E.P.A (Environmental Performance Actions)
March 15 – May 3, 2008
475 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Brandon Ballengée, Vaughn Bell/Sarah Kavage/Nicole Kistler, Mark Brest van Kempen, Carissa Carman/ Joanna Lake, The Center for Tactical Magic, Susanne Cockrell/Ted Purves, Xavier Cortada, Carrie Dashow/Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg, Erica Fielder, Ozzie Forbes, Futurefarmers, Fritz Haeg, Amy Howden-Chapman, Basia Irland, Scot Kaplan, Carolyn Lambert, Robin Lasser, Kathryn Miller, Miss Rockaway Armada, Matthew Moore, Eve S. Mosher, EcoArtTech: Cary Peppermint/Christine Nadir, Andrea Polli and Joe Gimore with Dr. Patrick Market, Rapid Response (Cobb/Fend/Fischer/Meyer), Agents of Change Project Leader James Reed and Social Sculpture Research Unit/Earth Agenda Projects, Austin Shull, Brooke Singer/Brian Rigney Hubbard, Anne-Katrin Spiess, Chris Sollars
E.P.A. (Environmental Performance Actions) is a group exhibition surveying recent performance works that take as their cues the spontaneous situations and intermedia of the Happenings and Fluxus movements, and the impassioned energy of environmental activism. Environmental performance actions began in the 1960s when artists, responding to a host of environmental crises and concerns, began organizing both guerilla actions and planned performances to draw attention to those issues and suggest solutions. The legacy of those pioneering artists, like Joseph Beuys, Hans Haacke, Alan Sonfist and Agnes Denes, inspired a second, and now a third, generation of artists to explore the interstice of humans and nature. The documentation of their activities, performed mostly outdoors with a limited audience, has evolved with technological innovations in photography and video, allowing a larger audience to engage in the dialogue created from these artists’ actions. E.P.A. includes a range of ephemera, artifacts and documentation from thirty recent actions. The works range from theatrical to documentary and capture the multifarious strategies that artists are using to address issues such as climate change, watersheds, urbanization and, ultimately, human survival.
E.P.A. is the first project of S.E.A. (Social-Environmental Aesthetics), an exhibition program and archive of artworks that address social and environmental concerns. It will assemble artists, activists, scientists and scholars to address these issues through presentations of visual art, performances, panels and lecture series. Central to the mission of S.E.A. is to provide a vehicle through which the public can be made aware of this kind of work, to provide a forum for collaboration between artists and ecologists and to inspire them to continue the tradition of work that S.E.A. presents. The S.E.A. Archive will be a permanent catalog of information, images and videos that will be a searchable database for scholars and researchers. S.E.A., E.P.A., and all future projects will occupy a permanent space in Exit Underground, a multimedia performance, film, and exhibition venue underneath Exit Art’s main gallery space.
This project was curated by Exit Art, ecoartspace curator Amy Lipton, and founder/co-curator Patricia Watts. The S.E.A. initiative and E.P.A. exhibition were conceived by Papo Colo and Jeanette Ingberman.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
Wednesday, March 26, 7pm
HUMAN/NATURE:
Panel discussion with:
Eve Mosher, artist
David Van Luven, climate change scientist and Hudson River program director at
The Nature Conservancy
Moderator:
Patricia Watts, founder and co-curator of ecoartspace
Presented in collaboration with ecoartspace and The Nature Conservancy
Mosher’s yearlong public art project HighWaterLine involved the artist marking ten-feet above sea level along the New York waterfront with a chalk line to bring attention to the dangers of flooding brought on by climate change. Join us as we discuss the implications of climate change on New York City’s landscape and community – and explore how art can connect human beings with the awareness of larger
environmental issues.
ABOUT EXIT ART
Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture. We are prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 25 year old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, that has grown from a pioneering alternative art space, into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always on the verge of change.
Exit Art is located at 475 Tenth Avenue, corner of 36th Street. Exit Art is open each Tuesday through Thursday, 10 am – 6 pm; Friday, 10 am – 8 pm; Saturday, noon – 8 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.
For more information please call 212-966-7745 or visit www.exitart.org
