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Momenta Art Presents 'project:rendition'

presents

project: rendition

http://projectrendition.info

a project by
JC²

May 25 through June 25, 2007
Reception: May 25, 7 - 9pm

performance at 8pm
Donna Evans: Visualize Your Opponent

momenta art
359 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Tel 718.218.8058

project:rendition is a collaboration by JC², a group composed of artists Joy Episalla, Joy Garnett, Carrie Moyer and Carrie Yamaoka.

project:rendition examines the concept of rendering through an installation that incorporates elements of architecture, printed agitprop, audio, and performance in an interactive environment.

The project title refers to "extraordinary rendition," the Bush Administration's practice of clandestine kidnapping and extradition of suspected terrorists to countries where they can be interrogated and tortured beyond the reach of the US judicial system. While extraordinary rendition is an extreme form of political repression, state-induced fear and disenfranchisement are far more common means of rendering individuals and whole populations politically mute or existentially invisible.

The exhibition revolves around a five-sided structure built entirely of one-way mirror, which functions as an inverted Panopticon or surveillance tower. Visitors may either observe those inside the illuminated structure from the safety of the darkened gallery or reverse roles and become potential objects of scrutiny or fascination by entering it.   

An excerpt from the famous 1630 sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," written by the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, will be available as a free broadside to visitors. From Ronald Reagan's "Shining City on the Hill" to George Bush Sr.'s "Thousand Points of Light," Winthrop's Puritan text has served as the lynchpin for the philosophy of American Exceptionalism for the past 200 years.

Performances are scheduled to take place on site throughout the duration of the show. Please check the project:rendition website for performance schedule: www.projectrendition.info

Opening Night Performance:
Donna Evans: Visualize Your Opponent
Opening reception, Friday, May 25, 8pm

Donna Evans has performed with the WOW cafe women's theater and was a member of fierce pussy. She trained with Jose "Kid" Avila at Kingsway Boxing. She is a printmaker and lives in Brooklyn.
______________________________

JC² thanks Brian Webster for his invaluable technical expertise, without which this project would not have been realized.
______________________________

Notes on the audio:
Source material includes the following: the TV series I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70); Stanley Kubrick's   Dr. Strangelove (1964) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Ronald Reagan's Jan. 11, 1989 Farewell Address; GW Bush's "I am the decider" speech, aired on CNN April 18, 2006 - 10:00 ET.

______________________________

DIRECTIONS: Momenta Art is located at 359 Bedford Avenue, ground floor, between S4th and S5th Sts. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. By subway, take the L train to Bedford stop (the first stop in Brooklyn). Exit on the Bedford side. Walk south 12 blocks. By car, take the outside lane of the Williamsburg Bridge to the first exit. Make a sharp right onto Broadway. Drive 2 blocks to Bedford Avenue and make a right. We are located a half block on the right after you pass under the bridge.

Rachel Perry Welty's bu$ Drives Santa Fe's Art in Transit Program

via email:

If you are around Santa Fe, New Mexico in the next several weeks, please keep an eye out for bu$, 2007, a mobile installation made from Rachel Perry Welty's family's collection of stickers taken from grocery items bought and consumed over the course of a year.

The Santa Fe Trails public transit system doesn't specify what routes the bus will be running, but any sightings would be greatly appreciated! This project is supported by the Santa Fe Art Institute "Art in Transit" program, Minelli Design, and Sappi Paper Company.

more info via sfreporter:


ART IN MOTION
The large image of the bus covered in price stickers [Cover story, April 11: “Ride On”] is part of a Santa Fe Art Institute Art in Transit program. Rachel Perry Welty, a former SFAI artist in residence, created the image “Product” for the bus wrap. The Art in Transit program has been a labor of love between the City of Santa Fe Art in Public Places program, Santa Fe Trails and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Art in Transit brings work that is created by SFAI artists and writers in residence and the youth education and outreach program to buses, bus shelters and benches throughout the Santa Fe community.

The Art in Transit program has placed work on more than 15 shelters and 30 bench backs, as well as a series of public response postcards placed inside the buses, posters inside buses and the above-mentioned bus wrap. The SFAI is committed to providing yearly programming, national and international residencies as well as youth education and public outreach.

The SFAI wanted to clarify the origin of this amazing image and give credit to the artist, as well as the organizations that partnered with the SFAI to make this project possible. All of this information can be found on the side of the bus and listed on each of the public transit posters, bench backs, etc. The signs are in both English and Spanish. For further information, visit www.sfai.org.

Diane R Karp, Michelle Laflamme-Childs, Sheilah Wilson, Johanna Kohout, Jennie Lewis, Lia Woertendyke
Santa Fe

Art Boom!

Two Power Lunch videos via CNBC:

Christie's Contemporary (May 17)
Discussing the incredible prices being garnered at Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Auction, with Eileen Kinsella, ARTnews editor; Edward Winkleman, Winkleman Gallery owner and CNBC's Bill Griffeth

Booming Art Market (May 16)
New collectors from around the world are pushing art prices for contemporary art to new levels, with Eileen Kinsella, ARTnews editor and CNBC's Bill Griffeth.

via edward_winkleman:

Thursday, May 17, 2007
Auction Madness
One's jaw simply drops.

One day after Sotheby's set a record for a contemporary-art sale (at $254.8 million), Christie's makes that look quaint. [...]

via Artnet:

ART MARKET WATCH
May 16, 2007
CHRISTIE’S $384.6 MILLION CONTEMPORARY SALE
The evening sale of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s New York on May 16, 2007, was certainly dramatic, if higher and higher bids coming one after the other almost without end is your idea of drama. The sale totaled $384,654,400, a new record for a contemporary auction, with 74 of the 78 lots finding buyers, or 95 percent. Looks like the bulls still rule the art market.

"I’m stunned and exhausted and thrilled," said auctioneer Christopher Burge at the post-sale press conference. It seems he’s always saying something along those lines, though this time it was truer than ever. [read on...]

via NYTimes:

A Vigorous Art Sale Makes Auction History
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: May 17, 2007

Buyers from all over the world spent millions of dollars at Christie’s last night as if it were play money. Together they made auction history: the most successful sale of postwar and contemporary art ever. Records were set for 26 artists, including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Gerhard Richter and Damien Hirst.

The two-and-a-half-hour sale totaled $384.6 million, nearly $80 million more than its high estimate of $305.5 million. Only 4 of the 78 works failed to sell.

The evening toppled the record for a contemporary-art sale, set just 24 hours earlier when Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art on Tuesday night totaled $254.8 million.

There were some moments of pure auction theater. When the evening’s star painting — Warhol’s “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I),” from 1963 — came up, five people instantly went for it. When the bidding came down to just two telephones, Christopher Burge, the auctioneer, expertly pitted the contenders against each other. And just as the price hit $64 million with audience members on the edge of their seats, out of nowhere the Manhattan dealer Larry Gagosian lifted his paddle.

But he didn’t get the painting. [...]

via Artnet News:

ART MARKET WATCH
May 16, 2007
SOTHEBY’S $254.9 MILLION CONTEMPORARY SALE
Is $1,000,000 the new $100,000? It certainly seemed that way at Sotheby’s New York evening sale of contemporary art on May 15, 2007, which saw 41 of the 74 lots sell for over $1 million. The auction total of $254.9 million is a new record for any single sale of contemporary art. Of the 74 lots, 65 found buyers, or almost 88 percent. Prices given here include the auction-house premium of 20 percent on the first $500,000 and 12 percent on the remainder. [...]

Photo: Liz Baylen for The New York TimesThe auctioneer Tobias Meyer with Rothko's “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose).”

via NYTimes:
Rothko Breaks a Record for Contemporary Art
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: May 16, 2007

The Rockefeller name worked its magic last night at Sotheby’s sale of contemporary art, where a mysterious bearded collector in a skybox outbid five other contenders for Rothko’s “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose).” The $72.8 million he paid, far above the painting’s $40 million estimate, set records for both the artist and for any contemporary work at auction.

Sotheby’s declined to say who the buyer was or where he was from. But the seller was David Rockefeller, the retired banker and chairman emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, who had decided to cash in on the market and invest the money in other philanthropic endeavors.

Seasoned auctiongoers noticed that last night rubles appeared for the first time on the salesroom’s currency board, along with dollars, euros, pounds and Swiss francs — an indication of the strong presence of big-spending Russians in the art market.

The price for the Rothko, an abstract canvas from 1950 dominated by a block of hot pink, was the climax of a spirited evening when already inflated prices for contemporary art rose yet again. In addition to Rothko, records were set for artists living and dead, from Francis Bacon and Morris Louis to Richard Prince and Cecily Brown.

Of the 74 lots, only nine failed to sell. The sale totaled $254.8 million, just shy of its $265 million high estimate.

Sotheby’s had gambled that the market for contemporary art would continue to rise this week, and it did. The auction house also worked overtime promoting paintings like the Rothko in which it had invested heavily. For months the company had been relentlessly marketing the Rothko, advertising it heavily, sending it to art capitals, inviting mega-rich collectors to private viewings and even offering collectors the opportunity to hang it in their homes, as if trying on a piece of couture.

Potentially, the auction house had a lot to lose. To capture market share away from its archrival, Christie’s, and to persuade Mr. Rockefeller to sell the painting at Sotheby’s, it had to make a serious financial investment. [...]

Shmooze

via The New Yorker: current issue



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