Posted by cafpress on: Tue 2nd Oct, 2012

Come to Your Senses Cocktail Party: October 5,  5-7 pm at CAF Satellite @ Hotel Indigo, 121 State Street

Beware the hobby that eats. –Benjamin Franklin

A unique and unforgettable series of events, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum's Crave: Art, Food, and Social Experience kicks off its 1st event with a sexy, sensual cocktail party that will highlight sight, sound, smell, touch, & taste! Join us for amazing Pali Wine tastings and delectable appetizers from Spare Parts chefs Alvaro Rojas and Weston Richards while experiencing lively music, cutting-edge art, and special treats like airbrush tattooing!

To purchase tickets to Come to Your Senses Cocktail Party, visit cravesb.eventbrite.com
$45 CAF Members| $55 General Admission

Come to Your Senses Cocktail Party is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau and Film Commission and Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s epicure.sb.

Co-Chairs: Candyce Eoff, Joanie Hudson, and Stevie Mason. Event Committee: Nicole Biergiel, Karla Blancas, Miki Garcia, Jaquelyn Klein-Brown, Kristin Palmer, Eileen Rasmussen, and Nancy Wall.

Sponsors as of September 20: Casa Magazine, dj.colormap, Candyce Eoff, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, The Henry Wine Group, Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara, Pali Wine Co., Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara News-Press, Spare Parts Bistro, and Stevie Mason Designs.

About the series:
Crave: Art, Food, & Social Experience
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum presents Crave: Art, Food, & Social Experience. Food, like art, builds bridges between people. The sharing of food inspires communal behavior akin to art's capacity for dialogue and understanding. Creating an exchange between culinary and visual nourishment, Crave is passionate inquiry through food, thought, and exciting visual imagery.

From early still–life paintings of Renaissance feasts to Rirkrit Tiravanija’s contemporary performances involving Thai cuisine, there is an established tradition of artists considering food to explore aesthetic ideas and encourage critical engagement. Crave comprises a series of artist–orchestrated, themed meals as an innovative form of cultural outreach and hospitality that results in resonant, cultural experiences. Food is an increasingly impassioned topic; the politics of how and what we eat have emerged as critical issues of our time. Now more than ever, food issues are ripe to be examined through the artistic lens.

To purchase tickets for other Crave events and for more details visit cravesb.eventbrite.com.

Categories:

Tags: sbart, sbarts, Crave, art, social experience, food, sblifestyle

Posted by cafpress on: Mon 14th Nov, 2011

ON VIEW FROM November 6, 2011 – January 8, 2012

Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum

Wireless: Francis Baudevin, Matthew Beiderman and Marko Peljhan, Dove Bradshaw, Nathan Carter, Tyler Coburn,  Aaron S. Davidson and Melissa Dubbin, Ellie Ga, Nicolas Lobo, Neighborhood Public Radio, Daniel Perlin, Roman Signer, and Jim Toth. Curated by Elizabeth Lovero

In honor of community radio station KCSB’s 50th anniversary, CAF presents Wireless, an exhibition featuring an international roster of artists exploring themes of radio transmission and communications. KCSB is a leader in non-commercial FM radio and the resurgent free-form format in the U.S. KCSB 91.9 FM is run by the Associated Students of the University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA. Wireless at CAF showcases artists residing in New York, Berlin, London, and Santa Barbara whose work is similarly concerned with the conveyance of ideas, memories, and objects across distances long and short. Former KCSB DJ and CAF Assistant Curator, NY-based curator Elizabeth Lovero brings together diverse mediums, such as sculptural installations, painting, video, photography, and sound, by artists Francis Baudevin, Dove Bradshaw, Nathan Carter, Tyler Coburn, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson, Ellie Ga, Nicolas Lobo, Neighborhood Public Radio, Marko Peljhan and Matthew Beiderman, Daniel Perlin, Roman Signer, and Jim Toth. Wireless addresses pertinent issues in the radio community by showing works that champion individuality, mirror the spirit of decentralization and diversity in ownership and programming, explore community and low-power radio stations, and challenge the corporate broadcasting formulas.

In addition, Jim Toth’s new sculptural speaker installation will carry the KCSB stream 24/7 at CAF and the UCSB MultiCultural Center will screen Magic Radio, a film about the democratic power of radio in Niger, on November 16, 6 pm at the MCC Theatre. Admission to exhibition and the above listed associated events is free.

Elizabeth Lovero is a curator and writer, who is currently pursuing an M.A. in Art History at Hunter College, New York, NY.

Special thanks to: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York, NY; Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; KCSB 91.9 FM, Santa Barbara, CA; New Noise Music Foundation, Santa Barbara, CA; The Presidio Motel, Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Barbara County Arts Commission; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; UCSB MultiCultural Center, Santa Barbara, CA; and Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.

Bloom Projects: Kathleen Yorba, Sequence

Kathleen Yorba is a mixed-media artist, her interests are the study of her Latina genealogy, the idea of organic memory and the inner workings of what is fondly called the three-pound enigma (brain). Yorba delights in the novelty of discovery while furthering her ongoing exploration of memory and identity. Delicate materials and artistic brevity encourage rumination on “the illusive characteristics of memory,” and inspiration drawn from the observation of a beehive’s life cycle reflects the search for internal meaning in the world outside.

Kathleen Yorba is originally from La Junta, CO and currently lives and works in Arroyo Grande, CA. She received her M.F.A. from Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA and her B.A. from the University La Verne, La Verne, CA.  Yorba was selected for the Jentel Artist Residency Program in 2010. Most recently she has shown in exhibitions at the Pacific Arts League, Palo Alto, CA, Studio 5216, Los Angeles, CA, and 825 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

Special thanks to: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York, NY; Susan E. Bower Exhibition Fund, Santa Barbara, CA; Brush & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA; Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; and Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.

ADMISSION IS FREE

Categories:

Tags: sbarts sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Fri 21st Oct, 2011

Thursday, November 3, 7 pm

Influential theater and film director Peter Glantz presents his multi-media solo performance, Being Impossible. With original unreleased music by Baltimore musicians Twig Harper and Dan Deacon, Glantz performs an ongoing, ever-changing show, featuring pure love, humor, colorful videos, and interstellar travel about a student’s journey to the sun. On both stage and screen, Peter has a signature whimsical visual style that combines a total commitment to fun and capturing the spirit and truth of the subject, story, or song.

Support for Forum Lounge 2011-2012 is generously provided by: the National Endowment for the Arts, Andrea Lang Fund, Daniel Clark, Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Winery,and Therese Schweidler. Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday.

ADMISSION IS FREE

Teaser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoUaRqgiVI

Categories:

Tags: sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Wed 14th Sep, 2011

Thursday, October 6, 7 pm
 

Brooklyn-based video and performance artist Shana Moulton presents a new version of the multi-media performance I Lost Something in the Hills, first presented in May 2011 at New York’s Bard College. Moulton’s performances and videos unfold atmospheric, askew narratives that combine wry humor with a low-tech, pop sensibility. She integrates theosophical and anthroposophical theories into carefully orchestrated settings, while testing them as to their adequacy for daily life.

Support for Forum Lounge 2011-2012 is generously provided by: the National Endowment for the Arts, Andrea Lang Fund, Daniel Clark, Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Winery, and Therese Schweidler.  Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday. 

ADMISSION IS FREE

Categories:

Tags: Forum Lounge, 1st Thursday, Shana Moulton, CAF

Posted by cafpress on: Wed 10th Aug, 2011

Thursday, September 1, 7 pm
Forum Lounge: Kegan McGurk, MEMORY DRAIN

Performance artists Kegan McGurk and Elisabeth McMullin use a digital magic system mixing combinations of augmented reality, computer vision, and three dimensional programming to tell stories. This interactive video projection creates an immersive reality, allowing virtual objects, characters and animations to be placed, moved and dragged around the stage. MEMORY DRAIN incorporates a live drawing technique inspired by Vaudeville theatrics where the audience is drawn into the experience through interactive animations.  

Support for Forum Lounge 2011-2012 is generously provided by: the National Endowment for the Arts, Andrea Lang Fund, Daniel Clark, Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Winery, and Therese Schweidler.  Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday.

ADMISSION IS FREE

Categories:

Tags: Kegan McGurk, SB ART, SB ARTS

Posted by cafpress on: Mon 13th Jun, 2011

Thursday, July 7, 7 pm

Artists Jacob Ciocci and David Wightman present a mash-up of live music, video, and staged theatrics, in a choreographed array of live shredding, extreme feedback, youtube bombardment, ecstatic dance moves, and Sunday morning cartoons. The short performance works range from absurd inspirational lectures, to musings on contemporary internet culture, to introspective meditations on metal guitar shredding technique, all couched within a lo-fi, intentionally awkward 'performance art' aesthetic. Their newest performance delves into the world of tween culture and the current obsession with the infinite hall of mirrors known as "forever young".

Jacob Ciocci is an artist and current Eyebeam Fellow notably regarded as one third of the American art collective Paper Rad.  He is also a prolific producer of music, installations, websites, and animations. David Wightman is completing his Ph.D. in music composition at UCSD, where he teaches courses on popular and contemporary music. Some of his many music projects include: Fortress of Amplitude, Powdered Wigs, and Chariots of Fire. Together Jacob and David form like Voltron in the high-NRG electronic music band Extreme Animals and have toured the country every summer for the past 8 years presenting their music, videos, and art.

Support for Forum Lounge is generously provided by: Andrea Lang Fund, Daniel Clark, Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, the Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Winery, and Therese Schweidler.  Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday.
ADMISSION IS FREE

Categories:

Tags: Forum Lounge, First Thursday, performance art, sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Fri 6th May, 2011

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 21, 6:30-8 pm

On view:  May 21 – July 17, 2011

Tuesday - Saturday: 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday: Noon to 5 pm

Michele O’Marah: Video Portraits

Los Angeles-based artist Michele O’Marah explores the effects of popular culture, deconstructing in particular Hollywood genre conventions with both reverence and criticality. Her commitment to involving the arts community as an active participant has always been an underlying element in her work. This exhibition will present a series of video portraits of artists, musicians, and friends, inspired by Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1964-66).  The exhibition will include patterned backdrops or wallpapers for each “character.”  The artist will also present a series of still photographs, so that the complete installation ultimately acts as a community portrait. 

Special thanks to: Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; ForYourArt, Los Angeles, CA; The James Irvine Foundation, San Francisco, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; James Van Arsdale and Kimberly Hahn, Santa Barbara, CA; and Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.

Exhibition on view:  May 21 – July 17, 2011

*Friday and Saturday: 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday: Noon to 5 pm

Jennifer West's film at home #9 will be on view until 9 pm

Home Show, Revisited

The reference to the community in Michele O’Marah’s solo exhibition in CAF's main gallery, Michele O'Marah:Video Portraits, provides a bridge to a public exhibition component co-curated by the artist and Miki Garcia, Executive Director. Reprising two of CAF’s most significant exhibitions, Home Show (1988) and Home Show² (1996), the two invited 10 Los Angeles-based artists to reconsider the societal and cultural notion of “home,” by creating site-specific installations in residences throughout Santa Barbara. Artists include: Piero Golia, Evan Holloway, Bettina Hubby, Florian Morlat, Kori Newkirk, Jennifer Rochlin, Ry Rocklen, Kirsten Stoltmann, Stephanie Taylor, and Jennifer West. The homes will be open to the public on Friday, and weekends throughout the run of the exhibition.  Visitors to CAF will be given a map and instructions for the tour.

Special thanks to: Candice Assassi, Carpinteria, CA; Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; David Court and Christi Westerhouse, Santa Barbara, CA; Candyce Eoff, Santa Barbara, CA; ForYourArt, Los Angeles, CA; Betsy Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA; Michael and Nancy Gifford, Montecito, CA; The James Irvine Foundation, San Francisco, CA; L.A. Eyeworks, Los Angeles, CA; Lady E Photography, Carpinteria, CA; Elaine LeVasseur, Santa Barbara, CA; Doug and Marian McKenzie, Montecito, CA; Andy Perry, Carpinteria, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; and James Van Arsdale and Kimberly Hahn, Santa Barbara, CA; Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.  

ADMISSION IS FREE

Categories:

Tags: Michele O'Marah, video, film, photography, sculpture, site-specific, Home Show, CAF

Posted by cafpress on: Fri 25th Feb, 2011

Opening: Saturday, March 5, 7-9 pm

Exhibitions on view: March 6 – May 1, 2011

Eating Apples in Paradise: Macduff Everton, Elizabeth Folk, Nancy Gifford, Penelope Gottlieb, Saul Gray-Hildenbrand, Kimberly Hahn, Cyndee Howard, Hank Pitcher, Warren Schultheis, Steven Soria, Jonny Troyna, and James Van Arsdale

As early as the 1900’s, the city of Santa Barbara promoted itself and its environs as an idyllic setting. From Pearl Chase’s visions of utopia to the widespread dissemination of the resort destination via the eponymous soap opera and into today’s promotions by the Chamber of Commerce and Conference & Visitors’ Bureau, Santa Barbara has consciously sold and established itself as a modern-day paradise. 

CAF dares 12 local artists to take a bite out of the proverbial apple with an exhibition exploring the realities and ambiguities of living in such an Edenic location. Via the artists’ works, this exhibition will reveal the multi-faceted issues of the region, both embracing and critiquing our history, sociology, and current conditions.

Eating Apples in Paradise is brought to you in collaboration with Lotusland’s exhibition, entitled Penelope Gottlieb, Gone, on view from February 26 - April 23, 2011. Docent-guided tours offered Wednesday through Saturday for an admission fee of $35 (adults), $10 (ages 5 to 18), and FREE to children under 5. Reservations are required to view the exhibition and may be made by email at reservation@lotusland.org or by phone at 805-969-9990.

Special thanks to: Susan E. Bower Exhibition Fund, Santa Barbara, CA; Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; and Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA. 

Bloom Projects: Sarah Cain, Santa Barbara

Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Cain takes painting outside of its traditional canon by using man-made and natural materials to create a tension between abstract, geometric logic, and a rush of fluid, free-form lines. Her canvases become sculptural as they extend beyond their frames to literally push the limits of what a painting can be.

Sarah Cain was born in Albany, NY in 1979. She received her B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA in 2001 and her M.F.A. from University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA in 2005. Cain is represented by the Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA. Her work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, CA; KN Gallery, Chicago, IL; and the Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland. 

Special thanks to: Susan E. Bower Exhibition Fund, Santa Barbara, CA; Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; Brush & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; and Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.

FREE

Categories:

Tags: sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Fri 18th Feb, 2011

Thursday, March 3, 7, 7:30 & 8 pm

Forum Lounge: Miwa Matreyek: Myth and Infrastructure

Myth and Infrastructure is a multi-media performance using projected animation. As artist Miwa Matreyek walks behind the screen, her shadow becomes an integral part of a fantastical world: She traverses oceanscapes, and cityscapes as she conjures magical domestic scenes with light and shadow. Matreyek's performance can be viewed as a cinematic experience taking place on a screen. W hat is seen on the screen is a collapsed product of multiple layers of animation, objects and body. Her work exists in a juxtaposition of illusion and non-illusion.

Matreyek is an internationally recognized animator, designer, and multi-media artist based in Los Angeles. She creates animated short films as well as live works that integrate animation, performance, and video installation. Her work explores how animation transforms when it is combined with body and space (and vice-versa).  In her video project-based installations, animation takes on a more physical and present quality, while body and space take on a more fantastical quality.

Support for Forum Lounge is generously provided by: Andrea Lang Fund, Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, Santa Barbara Winery, and the Santa Barbara Independent. Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday. 

FREE

Curator's Note:

This month's Forum Lounge is a particularly special event; it features UCSB-graudate Miwa Matreyek, who performed her last solo piece, Dreaming of Lucid Living, for the Forum Lounge three years ago. A extraordinarily talented animator and performance artist, Miwa is the first artist in the five years of Forum Lounge programming to return to Santa Barbara to perform a new work, Myth and Infrastructure. In addition to her solo performances, Miwa is also one third of a multimedia collaborative, Cloud Eye Control, and has performed as such venerable institutions as REDCAT, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and most recently, at the TED Global Conference in Oxford, UK. Simply put, Miwa is a rising star in the international performance art arena, and we are honored to have her here tonight to cast the magical spell that is her animated performance. In my opinion, Miwa's work is the perfect example of how performance art can be simultaneously accessible AND complex, both artistically and conceptually. Her performances are truly transformative, combining craft with abstract visual storytelling to create an environment of wonder and curiosity that always leave you wanting more. 

Categories:

Tags: arts, art, performance, animation, sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Wed 24th Nov, 2010

Thursday, December 2, 7 pm  Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum  FREE

Gravitational Forces explores technology as a medium for artistic expression by using dance and video to create a multi-sensory experience. This performance represents the emotions and struggles we face as humans through a fusion of dance, video, and generated sound. Dancers Anaya Cullen, Kaita Lepore, and Steven Jasso pull from the audience’s “kinesthetic sympathy” with the aid of Pinter’s direction and technological additions.

Marco Pinter (Creator/Director) received a B.A. from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY and a M.S. from the University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA. He has produced many performances including RUCKUS with Cloud Eye Control, Pamela Z, and his company’s Dichotomous as well works for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA with dancers from Company XIV, String Theory, and the State Street Ballet. A developer for Disney Imagineering and Mattel, Pinter has 7 issued patents and 23 pending patents in live video technology, robotics, interactivity, and telepresence.

Support for Forum Lounge is generously provided by: Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, KCSB, Santa Barbara Winery, and the Santa Barbara Independent. Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday.

Curator's Notes:

This month's Forum Lounge explores the genre of dance and movement in an interactive multimedia format to feature the original work Gravitiional Forces. The performance piece was conceptualized and produced by Marco Pinter, a local software engineer and MAT (Media, Arts & Technology) PhD student at UCSB, whose passion for merging art (specifically movement/dance) with technology has resulted in various local projects. For this piece, Marco used his broad base of software and technological knowledge to collaborate with local choreographers and dancers Anaya Cullen, Steven Jasso and Kaita Lepore to produce a series of small vignettes, all tied together by multimedia interactive components. As a result, the dancers use sensory equipment as an extension of their movements, creating a visual and audio component to the piece that is based on real-time experiences. 

Categories:

Tags: Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Marco Pinter, Forum Lounge, sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Tue 26th Oct, 2010

Thursday, November 4th, 7 & 8 pm Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum FREE

About the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (CAF) :  CAF is a non-profit, non-collecting alternative art space dedicated to the exhibition, education, and cultivation of the arts of our time.  Celebrating its 34^th anniversary in 2010, CAF is the premier venue for contemporary art between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  CAF is located at the Paseo Nuevo Mall Upper Arts Terrace in downtown Santa Barbara, CA.

CURATOR's NOTES:

I first became aware of Brody Condon's work when he premiered Without Sun at the prestigious Portland Institute of Contemporary Art's TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival in 2009 and then subsequently, as part of New York's Performa, one of the art world's most renowned showcase of contemporary performance art practices. In addition to his impressive performance pedigree, Condon's work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Art in America and Modern Painters Magazine. As Forum Lounge's curator, it is important to me that the program features artists of such excellent caliber; to have CAF on Condon's list of performance venues not only increases the prestige of the organization, but more critically, offers the Santa Barbara public a unique opportunity to take part in groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed performance artworks. Condon's piece is an excellent example of taking multimedia to the next level: he re-approrpriates accessible forms of media (in this case, found videos from YouTube and other video internet sites plus contemporary dance) to create works that challenge our perception of technology's influence on our culture. In his seamless duplication of the found material, we begin to question our objective ability to perceive ourselves in the digital world. 

--Heather Jeno Silva, Forum Lounge Curator

Categories:

Tags: Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Brody Condon, Forum Lounge, sbarts, sbart

Posted by cafpress on: Wed 24th Feb, 2010

Forum Lounge: Cartune Xprez, CASTL CRNRS
Performance: THUR. MAR. 4, 7 PM
Location: Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Paseo Nuevo Mall Upper Arts Terrace
FREE

Join us at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum on March 4, 2010 at 7 PM for Forum Lounge: Cartune Xprez, CASTL CRNRS.

Let your imagination run wild at Cartune Xprez’s CASTL CRNRS socialized performance! CASTL CRNRS combines animated videos and performance to unfold a three-part, mythical tale of a violent forest tamed and replaced with geometric systems.

Portland-based artists Peter Burr and Christopher Doulgeris are Cartune Xprez, a multimedia dance duo that use videos, music, and installations that capitalize on the abundance of digital information. By combining mediums, Cartune Xprez’s performances become social events, which are exaggerated by living animation energy. With youthful cartoon spirit, Cartune Xprez chooses material that leaves space for viewers’ imaginations and fuses many styles together.  Hand-drawn, digital, structuralist, comedic, and the dark are served up with a heavy dose of mystery!

About the Forum Lounge Series:  The Forum Lounge is a series of free, performance-based events that reflect CAF’s mission to sustain and encourage the artistic process by presenting art in the form of exceptional music, dance, video, and other multi-media to our community. The series encourages experiences with unique performance pieces ranging from the theatrical to the avant-garde that are normally found
only in large metropolitan venues.
 
Funding and support for the ‘09-‘10 Forum Lounge season generously provided by: Endevermusic Productions, the Franciscan Inn, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Official media sponsors: KCSB and the Santa Barbara Independent. Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s 1st Thursday.

Curator's Note:

I am excited and honored to welcome March's Forum Lounge featuring artist Peter Burr, one half of the collaborative multimedia musical art duo, Hooliganship. Their work first came to my attention when they performed as part of Machine Project's Field Guide to LACMA for an all-day, performance art spectacular in November 2008. Formed with partner Christopher Doulgeris in 2005, Hooliganship is one part art collective and one part experimental band. For this month's Forum Lounge, Burr will present a performance of Cartun Xprez, a traveling roadshow of animated videos featuring live video performance in an “electro-luminescent stage show.” Inspired by Saturday morning cartoons and USA Network’s animation shows, Burr and Doulgeris remix animated imagery using the work of established artists like Martha Colburn and Alison Schulnik and add their unique brand of collaborative performance with an emphasis on social interaction. In the blurring of genres and their boundaries, Cartune Xprez is an excellent example of a trend in contemporary art practices in which artists take advantage of accessible tools (i.e. animation software) and a willingness to share artistic efforts to create new work that defies traditional categorization.  CAF is actually just one stop on Peter's Cartune Xprez presentation; in addition to his performance in Santa Barbara, he is also presenting this roadshow in cities across the US including Minneapolis, LA, Reno, Oakland and Chicago. 

--Heather Jeno Silva

Categories:

Tags: sbart, sbarts, hooliganship, LACMA, cartune xprez, Peter Burr, Christopher Doulgeris, Machine Project

Posted by cafpress on: Mon 18th Jan, 2010

Posted on Dec 3, 2009

Forum Lounge: Julie Lequin, Top 30

THUR. DEC. 3, 2009 , 7 PM
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Paseo Nuevo Mall Upper Arts Terrace
FREE

Quebec-born artist Julie Lequin explores the construction of identity through role-playing and props, oftentimes with humorous results. A participant in CAF's exhibition Unusual Behavior, Lequin will present a performance piece related to her newest video work in progress Top 30.

Funding and support for the ‘09-‘10 Forum Lounge season is generously provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Make Studio, and the Franciscan Inn. Official media sponsors: the Santa Barbara Independent and KCSB 91.9 FM. Forum Lounge is presented in association with the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization’s First Thursdays.

Curator Note:

Julie Lequin's work blends theatrical unconvention, humor and pop culture in such a seamless, inventive manner that I immediately knew that I wanted to include her piece, Car Talk, in the Unusual Behavior exhibition at CAF. To compliment the show, I asked Julie to present her work in progress, Top 30, as a performance art piece for the Forum Lounge series. In addition to her filmmaking, Julie is a prolific sketch artist who prepares her films by creating paintings and drawings to lay out her work, scene by scene. This urge to draw and record her own history has greatly informed Top 30, a project in which Julie documents every year of her life until age 30. Using her charming drawings and humorous narrative, Julie pieces together the many places, emotions and thoughts from the past and accompanies them with a soundtrack of an actor (playing her) who sings one song that indicative of that particular year. The result is a poignant travelogue of sorts that focuses on the minute details of her life to form a revealing portrait of the artist.

--Heather Jeno Silva, Forum Lounge curator

Categories: