Art & Dialogue: Atlanta Summary from Aram Moshayedi

6/8/15

In early April of 2015 Aram Moshayedi visited Atlanta as an Art & Dialogue curator in residence. During his stay, Moshayedi delivered a public program at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center co-presented by Burnaway, and visited the studios of 10 Artadia Awardees. The following is his account of Atlanta’s vibrant art community.

The artists that I met with in Atlanta over three days in April were diverse and varied in their artistic approaches. Not directly united by any brand of regional identity, discovering differences among the Awardees was what interested me the most during my visits.  

Ruth Dusseault, “Backview of Bedlam, Illinois,” digital color print, 2013

The individual conversations reflected a range of issues that included Jason Kofke’s research into minor histories and iconographies of the 1980s to Ruth Dusseault’s videographic exploration of homemade recreational battlefields and digital ecotopias. Sarah Hobbs’ shift between installation and photography, architectural space and its representation through pictures engages an entirely different set of ideas than those explored by Tristan Al-Haddad and Formations Studio, which is situated between art and design and focused on large-scale public works.  

Journey Projects, Wolf Creek Library installation documentation

Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier pursues a project that is deeply personal and historiographical; The Journey Projects looks at ancestry and forms of storytelling to develop collaborative, community-based projects rooted in the development of identity.  

Larry Walker, “Passing M, 9 and Other Wall Spirits,” 2009, mixed materials and collage process, 29 x 36.5 inches, Courtesy of Mason Fine Arts and Events, Atlanta, GA

Larry Walker’s telephone poles and approximations of building facades are nothing like the choreographies of glo (Lauri Stallings); though they both might have an interest in the function of public space, their approaches could not be more dissimilar.  

Robbie Land, “Grant Park,” 2015, 16mm film, 8 minutes

The playful filmic experiments of Robbie Land—made from cellulose to celluloid and back again—are intimate, domestic and the result of a kind of home science experiment. Meanwhile, Micah Stansell’s silent projected videos expand the medium to the scale of architecture.

Nina Simone “Black is the Color” from Paul Stephen Benjamin on Vimeo.

Paul Stephen Benjamin’s haunting video-sculpture based on the refrain “Black is the color of my true love’s hair” by Nina Simone continues to stay with me—the repetition and obsessive dwelling on these words evoked by a sea of outdated monitors seem to loop and phase for all of time in my mind. These conversations and meetings made apparent a common set of principles and ethics of making, and a commitment to practice and experimental thinking among the Artadia Awardees. The openness of the ten artists was also meaningful; their willingness to allow me into their studios and homes to discuss their most intimate and monumental works to date has stuck with me. Each personality offered insightful research and the outgrowth of that research into artworks that take a position within and against the world, and I appreciate the time and opportunity to have these unique conversations.   – Aram Moshayedi

Art & Dialogue: Atlanta Public Program Aram Moshayedi in conversation with Carter Mull at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Aram Moshayedi and Carter Mull in conversation at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, April 9th, 2015

Aram Moshayedi and Carter Mull discussed their respective projects and history of working together on P&Co., a community newspaper that the two co-edited with artist Jesse Willenbring. Moshayedi spoke directly to his experience curating mostly solo projects and new commissions at the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, as well as the Hammer Museum, where he has been a curator since 2013. Mull discussed recent projects that have pressed on the limits of his work to occupy galleries and museums, through a selection of recent solo exhibitions, as well as projects that occupy other streams of communication and media. In many respects, the curator and artist engaged in a conversation that addressed the key issues that are part of making exhibitions and publications, while also touching upon a range of topics and preoccupations that inform their respective practices in the field.

A&D Program: Aram Moshayedi in conversation with Carter Mull

6/4/15

A&D Summary: Aram Moshayedi in Atlanta

5/28/15

Aram Moshayedi visits Atlanta

3/17/15

Artadia presents Art & Dialogue: Atlanta

A public program in partnership with the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and BURNAWAY

“Aram Moshayedi in Conversation with Carter Mull”

Thursday, April 9, 2015
7pm
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
535 Means St NW
Atlanta, GA 30318

Artadia is excited to partner with Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and BURNAWAY to welcome Art & Dialogue curator, Aram Moshayedi to Atlanta. As part of his Art & Dialogue visit, Hammer Museum curator, Aram Moshayedi’s public program will center around a conversation between Moshayedi and artist, Carter Mull.

About Aram Moshayedi:
Aram Moshayedi is currently a curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and has organized recent projects with artists Maria Hassabi and Mario Garcia Torres. He was formerly associate curator at REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (2010-13), where he organized exhibitions and oversaw the production of new works by such artists as The Otolith Group, Slavs and Tatars, Jordan Wolfson, Tony Cokes, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Ming Wong, and Geoffrey Farmer. Moshayedi has also written extensively on art with contributions appearing in numerous exhibition catalogs, as well as Artforum, Art in America, Frieze, Metropolis M, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly and Bidoun, for which he is a contributing editor.

About Carter Mull:
Mull was born in Atlanta in 1977. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from CalArts in 2006. His work is in numerous American museum collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, LACMA, and Hammer Museums in Los Angeles and the Whitney and MoMA collections in New York. In 2014, Mull made solo exhibitions for the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland and CAPC Bordeaux in France, his first in Europe. Mull spent key formative years in New York. Although he travels often, he has been based in Los Angeles since 2004.

About Art & Dialogue:
Developed through in-depth research of artists’ needs, Art & Dialogue will bridge connections between artists, curators, and audiences in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Art & Dialogue is a unique program in that it serves three distinct audiences: curators, artists and the city’s general public. Art & Dialouge will bring curators directly to the studios of Awardees working around the country, and will offer participants the opportunity to engage in meaningful, open conversation about their practice.

For the inaugural season of Art and Dialogue, Artadia will send six curators from institutions across the United States to visit each of its Award cities. Each Art & Dialogue program will consist of three parts: curators will conduct studio visits with Awardees, present a public program with a local cultural partner, and provide a summary of their experience upon returning to their home institution. All Art & Dialogue programs will be documented, anthologized on Artadia’s website, and publicized internationally.