ap-art-ment

ap--art-ment's show is a Top Pick!

2012-01-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

Because we can't help ourselves and are so unbelievably flattered, here's a link to Las Vegas Weekly's top picks for 2011. ap-art-ment's About the Thing and the Thing Itself at Pop Up Art House was their #1 pick for art exhibitions!!! Thanks to Matthew Marchand and to Shannon Mc Mackin for giving us the opportunity to put this show together. And thank you to all of our friends who travelled from San Francisco, LA, and Virginia to support us and see the show!

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2011/dec/29/2011-year-review-art-and-theater/

Myth, detail

2012-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Myth, detail
ap-art-ment
2011
pencil, paper

Myth is a set of limited edition drawings by ap-art-ment.
The artist not-so alone in her studio...

a moment of John Dewey

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

"Emotions are attached to events and objects in their movement (environment). They are not private."

-John Dewey, Art as Experience

ap-art-ment asks, are they social?

Collaborations within a Collaboration at SCOPE Miami 2011

2011-11-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

ap-art-ment contributes three projects to the 2011 Skowhegan alumni project: Strength In Numbers at SCOPE Miami 2011

Strength In Numbers:
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS is an event, a sculpture, an installation, and a group of individual artists with extremely diverse practices laminated by a shared experience at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, where they met and started working together during this past summer’s session. In proposing a project for SCOPE, this was their point of departure: what is an individual within the context of an organization? Using these constraints as a catalyst, the project has evolved into a collaborative effort to bridge the physical distance between each of them, and manage a condensed time of production and display. Featured in the Outside Lounge at SCOPE, the 2011 Skowhegan residents will reassemble, build, project, stage, and perform a space for collaboration, ambiguity, and flexibility. They will work on their monument “the group” during the course of the fair; side by side, but not necessarily together, like a ship’s crew trying to stay afloat. Their materials will consist primarily of the detritus of other participants at SCOPE and the contents of two crates, arriving from New York and London, respectively. The items inside the crates will be incorporated based on written instructions, telephone conversations, email correspondence, and hands on assistance from the artists. Ultimately and throughout, we will be arriving at a structure that is zoned for productivity and a vibe that overcomes the aspirations of any of us individually. During the week-long event and on a daily basis, the monument will evolve, grow, discharge, dissolve, take U-turns, make upgrades, flex and flux, purge and merge, expand and even collapse in a constantly-morphing building performance.

ap-art-ment at SCOPE Miami, 2011

2011-11-21T20:05:00.000-08:00

This piece by ap-art-ment will accompany the Skowhegan assemblage at SCOPE Miami this November-December.

Shaved
by ap-art-ment
2011
materials: carpet

About the Thing and the Thing Itself, closing reception

2011-11-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

About the Thing and the Thing Itself
Works by ap-art-ment, and solo works by both its progenitors, Laura Boles Faw and Cathy Fairbanks

closing reception: November 12, 2011 12-2pm
Pop Up Art House
730 W. Sunset, Henderson, NV 89011

A recent review of the show can be found here:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2011/nov/09/sensuous-now/
or here:

There’s a variety of everyday magic that draws the senses into focus—a sound or maybe an action that aligns the body and mind into full and complete attentiveness. Worries about tomorrow or regretful yesterdays fall away, and for an instant we are utterly present in time. The sound of a zipping jacket. The act of washing dishes. The touch of a dog’s cold wet nose. It can be a quick snap-to or a slow slip out of oblivion and into a sensuous now.

A preoccupation with this kind of “there-ness” permeates Pop Up Art House’s About the Thing and the Thing Itself, an installation by Californians Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw, under the collaborative name ap-art-ment.

The pair primarily investigates the very nature of collaboration. A quick and dirty read of the installation almost theatrically illustrates this creative conversation, symbolically played out in a series of pairings that crescendo in Fairbanks’ “Sleeping Bags.” The sculpture presents two sleeping bags lovingly stitched in swirling methodical zigzags that pucker and manipulate the sacks in such a way as to subtly suggest the curve of a recently vacated body. The bags are inverted and upright, resting atop two mannequins, facing one another in stilted exchange. The collusion is echoed by the proximity of Faw’s haunting “Part 1,” two prints of two drawings of crumpled blank paper, specimens of (or placeholders for) exchange between the artists themselves.

Don’t let the veneer of duality fool you: The heart of About the Thing is its vigorous simultaneity. Faw and Fairbanks function alongside one another, two coins spinning rather than two sides of the same coin.

In this interrogative dialogue, moments of precision seem to pinpoint instances of connectivity, but oddly those seem to happen most successfully independent of one another. An exhilarating “there-ness” is present in Fairbanks’ “The Drawing of Force,” purses made of deployed vehicle airbags, and the gorgeous fetish-finish infinity of dog snouts in Faw’s “Smelt Out” would give a Zen Buddhist a run for her money in its sensorial celebration of the Now. While interesting, collaborative pieces like the drawings in “Myth” footnote the mysterious alchemy of the solo work of these two artists viewed in proximity, a more fascinating chess game. As articulated in About the Thing, one artist is always a ghostly presence in the best of the other’s work.

Faw’s “Props” beautifully sums up the open-ended precision of About the Thing. Two unidentifiable, vaguely nonfunctional pink tools lean against mirrors, pinning them to the wall. The point of touch is also a point of departure, an ending and a beginning: acute, precarious and sure. Ap-art-ment’s most lucid instances of collaboration emerge in the present tense, a space-gap of pure potential.

About the Thing and the Thing Itself at Pop Up Art House

2011-09-27T07:46:00.001-07:00

About The Thing and The Thing Itself
A Collaborative Installation by
Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw

ap-art-ment
curated by Matthew Marchand
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 8, 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition Dates: October 8 - November 12, 2011

Pop Up Art House is pleased to present its first solo exhibition of the Los Angeles/San Francisco based collaboration ap-art-ment, About the Thing and The Thing Itself.

This exhibition explores ideas of relationality and proximity to objects and others. For the progenitors of ap-art-ment, Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw, collaboration is an ongoing conversation concerning the possibilities and potential of collaboration. This has become a more open dialogue as Fairbanks and Boles Faw now work in different cities.

For About the Thing and the Thing Itself, ap-art-ment has created sets of material proxies that reference surrogacy. These proxies are manifest through various forms including sculpture, videos, photographs, and drawings. Since its inception in 2009, ap-art-ment has explored means of production and shared authorship that are charged. Through ideas of "thereness," boundaries and radical empathy, their newly imposed geographic distance has become a fertile space of inquiry. About the Thing and the Thing Itself will pair work made collaboratively with relevant works from their solo practices, all of which examine where collaborative boundaries lie.
It is apropos that the Pop Up Art House exhibits the latest phase of ap-art-ment's collaboration. The cultural space that Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw investigate resonates with a Las Vegas that stands astride a seam in American culture: proposing the familiar while maintaining a position in the fantastical. For ap-art-ment the Pop Up Art House becomes a boundary where two bodies of work, twice removed from the familiar and made in collaboration but at a distance, meet.
Laura Boles Faw and Cathy Fairbanks of ap-art-ment hold MFA degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Boles Faw's work focuses on the re-stylization and thus re-definition of visual signifiers. Selected group exhibitions include Adobe Books Parlor, Mission 17, Royal Nonesuch, and Clara Street Projects. Recent solo exhibitions include Propped-Up: A Tale of No(Non)Sense at Ever Gold Gallery and A Love Story for The One. In August of 2011, Boles Faw co-curated the exhibit Over My Dead Body: A Collaborative Installation about Artistic Survival at Root Division Gallery in San Francisco.
Fairbanks' work, which often communicates a sense of frustrated desires, has been exhibited across the western states. Her work has been seen at Bay Area venues such as Queen's Nails Annex, The Adobe Books Parlor, and Pueblo Nuevo Gallery. Her first solo exhibit, To Form, traveled to Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, fall of 2010. She recently completed a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, summer of 2011.

http://ap-art-ment.blogspot.com

About The Pop UP Art House:
The Pop Up Art House is a temporary, contemporary gallery in one of the many vacant storefronts in the Las Vegas Valley. PUAH is in an industrial area within the City of Henderson's Redevelopment zone, an area originally intended to rival Hollywood as the location of Jerry Lewis' Rainbow Studios. PUAH hopes to facilitate true revitalization that springs from vibrant and creative collaboration between local government, the community and artists bringing culture and diversity to previously derelict spaces. PUAH Gallery aims to take advantage of this economic downturn by offering a large exhibition space and bringing regional and national artistic voices into the local community with a challenging art program featuring emerging artists.
Scott Dickensheets, Las Vegas City Life writes, "it does have a few things going for it: The location, on a declasse stretch of Sunset Road instead of downtown, is just off the freeway, and -- in contrast to the Main Street feel they're foisting onto Water Street -- PUAH's nabe is industrial, gritty, anti-suburban; and owner Shannon Mc Mackin seems committed to it. ....it's probably a good sign that this fledgling gallery in a Henderson backwater puts on airs -- -- as good as any high-falutin' gallery in town. Worth a drive down the 95."
Vegas Seven calls it "one of the coolest projects to land in the Las Vegas Valley."

General Information:
PUAH is located on 730 W. Sunset, Henderson, NV 89011. For information on PUAH please vist our websitewww.thepopuparthouse.com or contact Sam McMackin via telephone at 323-240-2888 or via email atsam@thepopuparthouse.com
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 2pm and by appointment

The Gate and The Farallons

2011-03-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

Far Along

2010-12-17T02:17:00.000-08:00

Far Along
Boat Expedition and Exhibition
The Third of its Kind

Coming this Fall
for details, email
apartmentrsvp@gmail.com

a worthwhile read

2010-12-17T02:13:00.000-08:00

Check out this online exhibition by Margaret Tedesco and learn something new.
http://blog.sfmoma.org/2010/12/collection-rotation24/

A Matter of Course

2010-12-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

ap-art-ment experiences Vernissage 2010.

2010-05-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Essential Voyage

ap-art-ment floats. For Friday’s Vernissage festivities, ap-art-ment is chartering a small Grand Banks to take people out on the bay for a short voyage. A shuttle will whisk small groups of people from the front door of Herbst Pavillion to the dock at City Yachts a mere 400 yards away. You will board The Cimba and head out for a 20-minute Bay experience and return to the pavilion newly-oriented to Fort Mason and its surrounding geography.

The Broadsheet,Volume I

ap-art-ment goes to press. ap-art-ment is releasing its first publication, a tabloid newspaper, printed on the Vandercook printing press at SFAI. Copies of The Broadsheet will be distributed at Vernissage on May 13, 7-10pm and May 14 from 6-8. Look for newspaper boys passing out the newspapers in Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason. Contributors to The Broadsheet are Matthew Marchand, David Zuttermeister, Magda Stanova, Daniel Yovino, Nicole Lattuca, Patricia Augsburger, Cathy Fairbanks, and Laura Boles Faw.

The Broadsheet is topical, irreverent, and expansive.

The Incredible Hull

ap-art-ment sails. ap-art-ment sails the Bay on Wednesday, May 19. Leaving the Berkeley Marina at 11:30 am, ap-art-ment will sail the San Francisco Bay heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge as we collectively experience a sound piece by Cathy Fairbanks about her family's connection to the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and her own complicated relationship with this structure.

ap-art-ment Has Gone To Press!

2010-05-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

ap-art-ment has gone to press with its first publication, a tabloid newspaper The Broadsheet. Contributors to volume 1 of The Broadsheet are Matthew Marchand, David Zuttermeister, Nicole Lattuca, Patricia Augsberger, Daniel Yovino, Magda Stanova, Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw.

The Broadsheet will be distributed at Vernissage, SFAI's MFA Thesis Show, which runs from May 15- May 22 at Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Newspaper boys will distribute the paper during the opening night's festivities on May 14 from 6-8.

Crossword Answers: The Broadsheet, Vol. 1

2010-05-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

Across:

1. absurd 3. dualism 5. mimesis 6. hubris 8. foreground 10. trope 11. meta 12. alterity

13. ego 14. paradigm 16. complication 18. quality 20. icon 21. fragmentation

Down:

2. desire 3. dysfunctional 4. strategy 7. metonymy 9. disruption 11. myopic 13. episteme 15. doubling 17. co-opt 19. aura

2010-03-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

2010-02-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

Menu for All things Dumbballs,
a dinner honoring the late David Ireland.

warming up the crowd with...

Sausage Dumbballs
Makes 5 dozen.

3 c. Bisquick
1lb. Ground Sausage (mild)
1lb. Sharp Cheddar Cheese Shredded

Combine ingredients and form into 1" diameter balls. Bake at 350˚ for 12-15 minutes on the middle rack of the oven.

Olive Dumbballs
Makes 3-4 dozen.

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup flour
½ tsp paprika1/4 lb. butter
3-4 dozen small stuffed olives

Combine all ingredients except olives. Mix very well, chill. For each puff, use a generous teaspoon and shape into a ball. Push finger into center and make a deep impression. Put olive in and shape the dough around to fully cover the olive. Bake into preheated oven 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Do not brown.

to feed the masses...

Vegetable Soup with Dumbballs
for 6 servings
Thank you Joy of Cooking!
For the 3 cups of stock in the recipe, use 2 cups diced vegetables.
Bring to a boil over high heat, in a soup pot:
3 cups Vegetable stock
¼ cup diced onions
¼ cup diced carrots
¼ cup sliced celery
¼ cup diced potatoes
¼ cup 1-inch pieces green beans
¼ cup corn kernels
¼ cup baby peas
¼ cup baby lima beans
¼ cup chopped green cabbage (optional)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon tomato paste or ½ cup chopped drained canned or stewed tomatoes
Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
In another bowl mix together
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
Bring just to a simmer in a small saucepan:
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
Add to the dry ingredients. Stir with a fork or knead by hand 2 to 3 times until the mixture just comes together. Divide the dough into about 18 puffy dumplings. Roll each piece of dough into a rough ball. Gently lay the formed dumplings on the surface of your stew, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Chicken Fricasse with Dumbballs
for 15 servings
Thank you Joy of Cooking!
Rinse and pat dry:
10 to 13 pounds chicken parts
Separate the legs into thighs and drumsticks; cut each breast half diagonally in half through the bone. If you wish, remove the skin. Sprinkle the chicken with:
Salt and ground black or white pepper to tase
Heat in a heavy 8-10 inch skillet in 3 divided batches over medium heat until fragrant and golden:
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
Place as many chicken pieces in the pan as will fit comfortably and cook, turning once, until pale, 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Remove the chicken to a plate and brown the remaining pieces in the same manner. Add to the fat in the pan:
4 and ½ cup chopped onions
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender but not browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in:
1 cup all-purpose flour
Cook, stirring, for 1 minute, then remove the pan from the heat and whisk in:
6 cups hot water
5 ½ cups chicken stock
Whisking constantly, bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Add:
24 ounces mushrooms sliced
9 medium carrots, peeled and diced
6-9 large or medium celery stalks, diced
1½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon salt
1½ teaspoon ground black or white pepper
Return the chicken pieces with all accumulated juices to the pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat so that the liquid barely bubbles. Cover tightly and cook until the dark meat pieces exude clear juices when pricked with a fork, 20-30 minutes. Skim off the fat from around the sides of the pan with a spoon. If you wish, stir in:
¾ to 1½ cup heavy cream
Season to taste with:
Salt and ground white or black pepper
Several drops of fresh lemon juice
In a large bowl mix together
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
Bring just to a simmer in a small saucepan:
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
Add to the dry ingredients. Stir with a fork or knead by hand 2 to 3 times until the mixture just comes together. Divide the dough into about 18 puffy dumplings. Roll each piece of dough into a rough ball. Gently lay the formed dumplings on the surface of your stew, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

to finish...

Peanut Butter Chocolate Dumbballs
Mix thoroughly
½ cup white sugar
½ cup white syrup
Heat over low heat until sugar is melted. Do not boil.
Add and mix well
1 cup peanut butter
½ teaspoon Rice Krispies
Form in patties and cool on wax paper.
For the chocolate ganache
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Dip the peanut butter balls into the ganache. Cool individually on wax paper.

2010-02-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

A Night of Dumbballs

2010-02-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

2010-01-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

Recently artist David Zuttermeister wrote this about ap-art-ment:

The artist collaborative of Cathy Fairbanks and Laura Boles Faw launched a project last summer called ap-art-ment, meant to study the ways that making art in a domestic context might change the game.

For the purpose of the project, Fairbanks and Boles Faw secured an apartment in San Francisco which they used in order to host screenings, talks, discussions, dinners, trans-atlantic video chats, cooking lessons, art-making sessions, workshops, panels, planning, and introspection with an emphasis on the intimate and the domestic. The two then collaborated on a public performance in the Adobe Books window project, organized by the Pistils, in which they collaboratively constructed two sculptures from ap-art-ment's ephemera in the Store/gallery's two windows by systematically trading the authorial/maker roles with each other vis-a-vis each sculpture.

Since no single document or object can reify the totality of this project, only other discursive practices can hope to capture it. One attempt is ap-art-ment's blog. Another is the pair's performance/sculpture. Neither is an accurate representation, but simultaneously points to itself and ap-art-ment. Since each of these additional discursive documents does not contain the work, but only further expands it, any attempt to conceptualize a means of display for it, to fix it, to pin it down, cuts it off at the knees.

The Domestic-Garde

2010-01-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

ap-ART-ment Exhibit B

2009-10-27T09:54:00.001-07:00

ap-ART-ment, Exhibit B, Adobe Bookstore Parlor

2009-10-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

Inside/Out is the second of five InterMissions that are created and curated by Mimi Moncier as part of the Adobe Parlor projects (curated by Devon Bella). Inside/Out will be a continuous series of performances within and around the window areas of the Adobe Bookshop that will attempt to challenge our cultural notions of display, exhibition and social activity. Thematically, each will refer to the production of space as an ongoing and ever-changing activity within which we are all participating. Inside/Out specifically examines issues of public and private space.

When: Friday, October 16, 2009, 5:00-10:00pm

Saturday, October 17, 2009, 4:30-10:00pm

Where: Adobe Bookshop Display Windows

3166 16th Street in the Mission

between Valencia and Guerrero

Closing Party: Saturday, October 17th, 2009, 10:00pm

Artist Talk, Terri Cohn's burning of stories

Inside/Out Schedule of Events

Friday, October 16^th 5:00-10:00pm

Window Left

5:00-5:30 Susan Rippberger Slip

5:40-6:10 Mary V. Marsh right sides facing

6:20-7:20 Hava Liberman *like*

7:40-9:10 Emily Dippo/Kim Cook Bio Box Suit Construction

9:10-10:10 Cathy Fairbanks ap-ART-ment Exhibit B

Window Right

5:00-6:00 Alan Lewis ½ Way Home

6:10-7:40 Tony Bellaver Trekker

7:50-8:20 Jesse Eric Schmidt mirroring

8:40-9:00 Happy Doll Learning Merce

9:10-10:10 Laura Boles Faw ap-ART-ment Exhibit B

Saturday, October 17^th 4:30-10:00pm

Window Left

4:30-5:30 Krisztina Lazar Gilding the Lily

6:00-7:00 Happy Doll meditating

7:00-7:45 Linda Trunzo homoboy

7:55-8:55 maude.a.loo tags.along & shy baby collins

night-night, love you, sweet dreams, sleep fast

9:00-10:00 Reece Carter Grooming

Window Right

4:30-5:30 Kathryn Williamson Back Fall Front

6:00-7:00 Krisztina Lazar meditating

7:00-8:20 Peter Max Lawrence Working Out

8:30-10:00 Terri Cohn Tell me a Secret Story

ap-ART-ment Exhibit A at the Diego Rivera Gallery

2009-09-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

ap-ART-ment Exhibit A

Diego Rivera Gallery

SFAI, 800 Chestnut St.,

Now until Saturday Sept 5th.

A small exhibit of the limited edition booties produced in ap-ART-ment summer, 2009.

In lieu...

2009-09-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

Final Event- screening of The Night Porter- introduced by Laura Wittman

2009-07-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

The ap-ART-ment finished it's two week residency with a dark and complicated film from 1974, The Night Porter in which a young female survivor of the Holocaust becomes re-involved sexually and psychologically with a man who had been her Nazi captor and torturer in a concentration camp. Made by Liliani Cavani, an Italian female director in the 1970's, The Night Porter was introduced by Laura Wittman, professor Italian and French Language and Literature at Stanford University. As a group we spoke frankly after the film about the presence of a glorified Nazi presence in the film, the lack of a seemed free-will-to-act by any subject in the film, and the complicated development of Charlotte Rampling's character's youthful sexuality in terms wholly restricted by the context in which it occurred: the concentration camp in Nazi Germany.

We appreciated Wittman's introduction and her guidance after in unpacking what had been presented in the film.

Again, thanks to everyone who arrived at the ap-ART-ment to listen and interact with new artists and to rethink a domestic space with us.

Best
Cathy and Laura

Breakfast with John DeFazio

2009-07-28T21:38:00.001-07:00

To continue the theme of gluttony, Ruth Hodgins spent the day with us on Saturday blowing approximately 50 of the 90 eggs she brought with her. The egg yolks are the by-product of a sculptural collaboration with Kit Rosenberg. So, although several of us pitched in to help out, Ruth probably blew about 40 eggs herself! I'm surprised she didn't pass out but glad that she didn't.

With the first group of blown eggs we cooked breakfast for John DeFazio, a legendary teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute. John has been an influential presence to so many students and we wanted to thank him for his guidance, words of wisdom, and consistent encouragement. With mimosas in hand, we had a relaxing meal talking about all things art and life.

After a wonderful meal, Ruth was back to blowing eggs while Cathy and I worked in the other room. She then made cupcakes, olive bread, and sponge cake until people showed up for the viewing of The Night Porter. Before the film, we delved into Ruth's bounty so that we had plenty of fuel for the movie ahead.

Meet Your Maker, a one night perfomance by artist Elinor J. D. Diamond

2009-07-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Meet Your Maker an evening of gluttony and disgust was perfectly timed to arrange itself in the midst of this complicated domestic, i.e. private, salon. Diamond produced work as neatly arranged as socialite's gathering with a touch of Paul McCarthy's nausea. To produce what Diamond states frankly as a moment of gluttony in her audience, she creates scenarios or objects out of baking recipes perfectly honed for their taste and aroma while baking, and though beautiful to look at, one instantly recognizes the grotesque. In Meet Your Maker she especially toyed with volume and consumption, as opposed to many of her other pieces which have explored desire, anticipation, and expectation. Meet Your Maker required nascent-focused audience members to parse baby-name lists by popularity on websites, and create a list of names to give Diamond. From that list she chose to bake a fetus-shaped cookie, decorate to her choosing and then either eat it herself or pass it to the group for consumption. She created a set of rules, flowchart like in which audience members were to interact with her and the fetuses: there were rules about which cookies you had to eat, and how to go about asking for forgiveness if you wrongly named one of your offspring.

To presume that this performance was only social would miss the point. This piece was in addition political, requiring more than a nod to the status of our current lives: most people recognize the term 'fetus' existing in the limited capacity of an abortion debate. An entire evening of drinking whole milk and eating white flour and sugar additionally brought the discussion of American diet and from that a conversation about our food sources.

Video Night at ap-ART-ment

2009-07-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

We watched amazing videos and had great discussions about them on Thursday night. At the end of the evening, we couldn't help but reflect on the amazing happenstance (or was it?) concerning the videos shown (especially concerning the common themes of identity and body). Sometimes things just work out beyond the expectations with which they were planned.

We sincerely appreciate the artists' contributions to the evening. Thank you Hannah Piper Burns, Nicole Crescenzi, Christina Corfield,Philip Benn, Peter Belkin, and Percy Cannon.

The videos shown were:

Hannah Piper Burns

the post(?) feminist dissonance project

9:56 min

2008

the post(?) feminist dissonance project uses a quote by kathleen hanna as a prompt, a voicemail box as an interviewing device, found footage as a tool, and text as a character. it is a study in the cacophony of the inner life tuned against the perception of reality. i made this piece to see if i was alone, and i discovered that for better or for worse, i am not. this is above all about the process, not the resolution.

Christina Corfield

Hot Circuit

Approximately 5 minutes (made as a ten channel installation piece, for tonight’s screening the piece is edited as a single channel)

In a world not too dissimilar to our own, the worst things happen to the best robots...

2009

Nicole Crescenzi

Crescenzi

16mm short film (projected digitally)

Approximately 3 minutes

2009

“The existing order’s uninterrupted monologue of itself” writes its unilateral message upon us— a sharp tongue of ideology lacerating our bodies, both corporeally and psychologically. Thus, now more than ever, we must reposition ourselves to understand this call and to make utterances in turn.

Recruiting the dissonant energies of stop-motion animation with hand-painted, marked, and processed 16 mm film, Crescenzi is an attempt to not only shed light upon those representational systems into which we become speaking subjects in a symbolic order, but to also underscore the precarious nature of such (de/en)coding.

Philip Benn, Peter Belkin, Percy Cannon

Warfield Shadows

Video Documentation by Hava Liberman

2009

Roundtable with Margaret Tedesco and Susan Miller

2009-07-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

We want to thank Susan Miller and Margaret Tedesco for leading such an interesting and lively discussion on Wednesday evening. A thank you should also go to all of the participants in the evenings discussions. We received a lot of food for

thought concerning ap-ART-ment... public vs. private, DIY projects, the archive as a way to extend this project to

other people who were unable to attend, and the idea of community and politics surrounding art (extending from practices in San Francisco in the 1970s to today).

thanks to all those who participated-hugs

2009-07-27T12:18:00.001-07:00

thanks to all those who participated-hugs

2009-07-27T11:39:00.001-07:00

thanks to all those who participated-hugs

2009-07-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks Pat...

2009-07-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

Shout out to Pat Augsberger, who at this moment is on her way to Kenya to start her thesis research on the conga. Watch for her blog on this project, go to her website here.

She came to ap-ART-ment and baked us challah bread one day, and sewed some booties that Claire Jackel wore at the roundtable with Margaret Tedesco and Susan Miller. Thanks again Pat. ap-ART-ment loves Pat.

Tonight July 25th, Saturday, 7-9pm, The Night Porter...

2009-07-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

Tonight's film, The Night Porter, will be lightly introduced by Laura Wittman, Professor of Italian and French Language and Literature.

Saturday, July 25th, 11-1, Breakfast with John Defazio, by Ruth Hodgins

2009-07-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ruth will be blowing eggs, and we'll be eating them. Everything egg will be available as 90 eggs need to be emptied. There will be french toast, bread pudding, egg creams, and heart-shaped omelets. Ok, no egg creams. RSVP quick and join us for this limited seating breakfast with your favorite professor at SFAI, artist John Defazio.

Tonight, July 24th, Friday, 7-9 Meet Your Maker with Elinor J.D. Diamond

2009-07-24T17:04:00.001-07:00

Artist Elinor J.D. Diamond's one night performance, Meet Your Maker, a night of fetal cookie debauchery, where the artist bakes and decorates to her liking, a cookie named by each participant. Come with original names or be prepared to file a lawsuit for your stolen embryonic baked dough.

Sieve the sheer bulk of baby names on either of the two online work stations provided, or come with your own maternal or paternal naming instincts. Come hungry, eat a lot of cookies, leave sick.

Retained Bakery Lawyers on site.

You know you need...

2009-07-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

SOME ADVICE.

2009-07-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

We have listened to episode after episode while working on ap-ART-ment. You may never know Zeffrey, but you were a part of this project.

go here to listen with us.
http://frankprattle.wordpress.com/

To a request from ap-ART-ment, Nicole responds to describe Advice Hotline...

2009-07-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Advice Hotline
Advice Hotline is a site-specific performance piece inspired by the interior architecture of my own apartment. A seat pulls down near an alcove designated for landline conversations, a charming albeit obsolete element in my San Francisco home. I have a home phoneline mostly for the nostalgic aesthetic, its only purpose to ring in visitors. Advice Hotline allows me the space to exist in the nostagic, in a sense of time travel. Along with specifics of architecture, conversation is an aspect of our culture to be nostalgic for. Contemporary forms of telecommunication create a significant and isolating distance. I am interested in "the art of conversation," the subtle changes in voice and tone, what it means to listen to someone's story in their own words. This past Friday saw the first realization of Advice Hotline, I received calls from Portland OR, NYC, Boston MA, Berlin Germany, as well as the historic Dogpatch district of San Francisco to name a few. Participants called with all sorts of questions and issues ranging from: the everday, job advice, to specific artistic critiques of work.

-Nicole Lattuca

Advice Hotline

2009-07-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Advice Hotline
by Nicole Lattuca
Fridays, July 17th and 24th from 1-5pm

Ap-ART-ment is pleased to announce Advice Hotline by Nicole Lattuca, on Fridays throughout this residency.

Call 415-931-2498. Ask questions, get answers. Let Nicole solve your problems.

Long Distance Dinner Party

2009-07-16T11:57:00.001-07:00

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our long distance dinner party with Dori Latman last night and for the viewing of her installation Love Portraits in ap-ART-ment. Through Dori's cooking and baking instruction, awkward time lapse exchanges via Skype, Dori's Skype image projected on the wall in the kitchen like big brother or in this case big sister watching over our actions, the evening was filled with food and food for thought.

Dori's Love Portraits speak to the complexities of relationships especially as they are carried out at a distance. The dinner collaboration between Cathy, me, and Dori, and the participation of our guests, inherently referenced the many issues Dori speaks about in her statement for Love Portraits. A portion of that statement reads

"Portraits, particularly when displayed in one’s own home, function to capture moments in time and memory. Portraits of couples in love are especially nostalgic, frozen moments that imply the simple joy of being in the company of another person. When relationships are complicated by divorce, death, or distance, the portrait becomes much more valuable, serving to fill a void, sustain a hope, or keep a personal narrative alive...Love Portraits is also part of a process in dealing with distance and the complexities of love."

The complexities of distance and of relationships whether newly forged or intimately lived came together last night with the sustenance of what Dori conceived of as a meal of comfort.

Tonight, July 15th, Wednesday

2009-07-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

We are collaborating on a meal with Dori Latman this evening at 7pm at ap-ART-ment. She has given us ingredients and will join us from the East Coast via Skype to direct our cooking/baking. If you are interested in joining us for a long distance dinner party, please RSVP to apartmentrsvp@gmail.com. Space is limited.

In conjunction with this meal, Dori will be showing her "Love Portraits" at the ap-ART-ment.

Project Description: Love Portraits, a series of drawings of my own romantic narratives, are offered to apARTmentto reciprocate on the generosity of inviting someone in to the intimate space of the home. Love Portraits is also part of a process in dealing with distance and the complexities of love.

Monday

2009-07-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful evening on Monday- people making new friends or getting to know each other better. We projected the exquisite movie Orlando onto the wall, ate popcorn, and drank champagne. A great start to what will hopefully be a continually morphing two week residency.

We look forward to tonight's project with Dori Latman.

Answering and Asking

2009-07-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

As the other collaborator in this project I check this blog religiously, more often than I pet my cats these days. I've reread each entry that I've made (quickly noting my errors), and the ones Laura has posted and I thought it was time for me to respond to the question Laura posed one day, "Why we are doing this project?"

Though the project description is right there for anyone to read, it doesn't really explain our motivations. Originally I wanted to make work in an empty domestic space. I have drawings of ideas for pieces and works that look just so. A drawing for a bed: you never have to make it! I had been making work in my living space for 3 and a half years and the idea of an empty domestic space seemed like a dream. Albeit a rather average dream, it's not like I dreamed of working in a 5000 sq. ft. loft in midtown Manhattan.

The project of making art among your life's belongings has been written about a lot: see any writing about Kiki Smith and you'll read something more prophetic than I can attempt. What I can say is that to make work in an un-blank place is tricky and convoluted, but no more so than it is to just make art in your studio. Neither is more right, or more wrong, but as an antidote to the constant studio time commensurate with an MFA we wanted to alter our path. We wanted to make work for 2 hours then fold someone's laundry. We wanted to watch our friends neighbor's smoke illegally on her fire escape while we were trying to decipher critical theory.

We have both been long fascinated with the major themes of domesticity, feminism, and modernism and many other ism's(!). Our approach to work is decidedly opposite: I am sloppy and fast and regularly don't remember the title that I passionately gave a piece even two days ago. Laura is skilled and patient and gifted and, yes, slow but tends to actually know how to use tools. We thought these opposites should lean on each other for a while.

I hope all manner of mess and work and writing can come from this ap-ART-ment. I hope many friends and colleagues and lucky strangers happen upon us in these next two weeks as we make our first go round. Our plan is to look back in order to actually answer the question of why we are doing this and many other questions: Why not make this domestic art in our own apartments? Why should we choose someone's apartment we know, but not someone we know well? Why does Nicole Lattuca trust us with all of her worldly belongings, keepsakes? What is there to investigate in her home? How can this process teach us to look critically at things so personal?

Ben Hur

2009-07-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

ap-ART-ment is taking place in the Ben Hur Apartments building in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. According to the website for the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District (All or part of 33 blocks roughly bounded by Market, McAllister, Golden Gate, Larkin, Geary, Taylor, Ellis Sts.- listed as an historic district in February of 2009), the Ben Hur Apartments were built in 1926. The apartment building was built with 69 2-room units. The owner and builder was Louis Johnson. As for the building specs: 7B stories; steel frame and reinforced concrete structure; stucco facade, chariots on spandrel panels, 5-and 6-story bay windows, cornice; 2-part vertical composition; Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation; vestibule: arched entry surround with decorative panels, marble floor, decorative side and ceiling moldings; lobby: decorative column order with beamed ceiling; alterations: none.

As stated above, what makes this building very unique are the chariot panels marking its facade. The building was built the year after the release of the 1925 silent film version of Ben-Hur, the third highest grossing silent film of all time. With its over the top sets (exoticism anyone)and mesmerizing chariot scene (disturbingly, I don't know how many horses were injured or killed during the filming because it is quite a messy scene), I can only imagine that Ben-Hur was on the minds and lips of many people in 1925 and 1926. The fact that a year after the movie's release a building was named in its honor, is testament to the film's influence at the time.

2009-07-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

Domestic vs Avant-garde

Read the book:

Not At Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture
edited and introduced by Christopher Reed

Reason for Being

2009-07-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Cathy and I were talking about possible collaborations this past year and when she mentioned the idea of renting an apartment space in which to make art responding to the space, I was on board. Within the past year or so, I have been thinking a lot about the divisions between public and private space as well as the permeability and intersections of these divisions. Cathy and I started looking for an apartment or a room in an apartment at the beginning of this summer. While searching we found Nicole Lattuca’s Facebook posting about subletting her apartment for the summer. This is when our conversations with Nicole began.

Cathy and I both knew Nicole but not very well, so we thought this might be the perfect place to begin. We set up a meeting and from the get-go, Nicole was on board for us invading and responding to her space. Nicole has since been extremely open and willing to give us access beyond our expectations.

Nicole’s space is very personal and yet edited to what she finds most important. A hand embroidered hankie sits just so on the top of a side table, a few hand made items are placed on the wall, and family photos and books line her book shelf. We all know the feeling of seeing someone’s home and feeling like you know them just a little bit better. The way any space but especially a personal space informs a person (a body) and in turn the way that person (body) informs its space offers endless fodder for creative thought. This idea of dwelling and of personal imprint will most definitely influence the way we work in the space.

In addition to our personal response to the space, Cathy and I are very excited about extending our collaboration to other artists, curators, and thinkers within the community. Through film and video screenings, food/art projects, and roundtable discussions, we hope to foster intense dialogue and community within this private home and ultimately spark a nexus of ideas.

Link to Frank Prattle interview

2009-07-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

Cut and Paste this web address to your browser window. Great radio broadcast with Jocelyn Saidenberg and Margaret Tedesco.

http://frankprattle.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/jocelyn-saidenberg-and-margaret-tedesco-march-1-2008/

ENJOY

2009-07-04T23:16:00.000-07:00

2009-07-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

"In 1973, with Eleanor Coppola, she created one of the first-ever installations outside a gallery setting, The Dante Hotel, for which each artist rented a hotel room which they furnished with a miscellany of objects. The objects in Hershman's room evoked traces left by previous occupants and by visitors, who could re-create fragments of fictional lives. Here Hershman was interested in the multiple strata of life contained by a place or site in a given socioeconomic environment. From then on, her work was characterized by such elements as the use of masks and personae to explore "identity, reality and truth." (1) As early as 1972, a work titled Self-Portrait as Another Person revealed her interests in masquerade and in the persona, so central to her work."

from this site http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=168

The undeniable influence of Lynn Hershman's Dante Hotel on the ap-ART-ment. Go to the link above to read synopses of Hershman's other work also.

the neighbors

2009-06-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

2009-06-04T16:52:00.001-07:00