no longer empty: if you cut into the present, the future leaks out 1
TRANSCRIPT
The Courthouse once boasting granite floors, lavish stairways, and bronze doors, remains adorned by a statue of Lady Justice. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Bronx County, the Beaux Arts-style building was abandoned and sealed in 1977.
The Old Bronx Borough Courthouse was built between 1905–1914 by architects Michael John Garvin and Oscar Florianus Bluemner.
Michael John
Garvin
Oscar FlorianusBluemner
• 234 Brook Avenue; 514,518, 522, 526, 530, & 534 East 138th Street (between Brook Avenue and St. Anns Avenue -seven buildings)
• 597, 601, & 605 East 138th Street (between St. Anns Avenue and Cypress Avenue - three buildings)
• 208 Willis Avenue & 401 136th Street (these two buildings are found near the Bertine Block Historic District)
• 602 East 139th Street (between St. AnnsAvenue and Cypress Avenue) (last remaining building of a six building construction)
• 570 St. Marys Street by St. Anns Avenue) & 576 St. Marys Street (between St. AnnsAvenue and Crimmins Avenue)
• 328-340, 348, & 352 Beekman Avenue by 141st Street (between 141st Street and St. Marys Street (143rd Street) - eight buildings)
• 272 East 163rd Street at Morris Avenue• 340 194th Street• 351 W. 152nd Street by Cortland Avenue• 429 East 157th Street by Elton Avenue• 860 Hunts Point Avenue by Seneca
Avenue
“Let us, here, make progressive and best painting, each one as he is fit to do, and merely ask: What and when is painting, in a critical sense?... How can the people agree on what is American style, if the painters themselves, and by their work, disagree profoundly as to what real panting itself is!“
Form and Light, Motif in West New Jersey (1914)
REVITALIZING
CHELSEA
MEATPACKING
COBBLE HILL, BK
EAST VILLAGE
CHINATOWN
FLATIRON
EAST HARLEM
GOVERNORS ISLAND
DUMBO, B
LOWER EAST SIDE
WEST VILLAGE
THE BRONX
• A non-profit art organization.
• Widen the audience for contemporary art.
• Create site-specific exhibitions in non traditional vacant
spaces.
• Provide creative opportunities for artists to challenge
their practice.
• Offer free cultural and educational programming.
• Leave a legacy for the community.
The Old Bronx Courthouse, which has been closed for 37 years, serves as the exhibition’s siteand theme. The exhibition occupies three floors and includes the works of 26 artists, 12 of whom are from the Bronx. In collaboration with community partners, NLE is hosting over 20 freeevents with and for the community.
When you cut into the Present…
What kind of impression do you get from this institution?
Naomi HerssonRingskig, Executive
Director at No Longer Empty,
shared that “Our goal in
this project is to increase
access to the arts and to reopen this
beautiful building.”
Lady K FeverDubbed/In Pillar
2014Medium: Mylar adhesive
“My reflective work is about bringing love and light and positive energy to places that are dark and historically politically abandoned or somehow disenfranchise in the city or in nature.”
Lady K FeverAll Rise2015
Medium: mylar adhesive
“My reflective work is about bringing love and light and positive energy to places that are dark and historically politically abandoned or somehow disenfranchise in the city or in nature.”
Image of the actual work….
“I’m influenced by all cultures. I go through inspirational phases. I love texture and color. I like to work with Indian, African and Mexican fabrics and designs. Music is also an influence – its sounds, beats and lyrics.”
Lady K Fever
Lady K-Fever (Kathleena Howie) is a New York inter-disciplinary artist and curator from Canada working with painting, installation, photography, performance and public art projects. In 2003, she was invited as the first Canadian woman to paint at the legendary Graffiti Hall of Fame in East Harlem, New York.
“The artist’s role is to tell stories through personal and collective reflections and responses and to raise questions. The artist is a messenger of universal truth who challenges others to see and acknowledge what they might not want to [to see].”
Make your own tag!!
• Choose a name that suits you, maybe something you admire, or something that’s a part of your culture
• Or even just use nick name!
• Early taggers in the Bronx used numbers to associate with the street they were on
Melissa A. Calderón was born in 1974 and attended CUNY Lehman College. A self-taught
artist, she has exhibited at El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens
Museum, and many other places.
Melissa is a PEPATIAN artist; a South Bronx-based contemporary multi-disciplinary art organization
founded by Pepon Osorio and Merian Soto.Pepatian is dedicated to supporting Black and
Latino artists in the Bronx. They work with everything from music and dance to painting and
site specific installations. Along with Pepatian, Calderón is an advocate for
arts revitalization in the South Bronx.
WUOTEY QUOTE QUOTE
http://www.pepatian.org/
Melissa A. Calderón was born in 1974 and attended CUNY Lehman College. A self-taught artist, she has
exhibited at El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, and many other places.
Melissa is a PEPATIAN artist; a South Bronx-based contemporary multi-disciplinary art organization
founded by Pepon Osorio and Merian Soto.
Pepatian is dedicated to supporting Black and Latino artists in the Bronx. They work with everything from
music and dance to painting and site specific installations.
Along with Pepatian, Calderón is an advocate for artsrevitalization in the South Bronx.
WUOTEY QUOTE QUOTE
http://www.pepatian.org/
What is
Revitalization?
Does the South
Bronx need it?
What other
areas need it?
Melissa CalderonBenefit (my unemployed life series)
2011Medium: mixed media with yarn
Faced with my own lack of steady employment, I decided to take up a needle, channel my grandmother, and make work about my life of right now. The series took over a year, 6-9 hours each day, over 90,000 stitches.
Melissa CalderonLuck (my unemployed life series)
2011Medium: mixed media with yarn
Embroidery is a women’s tradition that is both aristocratic enough for leisure and common enough for labor.
Melissa CalderonControl (my unemployed life series)
2011Medium: mixed media with yarn
My grandmother worked as seamstress in textile factories in the 1940s. I had grown up learning and watching from her, helping out when needed. It was a passion that stayed with me in life and translated into My Unemployed Life series.
Have you witnessed unemployment
before? …some folks receive “unemployment checks” IF and only
IF their job allows for it.
Unemployed folks require various services to find
EMPLOYMENT.
How does it affect people? …”lapse” in employment (period of time when you
don’t have a job)
Frugal with money, try to get as much out of
products as possible (fiscally conscious),
frustrating to be stuck at home, not doing
anything, feeling of uselessness, depression
could set in.
What does unemployment look like?
Melissa CalderonThe Semper Washington (greedy
goods)2014
Medium: mixed media
Referencing the 17thC. Dutch Tulipmania as relevant within the current world economic structure, the work recreated the world’s most expensive flower, the Semper Augustus, which caused the world's first financial bubble and market crash. Hand embroidered with the infamous “broken tulip” pattern which was later determined by scientists to be a caused by a virus.
Melissa CalderonThe Semper Washington (greedy
goods)2014
Medium: mixed media
Referencing the 17thC. Dutch Tulipmania as relevant within the current world economic structure, the work recreated the world’s most expensive flower, the Semper Augustus, which caused the world's first financial bubble and market crash. Hand embroidered with the infamous “broken tulip” pattern which was later determined by scientists to be a caused by a virus.
Artist unknown (Norton Simon
Museum, California)The Semper
Augustus 1640
Medium: Gouache on paper
Original artist proposal:
Melissa Calderon will install colored yarn into cracks and small hidden areas throughout the building, as related to her work on rivers running through congested areas like blood vessels. She will highlight parts of the building’s potential wounds.
Melissa CalderonThe Bronx River
2015Medium: 3 panels of plywood, embroidery
thread, and tar
NEW ART STUFF…
Melissa CalderonThe Bronx River
2015Medium: 3 panels of plywood,
embroidery thread, and tar
NEW ART STUFF…
Melissa Calderón42nd Injustice
2015Birchwood, black and white
embroidery thread, caulk, tar, lead eagle feathers
Melissa CalderónSouth Bronx Gold Rush of 2015
2015Birchwood, gold embroidery
thread, tar
VIDEO PIECE:https://vimeo.com/42477238
Moar new art??
THERE WAS THIS MAYOR OF A TOWN CALLED BARCOLONETA AND HE ESSEPNTIALLY SAID THAT: NOW THAT THERE’S NO CHILDREN, THE WOMEN GET TO WORK IN THE FACTORIES AND THE MEN GET TO DO WHAT THEY LIKE TO DO, WHICH IS HANG OUT ON THE STREET AND TALK.
In the year 1930, a full thirty U.S. states had laws advocating for the sterilization of the criminal, the mentally-ill, and the mentally-retarded. At this time, dozens of other countries had similar laws in places regarding eugenics, including China, Canada, Japan, India, Israel, Peru, South Africa, and Sweden..
Theories were circulating expressing the general idea that economic problems in underdeveloped countries were really problems of too many people; if only the population growth could be controlled, the standard of living would rise..
Between 1920-1950, many Puerto Rican doctors were pro-sterilization rather than other forms of birth control. Many physicians thought that contraception methods are too difficult for lower class Puerto Ricans. Some hospitals would refuse medical service to women who had three or more children unless they underwent sterilization surgery. Employers would also “recommend” sterilization, offering working incentives if women participated.
www.uic.edu and www.Stanford.edu
35% of Puerto Rican Women Sterilized in the mid-1900’s
• What is the women’s high-heel shoe a symbol of?
• Confidence• Classy• Independence.• A sign of maturity and womanhood (as different from girl-
hood?) • Limitation….largely associated with women (not most men) .
But a female is expected to wear heels at certain place. This is worn despite its discomfort.
• Putting up with discomfort in the place of being aesthetically pleasing for yourself and others.
• Teacher, or someone with a nice profession, someone with authority.
• What is the women’s high-heel shoe a symbol of?
• …thrown under desks at work. Symbol of hard work, depending on how worn down the shoes are.
• Sexualized, fetishized.
• Removing a distinction of class.
• Pretty. it’s nice. Fashionable.
• Pain!!!! Dude they are very tight!
• “walk in someone else’s shoes.”
• power! Super heroes that wear them (despite being impractical for crime fighting.
• EMPOWERING!
VIDEO PIECE:https://vimeo.com/42477238
Moar new art??
May 11, 2011Artist seeking shoes for large scale sculpture.
Question: Are there any laws restricting certain types of arts?
StellarcRose Bochovski, Second Life, 2010. I
Question: Are there any laws restricting certain types of arts?
Frederick MacMonnies, Copley Square, 1894.
Drunken Indecency!!
Question: What if your lawyer does you dirty, and does not support you?
• Legal Malpractice claims can be brought against a lawyer for…
– Lack of communication
– Dishonesty and incompetence
• Misusing your money
• Failing to show up a court hearing
• Lying to you or a judge while under oath
• Participating in a criminal endeavor
Teresa DiehlA Delicate Balance
2012glycerin soap, monofilament, resin,
plexiglass, two microphones with live feed and south interface, lights
VIDEO PIECE
Teresa Diehl
A Delicate Balance
2012
glycerin soap, monofilament,
resin, plexiglass, two microphones with live feed and south interface,
lights
Teresa DiehlL-Alber-Into
2015Video and Sound
installation
This piece is a combination of precise film editing and its projection on the sculptural structure, which is made of fishing line that’s been dipped in layers of adhesive. This forms semi-transparent “screens” that resuls in multiple layers of superimposed imagery. This is combined with an even more haunting layered soundtrack.
Photo credit: Gissell Espinoza
Teresa DiehlL-Alber-Into
2015Video and Sound
installation
This piece is a combination of precise film editing and its projection on the sculptural structure, which is made of fishing line that’s been dipped in layers of adhesive. This forms semi-transparent “screens” that resuls in multiple layers of superimposed imagery. This is combined with an even more haunting layered soundtrack.
Photo credit: Mr. Kozak
Teresa DiehlL-Alber-Into
2015Video and Sound
installation
VIDEO PIECE….
Her work is a hallucinatory feast for the senses – smell, texture, sound, touch, are stretched and played before the viewer. The body is emphasized in strangely unfamiliar ways to both seduce the viewer into the closeness of the encounter yet cause discomfort for the utter unknown of the body. Diehl’s sculptural installations continue the sensual challenge of her work where the material confronts the form.
Teresa Diehl was born in Tannourin, Lebanon; she grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and currently resides in Miami, Florida.Since the late 1990’s her work has explored the fine line that exists between intimacy and discomfort, private and public, pleasures and terrors. Since 2003 her work has focused primarily in video, sound and interactive installations; for Diehl the Art experience involves all the senses.
HW:Describe a situation or momentWhen your senses wereSEDUCED.
HW:Describe a situation or moment
When your senses wereSEDUCED.
BACON EGG AND CHEESE (ohhh, that smell!)CINNAMON ROLLS (yo dun, it’s that smell again!)
OH LOLA! PERFUME (smell so good, it makes me wanna hug!)MAC AND CHEESE(5 CHEESES) AT MAX BRENNER (heavenly
first bite, eyes rolled back, it was amazing!)CALMING MUSIC, CLASSICAL BACKGROUNDS, I went on a little
trip away from reality, happy childhood)IN BRAZILLIAN RESTAURANT…CHEESECAKE!!!! One bite melted inmy mouth, so nice and creamy and delicious, it was so so so
so so so so so so so good.Chess BOARD DESIGN, exquisite details of overwhelming
carvings. PAWNS have power!! Queen rules the boardGUM THAT CURED THE BAD BREATH FROM STEAK, WHITE
RICE, AND MAD ONIONS…
P8
HW:Describe a situation or moment
When your senses wereSEDUCED.
NETFLIX BINGING (LOST)FOOD (LASANGNA) (ARROZ CON POLLO) nostalgic and
enchanting!MUSIC …AND BREAKFAST. Enticing, creates
environmentsTYLER PERRY MOVIE (temptation)
CARIBBEAN WATER – Crystal clear with sandy waterSWIMMING -
P3
Teresa Diehl was born in Tannourin, Lebanon; she grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and currently resides in Miami, Florida.Since the late 1990’s her work has explored the fine line that exists between intimacy and discomfort, private and public, pleasures and terrors. Since 2003 her work has focused primarily in video, sound and interactive installations; for Diehl the Art experience involves all the senses.
HW:Describe a situation or momentWhen your senses wereSEDUCED.
Are we doing anything illegal daily?• Connecting to unsecured Wifi
– Goes against the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
• Singing “Happy Birthday To You in public– Time Warner owns the rights to this song, and has brought legal action
against TV shows and Girl Scouts unless they pay royalties to use the song.
– Christmas songs and the Macarena are also illegal to sing in public.
• Using a fake name on the internet– Goes against the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
• Jaywalking – tickets for up to $190
• Dog Licensing – costs about $8.50 per year if spayed/neutered, or $34 if not spayed/neutered. Caught without a license for your dog? That ticket is $120!
NYC.gov, Business Insider, Telegraph
What is the experience?• JPIZZLE: a bit scared, we are passing through a jungle, running from a creature, one of us
has just been EATEN! But we must move on. And we turn around and face DARKNESS ITSELF!
• Javier: An adventure that you’re on ALONE…trying to overcome the Fear. You want to be better than that, you want to succeed.
• Enrique: Scared but running through my PAST! All those ghosts and bad memories, it felt lonely.
• LOGOS: Serene feeling with hellish noises in a cave or creepy rainforest. What you see vs. what you hear.
• Your experience is the marriage of sight, and hearing (multiple senses.
• Luis: some kinda movie, about to go through some death-like experience. We all take our turns to die.
• Edgar (good twin): When imagination becomes UNCONTROLLABLE. And it distorts clarity in thought.
• Guzzy: dejavu moment! Like walking into a dark room and turning on a single light.
• KD’s long dark journey down the hallway running to her bedroom so the monsters don’t eat her.
• Loops!: Halloween MAZE (not corn)
• MIXTURE OF SCARY AND BENEVOLENT RESPONSES.
• GREG: like a massage parlor, with incense in the air, smoky foggy effect.
P8
Why is being illegal such a bad thing?• Finding a job - totally legal to discriminate
against former felons– Only 40-60% of former prisoners are able to find
employment, many end up back in jail.
• MUCH more limited financial aid for college (especially for drug offenses, including marijuana)
• Who wants to go to jail anyway?– Three meals a day, a place to sleep and shelter.
– Constant threats of violence from prison gangs.
– Rapes and assaults
– Degrading conditions: inhumane treatment, mental, physical, emotional.
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth was born in Columbia in 1972. He currently resides in NYC. His practice is about blurring boundaries between subjects and mediums; and his work explores dreams, memory, and the present day through sculpture, installation, and performance. He is especially interested in themes of family tradition, power, and submission, in particular as they relate to his personal experiences. To explore these ideas, Betancurth crafts meticulous, immersive installations, filled with sculptures and props that set the stage for his strange and enigmatic work.
Daniel Neumann is a Brooklyn-based sound artist and audio engineer, originally from Leipzig, Germany. In his artistic practice he is using conceptual and mostly collaborative strategies to explore sound and sound material and it's modulation through space and media. Pieces are developed in different formats and variations as ongoing processes, which can result in performances, installations, or radio shows amongst others.
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle
2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth & Daniel Neumann
Breaking the Cycle2015
Mixed media with sound
LightSound!Space!
Creating an experience!!
Juan Betancurth is an artist who works with found sculptural forms, and he has collaborated with Daniel Neumann, a sound artist, to create a site-specific installation. It is an atmospherically charged sound environment that derives its sound from the building over a period of time. The sculptural elements are designed to reference control, power, and liberation. Neumann on the other hand, works with sound as a material force inherent in objects. Together, their work speaks directly to the visceral experience of sound and matter. This is their third collaboration.
Safest countries in the world…
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