The Things That Haunt Me Still is a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Felandus Thames, curated by David Borawski.
Utilizing found objects and non-traditional materials like hair beads and barrettes, Thames’ work explores the viewer’s relationship with gender and race. Often asking more questions than offering answers, Thames’ playful use of materials and text utilizes humor as an entry point to exploring social and cultural issues.
From the artist’s statement:
“I am interested in creating vessels able to contain beauty and trauma at an equilibrium. Work that functions in the way that Black music is endowed by, but not the sum of, Black joy, pain, and suffering. I am invested in the residue of memory decoupled from nostalgia or narrative. Material choices, never superficial, become central actors in my practice and often function as surrogates to contested histories and lived experiences of those who consume them. Materials are the repository of history and memory in my practice.”
Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Born in Mississippi, Thames attended the graduate program in Painting and Printmaking at Yale University where he received his MFA in 2010. He has been included in exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Galerie Myrtis, Tilton Gallery, Heather James Gallery, Charles H. Wright Museum, USF Contemporary Art Museum, International Center for Printmaking New York, African American Museum of Philadelphia, Mississippi Museum of Art, Yale University, Wesleyan University, Columbia University, Art Hamptons, Art LA, The Texas Contemporary, and Miami Basel.
As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit ourWelcoming You Back page.
Real Art Ways and ART PAPERS partner to celebrate two events—- the closing day of the group exhibition, Statues Also Die, and the launch of the Fall/Winter 2020 journal, Monumental Interventions.
Artists Jeffrey Meris and Marisa Williamson will join ART PAPERS guest co-editor TK Smith, and RAW guest curator, Sarah Fritchey, in a conversation around artists who reject, subvert and revolutionize conventional traditions, concepts and materials of monument-making. Focusing on the sentient body as a receptacle for memory, a site of action, and the vessel through which we come to experience the world— the panelists will explore questions of absence, presence, memory, refusal, vulnerability, mutability, and agency. Drawing from Smith’s extensive research and writing on the history of monument-making, memorials, and the Black body, we will consider how artists are looking to ephemeral forms and new symbols to shape the future of monument making.
TK Smith is a Philadelphia-based writer, art critic, and curator. Most recently, Smith co-edited Monumental Interventions, the Fall/ Winter 2020 issue of ART PAPERS that explores where the concerns of art intersect with those of monument and memorial. He is the curator of Virtual Remains, a group exhibition of Atlanta-based artists opening at the Atlanta Contemporary in 2021. He is currently a PhD candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he researches art, material culture, and the built environment.
Sarah Fritchey is a curator and writer based in New Haven, CT. She has curated projects at UMass Amherst, Queens College, The African American Museum in Philadelphia, and Franklin Street Works. Sarah is a contributor to ArtForum.com, Hyperallergic, Art New England Magazine, and Big Red & Shiny. Her practice focuses on under-represented histories, and the cultivation of an exhibition space as a site for cultural exchange, debate, education and experimentation. Born and raised outside of Philadelphia, Sarah holds an M.A. in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Studio Art from Hamilton College, NY.
Born in Haiti in 1991 and raised in the Bahamas, Jeffrey Meris is an artist who earned an A.A in Arts and Crafts from the University of The Bahamas, a B.F.A in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art, and an M.F.A in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2019. Meris is currently a 2020 NXTHVN Studio Fellow.
Marisa Williamson is a project-based artist who works in video, image-making, installation and performance around themes of history, race, feminism, and technology. She has produced site-specific works at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (2013), Storm King Art Center (2016), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2016), the University of Virginia (2018), and SPACES Cleveland (2019), and by commission from Monument Lab Philadelphia (2017), and the National Park Service (2019).
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of new work by 2020 Real Art Award recipient Robin Crookall.
Living somewhere between traditional photography and sculpture, Crookall creates deceivingly simple studies of architectural spaces. Interested in mid-century modernism and the “All-American” archetype, Crookall creates complicated sets out of unsophisticated materials like cardboard, hot glue, and plastic wrap, then photographs these scenes. The resulting black and white images seem like formal exploration of geometry and architecture until the viewer takes a closer look to see the truth of the image.
Artist Talk: Sunday, April 18 from 2:30 – 3:30 PM EST.
To learn more and register for the talk, click here.
From her artist statement:
“Focusing on subjects like the corner of a room or the facade of a house, the images showcase environments that are at once familiar and safe, underwhelming and routine, creating something broadly accessible. What the audience sets out to experience in the photograph changes in perspective from visualizing the subject as an actual photographed place as opposed to seeing what is really its scale-model counterpart. The experience results in the viewer questioning the preexisting notions of reality, memory, and place. Complex abstractions result in the intersection and overlap of those perceptions. The photograph is the ideal pedestal for these concepts, for its singular capacity for both depiction and deception. If you can’t trust your own eyes, then you can’t trust your own definition of place. And where are you supposed to exist at the plane of the image if all that grounds you, is slowly dissolving away?”
Click Here for the exhibition catalogue, featuring an essay by Aude Jomini.
“Shower Scene”, Gelatin silver print, 20 x 24″
About The Artist:
Robin Crookall is a 2021 finalist in The Print Centers, 95th Annual International Competition. In fall 2020 she completed a residency and solo show at Penumbra Foundation in New York City. Crookall is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in photography from The New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2016, Crookall received her MFA from New York University. In 2015 she completed a solo show at Seattle’s 4Culture Gallery and her post bacc at the University of Montana. Crookall is currently living in Brooklyn and working on a self-published book of images.
Artist Reception:
A joint reception will be held on Sunday, January 31 from 1-3 PM along with artist Catalina Ouyang and their solo exhibit THE SIREN. Visitors will be required to wear masks at all times and remain 6 feet apart from those not in your party. Learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new proceduresHERE.
The 2020 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:
An award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Visual arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art.
Image caption: Outside Looking In, 2020 (Part 1 of Diptych) Pigment Print, 29 x 44 inches
Welcoming You Back Safely:
As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit ourWelcoming You Back page.
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by artist and 2019 Real Art Award recipient Catalina Ouyang.
Ouyang’s sculptures and installations explore trauma, dissidence, and desire. Ouyang’s practice, which the artist frames as “undisciplined,” draws holistically from literature, history, myth, and memory, creating objects, videos, and performances that disrupt normative frameworks of identification and self-definition.
Artist Conversation with Catalina Ouyang and Catherine Damman Recording
For THE SIREN,
Ouyang presents the interactive video installation unable to Title (a reordering of every word written to make sense of [ ] for Catalina by Amanda, Amber, Amy, Andy, Annelyse, Annie, Ariana, Arisa, Avery, Brighde, Chelsea, Ching-In, Christina, Claire, Diana, Douglas, Edward, Elena, Geoff, Geri, Gowri, Hanif, Heather B., Heather N., Jacklyn, Jane, Jennifer, Jesse, Jessica, Joy, Julia, Julie E., Julie W., Jungmok, Kathryn, Keegan, Keith, Kelly, Kenji, K-Ming, LA, Lara, Larissa, Laura, Lillian, Liz, Luca, Lynn, Marci, Maria, Maryam, Maura, Meredith S., Meredith T., Mia, Molly, Muriel, Nathaniel, Nora, Paul, Philip, Raquel, Robert, Rosebud, Sam, Sara, Sarah G., Sarah S., Sarah V., Sennah, Sharon, Terese, Thylias, Victoria, Xandria, and Yanyi) (2020). Image below:
The piece builds upon the artist’s ongoing project [Conclusion and Findings] (2017–), in which Ouyang invites hundreds of strangers and friends to “translate” the contents of a 2016 legal document that exonerated Ouyang’s rapist. Viewers of the piece are invited to sit on a 19-foot long sculpture titled bitch bench (2017), an elongated figure somewhere between self-portrait and the Capitoline wolf of the founding myth of Rome.
Ouyang’s additional research led to the life and work of Marguerite Yourcenar, who lived with her lover and translator Grace Frick in Hartford while writing Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), a deeply-researched account of the Roman emperor. Yourcenar described historical writing as requiring “a mystical act of identification,”which Ouyang echoes in sculptures and drawings dating from 2016-2020. Oriented against master narratives and aspirations of empire, the work trespasses between multiple meanings of “translation” as it has shapeshifted through time: from the ceremonial movement of a saint’s relic, to geometric displacement, to linguistic transformation.
Artist Reception:
A joint reception will be held on Sunday, January 31 from 1-3 PM along with artist Robin Crookall and her solo exhibit Part Fact, Part Aspect. Visitors will be required to wear masks at all times and remain 6 feet apart from those not in your party. Learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new proceduresHERE.
The 2019 Real Art Awards is supported in part by:
An award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Visual Arts at Real Art Ways is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Contemporary Art. This exhibition was made possible with support from Smack Mellon, a Puffin Foundation Grant, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Image caption: bitch bench2018 / steel, polystyrene, plaster, Celluclay, wood, acrylic, epoxy resin 14 x 227 x 37 inches
Welcoming You Back Safely:
As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit ourWelcoming You Back page.
Artist Shannon VanGyzen is joined by dancers and choreographers from the Hartford Dance Collective and drag artists Coleslaw and Severity Stone in a conversation surrounding “Family Reunion”, a collaborative performance.
Each choreographer chose one of VanGyzen’s sculptures included in her solo exhibition “Homebound” and crafted a piece exploring the conceptual and formal aspects using a diverse range of approaches. Each vignette performance is connected through a series of appropriated readings curated and read by Krystle Brown.
The filmed version by Laine Rettmer is viewable for free HERE.
Real Art Ways is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2020 by presenting TRANSMISSIONS, a program of six new videos considering the impact of HIV and AIDS beyond the United States.
We invite you to a community conversation featuring Heather Harris (Clinician, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England) and Shawn Lang (Associate Chief Executive, AIDS CT), moderated by Real Art Ways’ Visual Arts Manager, Neil Daigle Orians. You are invited to join the conversation discussing how HIV and AIDS impact Connecticut, using TRANSMISSIONS as a starting point for a local perspective. Registration for this event is required.
TRANSMISSIONS brings together artists working across the world: Jorge Bordello (Mexico), Gevi Dimitrakopoulou (Greece), Las Indetectables (Chile), George Stanley Nsamba (Uganda), Lucía Egaña Rojas (Chile/Spain), and Charan Singh (India/UK).
The program does not intend to give a comprehensive account of the global AIDS epidemic, but provides a platform for a diversity of voices from beyond the United States, offering insight into the divergent and overlapping experiences of people living with HIV around the world today. The six commissioned videos cover a broad range of subjects, such as the erasure of women living with HIV in South America, ineffective Western public health campaigns in India, and the realities of stigma and disclosure for young people in Uganda.
As the world continues to adapt to living with a new virus, COVID-19, these videos offer an opportunity to reflect on the resonances and differences between the two epidemics and their uneven distribution across geography, race, and gender.
Visual AIDS is a New York-based non-profit that utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy because AIDS is not over.
This exhibition considers the roles artists play in monument removal and making– as storytellers who unearth the histories and meanings of existing monuments, activists who participate in direct actions that lead to monument removal, and civic designers who work with government officials to envision new processes for including everyday people in monument-making.
As a whole, the featured artworks and projects reject a top-down approach, consider who and what we remember, and what places, events, and movements matter. Click here to read the Statues Also Die catalogue.
Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel The empty pedestal of a Christopher Columbus statue in Hartford removed in June of 2020.
Add your voice. We want your ideas to be part of this exhibition. More information HERE
Top Image: Nate Lewis, Probing The Land VIII (Robert E. Lee, After The Fire), 2020, Hand-sculpted inkjet print, ink, frottage, graphite, 43” x 60”
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by 2019 Real Art Awards recipient Athena Rigas.
Rigas’ vibrant paintings visualize her experience of synesthesia resulting in everyday domestic scenes becoming richly overloaded with color and patterns. The textiles and patterns that appear in her work blend cultures and recall her childhood surrounded by Greek immigrant communities.
About the Artist:
Athena Rigas is a painter and mixed media artist born and raised in New York City. She recently received her BFA in Fine Arts from the Parsons School of Design.Her work has been exhibited among other places, at the SLEEPCENTER Gallery, NY, The MICA Decker Gallery, MD, and at The New School in NY.
Homebound is presented in memory of Edd Russo by Connecticut Children’s PICU Physicians.
Real Art Ways presentsa solo exhibition by 2019 Real Art Awards recipient Shannon VanGyzen. Figurative forms are created through distorting furniture, decorative fabrics, and other found objects. Each sculpture becomes a familial trope, like The Caregiver, The Teenager, or The Mess Maker. Custom wallpapers mimic classical patterns like fleur de lis and toile de jouy, creating decorations that hide class anxiety. VanGyzen’s work explores how taste, aesthetics, and decoration act as class signifiers, acting as a form of communicating one’s socioeconomic status through materiality.
Image: The Peacemaker, lace with resin and cement, 2019
Events:
Family Reunion
Livestream performance on Real Art Ways Facebook page
Saturday, October, 10 | 7 PM
The exhibition will feature a collaborative dance performance by The Hartford Dance Collective and drag artists Coleslaw and Severity Stone, supported in part by an Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.
About the Artist:
Shannon VanGyzen is an emerging visual artist and educator. VanGyzen holds an MFA degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BFA-AE in Painting and Art Education from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
VanGyzen is a recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and Real Art Ways Real Art Award. Her work has been exhibited in Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Portugal, and Germany.
For more information on Shannon and her work, visit her website.
The 2019 Real Art Awards is supported in part by the National Endowment of the Arts.
For More Information Megan Bent Marketing & Communications Coordinator mbent@realartways.org
Real Art Ways & Area Middle School Partner To 3D Print PPE for Medical Professionals
Real Art Ways Cinema Coordinator Ian Ally-Seals has initiated a way to help with the Co-Vid 19 crisis. Ally-Seals, who also teaches at Thomas Edison Middle School in Meriden, is using 3D printers from the school, and space donated by Real Art Ways, to 3D-print mask connectors for medical professionals. The connectors alleviate the pain and stress on the ears from hours of wearing masks. Real Art Ways has donated the use of its gallery and lobby, turning them into a production space.
If you or anyone you know would like to receive surgical mask connectors please contact Ian Ally-Seals directly at iallyseals@realartways.org
The mask connectors help to alleviate pain and pressure on the faces of medical staff as they wear goggles and masks for hours at a time while treating patients. The connector was designed by Quinn Callander a boy scout from Canada. Quinn has publicly shared the file which is now being utilized worldwide.
3D Printers set up in Real Art Ways gallery
Mask connector printed by Ian Ally-Seals
Ian says he first thought of the project by “wanting to use my time in a way that is helpful.” Ally-Seals started 3D printing on April 7. He has been able to print between 70 to 100 surgical mask connectors a day.
“When we started doing this I had imagined printing something sexier, like ventilators. What’s interesting though, is as awareness is getting out, requests for these connectors keep pouring in. Medical staff are reaching out saying, ‘Please can we have these.’ ” So far, mask connectors have been delivered to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Burke Rehabilitation Hospital In White Plains NY, Gorham Family Dentistry Gorham, NH, a group nurses in Meriden, and a large order is scheduled to go out to Middlesex Health in Middletown, CT today.
The project has become a family collaboration. Ian’s father, Paul Seals, whose business, Paul’s Appliance Repair in Hartford, has been temporarily shut down, has joined his son. Paul trained himself in 3D printer maintenance and has been coming into Real Art Ways to keep the 3D printers up and running.
Paul Seals working on 3D printer maintenance
If you or anyone you know would like to receive surgical mask connectors please contact Ian Ally-Seals at iallyseals@realartways.org
I want to tell you something remarkable. Something you probably aren’t aware of. You may already know that Real Art Ways is pretty good at what we do.
But did you know Real Art Ways has presented the work of (drum roll, please)… 42…(!!!) MacArthur Genius Grant Awardees? We’re going to share a bit about them in coming weeks.
– Will K. Wilkins
KEN VANDERMARK
Ken Vandermark has performed at Real Art Ways in 2013, 2014, and most recently last year. He is known for his vivid mixture of free improvisation and complex composition. He received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1999.
L to R: Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley, Joe Morris, and Stephen Haynes, at Real Art Ways. Photo by Rob Miller
FREDERICK WISEMAN
The two most recent films Real Art Ways has presented by the great documentarian Frederick Wiseman are In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: New York Public Library, documenting all 92 branches of the New York Public Library. Wiseman received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1982.
JOHN ZORN
Real Art Ways organized and hosted the 1984 New Music America festival, at a number of Hartford venues. We presented saxophonist John Zorn. Zorn received his MacArthur Fellowship in 2006.
BILL VIOLA
Real Art Ways presented video artist Bill Viola’s “The Locked Garden” in the 2002 group exhibition “Acquiring Taste.” Viola received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989.
JOSIAH MCELHENY
Josiah McElheny, a glass artist who makes exquisite objects and engages with big ideas, had work in “Exhibition Room” in 2000 and “Faith” in 2006. Josiah received his MacArthur Fellowship in 2006.
YVONNE RAINER
In 1980, Real Art Ways presented choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainier’s Journeys From Berlin/1971. Rainer received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1990.
GEORGE RUSSELL
Real Art Ways presented the late George Russell (composer, music theorist, and educator) with his Living Time Orchestra in 1988. Russell received his MacArthur Fellowship the next year.
LAURA POITRAS
We have presented three films by Laura Poitras, The Oath (including a post-film discussion with Laura) in 2010, the Academy Award Winning Citizenfour in 2015, and Risk in 2017. She received her MacArthur Fellowship in 2012.
MEREDITH MONK
Meredith Monk is a composer, performance artist, and video artist. Real Art Ways presented her work multiple times, including a 1981 solo concert, screenings of her video work in 1984, 85, 88, and a performance in 1987, presented with Trinity College and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Monk received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1995.
JANINE ANTONI
Janine Antoni’s video pieces Migration (made in collaboration with Paul Ramirez Jonas) and Ready or Not, Here I Come were included in the 2000 group exhibition Moving Pictures. She received her MacArthur Fellowship in 1998.
ORNETTE COLEMAN
In 1985, Real Art Ways celebrated jazz legend, Ornette Coleman, by hosting and organizing the week-long Ornette Coleman Festival. The festival opened with a free concert featuring Ornette and his jazz-funk band, Prime Time, and he was also honored with the keys to the city. In collaboration with Cinestudio, Real Art Ways premiered “ORNETTE: Made in America”. Ornette received his MacArthur Fellowship in 1994
JULIE AULT
Julie Ault is a founding member of artist collaborative Group Material. In 1990, in conjunction with their “AIDS Timeline” exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Real Art Ways commissioned and produced their public art project “AIDS Bus Poster.” Anedition of 50 were placed on public buses in Hartford, the nation’s insurance capital. Ault received her MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.
CHARLES BURNETT
In 1990, Real Art Ways screened Burnett’s Killer of Sheep using a rented truck that traveled to several locations, including George Day Park and Sheldon Oaks Central. Burnett received the MacArthur Fellowship in 1988.
Burnett’s masterpiece was one of the first 50 films to be selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films. Killer of Sheep focuses on everyday life in black communities in a manner rarely seen in American cinema.
Gary Hill first showed at Real Art Ways in our Daniel Wadsworth Memorial Video Festival in 1987. Also, his installation Standing Apart was part of our 2000 group exhibition “Moving Pictures.” He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998.
JOHN JESURUN
In collaboration with the Wadsworth Atheneum, Real Art Ways presented “Shatterhand Massacree-Riderless Horse” in 1989. Jesurun received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1996. Find out more about John Jesurun HERE.
FRED WILSON
In 1992, in collaboration with Trinity College, we included Fred’s work in “The Order of Things: Toward A Politic of Still Life”. Fred received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 1999.
ANTHONY BRAXTON
Musician and composer Anthony Braxton has performed multiple times at Real Art Ways, including solo concerts in 1979 and 1984 and a duo with Richard Teitelbaum in 1980. Braxton taught at Wesleyan University from 1993 – 2013. He received a MacArthur Genius grant in 1994.
JOHN SAYLES
Sayles is an important independent filmmaker. Real Art Ways screened his film’s “Honeydripper” in 2008, and “Go For Sisters” in 2013. He has also appeared at Cinestudio and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Sayles was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983.
WALTER ABISH
In March of 1981, author Walter Abish did a reading from How German Is It (1981), Minds Meet (1975), and In The Future Perfect (1977). (This coincided with a solo exhibition by MacArthur Fellow Cindy Sherman.) Abish was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.
JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER
Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” opened at Real Art Ways on August 16, 2013.
He was awarded his MacArthur in 2014.
ERROL MORRIS
One of the singular documentary filmmakers of our time. Real Art Ways has shown several of his films, including “The Fog of War” (2003), “The Unknown Known” (2014), “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008), and “Fast, Cheap, And Out Of Control”(1997).
He received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 1989.
INIGO MANGLANO-OVALLE
n 1996, Real Art Ways commissioned Manglano-Ovalle to create new work in our unrenovated gallery space. Please read the insightful review by the late Owen McNally of the Hartford Courant here.
Manglano-Ovalle received his MacArthur Genius Grant in 2001.
JUDY PFAFF
Judy had a solo exhibition of her multimedia works in 1986. She returned to Hartford in 1993 serving as an artist-in-residence at the University of Hartford. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2004.
CARRIE MAE WEEMS
Work from Carrie’s critically acclaimed The Kitchen Table Series was included in the 1990 group exhibition Presumed Identities. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2013.
DEBORAH WILLIS
Curator, historian, and photographer Deborah Willis worked with Real Art Ways as a member of our jury for STEP UP 09, an open call for emerging artists. Deborah received her MacArthur Genius Grant in 2000.
MERCE CUNNINGHAM
In 1981, Real Art Ways presented a Merce Cunningham film festival, showcasing films of his choreography scored by his longtime partner, John Cage. In 2019 we showed the documentary film Cunningham, a celebration of his work, which premiered on what would have been his 100th birthday. He received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1985.
MARY HALVORSON
Mary has performed several times at Real Art Ways, most recently in 2018 with Taylor Ho Bynum. She was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2019. Her projects range from experimental and hybrid improvisations, collaborations with vocalists, to solo compositions. (In the top photo she appears with cellist Tomeka Reid, in front of a large-scale photo created by the artist Andy Buck, who passed away in March.)
PEPON OSORIO
In 1993, Hartford was suffering through violent gang warfare. Pepón Osorio had an idea to create an art installation based on an all-male Puerto Rican barbershop, a place where masculinity and machismo reign (for better and for worse.) We talked about making it a public art project, found an empty store, and Pepón created his over-the-top “En La Barbería No Se Llora” (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop) in the summer of 1994. Area barbers gave free haircuts at the opening, a jibaro band played, and it was broadcast on local Spanish-language radio. Pepón received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1999.
Luis Alfaro is a performance artist, playwright, educator and curator. He performed his one-man show No Holds Barrio at Real Art Ways in February of 2007, when he was in town working with our friends at the Hartford Stage. He received a MacArthur Fellow award in 1997.
IDA APPLEBROOG
Ida Applebroog is a multimedia artist who received a MacArthur Genius award in 1998. Real Art Ways presented a solo exhibition of her work in 1985, and included her in the group exhibition 15 Years of RAW in 1990.
CAMILLE UTTERBACK
Camille is a new media artist working in interactive installations. Her “Untitled 5” was presented by Real Art Ways in 2006. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2009. She teaches at Stanford University.
“Untitled 5” at Real Art Ways
CECIL TAYLOR
Real Art Ways presented the late, great Cecil Taylor twice. Many musicians we work with were close to him, including Taylor Ho Bynum and Stephen Haynes. Cecil was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1991.
We presented Cindy Sherman’s work in the late 70’s, and again in 1991(15 Years of RAW), and 1992 (The Order of Things: Toward a Politic of Still Life) (in collaboration with Trinity College). She was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1995.
STANLEY NELSON
It feels like Stanley was just here, but it was more than 4 years ago that he came with his documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Stanley was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2002. Others of his many films include Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, and The Murder of Emmet Till.
Mark was in our 2003 group exhibition, Lean, Too, curated by Eungie Joo. His piece Burn Baby Burn was featured, and we got a nice review in the New York Times. Mark was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2009.
Trevor’s work was in our group show Nothing To Hide, curated by Edward Shanken and Jessica Hodin, in 2017, the same year Paglen was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant.
His photographs show three of the largest agencies in the U.S. intelligence community – National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland; National Reconnaissance Office,Chantilly, Virginia; National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Virginia, 2014.
Tyshawn has performed at Real Art Ways several times, with his own ensemble as well as in our Improvisations series, with Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes. He’s a neighbor, teaching at Wesleyan. Tyshawn was awarded a MacArthur Genius grant in 2017.
Tyshawn Sorey
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Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.
March Poet | Elizabeth Thomas
Elizabeth Thomas is a widely published poet, performer, advocate of the arts and teacher. She has read her work throughout the United States, in other parts of the world, and has been a member of three Connecticut National Poetry Slam teams. She is the author of two poetry books: Full Circle and From the Front of the Classroom. Thomas is an arts educator who has taught all ages from pre-K to senior citizens. She has taught in most of the Hartford schools, and is a master teaching artist for the Connecticut Commission of the Arts and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Elizabeth says “…poetry helps us understand who we are in relation to the world around us…”. Thomas has recently completed a memoir.
About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.
Real Art Ways presents Los Paisanos: Narratives of the Chinese Diaspora in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, a project by Philadelphia based artist and photographer Dorcas Tang.
Los Paisanos documents a community of the Chinese diaspora living in Costa Rica. The photographs, found objects, and audio tell a complex story of migration and cultural exchange, questioning what it means to be Chinese, Costa Rican, both, and neither.
Project Statement:
Los Paisanos means “countrymen”, a term of endearment used between the Chinese community in Costa Rica to refer to one another. This exhibition illuminates living narratives erased from national and global history despite their 160-year presence. Through my lens, the images hint at a transnational network of diasporic kinship. The project strives to question and redefine this crucial intersection between Chinese and Latinx identity utilizing oral histories, intimate family photos, and portraits. While it is by no means comprehensive, it offers a glimpse of what it means to navigate this complex identity. Ultimately, this exhibition brings into dialogue about what it means to belong.
About the Artist:
Dorcas Tang is an artist, photographer, and storyteller whose diasporic identity as a third-generation Chinese-Malaysian drives her work. Looking towards the future, she is excited to continue bridging communities and fostering critical dialogue through creating socially engaged visual narratives. If she could have any superpower in the world it would be the ability to completely understand other human beings. And cats.
The creation of the work was supported by the Class of 1961 Arts and Social Change Grant from the Lang Center at Swarthmore College and the Greater Philadelphia Asian Studies Consortium Award
Real Art Ways presents a new installation by Hartford-based artist Alexis Christina Crowley
Hail Eve, Full of Grief and Earthly Delights is an installation utilizing mythologies and memories to explore the process of grief. Exploring a variety of media and techniques, Crowley’s work offers multiple ways for the viewer to interpret life, bodies, and death.
From the Project Statement:
‘Hail Eve’ was created specifically for the Real Wall, as part of the artist’s IRL(in real life) grief process as she’s faced with the potential death of a loved one. In order to conceive of the loss of a body she looks at the experience of having one. Semi-related mythologies, iconic imagery, and allusions to personal and cultural stories are mashed together, mimicking the strangeness of memories, beliefs, and emotions that morph and surface randomly during periods of grief.
About the Artist:
Alexis Christina Crowley has been working as an artist in and around Hartford since 2010. She took a winding road through several institutions, and received her BFA in Printmaking from the Hartford Art School in 2015. After graduating she worked out of Parkville Studios in Hartford, along with 4 other artists, for several years. As a result Alexis has been involved in several local DIY arts events and projects, and experimented in her personal work with collaboration, installation styles, and performance. She is becoming increasingly comfortable with vulnerability in her practice, sniffing out the edge of and marking her own boundaries with a sense of curiosity, using her relationship with herself/body as material/subject matter. Growing up in a New Age family, her Mother being a Minister and teacher of Tarot etc, has had a clear effect on her magical thinking and dramatic voice – always tryna say everything and nothing.
Real Wall is a series of wall mounted exhibitions taking place in between formal gallery spaces. Artists are invited to engage with the space in experimental ways meaningful to their practice in short-run exhibitions.
Image: Dear Diary, I love you, I wish I were writing to you from someone else’s hand (detail), mixed media, 2019
Americana Vibes highlights musicians who have shaped our cultural and musical identity between the years 1910 – 2000. The exhibition features the work of 54 musicians juxtaposed through video footage, curated playlists and framed album art. Americana Vibes provides an aerial view of the musical history of the 20th Century.
Featured musicians include Leadbelly, Billie Holiday, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Sugarhill Gang, and Nirvana.
Image: A collage of 4 album covers. From L to R: The Beach Boys Good Vibrations, Billie Holiday This Years Kisses, Prince When Doves Cry, and Bruce Springsteen Born to Run.
All are invited to attend an artist conversation and reception with Julian Johnson. Julian will be in conversation with Visual Arts Manager Neil Daigle Orians, about his work and process involved in his exhibition, Skinny Boy Lookin’ Like Deer In Headlights. Julian is one of six 2019 Real Art Awards recipients, which supports emerging artists as they develop their work. His work was chosen from nearly 500 applicants. The reception will begin at 2 PM and the conversation begins at 2:30PM.
About Julian’s Work:
Exploring his experiences with mental health, Marfan Syndrome, and religion, Julian Johnson’s photographic works offer the viewer an immersive narrative of healing. Ranging in subject matter and process, Johnson’s installation of images create a personal narrative that incorporates elements of still life, portraiture, landscape, and candid street photography that allows for wide interpretation.
About the Artist:
Born and raised in Austin, TX, Julian received his B.A. in Studio Art from Wesleyan University. He now lives and works in NYC. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the CICA Museum in Gimpo, South Korea and the Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University.
Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.
February Poet | Antoinette Brim
A Celebration of Women Come and hear Antoinette Brim share readings that celebrate women and are a reflection of the centennial of women’s right to vote.
Antoinette Brim, author of These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love and Psalm of the Sunflower, is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow, a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry, memoir, and critical work has appeared in various journals and magazines, as well as, in anthologies including Villanelles, Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, Critical Insights: Alice Walker, 44 on 44: Forty-Four African American Writers on the 44th President of the United States, Not A Muse, Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta, and The Whiskey of Our Discontent: an anthology of essays commemorating Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks.
About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.
Curated by David Borawski, Real Art Ways presents mixed media work by Geoffrey Detrani.
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition of works by New Haven-based artist Geoffrey Detrani. Utilizing mixed media on paper, Detrani’s paintings and drawings create abstract semblances of chaotic landscapes. The resulting compositions offer emotive textures of conflict between organic and inorganic bodies.
From his artist statement,
“The imagery that I use explores a hypothetical intersection between the natural world and the built environment. I am interested in a representation of the natural world that is spun from a conflation of imagination and ideology – a symbolic rendering – rather than one that mimics our visual/optical experience of it.”
About the Artist:
Geoffrey Detrani is a visual artist and writer whose work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Los Angles, Boston and South Korea and other locales. His artists’ books are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His paintings are in the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Schenectady Museum, the Transportation Security Administration and various private collections. He works in New Haven, CT.
Riverwood Poetry is a FREE series that takes place on the second Tuesday of the month September 2019 – May 2020. Each night begins with an open mic, followed by a poetry reading featuring regionally-or nationally-known poets.
December Poets | John Jeffrey & Tom Nicotera
Two Poets, Two Paths to Inspiration. Come and hear how Observation and Imagination have equally inspired poetry. Tom Nicotera and John Jeffrey will read their works for Love and Life and Everything Else.
About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to the promotion and appreciation of poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming, while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. Learn more at their website.
Curated by David Borawski, Real Art Ways presents paintings and sculptures by Morgan Bulkeley.
From the Artist’s Statement:
“I try to make paintings that are beautiful, frightening and funny all at once, similar to The Theater of the Absurd, which assumes things are so bad that you can only laugh. I see in nature and in the best of humanity an incredible beauty; but I also see in our technology and aggression a will and ability to destroy that beauty, either actively or inadvertently. The refuse of our consumerism, wafting down our streets, caught in the twigs of trees in our deepest forests or swirling in giant gyres in the ocean, is a steady reminder of our growing and smothering effect on our only habitable planet. I paint to try to make people think of the fragility in which we exist.”
About the Artist:
Morgan Bulkeley was born in the Berkshires of Massachusetts in 1944. He was raised on a small farm in the town of Mount Washington, where his parents, both naturalists, raised many wild, orphaned animals. He graduated from Yale University in 1966 with a B.A. in English Literature. After a stint in the Coast Guard, he spent a year in Newark New Jersey, drawing and working with VISTA Programs. Subsequently he spent 14 years in Cambridge Massachusetts painting and sculpting. In 1985 he returned to his childhood home where he lives with his environmentalist wife Eleanor Tillinghast.
