CASTING NOTICE FOR FIRST NATIONS (Native American or Native) MEN AND WOMEN
Artist Terrance Houle’s “Casting Call” is a new production being filmed in Toronto, Ontario. Auditions will be conducted by the artist.

Open casting call for First Nations, Native American, Métis, Half-breed, Quarter, Indian Princesses and Princes, Powwow Dancers, Powwow Drummers, 1/8th’s, Rez, City Indians, Aboriginals, Status, Non-Status, Red Indian people between 15 and 100, both male and female, Young, Middle-Aged and Elders. Acting experience a plus, but not necessary.

• Traditional, contemporary, bannock experience, Native war veterans, horse riding experience, an interest in bingo, war paint, Indian cars, regalia, black wigs are all assets but not necessary
• Any size and shape will be acceptable. We are looking for fit, big, small, tall, hunky, and beautiful, ugly, etc.
• Braided hair, long black or short will be acceptable
• Love of nature, animals and outdoors is a must
• Deep respect for Mother Earth
• Must know the Four Directions
• Owners of buckskin loin cloth, breach cloth and general hides a bonus
• Fluent in Native language and English
  

We are looking for Stony, Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibway, Dene, Navajo, Haida, Salish, Sioux, Métis, Crow, Pawnee, Micmac, Mohawk, Seneca, Algonquin, Inuit, Cayuga, Oneida (Etc.) or anyone of the like.

Must have experience as one of the above criteria.

Auditions will be for roles of Natives playing Non-Natives acting in Native roles. Book your spot now or come out for the open casting call!

Casting Dates and Location
Friday, October 17, 10am – 3pm (Auditions by appointment, spectators welcome)
Saturday, October 18, noon – 4pm (Open auditions, everyone welcome)

Trinity Square Video
401 Richmond St. West, Suite 376
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
(416) 593-1332

To schedule an appointment for Friday, October 17, 2008, please contact Aubrey Reeves at Trinity Square Video. (416) 593-1332 or aubrey@trinitysquarevideo.com

Casting Call is a non-union interactive performance art project. Participation in the project is strictly volunteer.

A Fine Example of Chinese and Native American Art, by John Lurie

Featuring: polyglot artist John Lurie, The director of Primera Comuniòn Daniel Eduvijes Carrera, an essay by Australian New Media artist and curator Jenny Fraser, and a trip through Western Spirit, a chat with Melissa Henry, and a review of the Great Bear Chief – Val Kilmer’s relatively new cd Sessions with Mick Rossi.

[www.thenaica.org]

Image: cyberTRIBE

the other APT has been selected for inclusion in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney’s Online Venue. As part of the forthcoming Biennale, Revolutions – Forms That Turn, Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has selected digital artworks and texts to be featured in its Online Venue. The exhibition as a whole and the Online Venue particularly, focuses on the different ways artists have ‘revolutionised’ contemporary art. It explores the impulse to revolt, rotating, turning upside down, shifting points of view, revolving, mirroring and reversing as formal devices, as well as chart their broader aesthetic, psychological, psychoanalytical, radical and political perspectives.

Held over the 2006/2007 summer in Brisbane the other APT was a multi-artform exhibition that coincided with and questioned the Queensland Art Gallerys 5th Asia Pacific Triennial, with a similar focus – of art within the Asia-Pacific region, but with local artists included. Presented by cyberTribe which has a history of almost a decade in Online Curating, the exhibition website allowed audiences for the other APT to be far reaching internationally, along with the celebration and exhibition program held at Raw Space Galleries in Brisbane. Curator Jenny Fraser says of the exhibition “The primary curatorial premise of the other APT was to show artworks from Indigenous Australian Artists, and also show meaningful works from other Artists that may constitute them as a friend in culture and good visitor to this country, in meaningful dialogue and otherwise. In other words, Aboriginals actively engaging with each other, and those from other cultural backgrounds – Torres Strait Islander, Melanesian, Maori, Samoan, Japanese, Filipino and others from outside the Asia-Pacific Rim, providing a true survey, commenting on individual and shared experience. Naturally some of these works are collaborations – existing works, and also works produced especially for the other APT, but all really important discourse, culturally and historically. It is important that it has been acknowledged by the Curator of the Biennale of Sydney.”

The Online Venue will provide a wider context to the physical 2008 Biennale of Sydney, as well as constitute a space of its own. The Online Venue is the first of its kind in the world and thus a revolutionary form of presentation for the Biennale. With an emphasis on exploration and discovery, the non-linear navigation allows the user to explore and view artworks in an intuitive way. The Biennales website presents a selection of artist projects in a dynamic constellation. Works are linked together by curatorial themes. Each visit to the site presents a new set of linked works to view, keeping the site fresh and brimming with new juxtapositions. the other APT , has also been invited to tour to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia later this year.

Spring is here in New York City and that means art fairs and film screenings and getting drunk at various bars and cafes. It does not mean consistently warmer weather. No, it doesn’t mean that. This past Sunday I spent a blustery, but not outright freezing day, checking out the first bright rays of art offered on a grand scale here in the city.
Just so you know I didn’t get drunk this past weekend, but there will be others. Soon.

The Whitney Museum has it’s yearly biennial up. It is so shitty and politically dissonant I could hardly believe the mostly paying crowd (I got in free) wasn’t lining up demanding their money back. There is a recession going on so money must be tight to waste on a poorly curated hyper-self conscious art show? Fo Sho, though grumbles of disappointment and guffaws of derision could be heard no mass protest materialized-except in my imagination. Had, I paid money, I would have wanted it back.
I can’t be bothered to give much detail than that, because I can’t re-live the boredom, other than to say that one single video in the entire three floors of “art” was a truly brilliant work of art-that was a video by Harry (Harriet) Dodge and Stanya Kahn called Can’t Swallow It, Can’t Spit It Out. The New York Times art critic, Holland Cotter (who was a tad too generous regarding the entire show if you ask me) described it as, “a kind of lunatic’s tour of an abject and empty Los Angeles.” I’d agree with that but it was also brilliant performance work on both the video artist’s parts. Look it up. It’s worth it. If you care to subject yourself to it it will be on view until June 1st. Or, you can read the Times‘ overly diplomatic review and be done with it.

The Armory Show, on the other side of town, and hand as it were, was an amalgamation of wise investments coupled with zero curatorial finesse. Truly brilliant work had to mix company with “Inter-disciplinary Art 101″ bullshit, and quite pricey bullshit at that. Unlike the Whitney Museum you could take as many photos as you liked. You could also purchase the art on view. A Brad Kahlhamer print sold through the Deitch Project was quite pricey indeed. Actually I really did want one of his creepy vaguely Indian-esque crack whore strewn water color and pencil prints, but who has $10,000? Certainly not me.
For a selection of the good and bad (I leave the judging of what is which to you) visit our gallery page.

(Photos from this series: copyright M. Colon)

Live (sort of), this week at the NMAI in NYC, a performance by artist Erica Lord (Inupiaq/Athabaskan) who will re-enact James Luna’s seminal performance work, the Artifact Piece. First performed in 1987, this work famously disrupted the historic objectification of Native people in museums and symbolically seized control of Native representation. Twenty years later, Lord investigates the power of the original performance and invites a discussion of its continued relevance.

(photo courtesy-erica lord)

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008, 2:00–5:30 pm followed by a 6:00 pm lecture and dialogue with the artist by NMAI Curator Paul Chaat Smith (<-YAY Paul!)

FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2008, 10:00 am–12:00 pm/2:00–4:00 pm
SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2008, 1:00–4:00 pm

George Gustav Heye Center

National Museum of the American Indian

Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

One Bowling Green, New York City

The George Gustav Heye Center is adjacent

to Battery Park between State and Whitehall

Streets in Lower Manhattan.

Subway: 4 or 5 to Bowling Green, R or W to

Whitehall, 2 or 3 to Wall Street, 1 to South

Ferry. Bus: M1, M6, or M15 to South Ferry

NAICA is gearing up for it’s Spring edition and in keeping with the season of blossoming love and flowers and shit like that we were wondering what the hell is American Indian (South, North, Central…all western hemispheric and whatnot) love all about anyway?

Tell us your grand love stories whether they be Indio encima Indio, cross generational, multi-cultural or inter-tribal, we want to hear how and why Native people fall in love these days-with or with out an open bar-because we’re tired of reading about it in romance novels!
Reply with your insights and we will reprint them in an upcoming editorial on this very topic in our all new all love on all pages in the next edition of NAICA online.

Caveats:
-Must be 18 years or older.
-No pornography please. We don’t care about the physical mechanics of “love” only the esoteric/romantic why of it all.
-Must give NAICA onine permission to reprint your ideas/stories OR we will use your shit and give you a pseudonym like “Jennifer Tickles Cocks” cause we’re professional like that.
-Must be Indigenous in some provable way (ahahahahahaaaahahahaha).

Send your reply to:
naica.content@gmail.com
with your name, age and verifiable email address so we can send you a release form.

Limit (250 words or so) please
BTW, this is a truly serious piece of scholarship we’re aiming for …hmmm.

www. thenaica. org

Contemporary Native Art @ the Salena Gallery (surrounding the Spike Lee Screening Room)

Opening Reception: March 6th 5-8

Performance program: March 9th

Co-curators: Deborah Everett and Raquel Chapa

Featuring works by
Thosh Collins
Mario Martinez
Peter Jemison
Yatika Fields
Jeffrey Gibson
Sarah Sense
Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Joseph Williams
Annabel Wong

Humanities Gallery: Lorenzo Clayton and the Dust Dive

Native Voices comprises three exhibitions of contemporary Native
work. The exhibitions offer a rare opportunity for the New York
public to engage with the work of contemporary Native artists from
Canada and across the U.S.– and it will include some of the
most moving and original work being currently made in any art
community. The works represent a cross-section of contemporary
sensibilities, commenting on the challenges of the postmodern world.
Some deal with issues of identity, including that of being an
outsider in a mass society. The work may or may not hint at the
ethnicity of its maker, but it consistently employs powerful
strategies to grapple with modern life in a global world.

Show in conjunction with FiveMyles gallery
http://www.fivemyles.org

and
Kentler International Drawing Space
http://www.kentlergallery.org/index.html

Part of the crowd inside the Kentler

Friday, February 8th, was the opening night of the new exhibit Native Voices at the Kentler International Drawing Space, a 501c3 gallery established in Red Hook, Brooklyn in 1990. For NAICA and Longviews, Red Hook is like going to New Jersey. That means it’s highly inconvenient to get there. We had to take a train and then a bus to get there, but I am glad we did.

(For the record, associate editor, Sonny Grant lives down the block from the gallery thes rest us live up in Queens).
Surprisingly, I say surprisingly ’cause of aforementioned distance, there was a large turnout for this all native contemporary “wordks on paper” show. More surprisingly, the crowd was ethnically diverse, not just the usual suspects we always see at these events, meaning Natives and friends of Natives.; not that there is anything wrong with the usual suspects but they’re already in the know. Contemporary native art needs to find a larger, more diverse audience, somehow the Native Voices show did exactly that.

The space itself is not unlike a lot of other small galleries in that it is basically one long hall; not exactly narrow but not wide enough to be the traditional square art space. It was large enough to contain a decent sized crowd as well as a snack and wine table at which some very good Malbec was served. For the record Longviews correspondents, Sonny Grant and myself, had two small cups each. We don’t condone drunkeness but do condone social drinking especially when the drink is actually good. For more information on the gallery check out their wesbite: www.kentlergallery.org.

The exhibit, co-curated by Raquel Chapa and Deborah Everett, was as diverse as the audience representing many genres of works on paper, as well as, levels of technical excellence. That’s a nice way of saying some of the artists seemed to not have as much technical prowess as others while some had plenty prowess but lacked conceptual knowledge or consideration. All in all though, an important step in getting native contemporary work into galleries not directly associated with the native community-not that there is anything wrong with native-centric galleries-as long as they aren’t in Santa Fe. HA!

The show runs through March 23 and makes a tour of Brooklyn stopping at Long Island University and FiveMyles. For more information on this show and other topics hit up our very first podcast of the new year located below.

Views from the gallery:

Artist, Mario Martinez points out the wine and cheese table.

Curator, Raquel Chapa, interviewed by anonymous white dudes.

Some works by Lorenzo Clayton

Frank Big Bear’s wicked cool Timezones 1985-86

Detail, Untitled (Bicultural) 2006, Artist Jason Lujan

Best in Show (solely the opinion of NAICA online and Longviews):

Kay Walkingstick’s, We’re Still Here, 2004

All photos: M Colon

In case you haven’t noticed it……..www.thenaica.org