KIOSK HELLO

Jonathan Berger is an Artist and Cura­tor . He is our 4th install­ment of Mini-Exhibitons at KIOSK.

Inde­pen­dent Pro­duc­tion NYC 2008
Part One: Reimag­in­ing the Estab­lish­ment
Curated by Jonathan Berger for KIOSK

Fri­day, Octo­ber 17th
7pm
@KIOSK
95 Spring Street, 2nd floor (between Broad­way and Mer­cer)
FOOD, DRINK, MUSIC, CONVERSATION

In recent years, NYC has seen a sig­nif­i­cant and expo­nen­tially grow­ing shift in the moti­va­tion and role of cre­ative pro­duc­tion in rela­tion to con­tem­po­rary cul­ture. Com­mer­cial pres­sures includ­ing real estate, an inflated art mar­ket, and the mass mar­ket­ing of his­tor­i­cally avant garde and mar­ginal aes­thet­ics and ideas have increas­ingly lim­ited the pos­si­bil­i­ties for new and unique inde­pen­dent points of view. It is, and has always been the minds that live out­side the seem­ing pos­si­bil­ity of the present, and proph­e­size the future of cul­ture through their work, who are able to affect an evo­lu­tion. By and large, we are presently stuck, asleep in a spin cycle where the struc­tures set up for mak­ing and expe­ri­enc­ing art and cul­ture are in total con­trol of what con­tin­ues to be made and experienced.

This first install­ment, on Octo­ber 17th, in a series of talks on inde­pen­dent pro­duc­tion, focuses on four cre­ative endeav­ors which rein­vent and rede­fine the func­tion of the ‘insti­tu­tion’ or ‘venue’ in rela­tion to their work. The minds direct­ing these projects have built their own establishments—each a unique, often hybrid con­text or space designed specif­i­cally for engag­ing with and dis­trib­ut­ing the work they wish to do.

Writer and direc­tor of dis­tri­b­u­tion for Elec­tronic Arts Inter­mix, Rebecca Clemen will reflect on an ongo­ing series of recent con­ver­sa­tions with Leslie Thorn­ton about mod­els for dis­trib­ut­ing film and video as a cen­tral and dom­i­nant ques­tion fac­ing media artists. Leslie Thorn­ton is best known for her exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion of con­tem­po­rary media aes­thet­ics, and early works which were amongst the first to employ the simul­ta­ne­ous use of cin­ema, video and dig­i­tal media.

New York his­tor­i­cally has been a col­lec­tion of close-knit neigh­bor­hoods and small, locally owned busi­nesses, where res­i­dents from all walks of life come together and inter­act every day at their local butcher or veg­etable mar­ket or bak­ery. Mon­ica Von Thun Calderón’s Grandaisy Bak­ery strives to pre­serve the role of the small busi­ness as a pub­lic space, while offer­ing prod­ucts that make his­tory and cul­ture alive through food. A pride and invest­ment in a good work envi­ron­ment, the rela­tion­ships between bak­ers and cus­tomers, the empha­sis on small batches and local ingre­di­ents, the nature of food as a com­mon lan­guage and vehi­cle for ideas, all are at the core of how Grandaisy oper­ates as a busi­ness and deter­mine where and how it will grow.

Play A Jour­nal Of Plays is devoted to rein­vent­ing the life of plays on the page. The jour­nal, edited col­lab­o­ra­tively by Sally Oswald and Jor­dan Har­ri­son, pub­lishes open texts, instruc­tion man­u­als, sce­nar­ios, song cycles, chore­o­graphic nota­tions, and other evi­dence of events that sel­dom resem­bles stan­dard for­mat­ting. In embrac­ing the for­mat of the page, and ele­vat­ing the form of nota­tion, Play jour­nal has elim­i­nated the the­ater as an inevitable or desired des­ti­na­tion. Much as cul­ture has come to embrace draw­ing as its own com­plete form, not des­tined to be sub­servient to and fur­ther devel­oped through paint­ing, Play jour­nal has expanded the role of play­writ­ing to fos­ter the far­thest pos­si­bil­i­ties of what the descrip­tion of an event can be. In doing so, the Jour­nal has made a space where impos­si­bil­ity yields vis­tas of new and uncharted terrain.

Den­nis ‘Cit­i­zen’ Kane’s work encom­passes the fields of paint­ing, music, the­ory, design, jour­nal­ism, and cura­to­r­ial projects. Kane has exhib­ited work in var­i­ous con­texts and shows, among them: The Draw­ing Cen­ter, Dia cen­ter for the Arts, DFN gallery, and Takeo Kacuchi gallery in Japan. He is founder and direc­tor of the Dis­ques Sinthomme record label where he has worked on projects with Sil­ver, Pro­fes­sor Genius, Nick Cha­cona, The Beat Bro­ker, Lars Behren­roth, Smith & Mudd. Cit­i­zen Kane main­tains DJ res­i­den­cies at his Deep End party begun in 2000 at APT, and adult sec­tion a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Dar­shan Jes­rani. The Strobe Lodge party was estab­lished by Kane and Jes­rani as an attempt to cre­ate a more Utopian social envi­ron­ment and as a way to respond to the con­strain­ing syn­tax of com­mer­cial venues. Tak­ing cues from David Mancuso’s “Loft” par­ties and the early “House” par­ties of the Detroit and Chicago under­ground, the for­mat of Stro­belodge removes any medi­at­ing any third party, giv­ing com­plete con­trol of the space, bar, visu­als and décor, and music to the selec­tors. The event is invite only and atten­dees pay a sin­gle mod­est cover charge which includes admis­sion, drinks, and food for the entire evening. This approach encour­ages a com­mu­nity dynamic and non– hier­ar­chi­cal gen­uine social exchange. The music is tai­lored for an extended evening with a long build up and decent to and from the plat­form of con­tem­po­rary dance sounds.