Friday, April 16, 2010

Proximities

22, 23, 29, and 30 April, 2010, from 8.00 pm

estrada making love

Still from Ways of Making Love in US (2006), by Diana-Sofia Estrada


Proximities is a programme of five artists’ videos posing questions about family and domesticity, intimacy and publicity, anxieties and appetites. Curated by artist and Alice Yard co-instigator Christopher Cozier, Proximities explores the medium of video, its immediacy, and its relations with performance, spontaneity, and self-revelation.

Cozier writes:

“I experienced most of these works in various exhibitions or while travelling between 2007 and 2008, and one or two were sent to me. They had an impact on me and lived with me because of their relatively simple and/or efficient use of video, and because the expression and/or investigation of intimacy — the use of self as subject — the personal and its relation to the public space, especially in the anglophone Caribbean — are concerns that are rarely directly visualised.

“Also, Trinidad is seven miles off the coast of the South American continent. Most of these works come from or engage the Latin American world — a space, history, and sensibility we share but also rarely engage.”

monforte que te vaya

Still from Que Te Vaya Bonito (2007), by Ivan Monforte

vivas la mala

Still from La Mala (2008), by Sandra Vivas

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The programme includes:

Ways of Making Love in US (2006)
Diana-Sofia Estrada

Que Te Vaya Bonito (2007)
Ivan Monforte

La Mala (2008)
Sandra Vivas

Mulatta/Mestiza (2007)
Yvette Mattern

Los Diarios de Porcelana (2003)
La Vaughan Belle

Mulatta 1

Installation view of Mulatta/Mestiza (2007)

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Schedule:

Thursday 22 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Ways of Making Love in US
Que Te Vaya Bonito
La Mala

Friday 23 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Mulatta/Mestiza
Los Diarios de Porcelana

Thursday 29 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Mulatta/Mestiza
Los Diarios de Porcelana

Friday 30 April, 2010, 8-10 pm
Ways of Making Love in US
Que Te Vaya Bonito
La Mala

The videos will be installed in various spaces at Alice Yard, and will play simultaneously and continuously throughout each evening.

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belle porcelana

Still from Los Diarios de Porcelana (2003), by La Vaughn Belle


About the artists:

Diana-Sofia Estrada is an artist based in Los Angeles. She writes: “My work creates geographies crafted out of the substance of trade itself,” and “I often use narrative to explore a possible situation in life. I am interested in implicating the memory or truth of one’s point of view, and I use my own subjectivity as a starting point for this investigation.” She has had several solo shows in California and Texas, and participated in a number of group projects and exhibitions. She was born in Houston, Texas.

Ivan Monforte’s interdisciplinary practice uses simple gestures and materials, as well as emotional language and content, as strategic tools to address themes of loss and mourning; representations of gender, race and sexuality; and the pursuit of love. He has shown at Bronx Museum of the Arts, New Fest 2005, Haven Artspace, and Longwood Art Gallery, all in New York; MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles; and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. He was born in Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico, and is based in New York.

Sandra Vivas is a video and performance artist who has described her work as “conceptual pastiche that deals with the irony of things from our daily lives, the questioning of certain ideas taken for granted, certain clichés.” She has had several solo shows in Venezuela, and participated in group exhibitions there and in Buenos Aires, New York, Miami, and other locations. Originally from Venezuela, she now lives in Dominica.

Yvette Mattern is an artist whose work intersects the disciplines of performance, cinema, and avant-garde opera, and has been exhibited, screened, or performed in numerous locations internationally. Her most recent project, Seven rays of coloured light in a white cube (Freies-Museum, Berlin) is a version of the large public installation Global Rainbow, which premiered in New York in 2009. She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and now lives between New York and Berlin.

La Vaughn Belle is an artist living and working in the Virgin Islands. She writes: “I like things provincial and domestic. I used to paint figures and symbols. While living in Havana, I started throwing parties on buses, asking neighbours to exchange objects and making animations of figurines on their living room tables.” She has shown her work in solo shows in St. Croix and Cuba, and participated in group exhibitions and projects such as the Bienal del Caribe in Santo Domingo, the Havana Biennale, and the Big River residency in Trinidad. She was born in Tobago.

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