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Archive for June, 2007
Monday, June 18th, 2007
In this weeks edition of Longviews we introduce you to our new friend from Red Hook, Sonny Grant.
Sonny and Maria goss it up about exhibitions in New York City, Adam Beach’s mysteriously tragic Hollywood career (how can an Indian known for his smiling affabilities always play some tragic sourpuss? tis a mystery!), cougars, the return of the Harj to New York City and some other stuff thrown in for good measure.
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Brett Graham is a really nice guy who was willing to sponsor me (Maria) as a Fulbright scholar while he was head of the Toi Maori programme at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland New Zealand. In 2005 he earner his Doctorate from the Univeristy of Auckland, the same year I earned my MFA. Unlike me, Brett is a world-reknowned sculptor whose work, “embraces Maori and other indigenous peoples’ histories, critiquing and exploring issues relating to cultural inequities of the past and present within New Zealand and the wider Pacific.”
Of course he is Indigenous! Otherwise NAICA wouldn’t be interested.
Anyway, Brett is of Ngati Koroki Kahukura and Pakeha (European) descent. He’s an awesome guy who answers random emails from strange Puerto Rican girls. I’ve wanted to do a huge piece on his work and that of Ralph Hotere for many years. Perhapos one day soon we will get to screen Merata Mita’s documentary on Hotere and have an in-depth interview with Dr. Graham in which he gives NAICA readers a much needed primer on contemporary Maori art practice as well as what’s going on in the South Pacific art world. Let me tell you there is a alot going on, but it’d be better for someone from there to tell you. Instead of me coming off as a know it all (I almost do, but not quite!).
What I can tell you is that Dr. Graham was invited by International director/curator Rob Storr to show a colloaborative installation piece during the Venice Biennale. Read the press release for further details and check out out his website: www.brettgraham.co.nz
  
NZ ARTISTS, DR BRETT GRAHAM AND RACHAEL RAKENA, MAKE HISTORY IN ITALY AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2007
New Zealand may not be formally represented at the world’s leading art event the Venice Biennale, which opens this week, but an exhibition of New Zealand art opens in the collateral events section of the Biennale on Friday.
The sculptural and video installation, Aniwaniwa, was personally selected by the Biennale’s 2007 International Director-Curator, Robert Storr from hundreds of proposals from around the world. It is the first time in New Zealand history that New Zealand artists will exhibit in the collateral events section. This exciting venture may open doors for other New Zealand artists to exhibit in this section of the Biennale.
Artists Dr Brett Graham and Rachael Rakena, along with a small support team, are in the process of installing Aniwaniwa in a building they say could have been purpose designed for the exhibition. The venue, Magazzini del Sale, is situated on the edge of the canal and is of a perfect scale to hold the five carved vessels ‘wakahuia’ each 2.5 metres wide. The vessels, containing large video screens and speakers, fill the space - visitors to the exhibition will be immersed in the audio-visual installation viewing the work from mattresses laid out on the floor like a marae.
The video, which tells the story of Horahora, a village on the Waikato River where Brett Graham’s father was born, was submerged under water when the Karapiro Dam was formed in 1947. It is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring two of Maoridom’s most established and celebrated singers, Whirimako Black and Deborah Wai Kapohe, alongside renowned electronic musician, Paddy Free. Whirimako Black is to sing at the formal launching of the exhibition on Friday.
Contemporary Maori artists Graham and Rakena are well positioned to represent New Zealand at Venice. Both have solid international exhibition track records and they represented New Zealand in the Sydney Biennale in 2006, with another work UFOB – which was highly acclaimed and popular when shown at the recent survey exhibition of contemporary art at City Gallery Wellington.
The artists and the curators are excited about the scale, theme and nature of Aniwaniwa with the Italian curators saying that the work will touch and engage both Italians and the international audience. While it is a specific local story, it has broad global, cultural and environmental references. Exploring the idea of submersion as a metaphor for cultural loss, it examines themes highly pertinent to both the slowly sinking Italian city of Venice and atolls in the Pacific endangered by global warming and environmental change
The wakahuia are covered in a coral pattern referencing both the reef islands of the Pacific the legend of Tangaroa as the originator of carving. According to legend the hero Ruatepupuke had to travel underwater to retrieve the art of whakairo from Tangaroa’s house.
The Venice Biennale is the world’s oldest and most prestigious art exhibition, founded in 1895, it attracts the international art press, collectors, critics, artists, and curators in a way no other similar arts event does. The involvement of the two respected Italian co-curators, and in particular the Venice based curator Camilla Seibezzi has provided direct connections to the influential art market and an ability to leverage local contacts to generate maximum interest and attendance.
The launch of the exhibition on Friday will mark the culmination of a year’s work and six months of tough fund-raising. In addition to a grant for research given by Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, the National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement, Massey University and Te Wananga o Aotearoa have contributed to the development of the work and the staging of the exhibition. Creative New Zealand recently gave a grant towards the project and other significant support has come from Sir Paul Reeves as patron, Te Puni Kokiri, and Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts and his wife Rowena, have contributed financially as well as providing creative marketing support to the project team. Sponsorship has been raised in Italy for the wine and from leading Italian fashion house Byblos. Some $40,000 has also been raised through public donations and the sale of digital prints from the video. Many essential design, legal and media services have been provided.
A publication about the project featuring essays by academic media expert Sean Cubitt and Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, Director of Art and Collection Services at Te Papa, will also be launched at the opening. Mane-Wheoki describes Aniwaniwa as “a visual and aural lament, a multi-layered entity that speaks of forced migration, of cultural loss, of memory and nostalgia”. In his essay he also draws attention to the links between Maori and the people of Venice which date back to the Second World War.
New Zealanders who would like to support the project are invited to purchase a still print from the video available at a special price or to make a donation to MANGOROA-ANIWANIWA Project Trustees Limited - either by direct debit to account 12-3209-0210731-00 or send a cheque to PO Box 6357, Wellington. The video stills can be viewed online at www.bartleyandcompanyart.co.nz.
Aniwaniwa is officially listed on the Biennale website: http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/en/76188.html
Another site documents the project and has images of the work arriving in Venice and the beautiful location:
http://aniwaniwa.blogspot.com/
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
National Museum of the American Indian
Presents Sundance Prizewinner Four Sheets to the Wind
Four Sheets to the Wind, a feature by Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek), will screen at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the George Gustav Heye Center, in New York on Thursday, July 12 at 6 p.m. and on Saturday, June 14 at 1 p.m. Four Sheets to the Wind is presented by the museum’s Film and Video Center (FVC) in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Renew Media, the prominent media artist fellowship organization. On Saturday, June 14, the screening will be preceded by a program of works by recent Renew Media Fellows: Nanobah Becker (Navajo), Dante Cerano (P’urhepecha), Pedro Daniel López (Tzotzil), and Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo). The screenings will be followed with an onstage discussion with director Sterlin Harjo and producer Chad Burris (Chickasaw).
All screenings are free, but reservations are recommended. Call (212) 514-3737 or email fvc@si.edu for reservations.
For more details, visit www.nativenetworks.si.edu or www.redesindigenas.si.edu.
Called an “enchanting and decidedly idiosyncratic” film, whose transcendent story is “in the best tradition of coming-of-age films” by The Hollywood Reporter, “Four Sheets to the Wind” tells the story of Cufe Smallhill (Cody Lightning). When he finds his father dead beside a bottle of pills, Cufe fulfills his promise to sink the body in the family pond. A fake funeral, held for the community, brings together a family that has drifted apart. Wondering if there is more to life than what’s on offer in his small home town, Cufe heads for the city of Tulsa with his sister Miri (Tamara Podemski), and explores his new possibilities with Miri’s neighbor, the lovable Francie (Laura Bailey).
“Four Sheets to the Wind” premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and screened during the Sundance Institute at BAM program on June 4. At Sundance, Tamara Podemski (Saulteaux) won a Special Jury Award “for a fully realized physical and emotional turn” as Miri Smallhill. Sterlin Harjo is a 2004 Sundance Institute Annenberg Fellow, a 2006 Renew Media Fellow, and the 2006 winner of the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award for Narrative Film.
A not-for-profit organization established in 1990 by the Rockefeller Foundation, Renew Media fosters independent artistic expression by supporting the creation, dissemination and public awareness of independent media in all forms. More than 30 Renew Media Arts Fellows have screened their work at the National Museum of the American Indian.
Located in New York City and Washington, D.C., the National Museum of the American Indian’s Film and Video Center is an international leader in the presentation of indigenous film and video productions. National and international programs include the biennial Native American Film and Video Festival, the annual Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe, and free screenings daily for children and for general audiences. FVC serves as an information resource for all types of Native media.
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center is located at One Bowling Green in New York City, across from Battery Park. The museum is free and open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Call (212) 514-3700 for general information and (212) 514-3888 for a recording about the museum’s public programs. By subway, the museum may be reached by the 1 to South Ferry, the 4 or 5 to Bowling Green or the R or W to Whitehall Street. i
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
I went. To the B&N at Union Square. It is an unpleasant experience walking through that train station, even worse the park filled with all it’s many assholes and homeless assholes who congregate to deal drugs, beg from tourists, or people who look like tourists to their drunk and bleary eyes. Of course, the requisite NYU fucks,who think they are so smart. You’re not. NYU students; they won’t let me apply to the Cinema Studies doctorate program because I have a lowly MFA and they don’t take MFAs because they’re not “academic.”
So FUCK YOU and your elitist institution.
Speaking of elitists, the Alexie reading was run by a sychophantic nazi who simultaneously mind-blew the Sherm whilst castrating the audience. She practically put up a barracade-a big psychic barracade-between the audiences hopes of a few words one on one with their favorite Indian author (Isn’t he like the only one alive? No? Well he certainly acts that way!), and his hopes to get the fuck out of there with the quickness after perfunctorily signing his thin book. Literally thin cause it’s not very long for a novel. But we all know he’s not really a novelist, now is he? Anyway, this crunt was all up Shermies ass, his big flat Indian ass, his description, not mine, so I was already pissed off before the reading began. Let me tell you I have a death-stare gaze without provocation. Imagine me provoked? In the front row?
But, when the Sherm came up to the stage to sit, rather awkwardly (see above), at the big book signing table to listen to her babbling intro, he smiled at me and my friend.
I thought, “Wow he’s not a douche afterall!”
That thought passed.
Lest I sound completely hateful let me say I own just about everything he has written. I own his one flimsy directorial attempt and even wrote a lovely review about it. So I don’t altogether hate the guy. However, I do vacillate between loathing his self-aggrandizing performance and forgiving him the indulgence because the crackers (and cracker-esque minorities) in the audience hung on his every lispy word (guess who lisps?). Guffawing and cackling, clapping wildly, and chortling mirthlessly. But at what? The tales of a drunk homeless Indian kid who finds salvation on the streets of Seattle or something like that (I guess I could read his new book but frankly it sounded like every other story he’s written)? His none too ironic caricature of white people? Were they laughing at themselves laughing at themselves? I really didn’t get it. So I refrained from laughing at all. The truth is I chuckled a few times, but I thought the other’s laughter was canned, pre-programed by the evil B&N drones who pressed a button everytime Sherman thought he said something funny. Uproarious laughter! How fun is he? Listen to them roar.
I was a little freaked out. Like something really negative was about to drop.
He babbled on evidently not following his own storyline, but making a go at giving voice to the one-note characters-if his reading is any indication this is more of the same bullshit he’s already dished, and his acting affabilities have not evolved for the better. He went for a dramatic finale but ended abruptl. And rather awkwardly.
Then the “really negative” dropped-the Q and A.
As anyone who pays attention to these interactions knows, well-educated/well-off white people love Indians to stand in front of them to tell them some truth. Indians know truth. I did not get that memo but apparently they do. Especially tall Indian men with funny accents and clever cultural observations. Sherman is no exception. In fact, he is the standard rule. He offered truth in the form of an obnoxious Q&A stand-up routine that was unsolicited, and frankly, unwarranted. Of course, the dumb ass deer-in-headlights crowd didn’t ask him many questions. Too reverent? I don’t know but when a few brave enough to do so did he either made fun of them or gave them a terse answer which was his segue into aforementioned obnoxious stand-up routine. Yeah, yeah. I know, Sherman has been told he’s funny. Perhaps, one too many times?
Hear for yourself.
(photos: m colon)
 douche chill! [21:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
 photo: m colon
my goodness summer does inspire visits to the ole nyc.
it also spawns sidewalk dining, really short shorts-the kind flat and flabby asses hang out of-the likes of which i witnessed at sunday brunch with Pod(cast)emski & Harjo, a classical guitar duo the likes of Medesky & Wood-but Native, and cultural events, lots of them. i digress, of course, because this is a Longviews joint and digressions are our signature.
yes there are things to do in nyc if you’re not broke or dead! too many for one lil ole naica editor to attend, but maybe one of you Longviews listeners would go in my stead? then you can report back and i won’t feel bad that i couldn’t be there or had to choose one event over another as they are all credibly portentous and should be attended in earnest by myself, but such is my one shot existence…yes, those cultural events i mentioned:
The Harj at BAM, June 4, 2007, 6pm-ish: www.bam.org
Alexi at Barnes and Noble Union Sq, June 4, 2007,7pm-ish: www.fallsapart.com/schedule.html
Native Cinema in New York, June 5, 2007, 7pm on the dot: www.nmai.si.edu
Podemski at the Living Room, June 6, 2007, 11pm-ish: http://www.livingroomny.com
Eagle vs Shark advanced screenings in nyc, June 12, 13, 14 2007: to download passes http://www.eaglevsshark.net
Flight of the Conchords, June 13 and 14, 2007, 7pm, Gramercy Theatre: tickets SOLD OUT (sure to be an Indie Fuck Fest!).
in this week’s podcast we regurgitate the above mentioned items, and more. then we careen into pretentiously academian discourse regarding the required genre “Native Cinema.” then we re-live our mortifying lack of googling before going into an interview, though that can also fuck you over with misinformation and/or reveal one’s functioning illiteracy status (like Renee confusing “gonzo journalism” with “gaucho journalism.”) Then we say some other stuff i can’t remember which will have me downloading my own stupid-facted podcast.
c’est la internet.
oui oui
the big to do [32:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (89)
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
 It is an established trope to include all aspects of an interview experience in one’s piece
(it is also an established trope to call your interview assignment a “piece”): the time you arrived at
predetermined destination; descriptions of what the interviewees were wearing (see above); their countenance (see above); what they ate, etc.
Of course, such tidbits read as pertinent, casually humourous and intimate details
offering the reader an insider’s glimpse of the interviewing process.
These seemingly off-handed observations are bullshit. We hate them.
Unless Chuck Closterman is the writer. Then they’re o.k. because we like Closterman’s writing style, but it has spawned many clones,
and we don’t want to come off as one of them, even-though I probably am.
False modesty and self-denigration in an interviewer (or projected onto the interviewee) is also an established trope. You will get plenty of that here at Longviews. But fuck those trendy bullshit tidbits about designer clothes and tardiness on anyone’s part especially Longviews interviewers.
All we’re saying is this podcast was recorded live from Sunday brunch at a shitty restaurant in the Lower East Side where Longviews host and NAICA editor (me), Maria Colon spoke (loudly due to buses and cars and pedestrians) with the director and co-star of the Sundance favorite, Four Sheets to the Wind, screening tomorrow night (June 4, 2007) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mouth’s full and misinformation ensue, but you’ll soon hear it for yourself, no need to (off-handedly) mention it in this intro.
Links-u-Need:
http://www.bam.org
http://www.livingroomny.com
http:/www.nmai.si.edu
(photo: m colon)
classical guitar edition [20:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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