Montalvo Arts Center Announces New Interdisciplinary Arts Initiative,
AGENCY: The Work of Artists,
February through October 2009
AGENCY
previews on Nov. 8 with the installation
Boolean Valley
, a Montalvo commission byAdam Silverman and Nader Tehrani, at the San José Museum of Art
Artists:
Axis Dance, Remy Charlip, Chitresh Das, Double G, Joanna Haigood with ZACCHODance Theatre, Louis Hock, Jan Henle, Hirokazu Kosaka, Mingwei Lee, Ingram Marshall and Jim Bengston, Julia Meltzer and David Thorne, Constance Samaras, Allan Sekula, PeterSellars, Adam Silverman and Nader Tehrani, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Wang WeiCurated by Julie LazarSARATOGA, Calif. – Presented by Montalvo Arts Center as a series of 17 contemporary artprojects that explore themes of interdependence,
AGENCY: The Work of Artists
offersopportunities for community engagement and dialogue that examine political, social,economic, ecological, geographic and cultural relationships through the working processesand completed artworks of artists. Montalvo's 2009 initiative generates a platform for SiliconValley to participate in shared creative experiences.
AGENCY
engages diverse institutions,communities and individuals in building a common ground for inquiry that bears thepotential for on-going cross-pollination and inter-penetration of ideas. Curated by Julie Lazar,an independent curator and director of the International Contemporary Arts Network,
AGENCY
involves more than 60 artists working in a diverse range of disciplines – from filmand architecture to sculpture, photography and performing arts – many of whom
have beencommissioned to create new projects.
Agency's
inaugural commissioned artwork,
Boolean Valley
(2008), by artist Adam Silvermanand architect Nader Tehrani, previews at the San José Museum of Art, Nov. 8 through Jan. 11,2009, prior to its installation at Montalvo in February and moving to The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles next July.
Boolean Valley
is a room-sized installationcomprised of 400 cut, clay objects glazed in a striking compound of cobalt blue, black andsilicon carbide. Together they form a sloping sculptural landscape derived from the principleof "Boolean logic."
AGENCY
officially launches in February 2009 and runs through October (acomplete list of artists and project descriptions is below). Montalvo also offers acomplementary web component to
AGENCY
accessible to visitors from around the world,creating dialogue and posing questions as the series continues. Phase I of the website will belive Nov. 8 at www.montalvoarts.org/agency.“There is growing awareness that the well being of the environment is seriously challenged;our natural and economic resources are greatly stressed; and shifts in employment and ourlabor force are occurring at a rapidly increasing pace,” said curator Julie Lazar. “More thanthat, the estrangement between people presents artificial barriers between constructivecommunication and peaceful co-existence. The 17 projects of
AGENCY
ask audiences tocontemplate interdependence while deepening their understanding and appreciation of thecommonalities that exist between people."
Though the forthcoming art projects are diverse in subject matter and artistic discipline, onecommon theme between them is of interdependence – a word that has multiple definitions.As it relates to
AGENCY
, Lazar quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to describe interdependence,noting that his words are as relevant today as in 1963 when he originally wrote them: “…weare caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whataffects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Through their work, the artists participating in
AGENCY
bring their voices, energies and creative talents to Silicon Valley in the spirit of nurturing a more - cohesive, cultural landscape; one that encourages dialog through theinstrumentality of art creation, presentation and study.“
AGENCY: The Work of Artists
will follow Montalvo’s first arts-based initiative, IRAQ:REFRAME. This program illustrates Montalvo’s quest to engage people in contemporaryconcerns through the arts and hopes to capture the innovative and diverse spirit of SiliconValley,” said Kelly Sicat, Montalvo’s director of programs. “Through
AGENCY
and the work of its
artists, Montalvo can advance creativity and continue to promote the role of both the artsand artists as a resource and asset for culture and community.”Most of the
AGENCY
artists will be in residence at Montalvo’s internationally recognized Sallyand Don Lucas Artists Programs. For information on the residency program, please visitwww.montalvoarts.org/residency. A detailed schedule of artist projects will be available inthe coming months, and please see the full list of participants below.
Participating Artists
(listed in alphabetical order)
AXIS DANCE COMPANY
AXIS Dance Company is an ensemble of dancers and choreographers, both with and withoutdisabilities, who work under the direction of dancer and choreographer, Judith Smith. As partof
A Perfect Day
that celebrates the dance, theater and book artistry of Remy Charlip (seeCharlip below), members of Axis Dance Company perform a series of his Household andAirmail dances along with dancer/choreographer, Joanna Haigood and members of herZACCHO Dance Theatre (see Haigood below).
REMY CHARLIP
Remy Charlip is a painter, dancer, choreographer, theater director, children's book authorand illustrator.
A Perfect Day
is Charlip's most recent book that inspired a host of relatedprogramming as part of
AGENCY.
Local libraries will host family readings and performancesbased on previous books he wrote and/or illustrated. During one spring weekend, familiesare invited to Montalvo Arts Center for events that mirror the pictures in
A Perfect Day
likewalking about, watching clouds and imagining, picnicking, singing and dancing, cuddling,napping, finger painting, reading picture books, and eating. AXIS Dance Company joins inthe merriment and presents a selection of Charlip choreographies, among them "The StuffedArmchair Dance" made especially for members of AXIS. An exhibition of original watercolorpaintings from
A Perfect Day
along with a selection from
Harlequin
and the Gift of Many Colors
written with Burt Supree and illustrated by Charlip in 1973 will be mounted in theProject Space. -
CHITRESH DAS
Chitresh Das is a master of classical North Indian Kathak dance, a choreographer and artisticdirector of performing arts schools in the U.S. and India. Chitresh Das leads on-going, freeKathak dance classes for children of India's red light district. Das and his performing artscompany present an evening's length concert of dance in the Carriage House Theatre,preceded by a public Master Class. While in residence at Montalvo as a Lucas ArtistsProgram fellow, he explores the potential for an improvisational collaboration for a second
1
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963,[http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf] (September 30, 2008)
performance at the Garden Theatre with Double G and Wang Wei.
GEOFF GALLEGOS
Geoff Gallegos, also known as Double G, is a producer, musician, composer, conductor,music teacher and co-founder of DaKah, a 70-piece hip hop orchestra-. As a Lucas ArtistsProgram fellow, Double G is composing two commissioned contemporary classical stringquartets (from a series underway), one dedicated to the theme of interdependence. Hepresents two evenings of original Gallegos compositions performed by LA's Sonus Quartet;one in the Carriage House, the other at an off-campus location yet to be determined. Likedrummer/composer Wang Wei, Kathak yoga dancer and choreographer Chitresh Das, DoubleG directs a Master Class for gifted students, and explores possible collaborations with
AGENCY
performing
artists for performance presentation in the Garden Theatre as a grandfinale to the series.
JOANNA HAIGOOD/ ZACCHO DANCE THEATRE
Joanna Haigood is a dancer and choreographer who directs her own adult and children'sdance company. Haigood is a Lucas Artists Program fellow who has collaborated with andperformed Remy Charlip's solo dances over the years. Her youth company branch of ZACCHO Dance Theatre perform a selection of Charlip's “Household” and “Airmail Dances,”and she performs “Dance in a Doorway,” “Dance in a Bed,” undertakes
a new rendition of Remy Charlip's classic, “Garden Lilacs” during a day-long family celebration at Montalvo,
APerfect Day
. In a project commissioned by Montalvo, Haigood and her company join forceswith AXIS Dance Company in a tribute to Charlip's life-long contribution to the arts.
JAN HENLE
Jan Henle is a sculptor who lives and works in Manhattan and Maricao in the mountains of southwestern Puerto Rico.
Con el Mismo Amor (With the Same Love)
1999-2007, is a displayof exquisite film drawings and photographs that documents the development of a livingsculpture that is presented in the Project Space with a related film which screens in theCarriage House. The focus of the images is on the experience of bringing a sculpture intobeing, demonstrating an attempt to live in harmony with nature, while drawing strengthfrom an inner state of emptiness and clarity.
LOUIS HOCK
Louis Hock is a filmmaker, video- installation- public- and visual artist, and a professor at UCIrvine. Drawing on his experiences living near the border of the U.S. and Mexico, hisartworks often address the cultural clashes and exchange taking place on both sides of theborder. Presentations of his award-winning video documentary series,
The Mexican Tapes: AChronicle of Life Outside the Law,
are complemented by premiere screenings of
The American Tapes
in which Hock revisits the stories of the three families he recorded 25 yearsearlier, and are shown together in the Billiards Room of the Villa. For Hock's publicconversation, the artist invites first and second generation immigrants to address theirexpectations and civic evolution through the passage of time and circumstances in the U.S.A collaborating partner for this exhibition and accompanying public conversation is San José's Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA).
HIROKAZU KOSAKA
Hirokazu Kosaka is a visual and performance artist, teacher, Artistic Director of the JapaneseAmerican Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Zen archer, and an ordained Buddhist priest. Incollaboration with representatives of Silicon Valley's Japanese- and Vietnamese-Americancommunities along with residents of the immediate neighborhoods of Montalvo, Kosakainvites elders to draw from memory the site of their childhoods as part of his shared project,
Ruin Map
. The artist transforms these sketches into 36" x 36" traditional engraved,woodblock prints on special handmade rice papers which are assembled in large flip booksthat are exhibited in public places visited or utilized by participants in the course of their
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Montalvo Arts Center Announces New Interdisciplinary Arts Initiative, AGENCY: The Work of Artists, February through October 2009
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