EVALUATING THE CURRENT: Artist Presentations by:

ANGELA BERTRAM & MARY O’NEIL [UK] JESSICA HIRST [USA/Spain] WHITNEY V. HUNTER [NYC] ALICE VOGLER [Boston, Mass] FERNANDO RIBEIRO [Brazil]

+ Special Performance by LIUBA [Italy/NYC]

Monday, April 16 7 – 9 pm Free

Tonight is special! We have presentations to look deeper into the work of Angela Bertram, Mary O’Neil, Whitney V Hunter, Jessica Hirst, Fernando Ribeiro and Alice Vogler ++ Tonight only! We have an amazing performance by Liuba [Italy/NYC] which incorporates an Italian pasta dinner for all!++

Artist Presentations by,

Whitney V Hunter [NYC] An Execution Not long ago, I heard a television personality address the fact that she cannot and does not eat watermelon in the presence of white people (perhaps jokingly). That made me think that there are many Black people that feel the same way. I, in fact, sometimes when attending a party, and reaching for the Buffalo wings or (if offered) watermelon, for a moment take pause in the realization of “look what I went for first.” Then I stop and think about the absolute idiocy of this. Has racism and stereotypes affected our society so deeply that one cannot enjoy the food he/she loves? Yes, it has. But, must we live in and support these ideas and prejudicial acts? No, we must not.

Jessica Hirst [USA/Spain] “I am interested in the intersections of personal and global struggles, in the spaces we create to consider our fragile human condition. How does a personal condition or experience, such as mental illness, interact with the stigmatizing commercial and social environment? How does the impetus to consume always more quantities of natural and manufactured resources square with the onslaught of information about climate change and other limits to nature? I endeavor to explore these questions with the basic elements of performance; time, space, and body, complemented with essential objects.” Jessica Hirst: www.jessicafhirst.com

Alice Vogler [Boston, Mass] Alice Voglers work centers around the physical and mental healing processes that exist in individuals lives and her own day-to-day life. She is interested in investigating what heals: the process, that object, or the ritual. Most recently she has been working with the element of anticipation. She has been investigating to what extent anticipation changes how time is experienced. The viewer is always an essential element in her work.

Angela Bartram and Mary O’Neill Angela Bartram and Mary ONeill are a collaborative partnership whose work centres on the documentation of performance through situated writing, and text that moves beyond formal academic conventions. They have exhibited, performed and published nationally and internationally both independently and collaboratively. Most recently they performed at Action Art Now for O U I International performance festival in York, 2011, and at The Future Can Wait in London, 2009. Both are senior lecturers at the University of Lincoln UK in the department of fine art. Bartram has an expansive independent exhibition profile includingËœThe Animal Gaze (2011 and 2008), East Goes East, Krakow (2010), East International 2009, Animalism at the National Media Museum (2009), amongst others. ONeill has published works on performance, ephemerality, mourning, ethics and contemporary art, and the conditions in the twentieth century which contributed to the development of increasingly transient art forms.

Fernando Ribiero [Brazil] Fernando Ribeiro is a performance artist and DJ. Lives and works in Curitiba, south of Brazil. He began his research in performance art in 2000 and presented his first performance, “Eu e o Publico” (“Me and the Public”), in 2001. He’s been developing a vast practical and theoretical research on the field, presenting several works, conducting workshops and lectures, fomenting performance art in his city. https://vimeo.com/fernribs

Live Performance by LIUBA The Food Project: Performance #1

At this moment, I am working on three ongoing projects that are about what mostly interests me now in life: The Finger and the Moon Project, about Spirituality and Religions (with pro and contro..), The Slowly Project about the idea of going at our own pace (in all senses) and The Food Project. I choose to present this last Project at Grace Exhibition Space, though it is at the very beginning and in a workshop phase, because it began two months ago in New York and it really makes sense to me to perform this piece here. I love food and I love to eat well. And I am Italian… Eating good simple food shared with friends is basic in my culture but it’s not always so simple here in New York… The Food Project is about the relationship between Food, Money and Health in United States. It investigates how aesthetic in stores is connected with marketing issues, how good food is connected with good incomes, and how simple it is, however, to eat healthy and well. The Food Project is also about sharing and offering … And don’t forget you’ll gonna taste something!

Liuba bio Liuba is a multi media and site-specific projects artist living between New York and Milan. Her art work resides in the intersection between art, human geography and technology. It’s related with social, anthropological, geographical, philosophical issues, human behavior, interactivity and chance. Her research is based on the analysis of contemporary society, investigating contradictions and diseases of our daily life, always trying to maintain a somewhat distance and an ironical approach. She uses different skills and media as performance, video, photography, writings, web, research, cooperation. Her work has been presented in many exhibitions and performances internationally, including Venice Biennial, The Armory Show, PAC Milan, Art Basel, Scope London. Her work has been reviewed by Artnet Magazine, Flash Art International Magazine, IkonoTV, Artribune and others. She has published several DVDs. She currently works in collaboration with anthropologists to develop site specific projects.