Arranging Tangerines Episode 27 - A Conversation with Laura Splan Part 1

In this week’s episode, we welcome Kris Graves (and his associate Frank Francis) to our gallery and onto the podcast to discuss a multitude of topics including life with a baby, the charm and uniqueness of Queens, the origins of Hip Hop, Graves’ early commissioned work, museums’ and cultural institutions’ feelings about NFTs, Black Lives Matter, the role that race plays in art, history, and society, working day jobs, and how NFTs can be gate keeper resistant, and what is next for Graves. Originally recorded February 13, 2023

Kris Graves (b. 1982 New York, NY) is an artist and publisher based in New York and California. Graves creates artwork that deals with societal problems and aims to use art as a means to inform people about cultural issues. Using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices, Graves photographs the subtleties of societal power and its impact on the built environment. He explores how capitalism and power have shaped countries -- and how that can be seen and experienced in everyday life. Graves also works to elevate the representation of people of color in the fine art canon; and to create opportunities for conversation about race, representation, and urban life. He photographs to preserve memory.

Graves received his BFA in Visual Arts from S.U.N.Y. Purchase College and has been published and exhibited globally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Getty Institute, Los Angeles; and National Portrait Gallery in London, England; among others. Permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Institute, Schomburg Center, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brooklyn Museum; and The Wedge Collection, Toronto; amongst others.

Frank Frances (b.1983 Columbia, SC) is a NYC-based artist whose work challenges the everyday perceptions of memories and prejudice with close studies of photography’s materiality and dynamics; he is no stranger to being both voyeur and subject.

He has shown in solo and group exhibitions domestically and internationally at Sasha Wolf Gallery, The Studio Museum of Harlem, Glasshouse, Carriage Trade and Werkstadt Graz to name a few. Reviews and features of their work have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vice, NPR, ArtInfo, Bomblog, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek among others. He received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. His first book Remember The South is published by Monolith Editions

https://krisgraves.com/

https://www.instagram.com/krisgraves/

https://twitter.com/kgpnyc

https://www.instagram.com/kgpnyc/

http://www.frankfrances.com

https://www.instagram.com/frankfrancesstudio/

In this episode, we talk with artists Matthew Porter and Carlo Van de Roer about how they first met, the acquisition of NFT works by institutions and museums, the ever-changing attitudes of art collectors, the challenges and strengths of working with traditional artists in the NFT space, the idea of hybridity, and what Matthew and Carlo have queued up for the future.

Episode recorded on February 21, 2023.

Mathew Porter and Carlo Van de Roer have formed a dynamic partnership known as Zome, an artist-run collective focused on collaborating with artists in the NFT space. Within this innovative venture, they have successfully launched two captivating projects: "22 Pigeons" in collaboration with renowned photographer Roe Ethridge and "154Ever" alongside the talented visual artist Mariah Robertson.

Matthew Porter has had solo and group shows in a number of international galleries and institutions, including M+B, Los Angeles, Invisible Exports, New York, Anonymous Gallery, Mexico City, Koenig & Clinton, New York, and the Foam Museum in Amsterdam. Porter's curatorial projects include "Seven Summits" at Mount Tremper Arts, "The Crystal Chain" at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, and "Bedtime for Bonzo" at M+B. He is the co-editor of Blind Spot magazine Issue 45, and his writings and interviews have been featured in a number of publications including ARTFORUM. In 2012 Porter was included in the "After Photoshop" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum Art, New York.

Carlo Van de Roer (b. 1975) received his BFA from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. His work has been exhibited at venues such as M+B Gallery, Los Angeles; Suite Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; the MUSAC Museum of Contemporary Art, Léon, Spain; Transformer Station Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee; the New Museum, NY; Hyères Photography Festival and the Paris Photo Prize — a number of these institutions hold the artists work in their permanent collections. Damiani published Van de Roer’s first monograph The Portrait Machine with text by Val Williams. Notable press includes The New York Times, The New Yorker and Wired magazine.

As an inaugural participant in the New Museum’s New Inc program, Van de Roer founded a research and development lab in New York called Satellite Lab, with a focus on new technology for photography and film-making — this has led to the invention and patenting of several new camera and lighting technologies which the artist employs in his work.

Matthew Porter

@_matthewporter_

@archipelagi

Carlo Van de Roer

@carlovanderoer

@Carlo_VandeRoer

zome.art

In this episode, we talk with artist Mitchell F Chan about his early NFT project titled Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility, ideas of ownership and locating the source of value, techno utopianism, conceputalism within the NFT space and much much more.

Mitchell F Chan has created innovative works about technology since 2006. He creates large-scale public works, gallery installations, and digital artworks. He is best-known for creating one of the earliest non-fungible token artworks, which linked the immateriality of blockchain to the conceptual art practice of Yves Klein. In 2009, he was awarded the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Trustee Scholarship in Art and Technology Studies. His work has been covered and discussed in numerous media outlets including Artforum, Art In America, VICE, Canadian Art, Slate, the Toronto Star, and Gizmodo.

Mitchellfchan.com

@mitchellfchan

@mitchellfchan

In our most recent installment, Mike Varley (one half of the artistic duo Highley Varlet) has (half of) us over to his very official podcast studio (in his apartment) to discuss his and their artistic endeavors including the “2020: Total Clarity” project where they walked a marathon a day, five days a week, for a full calendar year, the people they met, the podcast episodes they produced, the bagels they ate, the weed bags they picked up, the subsequent NFT collections they produced and how this all helped him to broaden his understanding of New York City, create community, and think about the definition of the word “artist.”

Mike Varley has recently returned to the craft of 'About-Me' writing after a number of years that will henceforth be known as "About-less."

He's become aware through querying his senses that writing a bio two days before the end of a calendar year will garishly color the contents to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Nevertheless, he has opened a Cherry Coke for the occasion despite the fact it is neither the time of day nor the will of God.

18 months ago, Mike walked seven thousand and twenty four miles around the 5 boroughs of New York City - roughly four thousand, two hundred and sixteen of those with his now wife Jessi Highet. He has spent most days since reliving the experience via digital documentation, a testament to his dedication to never settle on an evident trajectory.

Recently he's learned that the act of entertaining, scheduling, performing, and supplementing radio, newsprint and television interviews is a surprisingly time consuming task but worth the effort if you get to meet Al Roker.

Please don't bite Mike Varley, he has no patience for doctors.

If you must know, Mike Varley has made feature films, novellas, music videos, Halloween masks, electrical cord paintings, Triple-A video games, podcasts, audio books, and, this one time, a tiny hut made out of no more than 20 cotton swabs.

He is pleased to have kept this brief.

Podcast Bonus Special: If you’d like to receive a free promo NFT from Highley Varlets “Weed Bags of New York” project, email us at info@lydianstater.co, with your Ethereum wallet address and we will send you one.

Links

2020: Total Clarity

Highley Varlet on The Today Show

Everything is Everything

Weed Bags of New York  

mikevarley.com

@highleyvarlet

In this episode, we talk with Lau Wai about their practice and process with discussions around Chinese naming conventions, the use of (or reference to) mocap suits, the differences between consumer and commercial software, how avatars can represent or misrepresent us, deep fakes, the influence of Hong Kong cinema, hybridity, NFTs, virtual galleries, and what the future holds.

Lau Wai 劉 衛 is a multidisciplinary artist, former photographer, storyteller, teacher, gamer, cat companion and more. Born and raised in Hong Kong and currently based in New York, Lau utilizes photography, moving image, new media, sculptural objects, and installation to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory and virtuality collide in the process of identity formation. Their research and material sources range from personal and historical archives to cinematic imagery and popular culture. Their works are collected by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (United States); Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung Foundation (Germany) and M+ Museum (Hong Kong), among others. They have exhibited in Europe, Asia, and North America, including Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture, Denmark (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2015, 2018); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019, 2021); Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan (2018); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan (2015); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2019) and Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020). They are also a former resident at NARS Foundation, New York and Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred University, New York.

Links;

Neither Here Nor There

Here & Album

Extract

I am invincible…on the screen / False motion tracking

Feed 3.0

In this very special podcast, Alexandro and Joseph do their best infomercial impression to pitch our new gallery initiative, the Lydian Stater Collector Pass. The Lydian Stater Collector Pass is an annual pass issued in the form of an NFT that guarantees ownership of exclusive physical and digital artworks from every artist exhibited in our 2023 season in addition to bonus perks. Listen to learn more about the pass or click the link below.

Lydian Stater Collector Pass

This week, we have Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen on the show to talk about her curatorial practice including the current exhibition at Lydian Stater “Neither Here Nor There,” her experience working as a cultural specialist in Mexico, how she carved a path to the visual arts, NFTs as a medium rather than a container, her recent exhibitions in New York “Common Frequencies” and “Subversive Kin,” the merits of artists choosing a curator instead vice versa, her brief art practice, virtual reality as an expansion, and her collective approach to curation.

Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen is a Mexican, Brooklyn based Curator and Arts and cultural producer who has collaborated with artists and institutions to produce and curate art pieces, exhibits, festivals and cultural events. As Cultural Specialist at the UNESCO Field Office in Mexico she developed projects and curated exhibitions concerning the relationship between culture and migration, audiovisual heritage, and the environment. Prior to that, she was Head of Exhibitions of the Alas y Raices program at the Ministry of Culture in Mexico. Elisa has also collaborated with the International Human Rights Art Festival in New York and the International Contemporary Animation Film Festival ANIMASIVO, among others. Most recently, she served as Programs Manager and Curator at the NARS Foundation while also developing independent projects; among them Subversive Kin: The Act of Turning Over, presented at The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in NY, and Common Frequencies, at BioBAT Art Space in Brooklyn, NY. She currently pursues her graduate studies at Hunter College and works as an independent curator. 

Links;

𝘕𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 Panel Discussion with @huidixiang, @lau_wai_lau, and @egeriksen

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Huidi Xiang to talk about her work in our current exhibition “Neither Here Nor There” at Lydian Stater in addition to how gaming influences her work, the overlaps between digital gaming assets and NFTs, the ethics of underpaying oneself, the problems of underpaying others, repetition as a metaphor for labor, the tragedy of The Villager’s Down Special Move in Super Smash Brothers, the importance of faux material in her sculptures, the impossibility of building the ideal IKEA product, and repetition as a metaphor for labor.

Huidi Xiang (b. Chengdu, China) is an artist and researcher currently based in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She holds an MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University (2021) and a BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University (2018). In her practice, Huidi makes sculptural objects, installations, and systems to examine the spatial and temporal effects of inhabiting both virtual and physical worlds in late capitalism. By reimagining and reconstructing elements from different contexts, including on- and off-line, she creates works to construct a realm situating in between, intending to articulate the emerging politics and critical issues associated with the ever-expansive merging between the physical and the virtual, the real and the simulated, and the fact and the fiction. Huidi’s works have been exhibited internationally, including OCAT Biennale at OCT Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China, LATITUDE Gallery in New York, USA, Contemporary Calgary in Calgary, Canada, Hive Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, Miller ICA in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Center for Architecture and Design in New Orleans, LA, USA, and South London Gallery in London, UK. Huidi has also completed some artist residencies, including ACRE Residency Program(2021), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2020), and Project Row Houses Summer Studios (2016).

Links;

𝘕𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 Panel Discussion with @huidixiang, @lau_wai_lau, and @egeriksen

see shovel saw NFT

elephant slide NFT

CHEESE COLUMN

10 yr old Huidi playing the Guzheng

In this episode we speak with Nando Alvarez-Perez. We reflect on our previous exhibition, post industrial digital dysmorphya, and discuss the politics of being a triplet, when the right time to “retire” a body of work is, image selection and the flattening of history, the indirect impact Walter Benjamin has had on his practice, deskilling, doodles, and recent activities at Lightwork’s residency program, Cornelia Magazine, and the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.

Nando Alvarez-Perez is a native of Buffalo, New York. In 2014 he graduated from SFAI, where he received the Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Photography. He uses his work to investigate the boundaries between the personal and the political, the fitness of psychology for ideology, the discrepancies between history and biography, and the relationship between memory, meaning, and place. His practice extends to his work as a founding director of The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, an art and education nonprofit that model how culture can sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art, and as editor-in-chief of Cornelia, a visual art review published three times a year for the Western New York and Southern Ontario region. He is currently a visiting professor at Alfred University. 

In this week’s episode, we catch up with Christos Makridis, the CTO/COO and co-founder of the Web3 multimedia startup Living Opera, to discuss how writing can be an approach to understanding the world, human capital, how NFTs and music are such a natural fit, the way Living Opera is working to support emerging opera musicians, the Magic Mozart NFT project, AI’s potential role in the arts, and the possibility of Web3 becoming a space for the common good.