Momenta Art
56 Bogart Street, 718-218-8058
Bushwick/Ridgewood
September 9 - October 17, 2011
Reception: Friday, September 9, 6 - 9 PM
Web Site
Interactive Performance Dates:
Sunday, September 18th from 3-6pm Sunday, September 24th from 3-6pm Additional Performance Dates TBA
Vending carts can be seen both as platforms for personal expression and alternatives to mass consumerism. Like the art viewing experience, they encourage a more personal transactional space. The artists in Mobility claim public space to create intimate experiences. The works will be taken out into the community surrounding the gallery and manned by the artists during scheduled performance times and will be on display at Momenta while not in action. As Momenta’s first exhibition at our new space in Bushwick, this show will also indirectly address the influx of new populations in this transitioning neighborhood through work that integrates social practice with aesthetics.
Consume Love is an anti-consumerism project by Atom Cianfarani in which she ”re-gifts” food scavenged from dumpsters. Her food cart operates as a venue in which visitors can engage in alternate forms of consumption, providing homemade food re-directed from the waste-stream by way of “freeganism”.
Máximo González’s Changarrito vending stand is based on nomadic, ambulant markets in Mexico City. Small works by a large selection of artists are donated and sold through the cart, all for under $20. Changarrito made its debut in Madrid during ARCO’05, where González presented it as an alternative to the official gallery selection presented by the Mexican cultural authorities. Initially spurned by fair authorities, it is now embraced by art fairs internationally.
Pimp My Piragua is a mobile public art project by Miguel Luciano that commemorates the innovations of Latino street vendors by transforming a traditional pushcart for selling shaved ice (Piraguas) into a hyper-modified and technologically advanced pushcart-tricycle with a high powered sound and video system. Piragua carts were among the first start-up businesses for Latino immigrants in New York.
Blender is an ongoing project by Hidemi Takagi that investigates the diverse immigrant cultures in New York City. The project includes an installation comprised of photos of the packaging of food products from various immigrant neighborhoods accompanied by descriptive texts, a cart with an interactive performance, and a website.
SOS Mobile Classroom by Tattfoo Tan merges a cargo bicycle with a mobile classroom to encourage conversation regarding green and sustainable practices by presenting composting and mobile gardening workshops. SOS Mobile Classroom presents an intersection of art with entrepreneurship, mobility, sustainability, grassroots innovation, and the recognition of local economies.
Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga’s The Undocumented Drones employs found objects and debris with embedded electronics, each focused on performing a single task. Worker drones and rogue drones are unified by their aesthetics but each have their own unique characteristics and role. Representing a near slave class of undocumented workers within the US, the drones do not have a voice or any other means of expression and exist merely to wander the gallery and provide cheap labor.
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Atom Cianfarani has been a leader in sustainable design for the last decade. In 2005 Cianfarani developed the most sustainable restaurant in North America, and pioneered the world’s first light-pipe chandelier. Cianfarani sits on the board of the Lower East Side Ecology Center in New York City and is currently working on a feature documentary about global food waste.
Máximo González was born in Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina. González studied at the Institute of Art Josefina Contte in Corrientes, Argentina, where he obtained a Teaching Degree in Visual Arts. In 1998 he moved to Córdoba, where he created ‘Apeyron’ (a plastic and scenic experimentation research center) with a group of other artists. In 1999 he moved to Buenos Aires, where he studied with visual artist Mónica Girón and the curator and art critic Julio Sánchez at Universidad del Sur. Since 2003 Máximo has lived and worked in Mexico City.
Miguel Luciano received his MFA from the University of Florida. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at El Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; The Ljubljana Biennial, Slovenia; The San Juan Poly-Graphic Triennial, Puerto Rico; Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, and The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award Grant, NYFA award for painting, and the Artists and Communities Grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Hidemi Takagi was born in Kyoto, Japan. She moved to New York City in 1997, and studied at the National Academy of Design and the International Center of Photography in 1999. In 2002, Takagi was selected to be one of the 12 participating artists in the AsianLens juried photography exhibit. The next year, Takagi was selected to be one of 18 artists participating in the Artists in the Marketplace program at the Bronx Museum. Takagi lives and works in New York City.
Tattfoo Tan seeks an immediate, direct, and effective exploration of issues related to the individual in society, collapsing the categories of ‘art’ and ‘life’. Through the employment of multiple forms of media and various platforms of presentation, Tattfoo promotes group participation including himself and audience. Engaging mind and body in actions that transform the making of art into a ritualized and shared experience, Tattfoo prefers to develop projects that are ephemeral and conceptual.
Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces using a wide variety of media. Zuñiga was born to immigrant parents and was raised between Nicaragua and San Francisco. He completed his undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley in Practice of Art and English Literature, and received an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at CUNY Hunter.