On June 21st, artist Simone Leigh visited the to share her practice, and ideas on art and culture with the Practicum. Leigh who is known for her forays into ceramics, sculpture, opera, and installation, kindly presented her works via images and video. This included a screening of Breakdown, a collaborative project with artist Liz Magic Lazer and opera singer Alicia Hall Moran. The two artists generated a score for Moran from excerpts of the television shows: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Intervention, and Anthony Harvey’s The Dutchman.
The New York Arts Practicum met up with artist Mary Mattingly at her studio in Greenpoint.
The artist gave a keynote on her work. From her time as an undergrad in Portland, Oregon, to her current works and projects. Mattingly’s work lays at the intersection of collaboration, social practice, and sculpture. During the Practicum’s visit, Mattingly presented images and videos of projects such as The Waterpod Project 2006-2010; a river barge that was transformed by the artist and a team of collaborators. The project merged the artist’s interest of exploring new systems of liveable and self-sustaining ecosystems and the situation of living responsibly in New York City. As a solution, The Waterpool Project 2006-2010 existed on the Hudson and East Rivers as it was ferried between dock and mooring sites in the city.
Mattingly also spoke to the Practicum of her life as a gallery artist. This included a conversation on the logistics of making large sellable objects, and photographic images. The artist kindly accepted questions and critiques from the Practicum.
Artist, writer and archivist Sarah Butler met with the New York Arts Practicum on Friday, June 21st at REVERSE — an interdisciplinary art space with, “an emphasis on new and experimental forms of expression” — to share her current body of work. Butler escorted the Practicum around the gallery, speaking towards the merging of writing and art. Her current work, an installation titled Official Transcript considers the act of writing in the digital era. As the practicum traversed REVERSE with Butler, numerous works in progress were shared for the NYAP to handle and read. These books contained efforts surrounding the documentation of arts project spaces in NYC, including discarded thesis papers in dumpsters bound into books by Butler.