Fresh Art International

In this episode, we revisit one of our live studio sessions from 2018: The Art of Obsolete Media. Web streaming on Jolt Radio, we introduce four Miami-based artists passionate about bygone technology: Barron Sherer, Kevin Arrow, Martha Raoli and Terence Price. The initial spark for this conversation was Obsolete Media Miami (O.M.M.), a shared studio space and repository for all kinds of old media that Barron Sherer and Kevin Arrow launched and operated from 2015-2018. On Fresh Art International, you’ll hear Sherer introduce the work of legendary filmmaker Jonas Mekas, and talk about his own complex film and video installation projects— presented in Miami, Florida, and Queens, Australia in 2018. Sherer opened a new studio space in February 2019. In 2020, he’ll launch the Moving Image Alliance, a nonprofit media arts resource and service organization to support contemporary moving image arts based on pre-digital cinema practices and technologies. Kevin Arrow takes us on a tour of the Obsolete Media Miami spa

What does "creative resilience" mean for curators in the year 2019?  One evening, we decide to find out. Setting up a temporary recording studio in a poolside cabana, at a Miami Beach hotel, we sit down with a dozen curators and cultural producers to document their stories. In this marathon recording session, you’ll hear curatorial strategies for engaging new communities, increasing the visibility of underrepresented artists, and addressing some of today's most pressing social, political and environmental challenges. We recorded this special program when the annual Congress of the Association of International Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) took place in the United States for the first time. Curators from the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean gathered in Miami, Florida, to explore the contemporary art scene and participate in a symposium about art and resilience in the climate crisis. Voices in the episode: (alpha order) Eva Asp, Bayardo Blandino, Aldeide Delgado, Yucef Merhi, Thale Fastvold and Tanja Torj

Venice is proven as a top destination for international contemporary art. The 58th Venice Art Biennale opened on May 11, 2019, and will be on view for the next six months. Thank you to Philadelphia-based art historian Deborah Barkun for contributing views from Venice on Instagram. Follow her encounters @freshartintl. Today, we revisit a selection of sonic encounters at the 57th Venice Art Bienniale, when Italy was the first stop on a six-week Fresh Art International field expedition. In May 2017, preview days for the global exhibition presented an ephemeral opportunity to record the voices of curators, artists, and sounds of installations, performances and events. This episode features our experiences in the pavilions of France, Germany and Nigeria, and our walk through Egyptian artist Hassan Khan’s outdoor sound environment. Artist Carolee Schneemann (1939-2019) was honored with the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 57th Art Biennale. In her memory, we share the conversation we recorded with Schne

Today’s episode is part of our Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, filmmakers, cultural producers and other listeners to share episodes from their Fresh Art International playlists. Born and based in Miami, Eddie Arroyo is a landscape painter who documents residential and commercial structures that urban development will soon erase. He chronicles the loss of a community's cultural, social, and economic fabric. In his photo-based practice, Arroyo hopes to spark conversations about prosperity and accountability within the American social system. He’s a participating artist in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. Here, he introduces The Art of Capitalism, a 60-minute segment released in 2018. Arroyo writes: Over the years, Fresh Art International has contributed to Art World discourse through an informative, relevant and challenging podcast. One notable episode, The Art of Capitalism, was posted in August 2018. Right now, in what is being fra

In Miami, Florida, we take you to meet cultural producers leading the way in local collaborative place making. Five Miami-based artists and an art archivist have come together to energize Dimensions Variable (DV), a new contemporary art space they're animating with artist studios, exhibitions, events and special projects. In this gathering place for art and culture, they aim to spark a dialogue about collective creativity as a way of life. Voices: Dimensions Variable founders Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova and Frances Trombly, DV collaborators Juan Pablo Garza, Laura Marsh, Anita Sharma and Magnus Sigurdarson, and DV's first 2019 visiting artist Luz Carabaño Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio Related Episodes: Public Art Meets Poetry in O, Miami, The BLCK Family of Miami on Collective Creativity, Miami's Caribbean Arts Remix, Culture Making in Downtown Miami, Sharon Louden on The Artist as Culture Producer   Related Link: Dimensions Variable

Today’s conversation continues our Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, writers, filmmakers, cultural producers and other listeners to introduce episodes from our archive. Based in the United States, art historian and curator Deborah Barkun is Chair of the Department of Art and Art History and Director of Museum Studies at Ursinus College, outside Philadelphia. Her research centers on the social dynamics of artistic collaboration. Barkun is contributing to our stories from the 58th Venice Art Biennale. Here, she introduces our conversation with Ivorian artist Joana Choumali, first released on April 30, 2018. Deborah Barkun writes: I am excited to introduce this reprise of “Joana Choumali Embroiders Empathy.” I feel especially connected to this episode, as I was present for Cathy’s first interview with Choumali in the Ivory Coast Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Choumali spoke poignantly about African emigration and the emptiness it leaves in the hearts of loved ones left behin

Today’s conversation is the first in our new Playlist series. We’re inviting artists, curators, architects, writers, filmmakers and cultural producers to introduce their favorite episodes from our archive. From the Netherlands, curator, writer and arts producer Sasha Dees works internationally. An advisor to numerous festivals and arts venues, she’s known for encouraging artists to experiment with classical art forms. Her practice centers on creating new dialogues and forging collaborations across cultures, traditions, genders and art disciplines. Here, she introduces my conversation with Remy Jungerman, first released on September 18, 2014. The Surinamese-Dutch artist talks about the influences of European modernism and Afro-religious aesthetics on his practice, and describes a public art he created in Morengo, his home town. A participating artist in Prospect.3, the 2014 international contemporary art exhibition in New Orleans, Jungerman showed his work a the Joan Mitchell Center from late October 2014, t

Public art meets poetry in the month-long festival known as O, Miami. We sit down with visual artists Najja Moon and Michelle Lisa Polissaint and O, Miami's managing director Melody Santiago Cummings to talk about their work and introduce the spectrum of site-specific projects that bring poetry to communities. Who’s The Fool? How To Patch A Leaky Roof: Moon and Polissaint create a Little Haiti Cultural District version of the blue umbrellas distributed for free in the Design District, a burgeoning retail development that is rapidly reducing the footprint of a community established by thousands of Haitian immigrants beginning in the 1950s. The artists imagine a dual role for the 1,000 bright red umbrellas they had fabricated. Mobile shelters from the rain and shields against the impact of urban development, the Little Haiti umbrellas feature a Creole proverb alluding to the false promise of urban development in the district. As if placing a flag on the moon, or drawing a line in the sand, Moon and Polissaint

Today, we take you to meet the creative hive that's transforming the cultural landscape of Tampa, Florida. While the coastal city may still be best known for its cigar-making history and vulnerability to rising sea levels, we discover an animated art scene. This is where new and established studios, public art projects, dynamic DIY galleries, avant-garde festivals, and networked community hubs are inventing fresh opportunities for public engagement with contemporary art. Voices (alpha order): Janina Awai, Wendy Babcox, Neal Bender, Carrie Boucher, Devon Brady, Warren Cockerham, Liz Dimmit, Bridget and Henry Elmer, Rebecca Flanders, Mitzi Gordon, Sarah Howard, Noelle Mason, Tracy Midulla, Margaret Miller, Libbi Ponce, Jenn Ryan Miller, Gary Schmitt, Bosco Sodi, Jake Troyli, Christian Viveros-Fauné Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio Courtesy of Wendy Babcox, Meghan Lock and Noisy Womxn; Kalup Linzy and FMoPA; JaTovia Gary, Kristin Reeves and FLEX FEST; Devon Brady and The Echo Quilt Tempus Project

Globally engaged curators introduce IKT, the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and talk about themes we'll explore during the 2019 IKT Congress in Miami. Ground zero for sea level rise, Miami is the ideal context for our conversation on how art and visual culture are changing public perception of today's climate crisis. Recorded in the studio of Jolt Radio, Miami, on April 10, 2019, during our weekly web streaming radio show. Voices: (alpha order) Daniela Arriado, Susan Caraballo, T.J. Demos, Julia Draganović, Vanina Saracino Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Cara Despain, Sea Unseen; Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, Forest Law; Oliver Ressler, Code Rood; Enrique Rámirez, Tidal Pulse; Band of Weeds, Underground Root Movement |  This episode is supported, in part, by IKT Miami. Related Episodes: Live from the Everglades, Part One, Robert Chambers on Art, Ancient Plants and New Technologies, Gustavo Matamoros: Inside Miami’s Sound Chamber, Deborah Mitchell: The Artist

This flashback to Norway 2017 features our sonic encounters and conversations with artists, curators and cultural producers in the capital city of Oslo and in Tromsø, a small town north of the Arctic Circle. In 2017, Fresh Art International founder and artistic director Cathy Byrd traveled to Norway as a new member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT), an organization designed to support and connect curators in our global community. The Office for Contemporary Art, Norway, and Oslo Pilot (now known as osloBiennalen) guided our first experience of contemporary Nordic art and culture. In 2019, when IKT convenes for the first time in the United States, Fresh Art International will stage three podcast events with IKT delegates and Miami-based curators and cultural producers. Diverse venues, partners, grantors and sponsors make possible the realization of IKT Miami and the Post-Congress that follows in Havana, Cuba. Voices: (alpha order) Thale Fastvold and Tanja Thorjussen/LOCU

South Florida’s subtropical wilderness inspired us to stage a remote radio broadcast from the Everglades. On February 24, 2019, we brought live and pre-recorded conversations with artists, scientists, rangers, educators and Miccosukee activists to a live audience on the porch of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center.   Voices in Part Two (alpha order): Warren Abrahamson, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, Robert Chambers, Houston Cypress, Jose Elias,  Nathan Fox, Ellen Harvey, Jenny Hipscher, Lori Marois, Deborah Mitchell, Cristina Molina, Adam Nadel, Paula Nelson-Shokar, Sarah Michelle Rupert, Dara Silverman, Hilary Swain Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park This episode is supported, in part, by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and Everglades National Park. Fresh Art International’s Cathy Byrd, AIRIE Fellow, February 2019, lived in the Park for one month as curator in residence. Related Episodes: Live from the Everglades, Part O

South Florida's subtropical wilderness inspired us to stage a remote radio broadcast from the Everglades on February 24, 2019. We brought live and pre-recorded conversations with artists, scientists, rangers, educators and Miccosukee activists to a live audience on the porch of the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center. This episode is Part One of our two-hour program. Voices in Part One: AIRIE Creative Director Deborah Mitchell, Miccosukee activist Betty Osceola, Celeste DePalma of Audubon Florida, Park Rangers Daniel Agudelo, Nathan Fox, Leon Howell, Lori Marois and Emily Wong, Park volunteer Barbara Hedges, Park hydrologists Steven Tennis and Adam Thime, and AIRIE Fellows Grant Livingston, Gustavo Matamoros and Christina Pettersson. Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Jack Tamul & James T. Miller, Voices of Everglades National Park This program is supported, in part, by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) and Everglades National Park. Fresh Art International's Cathy Byrd, AIRIE Fellow, Febr

The 2019 documentary Pahokee is a landmark project for filmmakers Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan and a sign of hope for the rural South Florida community whose story they tell. An official selection in 2019 Sundance and South by Southwest Film Festivals, Pahokee won the Miami Film Festival’s 2019 Knight Made in Miami Award. Perched on the Southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee in the Everglades, forty miles west and a world apart from affluent West Palm Beach, Pahokee is named after the Seminole word meaning "grassy waters.” In the film, we follow four students as they navigate the hope and heartbreak of their senior year at Pahokee High School. All eyes are on the rituals of football, prom and graduation in the town these teenagers call home. Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Film Audio and Photography courtesy Otis Lucas Related Episodes: Women Writers on Cuba in Film, Introducing Miami Film Festival GEMS 2017, Alexa Lim Haas on Animating Daydreams, Borscht 10 Film Festival Related Links: The Film Pahokee

Miami-based sculptor Robert Chambers lived in Everglades National Park for one month in 2018, as a Fellow in the Artist in Residence in Everglades program. In the darkness outside his studio one night, the artist tripped on the roots of an ancient plant: The Saw Palmetto (in Latin, Serenoa repens), That’s when a hidden world began opening up to him. In fact, the small palms are everywhere you look, native to the subtropical wilderness. The leaves are woven into the thatched roofs of indigenous pavilions you’ll find in Big Cypress, a wetlands preserve north of the national park. In some parts of the world, saw palmetto berries are cherished for their healing properties. We meet Robert Chambers to explore his exhibition titled Serepens at the AIRIE Nest, an art gallery inside the Visitor Center. AIRIE curator Deborah Mitchell and two environmental scientists who’ve inspired his new body of work are here, too. Botanist Walter Abrahamson has been researching the saw palmetto for forty years. Hilary Swain direc

In 2018, when the annual Creative Time Summit unfolds in Miami, we’re thrilled to participate. On Archipelagoes and Other Imaginaries: Collective Strategies to Inhabit the World brings together artists, thinkers, activists, and cultural producers whose practices stimulate change through planetary thinking. The nearby Caribbean Archipelago serves as the perfect context within which to question colonial and postcolonial ways of seeing and thinking. The Summit delves into Miami’s historical connection to the Caribbean and, by extension, to Latin America and the entire world. Voices, in order of appearance: Justine Ludwig, Fredo Rivera, Edwige Danticat, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Daniela Ortiz, Colibrí Sanfiorenzo-Barnhard, Brigada Puerta de Tierra, Houston Cypress, Roc LaSeca, Edwige Danticat Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Live Performance Audio, in order of appearance: Drag en la Frontera, Samuel Tommie, Daniela Ortiz, Krudas Cubensi Related Episodes: Where Art Meets Activism, LIVE f

Artist Bill Fontana has a long-time relationship with sound and space. He's known for relocating sounds to create site-specific installations around the world. Fontana describes his practice as "composition by listening." In this episode, we talk about what has inspired and informed his public art projects through the decades—from his 1981 Landscape Sculpture with Foghorns in San Francisco, to his 2018 Sonic Dreamscapes in Miami Beach. Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio | Special Audio: Bill Fontana Related episodes: Inside Miami's Sound Chamber; Stephen Vitiello on Sound Art Related links: Bill Fontana, City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places

Art with a Sense of Place considers creative projects that respond to a physical space and those that react to or embrace a historic moment, a cultural environment, a socio-political tension, or a psychological space. Emerging in the 1960s, site-specific art sought to transcend what was perceived as the over-curated, almost clinical context of the art museum. Artists rebelled by creating their own exhibition sites (Agnes Denes brought a Wheatfield to a New York City landfill). Some flaunted the rules of museum installation with live interventions (Joseph Beuys lived in a Soho gallery with a live coyote). Our series of episodes on site sensitivity brings a broader range of cultural production into the conversation, exposing new ways of seeing place, space, and site in contemporary art. Art with a Sense of Place, Part II, highlights conversations featured in the second issue of the Fresh Art International Smart Guide. We produce the guide as a series of downloadable pdfs. Each issue delves into a different t

Art with a Sense of Place considers creative projects that respond to a physical space and those that react to or embrace a historic moment, a cultural environment, a socio-political tension, or a psychological space. Emerging in the 1960s, site-specific art sought to transcend what was perceived as the over-curated, almost clinical context of the art museum. Artists rebelled by creating their own exhibition sites (Agnes Denes brought a Wheatfield to a New York City landfill). Some flaunted the rules of museum installation with live interventions (Joseph Beuys lived in a Soho gallery with a live coyote). Our series of episodes on site sensitivity brings a broader range of cultural production into the conversation, exposing new ways of seeing place, space, and site in contemporary art. Art with a Sense of Place, Part I, highlights conversations featured in the second issue of the Fresh Art International Smart Guide. We produce the guide as a series of downloadable pdfs. Each issue delves into a different th

Argentine architects Rosario Marquardt and Roberto Behar share their passion for creating emotional monuments. Their billboard-size greetings of Peace and Love and Besame Mucho at the Miami International Airport, Supernova at the 2018 Coachella Music Festival, and WOW, a new skate-able sculpture for the Lauridsen Skatepark in DesMoines, Iowa, are just a few of the iconic landmarks they've produced. Founded in 1995 and based in Miami, R & R Studios is a multidisciplinary studio focusing on public artworks, architecture and urban design. Related episodes: Miami Art Week 2018 Preview, Rodrique Mouchez on Choreographing Art Encounters, The Private Life of Public Art Related links: R&R Studios, Untitled Podcast Miami Beach 2018,  Wynwood Radio Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio