Three-part series with journalists, academics, and cultural producers covering topics like athletic protest, concussions and health issues, and labor and exploitation.
Tag: Independent Curating (events)
A BEAUTIFUL GAME
The film and videomakers amplify fan glee, silliness, and irreverence, and provoke a rival team’s fanbase. These artists celebrate athletes’ rebellious streaks, and admire their disciplined feats of excellence.
Canadian Art feature on INCITE Journal: Sports
“Artists and curators program soccer-related art for gallery spaces—and kick around ideas about politics and power in the process”
POWER FORWARD
The artists in this exhibition draw upon the hidden and political histories of sports to open up analyses of the social world.
SPORTS MUSIC
A playlist of official and adopted team theme songs, rapping by professional athletes, music made for sports films, and sports-themed pop songs from the past six decades. Musical styles range from choral groups with orchestras, rousing anthems, and advertising jingles, to disco, soul, rock, hip hop, pop, and R&B.
THE NATION’S FINEST
A deconstruction of the athlete body – how it is used for national, political, and social agendas, and how it is viewed and re-crafted by artists.
A NON-ZERO-SUM GAME
This year-long series of art exhibitions, film programs, discussions, commissioned projects, and other events took place in galleries, cinemas, sports bars, bookstores, and on rooftops from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.
Joanie 4 Jackie
The complete archives of the influential underground film network for female filmmakers has been acquired by The Getty and is now viewable online. A selection of videos is available on the Criterion Channel (2020-Present).
QUANTUM LEAPS
This inspirational screening and mini-exhibition catalogues heroes, compresses history, and hallucinates futures.
TROUBLE: Hollywood viewed by the avant-garde cinema
TROUBLE was created to accompany the exhibition, Richard Kerr’s Industry at La Cinematheque quebecoise.
HOW TO BE A CANADIAN
Utilizing artistic (re)enactment, telepathetic aesthetics, manual animation, performance and a grab bag of low-end high technologies, these videos question traditional representations of (Canadian) identity and gender.
ELUSIVE QUALITY
This touring program champions the realities of failure in relation to fantasies of athletic, sexual, and political mastery. Together, the works make for a powerful aesthetic of the undone.
LET’S GET TESTED
Playfully adapting public space into personal games, these makers look at architecture, videogames, biology, schoolwork, history and even their own memories with fresh eyes and twitchy fingers. Often sincere, sometimes willfully naive, they project a new optimism and the ability to self-amuse and re-imagine.
RES profile on Suparak: “Programmed to Stun”
“What she really wanted to do was blow the minds of viewers with unctuous erotica, politically motivated old school avant-garde retorts, hyperbolic tales, and, well, all the great stuff that hardly anybody shows anymore, much less puts together with loving attention to aesthetic nuance and fertile, thematic collision. Noting that part of her project entails seducing viewers to witness unconventional works, she also helps foment a network of artists and like-minded exhibitors.”
The Independent profile on Suparak: “Experimental media curator as rock star”
“At age twenty-four, Astria Suparak has already invented an unstoppable experimental film enterprise. As curator-on-wheels, she is aggressively building sexy niches for visceral and demanding new films and videos by cutting edge artists from around the world, who may seem freaky or misplaced in traditional art or film world contexts.”
ADOLESCENT BOYS, AND LIVING ROOMS
These audios + videos are forcibly lonely and nihilistically sweet. They’ll pin you down and slowly drip spit on you, whether you’re practicing crossovers on a suburban driveway or pile-drivers in a backyard wrestling ring. I’ve got the moves if you’ve got the skills (together we could make a great team).
LOOKING IS BETTER THAN FEELING YOU
With an irreverence for punk rockers, adults like parents and politicians, non-adults like breasts and babies, and people we generally approve of such as artists and scientists, these works reveal that posers are sometimes better than the real thing.
Telerama feature on microcinemas and Suparak
“A l’avant-garde de cette scène bouillonnante s’imposent des figures hybrides, comme la jeune et jolie Astria Suparak. Pour les programmes de courts métrages ou de vidéos qu’elle choisit et assemble, la New-Yorkaise de Brooklyn va chercher le public là où il se trouve, dans les musées ou dans les clubs, les cafés ou les discothèques.”
The Independent profile on Suparak: “A New Romantic T.V. Sound”
“At age twenty-four Astria has curated all over the U.S. and Europe, testing out new programs at NY’s best venues and then touring with them like a kid with a band. She comes to you: museums and galleries, universities, independent/underground film festivals and micro-cinemas, as well as public places like bars, community centers, and living rooms.” – Miranda July
KEEP IN TOUCH!
These works are brazenly aware of their own representation, those fake gestures symbolizing love, and the self-proclaimed identity of Art. On the other hand, this is a Science Fair. We’re interested in breeding and practicing our (dance) moves until perfection is reached, and by golly you’re either with us or against us. Young people, always forward!
Astria Suparak 