More far-flung curators – Spiak in Miami

Our curator John Spiak was recently in Miami scouting work there during the Art Basel Miami week, which included not just the main fair (representing 250 galleries), but also an additional 27 fairs, museum openings, private collections and organized group shows throughout the area and the local commercial galleries.  “There were events every hour of the day,” John reports, “with brunches at the private collections, performances in the evenings and private dinners and parties into the late night/morning.”

One work John was particularly happy to see was this Hummer/horse carriage by artist Jeremy Dean, who has a history with the Museum.

John writes,  “In 2004, our 8^th annual ASU Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival screened a work by Jeremy Dean titled ‘Vanity’ and actually presented it with a Jurors Choice Award.  Here is Jeremy (in the cowboy hat, standing) and his  latest project on the streets of Miami in front of the Pulse Fair.  I was at the Pulse Fair with the curatorial team from SMoCA; SMoCA curator Claire Carter took this picture.”

Like everyone at the Museum, John’s been busy lately. In October, he served as a juror for a project called SantionedArray, a response to YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video, which was on view at the Guggenheim that same month.

Here’s an explanation of how SanctionedArray worked, taken from its website:  “SanctionedArray is an online database of video art conceived in 2010 in response to the restrictions of artists’ submissions to  The Guggenheim Museum’s and YouTube’s video biennial, Play. Artists’ submissions to Play were limited by OFAC sanctions  – citizens or residents of Belarus, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Myanmar/Burma and Zimbabwe were not eligible to submit their work. In protest to the continuity of such restrictions of virtual exchanges, artists of any origin – including those from the sanctioned countries – were invited to submit their work to SanctionedArray in an open call for video entries. Submission guidelines to SanctionedArray followed online video formats proposed by YouTube and The Guggenheim, except for Eligibility 1.d.

According to the website, the first call for submissions brought in781 entries, from which the international jury selected their top 100, to appear on the SanctionedArray online database. Per the site: “The goal of this project is to assemble an archive of current video art from the specific origins, activate it it via curatorial practice, and generate scholarly discourse on the topic of specificity of art production in transmission of its origins.”

John, who is the man behind the Museum’s annual Short Film and Video Festival every spring, and who curates exhibitions of video artists on a regular basis, had a great time jurying. “The experience provided me the exposure to international video works by both emerging and established artists,” he writes. “There were many individuals I was familiar with who submitted work, but many more whose work I was being introduced to for the first time.”

Perhaps some of that new work will turn up here at the Museum in an exhibition as part of our 15th Annual Short Film and Video Festival, on April 23…

Here are a few more images John took of projects in Miami that inspired him:

1. Jeremy Dean’s Hummer Project at Pulse; 2. John Bankston installation at the Nada Fair; 3-7. The Rubell Family Collection brunch installation, based upon the story of Goldilocks, curated by Jennifer Rubell;  8. Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 – artist conversation between John Baldessari and Analia Saban at the Rubell Family Collection; 9. Stormtroopers keeping an eye on Collins Avenue in South Beach; 10-15. The Great Vodka River, a mixed-media installation and performance by artist Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich.  16. Ten Thousand Waves, a nine channel video installation by artist Isaac Julien