23 Feb 2009

Live in the Limo & Oursourced Critics

Live in the Limo

The AC's unmistakable white limousine is being hosted by 3 very innovative musical artists with an array of special guest co-Hosts.

Sawako, Joseph F. Di Ponio and Benjamin Lanz will collaborate and interact with other artists, musicians, performers, poets and you. All of these characters collide during this special moment in art in our movable white salon, toasting champagne as it provides us a temporary residence. Previous projects have included: 'Critical Conversations in a Limo,' 'Sound Art Limo' and 'Flatland Limo.'

As part of the 2009 Armory Show, 'Live in the Limo', runs from 3-6pm on March 6th, 7th, and 8th, making half-hour journeys to and from the entrance of Pier 92, upper level.

Tokyo/Brooklyn-based Sawako, a sound sculptor, a composer/improviser, a timeline-based artist and a signal alchemist performs an improvised work drawing on the specificities of this peculiar, yet familiar space in motion.

New York City-based composer Joseph F. Di Ponio has created a work specifically for the limousine that will engage with the social and aesthetic relationships between composer, performer, audience and venue.

Trombonist/multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Lanz, working with various mutations of his instruments, improvises a series of miniature compositions that draw on our limo as a dynamic, yet at times contradictory, organism.

Special guest co-Hosts traverse artistic boundaries and disciplines and include: Rainer Ganahl, Martin Gantman, Elizabeth Gower, Richard Kostelanetz, Taras Polataiko and Holly Crawford.

This event was co-curated by Sonya Hofer and is FREE and open to the public.

Outsourced Critics, 2006-2009
AC[Chapel] February 19-March 14.

Presented for the first time as a full installation in AC [Chapel], 'Outsourced Critics' is a project conceived by artist & art historian Holly Crawford. Through an unconventional use of the catalogue from the Amory International Art Fair, 'Outsourced Critics' challenges conventional aesthetics, explores the preconceived concept of an authentic experience in viewing artwork as well delves into the inherently polemic nature of art fairs.

The premise behind 'Outsourced Critics' consisted of recruiting 9 people including artists, critics, curators and museum directors from around the world (Europe, India, Hong Kong, Thailand and the Middle East) to review the Armory Fair. Each participant was asked to be an 'out'sourced critic—meaning that they were not present in New York City while it took place. Moreover, the terms 'outsourced' and 'critic' were presented as conceptual questions in themselves. The participants were asked to experience and critically reflect on, and respond to, the fair solely through the Armory catalogue that was FedEx-ed to them along with the payment of $1.00. Responses had to be text only, no images or other visual mediums were permitted and their submission had to be returned in two weeks time.

The submitted texts consist of essays, lists, stories, email correspondences and critical commentaries by Claude Closky, Eitan Buganim, Hemda Rosenbaum, Jerome Sans, Josette Balsa, Brian Curtin, Yonatan Amir, Vasif Kortun and Sven Lutticken, who were brought together with the assistance of Lillian Fellmann. The overall piece reflects the commodification and objectification of art within the market and fairs. The installation also includes the logistical ephemera for Outsourced Critics, such as FedEx tracking numbers and shipping schedules that mark and connect the time and space of the catalog in transit from New York to each participant.

The AC [Institute Direct Chapel], 547 W. 27th St., 5th Floor, is a 501(c)(3) and is under the Direction of Holly Crawford.