Past Lectures & Events 2011

Still from Lenny (dir. Bob Fosse, 1974, 111min)


Agitated Histories Film Series

SITE is delighted to collaborate with Jason Silverman, Cinematheque Director, and the Center for Contemporary Arts to present a film series in conjunction with Agitated Histories.

All films will be screened at CCA, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, and tickets are available by calling CCA at 505·982·1338 or ccasantafe.org. Tickets are $10/$5 for SITE/CCA members, seniors, and students.


Thursday, December 15, 7:30 pm
Chicago 10
dir. Brett Morgen, 2007, 110 min

This high-adrenaline, entertaining documentary uses animation to reenact the trial of Abbie Hoffman after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968. This presentation includes an introduction by director Brett Morgen via Skype.


Thursday, December 1, 7:30 pm
Lenny
dir. Bob Fosse, 1974, 111 min

This is an interview-style biography of controversial and pioneering stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, with Dustin Hoffman, and presented in conjunction with Eric Garduño's recreation of Bruce's obscenity trial. The film traces Bruce from his beginnings as a Catskills comic to his later underground popularity based on his anti-establishment politics and scatological humor. Bruce's groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the Establishment as too obscene for the public. This presentation includes an introduction by artist, Eric Garduño.


Thursday, November 17, 7:30 pm
Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975
dir. Göran Hugo Olsson, 2011, 100 min

Compiled from archival footage shot in the heart of the Black Power movement, Göran Hugo Olsson's Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is surely one of the most powerful and fascinating documentary projects of the past year. He lets the key figures, such as Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis speak for themselves, giving a shockingly intimate view of the inside of the movement. This presentation includes an introduction by producer Joslyn Barnes via Skype.

Image: Yoshua Okón, Still from Octopus, 2011, four-channel video projection, 18 min 30 sec, Courtesy of the artist


Contemporary Art In Context: Engaging The Not So Distant, But Perhaps Unfamiliar Past
William D. Stanley and Janet Dees
Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 6 pm

Many of the artists in Agitated Histories engage with events of the recent past that are a part of the lived experience of others and continue to have an effect on the present. Viewers bring different levels of familiarity with the events referenced in these works, which may impact their understanding of the artworks themselves. Focusing on the work of Yoshua Okón, Daniel Joseph Martinez, and Sam Durant, Janet Dees will explore the issue of the relative importance of extra-artistic context, especially as it relates to works that reference political struggles. As a case study, Professor William Stanley will discuss the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), which is a significant reference for Yoshua Okón's Octopus.

William D. Stanley, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. An expert in the field of 20th century political struggles in Central America, he has published widely on the subject and is currently at work on two books, MUNUGUA: A history of the United Nations Peace Mission to Guatemala and Liberalism and Peace in Central America.

Janet Dees is Assistant Curator at SITE Santa Fe.

Image: Lorraine O'Grady, The First and last of the Modernists: Diptych 3 Blue (Charles and Michael), 2010, 2 Fujiflex prints, 46 3/4 x 37 3/8 inches each, Collection of Phillip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, New York


Contemporary Art in Context: Mining Memory: Rethinking the Archive
Mary Anne Redding and Joanne Lefrak
Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 6 pm

Many of the artists in Agitated Histories examine the contents of historic archives and re-present the material in new and unexpected ways to re-contextualize the subject matter. This reimagining of the facts of history serves to increase our understanding of the historical event and also forces us to question the reality or truths of the historical event. In this lecture, Lefrak will examine the works in SITE's exhibition by Sam Durant, Lorraine O'Grady, Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, which all reference photography archives.

Mary Anne Redding will dialogue with Lefrak to share her expertise in photographic archive collections and further contextualize the work presented at SITE.

Mary Anne Redding is the Curator of Photography at the Palace of the Governors/New Mexico History Museum. She has more than 25 years of experience working as a curator, archivist, librarian, educator, writer, and arts administrator.

Joanne Lefrak is the Director of Education and Outreach at SITE Santa Fe.

Image: Charlene Teters, photo © Jennifer Esperanza


Presumptions and Portrayals: The Education of Charlene Teters
An Artist's Talk by Charlene Teters
Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 6 pm

Charlene Teters will discuss her career as an activist and artist. Her activist career began with a vigorous dispute with the University of Illinois over their use of a stereotypical image of an American Indian for the school's sports mascot. Teters describes her call to action: "'If not you, then who?' Kwame Ture–also known as Stokely Carmichael–said this to me before his lecture at the University of Illinois in 1989... He understood his role as a leader was to groom new leadership. That day he lifted me to a position of leadership in a movement that has defined my artwork for 20 years. It was also a lesson that captures the importance of people leading in times of crisis and need."

The history of Teters' work is the subject of a nationally aired award-winning documentary In Whose Honor? by Jay Rosenstein, which is included in SITE’s exhibition Agitated Histories. Her installation work Obelisk: To the Heroes was featured in SITE Santa Fe's Third International Biennial. Teters is a professor and Studio Arts Department Chair at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe and a founding Board Member of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media.

Image: Yoshua Okón, Still from Octopus, 2011, four-channel video projection, 18 min 30 sec, Courtesy of the artist


Contemporary Art In Context: Engaging The Not So Distant, But Perhaps Unfamiliar Past
William D. Stanley and Janet Dees
Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 6 pm

Many of the artists in Agitated Histories engage with events of the recent past that are a part of the lived experience of others and continue to have an effect on the present. Viewers bring different levels of familiarity with the events referenced in these works, which may impact their understanding of the artworks themselves. Focusing on the work of Yoshua Okón, Daniel Joseph Martinez, and Sam Durant, Janet Dees will explore the issue of the relative importance of extra-artistic context, especially as it relates to works that reference political struggles. As a case study, Professor William Stanley will discuss the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), which is a significant reference for Yoshua Okón's Octopus.

William D. Stanley, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. An expert in the field of 20th century political struggles in Central America, he has published widely on the subject and is currently at work on two books, MUNUGUA: A history of the United Nations Peace Mission to Guatemala and Liberalism and Peace in Central America.

Janet Dees is Assistant Curator at SITE Santa Fe.

SPREAD: Small Grants for Big Ideas
at The Santa Fe Farmers Market
Friday, October 28, 2011, 7 pm

SMALL GRANTS FOR BIG IDEAS
SITE has launched SPREAD, a new micro-granting initiative that that provides small grants for innovative projects conceived by New Mexico-based artists. SPREAD is a recurring public dinner designed to generate community driven financial support to fund artistic innovation.

HOW SPREAD WORKS
At a large community dinner, that takes place twice a year, diners pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they will receive dinner and a ballot. During dinner, the SPREAD audience will hear short proposals from up to eight artists for innovative and yet-to-be-realized projects. Diners will then cast their votes for their favorite project. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded ALL the funds collected at the door to realize their project. SPREAD grantees will then be invited back to a future SPREAD dinner to present an update on their funded project.

HOW TO APPLY
The application deadline for the next SPREAD event is July 15. Due to the large response from the inaugural SPREAD, we are updating our application process so look for news by visiting the SPREAD link at spreadsantafe.com for application details and answers to FAQs. All proposals will be reviewed by a committee that includes curators, artists, writers, filmmakers, and performers. From the applicants to each SPREAD cycle, up to 8 proposals will be selected to present at the SPREAD dinner.

HOW TO ATTEND
The next SPREAD dinner will take place on Friday, October 28, 2011 at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. Doors open at 7:00 pm. Because all the ticket proceeds will become the grant for the winning artist proposal, tickets are sold CASH ONLY $15 – $50. Space is limited. Sorry, no phone or email reservations.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SPREAD

SITE's August line-up of programs focuses on Pacific Standard Time - Art in L.A. 1945-1980, the upcoming explosion of exhibitions across Southern California. This unprecedented Getty initiative is a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene.

pacificstandardtime.org

Image: Mark Tribe, The Port Huron Project, 2006–09, still from We are Also Responsible: Cesar Chavez 1971/2008; video with sound, Courtesy of the artist


Reenacting History: a conversation with Mark Tribe and Geof Oppenheimer
Saturday, October 22, 2 pm

In the auditorium at the New Mexico History Museum Free, sponsored by lannan Foundation
Agitated Histories curator Irene Hofmann will moderate a conversation with exhibiting artists Mark Tribe and Geof Oppenheimer about their use of reenactments as an artistic strategy to explore, challenge, and understand potent events in political history.

Geof Oppenheimer's work addresses the formal manifestation of political values. Through his diverse artistic practice, Oppenheimer presents political, social, and artis- tic binaries ranging from fascism vs. democracy, boutique vs. homespun, and detention vs. agency. Oppenheimer has participated in exhibitions at PS1/MOMA, the Aspen Art Museum, and the Berkeley Art Museum, among others. Oppenheimer is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

Mark Tribe is an artist and curator whose interests include art, technology, media theory, and politics. His work has been exhibited at LACE, the DeCordova Biennial, and the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, among others. Tribe is Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media Studies at Brown University. In 1996, Tribe founded Rhizome, an organization that supports the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.

Los Angeles Goes Live:
Exploring the Origins of Performance Art in Southern California
A talk by Carol Stakenas, Executive Director, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)
Tuesday, August 30, 2011, 6 pm

Los Angeles Goes Live explores histories and legacies of performance art in Southern California in the 1970s emphasizing the evolution of performance within a broader drive toward artistic experimentation that cuts across many spheres of cultural production. The show will focus on synthesizing the disparate practices of early performance art in the region, and will include re-stagings of historic performances.

Founded in 1978 by a small group of artists, LACE has become an internationally recognized pioneer among art institutions. By encouraging experimentation, LACE has nurtured several generations of young artists, and art forms such as performance art, video art, digital art, and installation-based work.

Since her arrival at LACE in 2005, Stakenas has worked with over 400 artists, more than 50 of which have developed unique and innovative projects that could only be realized through a residency at LACE.

State of Mind:
New California Art Circa 1970
A conversation with curators
Constance Lewallen and Karen Moss
Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 6 pm

SITE’s audience gets a sneak preview of Constance Lewallen and Karen Moss’ upcoming exhibition State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970. Co-organized by Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), it is the most comprehensive exhibition to date to focus on Conceptual art and related new genres in both Northern and Southern California during this pivotal period in contemporary art. Featuring more than 50 artists and 150 works of art, the exhibition includes newly discovered work as well as materials culled from archives that have rarely been viewed.

Constance Lewallen is Adjunct Curator at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Karen Moss is a LA-based art historian, curator, and educator who has worked in museums and academic positions since 1980. Currently, she is Adjunct Curator at the Orange County Museum of Art.

Pacific Standard Time —
Art in L.A. 1945–1980
An overview by Getty curator, Glenn Phillips
Tuesday, August 2, 2011, 6 pm

Glenn Phillips will give an overview of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California who are coming together between October 2011 and April 2012 to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene, and to discuss the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, a series of more than 25 large-scale commissions, reinventions and re-stagings of historic spectacles happening throughout Los Angeles in January 2012.

Glenn Phillips is Principal Project Specialist and Consulting Curator in the Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He is currently a member of the curatorial team for Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A.1945–1980.

SITE AUCTION 2011
July 22-23, 2011

Don't miss this opportunity to bid on a wonderful selection of artworks by leading contemporary artists and galleries from all over the country and abroad. You do not have to be present at our live event to be the winning bidder. Place your bid online now, and keep an eye on your favorite items!

Click Here to Visit the Auction Website

Artist Talk: Pae White
Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 6 pm

"I see myself as using the vernacular of design, as a raw material. However, I am always making art. I don’t really see myself as a designer or a "trans-disciplinary" artist but more as an artist who plays with the assumptions of recognizable forms."

Pae White will give an artist talk on Tuesday, June 21, at 6 pm at SITE Santa Fe as part of SITE’s Art & Culture series. White will discuss her multi-media practice which includes tapestries, books and other print work, sculptures, the stage curtain for the New Opera House in Oslo, and public buildings for the North Embarcadero redevelopment in San Diego.

Suzanne Bocanegra: I Write the Songs
at the Santa Fe Plaza
Sunday, May 29, 1:00pm - 4:00pm

I Write the Songs is an event that engages visitors to the Santa Fe Plaza in the creation of a spontaneous musical performance. Anyone who passes through the plaza that day will be invited to make drawings on sheet music. These drawings will then been interpreted by the FLUX Quartet who will play continuously through the event. Documentation and drawings from this performance will be included in the exhibition Suzanne Bocanegra: I Write the Songs, on view at SITE Santa Fe June 18- September 18, 2011. The first iteration of this performance was commissioned in 2009 by The Drawing Center in collaboration with the River to River Festival, New York.

Suzanne Bocanegra’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Serpentine Gallery and the Hayward Gallery, in London as well as the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia and UCLA’s Hammer Museum among others. Her performances have been presented as several international venues, including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the River to River festival New York, and the Athelas Festival in Copenhagen. Bocanegra lives and works in New York.

The FLUX Quartet (Tom Chiu, Felix Fan, Conrad Harris, Max Mandel) was founded by violinist Tom Chiu in the 90’s. Named partly as an homage to the 60’s Fluxus art movement, the quartet was founded with a quest similar to that of some of the original Fluxus artists: a search for a living art for all people with an embracing "anything-goes" spirit. To that end, FLUX has always been committed to projects of unique vision that defy aesthetic categorization.

Suzanne Bocanegra: I Write the Songs is organized by Ian Berry, Malloy Curator of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in collaboration with the artist. Support for the
exhibition was provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, the Overbrook Foundation, and the Friends of the Tang.

Image: Graphic for ''Heresies - issue #1


SITE and CCA present
The Heretics, a film by Joan Braderman
Thursday, May 12, 2011, 7 pm
Screening and panel discussion at CCA Cinematheque
featuring Harmony Hammond, Lucy Lippard, Sabra Moore with Elissa Auther, Moderator

Tickets $10/$5 at CCA

The Heretics is a feature-length experimental documentary film about the Women's Art Movement of the 1970s, specifically the Heresies Collective, a feminist journal on art and politics. Director Joan Braderman, a founding member of Heresies, has reunited Collective members to share their story. In her film, Braderman takes her camera crew on the road - from New Mexico to Venice - to revisit her collective sisters. Now ages 54 to 84, the women gather in homes, studios and worksites. With the same excitement and freshness that they brought to the publication, the women recant the tale of how and why they came together, made content decisions, and physically cut and pasted the publication into being, issue after issue. An amusing yet informative history bursts through in this experimental spark.

Robert Atkins
Tuesday, May 3, 6 pm
at SITE Santa Fe

Robert Atkins is a writer, art historian, and journalist. Trained at the University of California, Berkeley, he has written for more than 100 publications throughout the world ranging from the New York Times and Newsday, to Japanese Wired and Esquire, and contributes regularly to Art in America. He is a former staff columnist for The Village Voice, and is the co-author of Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression (published by The New Press in 2006). His other books include ArtSpeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords; its companion volume ArtSpoke: A Guide to Modern Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords 1848-1944; and From Media to Metaphor: Art About AIDS, the catalogue for the accompanying exhibition of the same name. He is currently working on an anthology of his writing and on Thanks for Sharing! A Resource Book About Collaboration In the Visual Arts & Beyond.

Atkins will present a talk at SITE entitled The Museum as Knowledge Producer: Looking at Art in the Twenty-First Century.

Photo by Matthew Chase-Daniel


Fairy Tales and Surreal Spaces
A Writing Workshop with Lauren Camp
Friday, April 29 5-7 PM
Saturday, April 30 10AM-noon

This free 2-day workshop encourages participants to explore and reflect upon the enigmatic works on view as part of the current three-woman show at SITE Santa Fe. Through poetry and fable-writing, we’ll have the chance to go deeper into the puzzling painted and sculptural worlds of artists Amy Cutler, Ruth Claxton, and Runa Islam. After a brief overview of the women's processes, and some fantastic examples of writing, we'll start playing with our own imaginations, finding colorful ways to write about such kooky, remarkable places, and interior states as we see in the galleries.

Lauren Camp teaches creative writing at the Southwest Literary Center, art museums and writers' conferences. She has published a book of poems, This Business of Wisdom (West End Press, 2010), and is working on her second collection, an epic poem entitled One Hundred Hungers. She is also an accomplished visual artist and a radio host for KSFR - Santa Fe Public Radio. A recent guest editor for World Literature Today, her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

The workshop is limited to 15 participants. Please contact Juliet Myers at SITE Santa Fe to make your reservation; myers@sitesantafe.org or 505-989-1199, ext. 18.

AdobeAirstream Re-Launch Party
Friday, April 15, 5-7 pm
at SITE Santa Fe

SITE Santa Fe will host AXLE Contemporary and Adobeairstream.com at a joint new media event being held at 1606 Paseo de Peralta. AXLE Contemporary, a mobile step-van, will be exhibiting new video by Steina, Woody Vasulka and Rob Shaw. SITE congratulates Adobeairstream.com on turning 2 years old and relaunching its culture art & music magazine with a redesign this month. Adobeairstream will be screening the new website on monitors in SITE's lobby. Working with AXLE, they'll also be creating some new video and audio content for the online magazine. Be part of the new media discussion! Have your voice heard.

Deejay Yon will also be spinning tunes out in front, so please join us from 5-7 p.m at 1606 Paseo de Peralta. This event is free and open to the public.

Photo by La Kaye Mbah


Irene Hofmann
Tuesday, April 12, 6 pm
at SITE Santa Fe

Irene Hofmann is SITE’s new Phillips Director and Chief Curator. She joined SITE in October 2010 after serving as Executive Director and Curator of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore for nearly five years. In addition to her most recent position in Baltimore, she has held positions at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California; Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

During this lecture, Hofmann will share some of the highlights of her fifteen years as a curator and will present a preview of things to come at SITE.

SITE Santa Fe Young Curators
Exhibition Opening
Friday, March 25, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
at the Fine Arts Gallery, the Santa Fe University of Arts and Design

SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators are pleased to present their eighteenth juried exhibition, opening on March 25th from 6:30 - 8:30 pm at The Fine Arts Gallery at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators is a weekly after-school program for high school students. The program’s primary goals are to encourage teenagers’ connection to contemporary art and provide a context for an exploration of the structure and production of exhibitions. During their hour-long meetings, the Young Curators learn the skills and procedures necessary for creating an exhibition including: determining the theme for the show; putting out a call for entries through the media; writing curatorial statements and press releases; choosing the artwork; and helping to install the exhibition. For further information on the Young Curators program, please call Joanne Lefrak at 505.989.1199, x19 or email lefrak@sitesantafe.org.

SPREAD: Small Grants for Big Ideas
Friday, March 18, 2011, 7 pm
at The Santa Fe Farmers Market

Click here to view more information.

Amy Cutler / Cautionary Trail (detail), 2005 / Gouache on paper / 16 x 22 inches / collection of Lenore Pereira and Richard Niles/ image copyright the artist; image courtesy of Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York


Artist Talk with Amy Cutler
Tuesday, February 15, 2011, 6 pm

During the past decade, Amy Cutler (b. 1974 in Poughkeepsie, New York) has become internationally known for exquisitely detailed narrative works of art. Inspired by stories and images encountered in current events, art history, fairy tales, and personal experiences, Cutler creates exquisitely detailed, enigmatic paintings of women, animals, and hybrid beings involved in fantastic, dreamlike activities.

Set in a richly imagined universe and created through a pastiche of memories, observations, and insights, they are populated mostly by women engaged in inscrutable tasks and impossible situations: tigers are mended and restriped; figures emerge from the rocky crags of a fjord.

With faces that are both resolute and introspective, Cutler’s women symbolize the emotional complexities of real life situations.

Amy Cutler will be introduced by SITE’s former Phillips Director, Laura Steward. Following the talk, Steward and Cutler will be joined by Santa Fe-based graphic designer David Chickey as we celebrate the release of a new Amy Cutler monograph with a book signing.

Ruth Claxton / Lands End (detail) at Faye Fleming & Partner, Geneva, Switzerland, December 2009 – January 2010 / Image courtesy of Faye Fleming & Partner, Geneva / Photo by Annik Wetter


Members Opening for Ruth Claxton / Amy Cutler / Runa Islam
Thursday, February 3, 2011, 5-7pm

Public Opening for Ruth Claxton / Amy Cutler / Runa Islam
Friday, February 4, 2011, 5-7 pm