Fawn Potash, WS2MS co-organizer, talks about the program, which launches March 17 in Catskill!

WS2MS: Bringing the Message Home [Short Version]

FOR IMMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DATE:  February 24, 2012

CONTACTS:
Fawn Potash, Director, Masters on Main Street project, 518-943-3400, 518-929-5764, fawn@greenearts.org
Paul McLean, Occupy With Art, Co-Curator, artforhumans@gmail.com


Wall Street to Main Street
Bringing the Message Home

Masters on Main Street is hosting a dynamic art project linking Occupy Wall Street and the world, via the small town of Catskill, NY. Main Street’s vacant storefronts come alive with over 50 visual art and design exhibits, performances, workshops and panel discussions from the opening date on March 17 through May 31st.  Visit opening day exhibits on Saturday, March 17 from 2-5 and party at BRIK Gallery, 473 Main Street from 5-8.

Wall Street to Main Street is a collaborative presentation working with individual artists, curators and organizers from Occupy with Art, an affinity group of the Occupy Wall Street Arts and Culture Working Group.  The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has focused its energy on justice for the 99%.   Wall Street to Main Street, a project facilitated by Occupy With Art,  offers a platform for creative expression and dialogue focusing attention on a struggling community through a ten-week festival of experiences designed to engage, educate and inspire. 

The Arts and Culture Committee of Occupy Wall Street believes that art is not a luxury item. It is a commonwealth that belongs not just to the 1%, but to all of us. Art-making is not privileged to so-called talent or relegated to extracurricular activity-- it is a universal language that is essential to human growth, learning, happiness, and sustainability.

The occupation itself is art, birthed from a set of values and principles that activate creative, independent, and critical thought. Together, we aim to inspire and empower the 99%, expose specific economic injustices, and envision the alternative future we are building.
- The Arts and Culture Committee

Following on the heels of the ‘Arab Spring’ and European protests, a wave of Occupy Wall Street movements have swept across the United States, with encampments in major cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Chicago as well as locally in Hudson, Poughkeepsie and Albany.  These grassroots movements bring attention to ‘Main Street’ issues that affect everyone- jobs, housing, education and health care as well as shining a light on the need for financial industry reform, corporate responsibility, constitutional rights and sustainable solutions to energy and resource use. 
Wall Street to Main Street highlights the vanguard role of artists in the OWS and protest movements historically. Start your tour of Wall Street to Main Street at BRIK Gallery (473 Main St.) with the immersive introductory exhibit created by the Alternative Museum. The show provides a visual and historical context for the OWS movement showing how one movement builds on the concerns and success of the last. 

Other group exhibits can be found down Main Street  along with Faces of the Occupiers, The Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Sustainable Solutions exhibits, The Sarah Barker Studio, Occupy Books, an interactive study Center and many storefront window installations.

There are dozens of free events, workshops, concerts, and forums. A few highlights include Canadian graffiti artist Joel Richardson's outdoor stenciling workshop using Richardson’s collection of copyright free images and symbols; Salt Lake City artist Jorge Rojas’ Low Lives Occupy!, a  recorded series of choreography, music and artists’ performances projected at night;  an augmented reality app for smart phones and tablets, enabling you to view an opening day guided tour of Main Street developed by Mark Skwarek’s NYU students; The Buckminster Fuller Institute’s forum on alternative economies and another on the shared land/water resources connecting upstate and downstate New York;  Michael Harris’, Awakening the Dreamer/Changing the Dream symposium encouraging an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on the planet. 

ABOUT THE CO-ORGANIZERS: Imani Brown, Paul McLean, Kate Menconeri, Arthur Polendo, Fawn Potash, Geno Rodriguez, Paul Smart, Sam Truitt, Boo Lynn Walsh and Jacqueline Weaver.

For more information on Occupy with Art and Arts and Culture, please visit artsandculture.nycga.net, occupywithart.com, occupymuseums.org, artsandlabor.org.

Hudson Valley residents and visitors to Wall Street to Main Street are invited to contribute artwork for an evolving exhibit that showcases the diverse art, artifacts and ephemera that we collectively treasure in a temporary museum called The People’s Collection.  Pick up your invitation at exhibit locations or online at www.greenearts.org.

Please visit our website www.greenearts.org for a detailed map and calendar of events.


WS2MS: Bringing the Message Home [Long Version]

FOR IMMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DATE:  February 24, 2012
CONTACTS:
Fawn Potash, Director, Masters on Main Street project, 518-943-3400, 518-929-5764,  fawn@greenearts.org
Paul McLean, Occupy With Art, Co-Curator, artforhumans@gmail.com


Wall Street to Main Street
Bringing the Message Home

Masters on Main Street is hosting a dynamic art project linking Occupy Wall Street and the world, via the small town of Catskill, NY. Main Street’s vacant storefronts come alive with over 50 visual art and design exhibits, performances, workshops and panel discussions from the opening date on March 17 through May 31st.  Visit opening day exhibits on Saturday, March 17 from 2-5 and party at Brik Gallery, 473 Main Street from 5-8.

Wall Street to Main Street is a collaborative presentation working with individual artists, curators and organizers from Occupy with Art, an affinity group of the Occupy Wall Street Arts and Culture Working Group.  The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has focused its energy on justice for the 99%. Wall Street to Main Street offers a platform for creative expression and dialogue focusing attention on a struggling community through a ten-week festival of experiences designed to engage, educate and inspire.  

The Arts and Culture Committee of Occupy Wall Street believes that art is not a luxury item. It is a commonwealth that belongs not just to the 1%, but to all of us. Art-making is not privileged to so-called talent or relegated to extracurricular activity-- it is a universal language that is essential to human growth, learning, happiness, and sustainability.

The occupation itself is art, birthed from a set of values and principles that activate creative, independent, and critical thought. Together, we aim to inspire and empower the 99%, expose specific economic injustices, and envision the alternative future we are building.
- The Arts and Culture Committee

Following on the heels of the Arab Spring and European protests, a wave of Occupy Wall Street movements have swept across the United States, with encampments in major cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Chicago as well as locally in Hudson, Poughkeepsie and Albany. These grassroots movements bring attention to “Main Street” issues that affect everyone-- jobs, housing, education and health care--as well as shining a light on the need for financial industry reform, corporate responsibility, constitutional rights and sustainable solutions to energy and resource use.  

Wall Street to Main Street highlights the vanguard role of artists in the OWS and protest movements historically. Start your tour of Wall Street to Main Street at BRIK Gallery (473 Main St.) with an immersive introductory exhibit created by the Alternative Museum, one of the first arts organizations devoted to political art and issues. The show is curated by Geno Rodriguez, co-founder and former Director of the Alternative Museum and a new Catskill resident, Coming from a background of a documentary photographer, Geno will work with Thomas Cole National Historic Site curator Kate Menconeri to  create a visual and historical context for the OWS movement, showing how one movement builds on the concerns and successes of the last.  

Recreating the sights and sounds of OWS and contemporary protests across the globe, you will see photographs of New York City’s Zucotti Park by Salem Krieger and images of the Greek turmoil by Louisa Gouliamati, with images of the Washington protest by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lucian Perkins.  Images of protest movements in Spain, Italy, Indonesia and the Arab Spring are included by professional and amateur photographers.  Many of the images have been provided through Cryptome.org.

The BRIK Gallery exhibit includes Brooklyn-based artist Vanessa Bahmani’s black and white portrait project “We Are the 99%,” with over 1,000 portraits taken at Occupy NYC and Occupy Oakland. Motivated to contrast the mainstream media's often negative and narrow depiction of the protesters, this project captures men, women, children, families, veterans, pilots—and even Wall Street employees and members of the 1%--that seek change for our country.  Bahmani set up a photo booth on‐site and asked people to write their reason for being at Occupy Wall Street on a dry‐erase board.  The resulting series forms a set of common goals to create a more just and fair society for everyone.

The exhibit also includes selections from a series of posters donated by worldwide graphic artists from the Occuprint group, a projection proclamation by Andres Serrano, and original cardboard protest signs.   Jessica Eis’s Sights and Sounds of Zucotti Park pipes audio throughout the exhibit with a video showing OWS’s encampment as a functioning village, with contrasting coverage during and after protesters’ eviction.  Event plans include a world music concert, open mic night, panel discussions and special guest appearance by West Coast printmaker Jos Sances who magically transfers visitors’ drawings onto a tortilla, to keep or eat.  

See Faces of the Occupiers, an exhibit at 455 Main Street, with Italian photographer Maddalena Ugolini’s 100 portraits of protesters.  Also on display are paintings by two artists working at Occupy protest sites: Westchester artist Andrea Kantrowitz inscribes overheard conversations on her beautifully drawn portraits; and Chicago artist Sharon Rosensweig depicts her subjects in cartoon portraits with dialogue bubble quotes.  Palenville photographer Vincent Bilotta is offering instant $5 studio portraits with your choice of digitally composited backgrounds, including his own iconic Hudson Valley landscapes or scenes from Zucotti Park.  

We are proud to host the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s (BFI) Design Challenge winners in this impressive line-up. Project boards show integral whole system strategies for sustainable solutions to local and global environmental, energy and resource challenges.  Prototype, BFI’s experimental collective, will present a series of forums exploring alternative economies and land/water use issues connecting upstate and downstate New York.  Here you can see Matt Bua's Occupod drawings of structures made from sustainable resources, where he will present a talk on “Living with Less and Loving it” in conjunction with a drawing workshop.  Also included are instructions for Franc Palaia's Eco-Bottle Bulb Project, an entirely green solution for amplifying light in sheds and other structures off the grid.  Architect Jerome Morley Larsen proposes a challenge to teenagers to build and live in one of his tee-pee designs made entirely from recycled materials. His plans include an ecologically focused urban plan for Haiti’s renewal.

Two group exhibitions present message driven work by/for/about OWS, including: paintings by Hunter-native James Fredrick Rose and drawings by New Yorker Katherine Gressel; photo collage and video by Paul Talbot; altered photographs by Woodstock artist Cate Woodruff; Sandy Parsons’ massive multi-media collage; Melinda DiGiovanna’s ceramic tile mosaic; Dick Crenson’s kinetic sculpture; and provocative fictional historical markers proposed by Woodstock artist Norm Magnusson.  Artist Emily Bruenig is exhibiting her hand-made books made from left over ephemera at the OWS site, with an April hands-on workshop sharing her skills.

The Sarah Barker Studio is hosting a group exhibit with works on social themes of healing and aspiration.  Headlining the show are Sarah Barker’s canvases using military vehicle paints to map governmental structures, balanced with references to restorative plants.  A collaborative installation by ceramic artist Yinka Orfidaya & fiber artist Emily Peters combines vessels and connecting strands in an illustration of individual diversity and communal connectedness.  In the same space, Lisa LaMonica’s Imagine Compassion, a spin-off project from Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree, promotes the law of attraction by inviting visitors to hang a tag with a handwritten note conveying a positive idea of what can be accomplished through the Occupy movement.  

We are proud to host Canadian graffiti artist Joel Richardson in an outdoor workshop for teens to learn about stencil painting using Richardson’s collection of copyright free images and symbols.

At another site, poet Sam Truitt in consultation with OWS librarians has assembled a collection of 108 books that might underlie in part OWS. These books will be housed in a reading room/study center, the walls and furniture of which will be painted white with magic markers provided for visitors to respond with thoughts, messages or whatever they may wish to inscribe there.  Other events taking place in this space include two poetry workshops with Sparrow.

Other projects along Main Street include Claudia McNulty’s greying flag mural seen through a layer of quotes by Thomas Jefferson and John D. Rockefeller;  Chris Vivas ceramic sculpture depicting an abstract population of hollow souls; Salt Lake City artist  Jorge Rojas’ Low Lives Occupy!, a  recorded series of choreography, music and artists’ performances projected at night;  Poughkeepsie artist Matthew Slaats installation, a 1:1 model of Zuccotti Park; Boo Lynn Walsh’s interactive projects include creating a community canvas for visitor’s responses, art and ephemera (Occupy the present) for a visual archive (Occupy the past); sculptor Judy Thomas’ sculptural plastic bag installations;  Elizabeth Blum’s jeweled underwear and electronic swirling stockmarket storefront; Arthur Polenda and Maraya Lopez’s multi-media glowing tent installation;  and dueling videos in a faux living room designed by artist team Kevin Dejeski and Omar Solimon.   

A stand-alone piece by Catskill artist Jim Krewson shows two prints illustrating the recent protest movement from the Arab Spring to the present, originally commissioned by Vice Magazine.  Look for a rotating slide show of protest signs and the Dymaxion Occu-map showing protest sites around the world.  

Mark Skwarek’s NYU students are developing an augmented reality app for smart phones and tablets, enabling you to view an opening-day guided tour of Main Street.  You can see Mark’s car headed down the street in person and hear his narration on your device.  At the intersection of electronic gaming and visual arts, viewers will see Mark’s car transformed into a boat with additional surprises.  Free download info will be available soon on the GCCA website.

A concert is in the planning stage with musicians, singers and dancers from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts visual and performing arts school, sing-alongs with Occupy Hudson’s  musicians, David Lippman, OWS musician Matt Plummer, Connecticut composer Michael Harris, Gilbert Gambucci’s piano lesson and performance, and Dwayne Grunnam’s music video project leading Philadelphia public and private school students in an interpretation of DJ NewDay’s We Can Make it Together.  There is even an original one-man play in the works based on dialogue from Occupy Boston by Danny Bryk.  

Plans for family friendly activities include an open invitation to Occupy Families, Occupy Puppets, Saugerties’ Arm of the Sea Mask & Puppet Theater, and Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater to perform and present hands-on-workshops.

Two conceptual performance works offer innovative ways of thinking about art. San Francisco artist Brett Messenger’s Sisyphus reflects his own frustrations as a recent BFA graduate finding meaningful and gainful employment.  This work begins as a want ad for a laborer to move a pile of rocks from one location to another.  Once accomplished, the ad is placed again to return the rocks to the original location. abcdefgCorps, a performance art collaborative headed by Ariel Abrahams, will be in residence for one weekend offering a menu of free customized art services from creative house calls to one-on-one art encounters.

We are proud to include #N17 art activist Mark Read in this project’s line-up.  Collaborative creator of the OWS “bat signal” projected across from a massive protest turnout on the Brooklyn Bridge, Read projected an illuminated message on the iconic Verizon Building, “99%?/MIC CHECK!/LOOK AROUND/YOU ARE PART OF A GLOBAL UPRISING/…”  with the protestors participating in a responsive chant. Mark Read’s regular radio program on local radio station WGXC 90.7-FM will include coverage of this project’s events, and original programming available on air and streamed live through wxgc.org.  

Check out Catskill library’s film collection and take-home list from the Mid-Hudson Library System, curated by Paul Smart.  This set of films is housed in Catskill during this project for private and public screenings, with discussions covering the US civil rights era to the Occupy protests.  Other film programs are in the planning stages with opportunities to view related cinematic works including Palestinian visiting artist Taha Adawallah’s Thyme Seller, a loving memoir about the filmmaker’s mother in her struggle to make a living on the border between Palestine and Israel.  Documentary films and video focus on labor issues, social justice and descriptive footage made since the September 17th actions in Zucotti Park.  Other screenings will include film/video artworks created in response to the movement’s purpose and momentum.  

These protests may be the most photographed in history as the advent of smartphones has put a camera and video in everyone’s pockets, instantly broadcasting this new power to the world as a witness, sharing police brutality and courageous actions in real time.  Main Street exhibits will incorporate images by over 20 such documentary photographers, including Paul Talbot, Franc Palaia, Jessica Eis, Cate Woodruff, Susan Wides, Timothy McMurray, Stephanie Keith, Jane Toby, James Forenbach, David Lim, Cynthia Bittenfield, Caleb Ferguson, Bob Lemkowitz, Reg Oberlag, Maggie Shannon, Katie Moore and others.   

Panel discussions invite the public and surrounding academic community to participate in a series of issues-based forums; The Buckminster Fuller Institute’s experimental collaborative Prototype will be presenting two events, one on alternative economies and another on the shared land/water resources connecting upstate and downstate New York.  Artists Maria Byck and Antonio Syrna are planning an open form and workshop geared toward understanding The Commons, tangible and intangible resources, cultural, natural and idea based.  Poet Sam Truitt is extending a call for papers to the academic community to be presented in a series of three panels exploring the practical, theoretical and poetic underpinnings of the Occupy movement.  

Two inspirational workshops offer an opportunity to re-envision ourselves and our connection to each other, community and nature; Michael Harris’ AwakenIng the Dreamer/Changing the Dream symposium encourages an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on the planet;  Glenn Leisching and Violet Snow propose a workshop envisioning a new society and constructive revolution through connection to nature, ancestral heritage and African ritual.  

Co-curators of this event include Fawn Potash, Paul McLean, Geno Rodriguez, Sam Truitt, Imani Brown, Arthur Polendo, Boo Lynn Walsh, Paul Smart, Kate Menconeri, and Jacqueline Weaver.

For more information on Occupy with Art and Arts and Culture, please visit artsandculture.nycga.net, occupywithart.com, occupymuseums.org, artsandlabor.org.

Hudson Valley residents and visitors to Wall Street to Main Street are invited to contribute artwork for an evolving exhibit that showcases the diverse art, artifacts and ephemera that we collectively treasure in a temporary museum called The People’s Collection.  Pick up your invitation at exhibit locations or online at www.greenearts.org.

Check out website [www.greenearts.org] for a detailed map and calendar of events.