Check out the recent exhibition photos on Flickr.

"Conversations: Astria Suparak talks to Marisa Olson."

Marisa Olson is an artist,writer, curator, musician and performer based in Brooklyn and Astria Suparak is a curator who brought Olson and Rhizome's traveling exhibition, Networked Nature, to Syracuse, New York in spring 2007.

LTTR event at the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition

"Together with artists in the show, and other local feminists, we are creating a space for public dialog, intergenerational exchange, live feminist energy, and evidence of our continued presence."

Visit our new web archive of LTTR journals and activities. All content of the journals is online from issue #1 onward, as well as downloadable pdf-journals, and images of events from the past six years: www.lttr.org

I've moved here!

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The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics

Organized by YBCA, The Way That We Rhyme showcases the politically charged work of a new generation of women. Emphasizing performativity, collaboration and coalition building, the works are influenced by the feminist ideologies and activist movements of the past, while also speaking loudly and clearly to the issues facing women right now. Adhering to the notion that there is strength in numbers, the show culls together work from women of differing backgrounds and disciplines to highlight the common goals of their practices.

Artists include: Lisa Anne Auerbach, Andrea Bowers, Nao Bustamante, Tammy Rae Carland, Vaginal Davis, Eve Fowler with Math Bass, Deborah Grant, MK Guth, Taraneh Hemami, Miranda July and Shauna McGarry with Joanie 4 Jackie, LTTR, Leslie Labowitz and Suzanne Lacy, Aleksandra Mir, Laurel Nakadate, Shinique Smith, subRosa, SWOON and Tennessee Jane Watson, The Counterfeit Crochet Project organized by Stephanie Syjuco, The Toxic Titties, Jessica Tully, and RiotGrrl zines from the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Portland.

RELATED EVENTS: Rhyme In Motion: Performances with Nao Bustamante and Julie Atlas Muz


- - -
"Big Miss Moviola, later renamed Joanie 4 Jackie, is an independent distribution system and feminist art project created by Miranda July in Portland, Oregon in 1995. Utilizing grass-roots publicity, July invited women filmmakers and video artists to submit their completed works to Big Miss Moviola Every ten films July received, she compiled into a "Chainletter" tape which came with a corresponding booklet of letters written by the artists. She then mailed these tapes and booklets back to the ten filmmakers.

Through this access to rarely seen work, the women who participated in Big Miss Moviola/Joanie 4 Jackie created a community of activism and art-making that was scarce in the larger film and video worlds.

As the demand for Joanie 4 Jackie grew, three Co-star tapes were conceived and produced for the larger public. Co-star tapes are selective, curated compilations to draw attention to a specific group of women-made movies. These tapes are: Joanie 4 Jackie 4 Ever, curated by Miranda July, 1998; I Saw Bones, curated by Rita Gonzalez, 1999; Some Kind of Loving, curated by Astria Suparak, 2000.

The project continues. In 2003, July gave Joanie 4 Jackie to Bard College, in the hopes that a new generation of young women would be able to make use of the project. The last four Chainletter tapes (now DVDs) have been produced by Bard students under the direction of Professor Jacqueline Goss, who also maintains the project archives." - Miranda July and Shauna McGarry

Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader
Edited by Thomas Beard
Published by San Francisco Cinematheque

Essays by Lauren Cornell on Wynne Greenwood, Lia Gangitano on Luther Price, Andrea Grover on Treewave, Ed Halter in conversation with Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, Brett Kashmere and Astria Suparak on Canadian live cinema (including Daniel Barrow, Shary Boyle, Alex MacKenzie, Karl Lemieux), Brian Frye in conversation with Guy Sherwin, Andrew Lampert on the issues faced by archivists preserving expanded cinema, Alan Licht on Text of Light, a score by LoVid, program notes by Bruce McClure with annotations by Tess Takahashi, a graphic history of Providence's Movies with Live Soundtracks, and Mike Plante on Animal Charm, as well as other essays and ephemera from Cory Arcangel, Zoe Beloff, silt, and Ian White.


Book Release Party + Launch event with Sue Costabile, Animal Charm and members of Wet Gate and Cine Pimps

"Tonight we celebrate the release of Cinematograph Seven—Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader, edited by Thomas Beard, with a blowout event on the verge of raucous cinematic madness. Join us for the rhythmic analog anomalies of Refraction (“performative cinema with motion film and sound delivered by mechanical means”), presented by collective members of Wet Gate and Cine Pimps; the patchwork performance of Sue Costabile, aka SUE.C, which combines a crafty amalgam of photography, watercolor, hand-made paper, fabrics and drawing into a dark and moody textural milieu; and the convulsive vintage video-scape mash-ups of SoCal duo Animal Charm, as we commemorate this elated occasion. Come for the “live cinema” delirium and flip through the pages of our publication of honor."

"The Politics of Cool: Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby ask why the curatorial practice of Astria Suparak, late of The Warehouse Gallery in Syracuse, was deemed so controversial in that city."

"...I am suspicious when cool is used to stand for political radicalism or moral utility. But what Suparak has done for me is to restore my sense that cool can work as a powerful rhetorical device. Because as Miranda July pointed out almost ten years ago, Suparak curates to empower those who feel less than powerful. Suparak\'s practice is remarkable partly because although she speaks in the vernacular of the DIY culture on which she cut her teeth, the exhibitions and programs she puts together speak about a range of issues, and her sense of social justice is comprehensive and critical. She uses her personal voice and her institutional power to give permission to speak to those who might not believe they had it." - Duke & Battersby, "The Politics of Cool," C Magazine

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SYRACUSE, NY

@ The Warehouse Gallery, 350 W. Fayette St.

Free admission

Faux Naturel
9 November 2006 - 27 January 2007

Artists: Alex Da Corte / Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby / Nick Lenker / Annie MacDonell / Allyson Mitchell / Andrea Vander Kooij
Curator: A. Suparak

The group of North American artists presented in Faux Naturel is young enough to have grown up with a more informed sense about the environment, with Earth Day pre-printed on calendars and global warming existing as more than just a theory. These artists explore the territory delineated by the destruction of the natural world, with all its attendant themes. Entropy, redemption, apocalypse, the fall from grace, the temptations of commercial culture, and the relationship between science and magic all emerge as motifs in this exhibition.

Embracing Winter
13 February - 31 March 2007

Artists: Janet Morton, Takeshi Murata, Bruno Munari, Collin Olan, Lisa M. Robinson and Rudy Shepherd
Curator: A. Suparak

Embracing Winter is a group exhibition of knitted sculpture, psychedelic video, playful photography, and crisp audio and book works. This show also features interactive displays with take-home elements created by The Warehouse Gallery, a film screening titled "Winter Light," and a video event by Daniel Barrow, "Winnipeg Babysitter."

8 March 2007

8pm

@ The Redhouse, 201 S. West St.

Free event

Winter Light
Film, video, audio by: Arnait Women's Video Workshop, Michael Bell-Smith, Stan Brakhage, Thorsten Fleisch, Jake Kennedy, Kurt Kren, Peter Lipskis, Guy Maddin, Collin Olan, Paper Rad and Wolf Eyes, John Price, Joyce Wieland
Curators: Brett Kashmere and Astria Suparak

The Warehouse Gallery initiates a film series to complement its international contemporary art exhibitions. The screening Winter Light includes experimental film, video art, and audio field recordings from Austria, Nunavut, America, Germany and Canada, to accompany the sensational exhibit, Embracing Winter.

In a collaborative spirit, Winter Light is co-curated by filmmaker and writer Brett Kashmere and gallery director Astria Suparak, and co-presented by The Warehouse Gallery, neighboring arts center The Redhouse, and Thursday Screeners, a student group at Syracuse University. The Warehouse Gallery continues its expansion of art exhibition beyond the physical location of the gallery with roving artist talks, online broadcasts, and now, film screenings.

Similar to the Embracing Winter gallery show, Winter Light revels in the fleeting aesthetics of winter, presenting works that document ice melting, crystals forming, stars twinkling, birds migrating, surreal dreaming, the loss of consciousness and the warmth of a flame.

6:00 pm / Reception with light refreshments
@ The Warehouse Gallery, 350 W. Fayette St.

7:45 pm / Walk across the street with staff

8:00 pm / Film Screening, Winter Light
@ The Redhouse, 201 S. West St. Cosponsored by Thursday Screeners.

27 March 2007

@ The Museum of Science & Technology, IMAX Omnitheater

Winnipeg Babysitter Video Event
Overhead projector + archived cable access video curated, narrated by Daniel Barrow.

Networked Nature
17 April - 17 July 2007

Artists: C5, FutureFarmers, Shih-Chieh Huang, Philip Ross, Stephen Vitiello and Gail Wight

Networked Nature is a group exhibition that inventively explores the representation of “nature” through the perspective of networked culture. The exhibition includes works by C5, FutureFarmers, Shih-Chieh Huang, Philip Ross, Stephen Vitiello and Gail Wight, who provocatively combine art and politics with innovative technology, such as global positioning systems (GPS), robotics and hydroponic environments. The exhibition is organized by Rhizome and is accompanied by a full-color catalogue.

Faux Naturel, curated by Astria Suparak for The Warehouse Gallery, travels to Quebec!
7 July – 25 August 2007
7 July 2:00-5:00pm Reception; 2pm talk by Curator

Artists: Alex Da Corte / Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby / Nick Lenker / Annie MacDonell / Allyson Mitchell / Andrea Vander Kooij
Curator: A. Suparak

COME ON: Desire Under The Female Gaze
Artists: Jo-Anne Balcaen, Juliet Jacobson, Rachel Rampleman
Curator: Astria Suparak

Artist Talks : 20 Sept. @ Warehouse Community Classroom
3pm: Rampleman. More TBA

Sweet Nothings Reception + Guided Tour: 20 Sept. 5-8pm
@ The Warehouse Gallery in Downtown Syracuse, New York

Three young artists in Brooklyn and Montreal explicitly express desire, fantasy, disappointment, and pleasure in The Warehouse Gallery's new exhibition, COME ON: Desire Under The Female Gaze.

A rock star's virility is deflated through real-life testimonial in a video by Rampleman, male lovers are displayed in exquisite drawings evoking classical painting conventions by Jacobson, and Balcaen employs the trappings of romance in humorous text works and suggestive, ephemeral sculpture.

COME ON related viewing

Concert : Fri. 24 Aug. 7:30pm @ New York State Fair
Poison + other metal bands

Screening : Sun. 26 Aug. 8pm @ Spark Art Space
Daughters of Joy! + Lickety Split zine launch

Screening : Thu. 18 Oct. 8pm @ Watson Theater, Syracuse University
Emotional Realism

Store : Tue.- Sat. during exhibition @ The Warehouse Gallery
Videos, art journals, artist posters, zines, from $1-10

Television : Sundays 9pm @ VH1
Rock of Love

EMOTIONAL REALISM
A SCREENING OF VIDEO-WORKS BY ARTISTS

CURATED BY COOPER BATTERSBY AND EMILY VEY DUKE
PRESENTED BY THE WAREHOUSE GALLERY // UNDER THE FORMER DIRECTORSHIP OF ASTRIA SUPARAK
ANCILLARY TO HER SHOW // COME ON: DESIRE UNDER THE FEMALE GAZE

MIRIAM BACKSTROM <<REBECKA>> 40 MINS
LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER <<A MOTHER TO HOLD>> 22 MINS
DENA DECOLA & KARIN WANDNER <<FIVE MORE MINUTES>> 17 MINS
AMANDA BAGGS <<IN MY LANGUAGE>> 8 MINS 35 SECS

// THIS SCREENING IS THE LAST EVENT ASTRIA SUPARAK ORGANIZED IN HER CAPACITY AS DIRECTOR OF THE WAREHOUSE GALLERY.

+ Emotional Realism PDF:
<http://sparkartspace.com/images/emo%20realism%20poster.pdf>

COME ON related viewing

What happened in Syracuse?

- http://syracuse-warehouse.blogspot.com
- http://keepastria.com

Desire in Syracuse: the 'Come On' Controversy:

"Standing in sharp contrast to this text-book approach was Suparak whose exhibitions resisted narrow thinking and neat categorization—"Come On" was exemplary in this regard. For Hoone though, it must have had the character of something he could not understand nor contain—it was too messy, too sexy, too complicated—overall, too hot. But it was the same HOT thing that Syracuse embraced; and while probably challenging, a threat it was not. The fact is that Suparak did curate contextually strong exhibitions. This is why she had a following. This is why the Warehouse was widely hailed as a success... Suparak was exceedingly capable of creating a context for challenging and new work." - Yvonne Olivas, "Desire in Syracuse: the 'Come On' Controversy," Fanzine

Dear All,

I wrote you a letter.

Sincerely,

Astria

Here is the archived Warehouse Gallery website, with info, details, and images for the exhibitions and events I worked on from 2006-2007.

Check out the exhibition photos on Flickr!