board of Architects, Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility.

Carol Ann Davis is a poet, essayist, and author of the poetry collections Psalm (2007) and Atlas Hour (2011), and The Nail in the Tree:  Essays on Art, Violence, and Childhood (2020), all available from Tupelo Press.

The daughter of one of the NASA engineers who returned the Apollo 13 crew from the moon, she grew up on the east coast of Florida the youngest of seven children, then studied poetry at Vassar College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  A former longtime editor of the literary journal Crazyhorse, she is Professor of English at Fairfield University, where she directs the Low-Residency MFA Program and is founding director of Poetry in Communities, an initiative that brings writing workshops to communities hit by sudden or systemic violence.  She lives in Newtown, CT, with her husband and two sons.

Frans van Lent

La Biennale de Momon- about the solidity and continuity of the physical world as opposed to the human temporary presence. July - November, 2020. 

The initiative:

La Biennale de Momon project was set up by Frans van Lent,  a Dutch artist, based in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. His recent projects include the Unnoticed Art Festival, the ConceptBank and the ParallelShow. There is no clear distinction between his practice as a performance artist and his curatorial projects. He often invites other artists to participate on an equal basis. Frans van Lent studied at MaHKU, Utrecht (MA Fine Arts). He tutors at the Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam (since 2000).

 

The project:

Maumont is a small village in the Perigord in France. It consists of 15 houses, around 30 inhabitants and there is no church, shop, café or other public facility. Only a few original residents are still living in the village; many died over the years, others left to live elsewhere. Today most inhabitants are newcomers and pensioners, often from other countries. 

Twenty years ago you could still smell the farms everywhere. Herds of cows and sheep were led through the village every day. The village has changed, from a place where all was related to soil, growth and the seasons, to a place where the inhabitants mainly stroll, relax and dream.

Momon is the old name of the village, no longer in use since the name Maumont was introduced. Momon stands for the village as it exists in the mind. It is no longer physically linked to the location, it is linked to memories and coloured by nostalgia. 

La Biennale de Momon starts from the village, but it will only be that starting point. Nothing will be changed but, on the contrary, it will remain the way it is. 

The artists:

Eight artists are working in this project: Sarah Boulton (GB), Marc Buchy (FR/BE), Joan Heemskerk (NL), Susana Mendes Silva (PT), Josh Schwebel (CA/DE), Lisa Skuret (US/GB), Elia Torrecilla (ES) and Frans van Lent (NL). They all have a certain preference for creating work without a material body, without physical traces. Their ultimate works might consist of texts, scores, images or sounds, everything that can live online without actually touching the physical ground.

During one week in the first half of this year, every artist will individually stay in a small house in the village. She/he will use this time to get familiair with the village, with its surroundings, its inhabitants. And they will of course prepare and create.

LaBiennaleDeMomon.org:

Finally La Biennale de Momon can only be experienced online. The will be no physical traces left in the village to find. The project will officially be presented at LaBiennaleDeMomon.org  on July 15, 2020.You can of course always choose to visit the location, but do not expect to see something different than what it always was: just a small village in the Perigord.

 

And finally:

In November 2020 we will organise a public conference in the Dordrechts Museum in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. 

In this conference all artists will talk about the meaning of this project and about their works. 

There will also be other speakers with a professional relation to the subject: actors, journalists, scientists. 

 

Financing the project:

We are very happy that the city of Dordrecht, the Netherlands, funded part of this project. It ensures us of the means to realise many aspects as intended.

One of the things that is still missing is a fee for the artists. The project is very much dependent of their efforts and I would really want to value this by offering them a fair fee. To realize that we set up the crowdfunding. 

The book mentioned in the interview is Underland of Robert Macfarlane.

Bull (Limousin)

View from the village of Maumont

Sarah Stolar in the studio with her pit bull Gabriel and work in-progress for her new project The Grief Club photo credit Jeff Medinas

Sarah Stolar (b. 1974, Chicago, IL) is an interdisciplinary artist who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Working from a vast technical perspective, the breadth of her work includes painting, drawing, multi-media installation, film, video and performance art. Rooted in a 20-year investigation of the female psychological narrative, common threads in her work include coming of age, loss of innocence, sexuality, beauty, power, death, spirituality, and identity. Sarah is the daughter of artist and educator Merlene Schain, and in the family lineage of 19th-century German painter Adolph von Menzel and Rookwood Pottery master potter John von Menzel of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. She grew up in her mother’s art studio and award-winning art school Schain Studios in Cincinnati, OH, received a BFA in Painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. Sarah's visual art, performance, and collaborative work have exhibited across the United States and in Argentina, Spain, Germany, Austria, Finland, Italy, and Cuba with solo exhibitions at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Harwood Museum of Art, and BGMoCA in Montevideo, Uruguay as well as awards and honors from international film festivals, et al. Her work has been featured in multiple publications including The Nation Magazine, LandEscape Art Review, Nomos Journal, and Hyperallergic. A committed educator for over fifteen years, Sarah Stolar serves on multiple boards and academic committees, and is currently the Chair of the Art Department at the University of New Mexico - Taos.

The book mentioned in the interview was The Power by Naomi Alderman.

The Grief Mother / The Grief Club performance for video 2020 photo credit Audrey Valentine

She-Hulk, oil on canvas, 60x48”, 2018, photo credit Jeff Medinas (exhibited in most recent solo exhibition Alcoves 20/20 at the New Mexico Museum of Art)

Mireia c. Saladrigues (Terrassa, 1978) is a researcher and visual artist at the Doctoral Program of the Finnish Art Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.

Via her research Behaving Unconventionally in Gallery Settings. Alteration in Cultural Practices for Rearticulating Relations among Makers, Objects, Audiences, and (Virtual) Museums, she documents and fosters human and non-human cases of alteration and strangeness in cultural practices by proposing an artistic and theoretical re-reading of nonconformity. It also experiments with implementing occasions for misrepresented behaviours that, within the (conceptual) architecture of display, are considered traditionally unacceptable. The research is being supervised by Jan Kaila, Julie Harboe and punctually by Hito Steyerl.

Her work participated the 2nd Research Pavilion in occasion of the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). She has also exhibited at: Espai 13 in Joan Miró Foundation (2011), Antoni Tàpies Foundation (2014), La BF15 in Lyon (2014), Centre d'Art Le Lait in Albi (2015), Videonale.13 in Bonn (2011), Centre Cultural Caja Madrid (2011), National Museum of Photography in Copenhaguen (2010), Kiasma Museum in Helsinki (2009), DIA Art Foundation (2008), Art Museum in Pori (2008), Onomatopee in Eindhoven (2015 i 2012), Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis (2010).

She has lectured at the 9th Annual Conference of the Society of Artistic Research in Plymouth, 104th Annual Conference by CAA in Washington DC, the EARN Symposium at GradCAM@DIT in Dublin, KuVA Research Days in Helsinki, as much as others.

She has received numerous awards, which the most recent are KuVA Research Position (2020-2021), Kone Publication Grant (2020), Kone Foundation Research and Art Production Grant (2016-2019), KuVA Grants (2019-2014), ETAC - Artistic Research Residency (2014), OSIC- Research and creation grant (2012).

Her Museum, in Joan Miro Foundation, Mireia c. Saladrigues, 2011

Mind your Manners, Mireia c. Saaldrigues, 2011

Featured in a Henry Louis Gates, Jr. profile in The New Yorker, crowned "Ringmaster of the Spoken Word" by the New York Daily News, Bob Holman has performed his poems with a punk band in Kiev, a griot in Timbuktu, a ballet company in San Francisco. As the original Slam Master of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, creator of the world's first spoken word record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury, and the founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, Holman has played a central role in the spoken word and slam poetry movements of the last several decades.

He is the author of 17 poetry collections, A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (Aperture, a collaboration with Chuck Close), and has taught at Princeton, Columbia, NYU, Bard, and The New School. A co-founder of the Endangered Language Alliance, Holman's study of hip-hop and West African oral traditions led to his current work with endangered languages.

He is the producer/host of films including "The United States of Poetry" and "Language Matters with Bob Holman," both nationally broadcast on PBS.

Mary Dinaburg has over 30 years of art industry experience, with extensive knowledge of the Asian art market. She is the founder of DinaburgArts LLC, providing curatorial advice and consultation for galleries, museums, institutions, and corporations, with a focus on business development and cultural branding. Her expertise also includes acquisition and de-accession of Post-Impressionist and Modern masters as well as established and emerging international Contemporary artists.

Having recently returned to New York, Mary is now involved in a variety of projects both in the United States and abroad.

During the 1980s, Mary served as the director of Jack Shainman Gallery. In 1993, she founded the art agency, DinaburgArts, where she not only continued her work in exhibitions and sales but also deepened her involvement in acquisitions and de-accessions.

DinaburgArts was one of the first agencies to bring fine art to the fashion industry. This started with Saks Fifth Avenue when Mary developed the “Saks Project Art” program, making contemporary art an integral part of the corporation's identity and branding. Since then, DinaburgArts has worked with other brands like Hermès, and Firmenich. Additionally, Mary has consulted the Kirov Theatre in St Petersburg Russia on their cultural marketing; worked with CEC-Artslink on marketing strategies for nonprofit organizations; instituted a corporate art collection at 14 Wall Street; provided management consulting to Maison Gerard; and for three years curated Gallery W52. Mary also served as advisor and curator to the international law firm, Clifford Chance; establishing a comprehensive curatorial program intended to motivate both employees and clients, as well as broaden the firm’s cultural branding. This was achieved through revolving exhibitions, an acquisitions program, educational lectures, tours, events, and the law firm’s three-year sponsorship of The Armory Show.

From 2000 onwards, Mary expanded her services into the Asian art market. Focusing her attention in South Korea and China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, and Hong Kong), Mary connected major international art galleries and artists - including Michael Werner, Sperone Westwater, Julian Schnabel, Sigmar Polke and William Wegman - with key collectors in Asia.

From 2006 to 2016, Mary partnered with Howard Rutkowski to create Fortune Cookie Projects. The company played two cross-cultural roles: introducing major international artists - spanning from Impressionism and Modernism through Contemporary practitioners - to the Asian market and to bringing established and emerging artists from the Asiatic region to the West. Fortune Cookie Projects also worked with the Royal Academy of Arts (London) to establish the Encounter exhibitions in Asia and the Middle East.

DinaburgArts continues to have an active presence in Asia and Europe, and having recently relocated to New York, Mary is currently working on a number of US based projects.