intersections of personal and global struggles

A night of performances by, Angela Bartram & Mary O’Neill [UK] Jessica Hirst [USA/Spain] Alice Vogler[Boston Mass] Fernando Ribeiro [Brazil] Whintey V Hunter [NYC]

Friday, April 20 9:00 Doors 9:30 Performances $10 Donation

A terrific night, with a huge line-up, and artists representing a large spectrum of life!

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 mus not.

On this, the twentieth day of April, two-thousand and twelve, I will eat watermelon. Whitney V. Hunter.

Whitney V. Hunter is a Brooklyn-based performance and exhibition artist from Chicago, IL. He creates and curates work for the stage, gallery, and alternative spaces, and directs his Whitney Hunter[medium], a project-based performance collective. Whitney holds an MFA in New Media Arts and Performance from Long Island University, and an BFA in Theatre Arts/Dance from Howard University.

Whitney V. Hunter: www.whitneyhunter.com/

Angela Bartram and Mary O’Neill [UK]

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 including The 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.

Angela Bartram and Mary O’Neil: www.bartramoneill.com

Fernando Ribeiro [Brazil]

Fernando Ribeiro is a performance artist and DJ. He 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. In 2003 he took part in MIP – Manifestao Internacional de Performance (International Performance Manifestation), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Produced by CEIA (ceia.art.br), MIP was the first international festival of performance art in Brazil. Besides that, Fernando Ribeiro has been presenting his work in several cities over the country, such as Florian polis and Salvador.

Fernando Ribeiro: www.fernandoribeiro.art.br/

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

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. Alice received her Bachelors of Fine Arts form Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland Oregon, and her Masters of Fine Arts form the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tuffs University in Boston Massachusetts. She has shown her work in many performance events over the last 10 years including, Rough Trade in Chicago, LUMEN Festival in Stanton Island, Tremor Festival in Bogota, Columbia, OPEN in Beijing, Chin, and Transmuted in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

Alice Vogler Rope Series with The Present Tense: www.thepresenttense.org/archive/?p=599

ABOUT GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE for PERFORMANCE ART

Grace Exhibition Space, since 2006, is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging performance works by the current generation of international performance artists, whether emerging, mid career or established.

Being a Brooklyn loft, our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.

“Grace Exhibition Space is the sole gallery in this city that shows specifically, in its most intentionally narrow definition, Performance Art.” Patricia Milder, The Brooklyn Rail (May, 2011)

“Through such intimate encounters between performance groups and their guests, they could follow in the spirit of Yoko Ono’s Chamber Street loft or the Surrealist soirees of Paris.” Warren Fry, The Brooklyn Rail (August, 2007)

Photo: Zhenesse Staneic Heineman in performance at Grace Exhibition Space www.zhenesse.com

Please read the Interview with us in the Brooklyn Rail: brooklynrail.org/2011/05/artseen/specialized-vision-curating-grace-exhibition-space