COLEEN FITZGIBBON

Currently on view:
The Real Estate Show, Was Then: 1980
April 4 – 27, 2014
James Fuentes Gallery, 55 Delancey St, NYC

PRESS RELEASE

The return of The Real Estate Show in five NYC venues (James Fuentes Gallery, ABC No Rio, the Lodge Gallery, Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space and Spectacle), continues now through April 27th at James Fuentes Gallery. Find more information about all five shows HERE!

Coleen Fitzgibbon at “The Real Estate Show, Was Then: 1980”

Poster by Becky Howland.

In the last days of 1979, a group of artists broke into a city-owned building at 123 Delancey St. to install an exhibition they called “The Real Estate Show.” It was a protest against New York’s developer-centric land-use policies and a statement of solidarity with working people. A couple of days into the new year, city officials padlocked the building and confiscated the art. The episode was a key moment for activist artists on the Lower East Side that eventually led to the founding of the counterculture arts organization ABC No Rio.

Now, 35 years later, many of those same artists are delving into their personal archives to recreate the show at the James Fuentes Gallery, located just five blocks from the spot where the dramatic events unfolded.

Photo by Alan Moore.

The neighborhood is, of course, a very different place than it was then. Economic decay has been replaced by a real estate boom. Artists in 2014 are far more likely to be displaying their works in white box gallery spaces rather than in rat-infested tenements. But Fuentes, a Lower East Side native who grew up in the Vladeck Houses and now lives in the Grand Street co-ops,, said “The Real Estate Show” remains relevant today.

“It’s important for every gallery in the neighborhood to be aware that there’s a significant history here of exhibition and, you know, we’re not all inventing this as we go along,” he said.

The new exhibition is not only relevant, it’s timely. Three decades ago, artists were told they could not stage their show at 123 Delancey St. because the parcel was part of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, which was about to be redeveloped. No building happened back then, but today, the city is finally moving ahead with a new version of the project. A year from now, private developers are scheduled to break ground on Essex Crossing, a nearly two-million-square-foot residential and commercial development.

The show’s reprisal is multi-faceted. At Fuentes’ gallery, 55 Delancey St., many of the original works will be displayed. Some are being recreated. Community engagement events are planned at the Cuchifritos Gallery in the Essex Street Market, a building that will be demolished to make way for condominiums and new stores at Essex Crossing. There will also be programming at ABC No Rio’s headquarters at 156 Rivington St.

Among the 35 artists taking part in 1979 was Becky Howland. She created some of the posters for the show and became a driving force in the establishment of ABC No Rio.

“We had no idea what would happen,” Howland explained in a recent interview. “There was a thrill and excitement of breaking in.” Facing bad publicity, the city presented the artists, loosely affiliated with an organization called Collective Projects, with a list of abandoned buildings. They were asked to choose one for the group; they ultimately settled on 156 Rivington.

“It was incredibly ad hoc,” she said. “We made everything up as we went along.”

Preparing to recreate “The Real Estate Show” has been exhilarating for Howland. “It was so chaotic in that Delancey Street building and no one was formally documenting anything, so now the artists are piecing the show together like a jigsaw puzzle, and recalling old memories,” she said.

The idea for the new exhibition grew out of a conversation between Fuentes and one of the artists, Jane Dickson.

“I’m excited to be doing this show, because it is a reminder that there is a way to be an artist that is not part of the intense commercial artery that is running through the field right now,” Fuentes said. “Some younger artists aren’t even aware there’s another way.”

Poster by Becky Howland.

Tempera on board painting found in a former methadone clinic by artist Joseph Nechvatal.

Scanning photos of some of the works during an interview at his gallery, Fuentes observed that a lot of the art presented was unremarkable. But that may be beside the point. The event, and several others like it at around the same time, led to a watershed moment for 1980s radical art, “The Times Square Show.”

“There’s a beautiful narrative around these shows,” Fuentes added. “In 1980, there was an economic crisis. Today, there is a cultural crisis. Hopefully, by revisiting this show, we can speak to relevant issues now.”

Howland said a big goal 34 years ago was to create a place where people could talk over issues and express their concerns about gentrification. In one respect it was a major success, since ABC No Rio, she noted “has existed as a toehold of anarchy in the midst of Disneyland.” Reflecting on the tumult in 1979, she added, “Sometimes a little bit of drama is a good thing.”

“The Real Estate Show Was Then: 1980” is at the James Fuentes Gallery, 55 Delancey St. April 4-27. Additional events will be held at ABC No Rio and Cuchifritos Gallery, 120 Essex St. through May 11.

Read the article at:
http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2014/03/the-real-estate-show-revisted-at-the-james-fuentes-gallery.html

Thou playing live at Abc No Rio, New York City on March 22, 2014.
http://noladiy.org/thou/

Screaming Females at Bowery Ballroom in 2013 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

By Amanda Hatfield

Read the article on:
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2014/03/screaming_femal_37.html

Poster for The Real Estate Show by Becky Howland.

By Ed Litvak

The James Fuentes Gallery has announced a fascinating show taking place next month celebrating a groundbreaking moment in the Lower East Side’s history of art and activism.  Here’s a portion of the press release:

James Fuentes is honored to announce its forthcoming exhibition which will revisit a seminal exhibition called The Real Estate Show, which took  place in 1980 at 123 Delancey Street. Organized by Colab, a group comprised of artists and activists to collectively generate exhibition opportunities, funding and resources or artists,  The Real Estate Show took place in a city owned building that the organizers and artists utilized without permission from the city. The exhibition aimed to deal with what they saw as a real estate crisis in New York City for the non-­‐wealthy, the group dedicated the exhibition to Elizabeth Mangum, an African American woman killed by police and marshals as she resisted eviction in Flatbush.

The Real Estate Show ultimately led to the birth of the anarchist art center, ABC No Rio, at 156 Rivington St.  The new exhibition, titled, “The Real Estate Show Was Then: 1980,” will include many works from the original installation, films and related events at the James Fuentes Gallery, 55 Delancey St., Cuchiritos Gallery in the Essex Street Market and ABC No Rio.  It takes place April 4-27 and is tied to the first annual Lower East Side History Month. The programming at Cuchifritos and ABC No Rio extends into the first week of May.

The project is especially relevant today.  The space at 123 Delancey St. is part of the former Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. One year from now, developers of the new Essex Crossing residential and retail development will break ground on the six acre site.  Thirty years ago, the artists were told they could not use the vacant building on Delancey Street because the parcel was poised for development.  Decades later, it’s finally happening.

We’re preparing a more detailed online story concerning The Real Estate Show, as well as a report for our April print magazine. Click here to see the full press release, including a listing of artists involved.

Read the article at: http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2014/03/james-fuentes-to-reprise-the-real-estate-show-next-month.html

After a long hiatus, San Francisco Cinematheque has recently published Volume 7 of their journal Cinematograph. Cinematograph Vol. 7: Speaking Directly – Oral Histories of the Moving Image, (cinematograph no. 7, 2013) edited by Federico Windhausen, features recent conversations with filmmakers, artists, curators, and scholars.

An interview with Coleen Fitzgibbon by Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder is part of the publication! Beside myself, other filmmakers interviewed include Narcisa Hirsch, Jim Jennings, Chris Kennedy, Kerry Laitala, Annette Michelson, Tomonari Nishikawa, Elizabeth Price, Ben Rivers and Kidlat Tahimik. Interviewers beside Sandra and Luis, include Erika Balsom, Kathy Geritz, Aily Nash, Lucy Reynolds, Jonathan Walley, Mark Webber and Federico Windhausen. Also included are some great interviews from SF Cinematheque’s archive with Owen Land, George Kuchar, Warren Sonbert and Peter Hutton.

Cinematograph 7 may be purchased on SF Cinematheque’s website HERE.

Excerpt from Coleen Fitzgibbon by Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder (2008):

The following interview focuses on the conceptual ideas and exhibition history of Fitzgibbon’s structural film masterpiece Internal System. Film artists Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder have written: “In one of her minimalist films, the viewer is presented with nothing but a blank microchromatic frame slowly shifting through various intensities of color saturation, flickering/shuttering repeatedly from light-to-dark (and back again) for a duration of 45 minutes. The only hint of information we have to navigate through this complex and difficult film is at the head and tail of the film, in the rolling text “credits” introduced as positive at the head of the film and negative at the end. Technical information such as film stock, film speed, film length, camera, lens, shutter, projector, and a host of other data appear on the screen like hieroglyphs of some secret language to be decoded. Whether we know what this cybernetic schemata means or not, Internal System abandons us to the pure phenomenological ecstasies of cinematic temporality – the reveries of a radical filmic monochromism. At the end of the sojourn the titles repeat but in negative, as if the experience of their effects – purely visceral rather than analytical – offer no direct correlation to the mechanism they wield.” (Catalogue for the Independent Film Show 7^th Edition, Naples, Italy) This interview was conducted by Gibson and Recoder at Fitzgibbon’s studio in NYC, December 6, 2008.

Sandra Gibson / Luis Recoder: What is it like to be showing your early films again? Your films have been at the New York Film Co-op since the mid-70’s and people have been renting them on a sporadic basis here and there. We pulled them out to get them preserved, and are currently screening them. What is it like to revisit this body of work? Are there new experiences that emerge, especially in interacting with newer audiences?

Coleen Fitzgibbon: There are always things you wish you had done, but then that would have been another film. Showing the films again does bring up some of the same thoughts I had when they were first shown, such as how audiences receive them, and it isn’t always, you know, happy. Internal System is not like showing an audience a Hitchcock film with a plot, an ending and great images in between. When the film was screened for the first time at Knokke-Heist, 297 people walked out of 300 people in the audience.

Gibson / Recoder: But that’s the very crux of this kind of filmmaking. In other words, when you were making these aesthetic choices it was somewhat of a critical act that deliberately applied pressure on audience expectation. You were obviously challenging your audience and didn’t care to appease them.

Fitzgibbon: As you both know, experimental films can been aggressive in deconstructing audience expectation, and it’s usually filmmakers making films and videos for other filmmakers. That’s about as diverse as the audience gets.

Gibson / Recoder: Was there perhaps a certain crisis in the air where you said to yourself: “I need a broader audience, I need to reach out to other communities because this one is too jaded?”

FABRICATIONS: CONSTRUCTING FEMALE IDENTITY
Laura Elkins • Coleen Fitzgibbon • Laura Marsh
Curated by Yulia Tikhonova

Opening Reception: Friday, January 10, 6-8 PM
Show runs January 7-31, 2014
Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St. NYC

Artist Talk & Screening with Coleen Fitzgibbon
Wednesday, Jan. 15 @ 7:30 PM

FABRICATIONS features the work of Laura Elkins, Coleen Fitzgibbon, and Laura Marsh. The exhibition attempts to both explore and deconstruct mass media depictions of women. Though the Feminist movement is closing its 5th decade, little has changed in mass media. The span of years represented by these artists attests to the endurance of women as the object/subject of the male gaze, ambition, and fantasy. The descent from archetype to stereotype has been relentless; feminist artists have their work cut out for them.

From the beginning of television, stereotypes of women served political agendas. Once portrayed as weak, and manipulated by men, women are now “seemingly” independent actors. Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton are recent examples. Although women’s roles in society have changed, the media tools that fabricate their identity remain the same: aggressive media campaigns, over-abundance of paparazzi images, and an extensive crew of assistants and advisors.

Elkins, Fitzgibbon and Marsh deconstruct the way we conventionally process media images, using political and social juxtapositions, and spatial distortions. Blending candor, humor, and psychological analysis, these artists subvert the mediatization of the female idols and icons of American popular culture. They make it clear that it is hard work to become a symbol, and even harder to remain one.

Gallery/Lounge: 6 PM-Midnight Monday–Saturday
Daytime showings by appointment. Phone: 212.219.0736 ext ‘0’
Contact: Curator Yulia Tikhonova, [email protected], 646-596-1283

Colab TV: Excerpts from Potato Wolf, M/W/F Club, XFR STN at the New Museum, a 2-disc DVD selected and assembled by Andrea Callard and Coleen Fitzgibbon is now available for purchase!

On the occasion of XFR STN, a public archiving exhibition at the New Museum, in Summer 2013, we have assembled excerpts of videos originally shown on cable TV as Potato Wolf and produced by Collaborative Projects, Inc. (COLAB) 1978-1985.

Potato Wolf videos were originally created on now obsolete formats such as Sony Portapak, Super 8mm film, or 3/4″ U-Matic in the live cable studios of ETC (not Manhattan Neighborhood Network) and also at Young Filmmakers. When VHS came out in 1986, COLAB sponsored Alan W. Moore, Sophie Vieille, and Michael Carter to initiate the Monday/Wednesday/Friday (M/W/F) Club to distribute media made by COLAB members and other filmmakers.

Thanks to all COLAB artists involved, Coleen Fitzgibbon and Andrea Callard digitized these specific aging videotapes 2006-2013 and worked with Michael Grenadier, Abby Goldstein, Anthony Kapfer, and Katie Bradshaw to produce this DVD.

Friday, November 15th, 9:30pm
Soho House, 29-35 9th Ave, New York, NY

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative Presents:
Colab TV Video Excerpts

 Selections by Coleen Fitzgibbon and Andrea Callard

Introduced by MM Serra
Artist Discussion and Q&A with Tom Otterness

RSVP ONLY: [email protected] or (212) 267-5665

On the occasion of XFR STN, a public archiving exhibition at the New Museum, in September 2013, Colab members Coleen Fitzgibbon and Andrea Callard selected and assembled excerpts of videos originally shown on cable TV as Potato Wolf and produced by Collaborative Projects, Inc. (COLAB) 1978-1985.

Colab (Collaborative Projects, Inc.) was a forty plus artists group who worked collectively from 1977-1985 in NYC and who created a large body of collective work, including publications, art exhibitions, live television shows, music, performances and theater.