A Post-Basel Retreat Brought Performance Art to St. Croix

Artists including Rashaad Newsome, Oceana James, David Antonio Cruz, Jeanette Ehlers, traveled to St. Croix for what was billed as a “Post Art Basel Miami Beach Art World Retreat.”

Billed as a “Post Art Basel Miami Beach Art World Retreat,” the inaugural Caribbean performance series, Take Five, took place roughly 11,000 miles southeast of Miami Beach, on the US Virgin Island of St. Croix. The week-long series featured performances by artists Rashaad Newsome, Oceana James, David Antonio Cruz, Jeanette Ehlers, studio visits with local artists, and the opening of Kharis Kennedy’s Touch Has Memory, a solo exhibition of painting and performance at The Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts.

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Source: A Post-Basel Retreat Brought Performance Art to St. Croix (Vice Creators, Dec 18 2016)

Take Five and Art100: Panel Discussion and Exhibition

Panel Discussion at Art100 New York, Friday March 3rd, 5-7pm

This Friday Kharis Kennedy will be attending the Take Five/Art100 Panel Discussion: Nationality, Ethnicity, Identity and the Consumption of Contemporary Art. The discussion about the consumption of contemporary art will expand the dialogue that Kennedy started with Take Five in St. Croix in December 2016.

Over the past several decades, the nationality, ethnicity, sexuality and identity of an artist have increasingly become considerations and markers in how their art is evaluated, appraised and qualified. The panel will share their experiences in this regard and will probe the concept of art beyond identity in both the museum and commercial realms

TAKE FIVE, a survey exhibition of identity, race, gender, power and the environment took place in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in December 2016.  TAKE FIVE is now collaborating with ART100 New York to to discuss the role that commercial and non-profit sectors play in the consumption of art that highlights issues of nationality, ethnicity, and identity in the global art market.

RSVP: events@alainasimoneinc.com
www.alainasimoneinc.com/take-five-and-art100

Exhibition, Art100, April

Exhibtion at Art100 – more information coming soon. Subscribe to newsletter to make sure you don’t miss it!

www.art100gallery.com

Can’t kick me out now!

Good news: the National Association of Women Artists has juried me into its ranks!  Even better news: following the induction I asked the obvious question and the answer was “yes, once you’re in you can’t be kicked out.”  I smell carte blanche!

I’ve also been honored to have work selected for inclusion in the upcoming 11th Biennial Exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery.  I’m excited about this one as Nancy Princenthal (critic, former Senior Editor of Art in American, etc.) was the curator and she chose “White Collar Goes Black : Group Bespoke” which is one of my larger paintings and hasn’t been shown before:

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Opening night is Thursday, Dec 4th (see you soon NYC!) and I have outfit concern – do you think that without a shirt this outfit will make it look like I’m one of those sad artists who are “trying too hard” or “desperate for attention?”

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The best outfit for the occasion

Saturday I head off-island to the city of Truth of Consequences, New Mexico to attend Starry Night’s residency program!  I’m very excited, this will be my first residency experience.

In preparation I contacted a number of seasoned artists to ask them what worked or didn’t work for them with residencies they’d attended.  Apparently the main thing is that one should arrive with few preconceived notions.  Open mind.  Let the experience and the environment make it’s impact on your work.  Otherwise might as well stay home and work out of your studio as usual.  Okay, got it.

But the time, the time, how to manage the time?  Recently writer Gigi Rosenberg blogged about the “Pomodoro Technique”. Apparently this is where you set a timer and work for 25 minutes then do something else for 5 minutes.  And repeat.  I did  the math: an 8-hour work day would yield 80 “something else” minutes.  If a lady were to do some spirited cardio during those minutes then it stands to reason (and science!) that a lady might find herself wonderfully THIN by day’s end!  I was 100% in when confusion regarding footwear dampened my spirits: would I change into sneakers every 25 minutes? Obviously this method is riddled with holes.

Then a girlfriend alerted me to this perhaps nameless method whereby one begins working even before waking up completely. You just slip out of bed and over to the work station. The hope is to sneak in a couple of hours of unrestrained creative work before the left brain has a chance to become fully alert and realize that it’s being left out and that a lot of unrestrained creativity is occurring.

The downside of this method is that it assumes we all sleep right next to our work modules. Whereas my daily reality is that by the time I reach the studio I’ve been up (and most likely trembling with nerves) for hours. Maybe since before sunrise.  In fact I’ve already (half) dressed myself, calmed/diapered/fed my 3-month old, woken/breakfasted/dressed/packed a lunch for and dropped my three-year old off to school.  There are no drowsy hours.  There is complete unconscious and there is screaming, high-alert.

The daring of this method is that it calls for foregoing even coffee. I’m always up for a dare and so will try this method at least once and report back.

But questions circling what I’ll accomplish while at residency or how I’ll accomplish it are basically secondary.  The real question: what will I wear?  Weather.com teaches me that Truth or Consequences’s evenings can dip into the low 30’s.  Coco Chanel teaches me that The Little Black Jacket is always the best outfit for the occasion.

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This photo is taken from a portion of one of my paintings in progress: I’ve added a casually slung surgical mask + fun face-hoodie to keep the look young and fresh.