Programs

Two artists discuss the art of war. An exchange of audio and visual evidence of conspiracy theories and red herrings. Toby Heys investigates soundscapes used as weapons of deception and control; Lisi Raskin discovers bombing surveys that bloom into chakra maps; war games that become theaters of battle. Together they trouble over Squark Boxes, scuttling U-boats, the Barney theme song, and other Trojan horses.

Hosted by Art in General. Moderated by Molly Kleiman.

Lisi Raskin’s on-site research of cold-war relics has informed the making of drawings, objects, videos, and large, constructed environments that simultaneously quell and stimulate her fear of technological progress and pathology. She is currently working on a performance and a series of constructions designed to send healing energy into the past, present, and future. Raskin has exhibited her artwork at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, the Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, MoMA PS1, and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. In 2009, Raskin participated in the Istanbul Biennale.

Toby Heys produces music, sound, video, and Web projects as a member of Battery Operated and the KIT Collaboration. He runs the sound and video label Cocosolidciti and works in AUDiNT with Steve Goodman and Jon Cohrs. He is currently a resident at Eyebeam and an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholar finishing a PhD at John Moores University in England. AUDiNT's "Dead Record Office" is on display at Art in General from June 17 to July 27.

Early in the winter of 1854, we began to think of emigrating to America. Of any other reason than that it was God's will, I am ignorant to this day. We were met with sickness, poverty, and need; the money we had left, we had loaned to friends in our party and now we were in need of everything. It went from bad to worse. Home, food, money and health—all was lacking. Once I said: “If I stood on the shores of Sweden naked, I would consider myself fortunate; and if God ever would give me the means again, we would go back.” But when that time came all was forgotten.
—Pastor Pehr Carlson, autobiography, date unknown

Mr. Andrew Myrick, a trader, with an Indian wife, had refused some hungry Indians credit a short time before when they asked him for some provisions. He said to them: “Go and eat grass.” Now he was lying on the ground dead, with his mouth stuffed full of grass, and the Indians were saying tauntingly: “Myrick is eating grass himself.”
—Big Eagle, Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862

Triple Canopy presents a performative reading and conversation examining the history and contemporary resonance of the 1862 hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians in Mankato, Minnesota—the largest mass execution in US history. Drawing on Claire Barliant's essay examining the episode, to be published next month in the thirteenth issue of Triple Canopy, the reading will enact archival documents and first-hand accounts of the Dakota War and its aftermath for the Dakota and for Nordic settlers, as well as contemporary interviews and writing on the memorialization of the conflict. The performance is directed by artist David Levine and features Claire Barliant, Anne Barliant, and Alan Gilbert.

A conversation between Claire Barliant and Gilbert, a poet and critic, will follow, and refreshments will be served.

This event is supported in part by the Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and New York Council for the Humanities. Claire Barliant is a Triple Canopy New Media Reporting 2010 commissions recipient.



Claire Barliant is a Brooklyn-based writer whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Afterall, Artforum, and Modern Painters.

Anne Barliant is a film editor living in New York City.

Alan Gilbert is a poet, critic, and scholar and a lecturer at Wesleyan University. He is the author of Another Future: Poetry and Art in a Postmodern Twilight.

David Levine is an artist based in Brooklyn and Berlin. His performances and projects have been presented at Mass MoCA, Galerie Feinkost (Berlin), Documenta XII, and Townhouse Gallery (Cairo).

Triple Canopy and Printed Matter, Inc. present Volume Number, a discussion of the past, present, and future of artists’ publications. The conversation will take as its starting point Gwen Allen’s recent book Artists' Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (MIT Press), which surveys American and European artists’ publications from the 1960s to the 1980s. Allen will give a brief presentation of this history, which will be followed by a discussion of its relationship with a variety of contemporary publishing projects, from multimedia journals to generative archives to e-books. Participants include Paul Chan (Badlands Unlimited), Angie Keefer (The Serving Library), Matt Keegan (==), David Platzker (Specific Object), and Colby Chamberlain (Triple Canopy), who will moderate. Related books and other materials by the participants will be available for purchase at the event.

Volume Number will be preceded by a book launch for Allen at Printed Matter, Inc., 195 Tenth Avenue, on Friday, June 10, 6—8 p.m. Artists' Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art is also available online here.

Special thanks to Dia Art Foundation and Karen Kelly.

Gwen Allen is a writer, researcher, and assistant professor of art history at San Francisco State University. Her book Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art was published by MIT Press in March.

Paul Chan is an artist and the founder of Badlands Unlimited, a publishing venture, which recently released the e-book Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide with Creative Time.

Angie Keefer is co-founder of The Serving Library, with David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey, a nonprofit artists' organization rooted in a body of work initiated by Dexter Sinister’s publication Dot Dot Dot, and dedicated to publishing and archiving in a continuous loop.

Matt Keegan is an artist who lives and works in New York. He was the co-founding editor of North Drive Press (2003–2010), and is the co-founder of the forthcoming magazine ==, along with Susan Barber. An exhibition of Keegan's work is currently on view at D'Amelio Terras.

David Platzker is the founder of Specific Object, “a personal venture to aggregate interesting objects in any artistic medium,” and a former director of Printed Matter, Inc. He is the curator the upcoming exhibitions "Specific Object Presents Lawrence Weiner's Printed Work from The Jean-Noël Herlin Archive," and "Robert Barry, Closed Gallery Redux––During the exhibition the gallery will be closed,” both of which are collaborations with Susan Inglett Gallery and will open this summer.