CENTOTTO ON CLUBHOUSE: maggio - settembre 2021

CENTOTTO ON CLUBHOUSE is an online discussion platform, established in the spring of 2021, that serves as an attempt to reinvigorate some of the curatorial programming previously administered in Centotto's physical space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, from spring 2008 to winter 2019. Moderated by Paul D'Agostino, and free and open to all via the Clubhouse app, these gatherings feature casually critical, always interdisciplinary discussions on art, books, film and music, among other things.

Discussions are typically billed as “Critical Mixtape” or “Studio In/Ex Situ” events. “Critical Mixtape” discussions feature generally informal reviews, synopses, and hot takes from people in the room on current exhibitions and recent releases, as well as on the various things we’ve just happened to be looking at, reading, watching, or listening to of late, and that have generated some thoughts we’re eager to share. “Studio In/Ex Situ” conversations are gatherings where artists, curators, writers and others can talk about current projects, developments and concerns regarding their own work, or just share news about their shows or publications.

All such events, as well as more casually themed or pop-up rooms, are amalgams of Centotto’s ‘simposio’, ‘interstizio’, and ‘ex situ’ curatorial and programming platforms. All visitors are welcome to contribute to the conversations, by and large, and all are welcome to simply listen. The app is free to download to your mobile device. You can then join Centotto on Clubhouse by clicking here.

RECENT ROOMS:

9/19/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Bodies, weaving, crafting, botany"
8/5/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Concerning color"
7/23/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Across cultures, within histories"
6/10/21: Critical Mixtape - "Urgency & abstraction"
5/28/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Collage: materials, processes, artists"
5/18/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Beyond figures & forms: questions of content"
5/8/21: Studio In/Ex Situ - "Animals & end times"
5/2/21: Critical Mixtape - "Otherness"

DISCUSSION DETAILS:

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 9/19/2021: “Bodies, weaving, crafting, botany”
A discussion with artists Pam Butler, Lenka Moskova, and Alice Lynn McMichael about the thematic and material concerns they’re working through in the studio. Themes and topics addressed by the artists included pageantry and politics, contestants and presidents, cultural shifts and redacted canons, witches and beer brewing, separations and attachments between life and work, manual labor and manual minds, utilitarian objects 're-formed', hobby and craft vis-à-vis ‘professional’ practice, senses of place and senses of time, and interior and exterior contexts. Some lingering questions of interest to everyone were: What takes up space? What takes up our spaces? What objects do we also make to take up our spaces? Physical space? Temporal space? Mental space? What happens when we change our spaces, or when our spaces are forced to change? How do we change with and within them?

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 8/5/2021: “Concerning color”
A discussion with painter Marlowe Emerson and other artists concerning uses of and thoughts on color. “Is it a key concern in your work?” and “How do you convey your ideas about it to your audience?” were the operative questions for all in the room. Topics addressed included programmatic and expressive colors; colors needed and colors inhabited; colors as friends or kindred spirits; intuitive, contextual and cultural understandings of color; saturated and desaturated colors; and colors as seductive, cross-associative, and retrospectively understood. Discussion contributors: Marlowe Emerson, Nina Meledandri, Lino Bern, Enrico Gomez, Marie Birkedal, Virginia Katz, Marcia Barrow Taylor, Shima Star, Robbin T. Milne.

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 7/23/2021: “Across cultures, within histories”
A discussion with artist John Barrymore about differently contextualized gazes in his work, and with regard to the artwork of Yasumasa Morimura. Subjectivities of makers and viewers – and of images and objects themselves – factored into the discussion, as did notions of staging, theatricality, anachronism and narrative. Regarding his work, Barrymore discussed correspondence art, montage, collage, and interdisciplinary sampling. Another artist, Lino Bern, presented ideas of historical and cross-cultural therianthropy. Morimura’s work informed much of the rest of the discussion through lenses of recontextualized selves and repositioned narratives within art history and its ‘world’ of imagery.

CRITICAL MIXTAPE, 6/10/2021: “Urgency & abstraction”
A gathering to address the notion of ‘urgency’ in art – and with regards to abstraction, in particular – by way of a conversation, with artist Nathan Rutkowski, about several current exhibits in Chelsea, NYC. Exhibits discussed included Jennifer Bartlett at Paula Cooper, Monika Baer at Greene Naftali, and Juan Uslé at Galerie Lelong. “What might ‘urgency’ in art mean for you?” was the general question posed to the room.

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 5/28/2021: “Collage: materials, processes, artists”
A discussion of various modes of collage and assemblage art processes, materials and practitioners. Artist Alice Lynn McMichael got the conversation underway by sharing insights about her recent collage and textile works, and about some processes and materials she’s been experimenting with in her studio. The general discussion involved insights from many artists, and there was a consensus to have a follow-up conversation room on the same topic. Date and time TBA.

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 5/18/2021: “Beyond figures & forms: questions of content”
A discussion of how abstraction, representation and figuration in artworks might be informed by concerns lying beneath the surfaces. Themes? Narratives? Causes? Concepts? "Is content an important question?" was addressed on a number of levels. Key contributor: Etty Yaniv.

STUDIO IN/EX SITU, 5/8/2021: “Studio In/Ex Situ: Animals & end times”
The Open: Man and Animal, by Giorgio Agamben
therianthropy in myths and imagery
animals in portrayals of end times
historical and cross-cultural referencing
landscape as abstraction
artworks by Sanne Mestrom
Alice Neel: People Come First, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Adam Simon and Anton Stankowski, Osmos, NYC
Natalie Westbrook: Surface Tension, Freight and Volume, NYC

CRITICAL MIXTAPE, 5/2/2021: “Critical Mixtape: Otherness”
I’m No Longer Here, directed by Fernando Frías, 2019
Glyphadelphia, Hesse Flatow Gallery, NYC
Carrie Moyer: Analog Time, DC Moore Gallery, NYC
First Cow, directed by Kelly Reichardt, 2019
Nomadland, directed by Chloé Zhao, 2020
“Christina’s World,” song by Midwife, 2021