Mash-Up!
8 Weeks of Mixing it Up
and Throwing it Down


The Beatles were The Fab Four not Roc-a-Fellas, and Kurt Cobain didn’t seem the type to call someone “Bootylicious,” but that was before the advent of the mash-up. In this genre-crossing musical revolution, where DJs mix two unrelated tracks to create a new “original” track, suddenly Paul McCartney is partnering with Jay-Z on DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, and grungy Nirvana is mixing it up with the hotties in Destiny’s Child. Familiar songs, now made strange by association, never sounded so good.

MASH-UP is a similar experiment run purposely amok; a series designed to see what happens when disparate ideas collide. The people and ideas brought together here are poised to speak to each other in unexpected ways. In place of one clear theme or idea we offer you many, with the hope that there might be something for almost everyone within this motley mix—a thought, exchange, or encounter that will resonate after the hors’ d’oeuvres are eaten and the video projectors are turned off.

In the span of eight weeks, Grand Arts will play host to over two dozen artists, architects, musicians and thinkers from nearby and abroad. At the same time, Grand Arts’ galleries will undergo multiple transformations as they are re-defined by the practices and personalities of these visitors. The first of these transformations, a translucent, geodesic canopy designed by Ammar Eloueini, entitled Nubi, greets visitors at the door and curls along the length of the main gallery finally spilling out into another room. Over the course of the MASH-UP, Nubi will stay, while props, palm trees, sand, slide projectors, game show components, fried chicken, cakes, children and dogs will come and go.

We would like to offer our most sincere thanks to all of the people, who, through their generousness of spirit and willingness to take leaps of all kinds have made the MASH-UP possible. In particular, we would like to thank the artists listed on these pages. To borrow a phrase from the “godfathers” of the mash-up, “You are sooo next year!”

Stacy Switzer and Annette Ferrara
March, 2005




March 4  9pm-midnight
Gut the Museum! Opening Celebration

Join us as we launch eight weeks of raucous fun and thought-provoking events--all without a proper Art Object in sight! Revel under a futuristic canopy designed by architect Ammar Eloueini, play a special "Gut the Museum Game Show" hosted by curator Nato Thompson, and mash it up proper to the song-splitting sounds of Evolution Control Committee.

March 5  2pm, 7pm
Gut the Museum II! An Artless Museum for the 21st Century! Hurray!

What is the experience that lies at the heart (and lungs) of the contemporary art museum? Should such museums depend upon Art for their vitality? What will the Museum of the Future look like?

For this special double-bill, curator Nato Thompson considers how museums and social spaces can be reinvented as sites for civic discourse.

At 2:00pm, Thompson gives an informal gallery talk exploring alternative museums and models, such as The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, CA, Cabinet magazine, and the convenience store chain Kum & Go. At 5:00pm, it’s the Food for Thought dinner party. Thompson and artist Brian Conley will use food as a hands-on instructive visual to speculate on the design of the future museum. *Location TBA. Due to limited seating, this is a ticketed, first-come, first-served event. Please call Grand Arts for more information and to reserve a seat.

March 11  7pm
Visits with Joseph Cornell
Performance by ARCHIVE (Anne Walsh + Chris Kubick)

In December 2001, the members of ARCHIVE met several professional spirit mediums in a conference room at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Seated in front of three box artworks by Joseph Cornell, the mediums acted as interpreters, translators, and in two cases a direct channel to the artist, enabling ARCHIVE to conduct and record a series of enchanting, complicated, and surprising conversations with him. Tonight, ARCHIVE reconstructs, through sound, image, and interpretation, these conversations with Joseph Cornell.

March 19 Times  3-10pm
Global Warming Party

It's gettin' hot in here! Spend your Earth Day chilling out in the middle of a global heat wave with a Global Warming Party hosted by François Perrin. This event will feature disaster movies, cool music, hot drinks and slow dancing. Attendees will want to dress appropriately—high temperature and humidity are on the forecast. For an updated schedule of Warming Party events, please see the Grand Arts website.

March 25 & 26
Lucky Pierre in Residence
Final Meals videos on view, Saturday, March 26th

T-bone steak, french fries, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, rolls, peach cobbler, and ice tea. To some, this list of American foodstuffs reads like a buffet menu from a chain restaurant, but to Lucky Pierre, it was the first meal they prepared in their "Final Meals" project, and the last meal consumed by Texas death row inmate Charlie Brooks, Jr. Lucky Pierre has prepared, had volunteers consume, and videotaped close to 100 "Final Meals" since 2003 (their goal is to prepare and videotape the over 300 Texas death row meals eaten since 1982). Over a two day residency, Lucky Pierre will prepare 20 meals and will need 20 volunteers to eat them while being videotaped. To volunteer for this project, please contact Kerry Hayes at kerry@luckypierre.org.

April 2  2pm
Fritz Haeg: Lab, Salon & Studio

Fritz Haeg will present the work of three parallel ongoing projects/ practices: gardenLAb, Sundown Salon & Fritz Haeg Studio. Each nourishing the other, these projects respond to some of the most basic and pressing issues of contemporary culture relating to our ecologies and our communities. Images of Australian flora & fauna, the coral reef, and the rainforest from a recent residency will also be presented.

April 8  7pm
Kerry Tribe and Guests

For Kerry Tribe’s latest project, the artist’s investigations of natural radio, alien abduction, and amnesia research meet under the eerie glow Northern Lights. Tonight Tribe will be joined by special guests for a screening of her first film in a series of four touching on themes of memory, perception and coincidence. The film, called Northern Lights, uses lo-tech optical effects to simulate aurorae, the luminous atmospheric phenomena that appear as curtains of colored light above the southern and northern regions of the earth. The project as a whole will explore how the aurorae figure significantly in events and coincidences from Tribe's own experience. The screening will be followed by brief presentations and a Q & A with the artist.

April 9 Time/Location TBA
THE DINNER PARTY.NET


THEDINNERPARTY.NET will host a sumptuous meal for those who care to engage a little on-line banter. Explore the mystery of dining with strangers—and see where in the city it takes you. For more information, please see www.thedinnerparty.net.

April 13  7pm
Screenland Theater*, 1656 Washington St., Kansas City, MO 64108 ph. 816.421.2900

Cameron Jamie: Kranky Klaus/BB/Spook House
Film screening followed by Q & A with the artist

Grand Arts presents a rare screening of three films by this acclaimed artist and underground filmmaker. In his drawings, performances, photographs and films, Jamie has trained his critical lens on the dark sides of suburbia and American youth culture. BB (2000) documents the phenomenon of backyard wrestling that erupted in Los Angeles in the late 1990’s, while Spook House (2003) explores the spectacle of the domestic uncanny in suburban Detroit. For Kranky Klaus (2003), Jamie traveled to Bad Gastein, Austria to follow the misadventures of the Krampus. Krampus at Christmas time are like the anti-Claus: clad in full demon regalia, Krampus surface on the streets of Austrian towns and villages, wreaking havoc and giving gifts at the same time.

Jamie’s film program will run for one hour, followed by a question and answer session with the artist.

*Please note off-site venue. This event is made possible with assistance from the Kansas City Art Institute Photo/New Media department and Screenland.

April 22 6pm-midnight
April 23 11am-5pm

Viaje Todo Pagado/Kansas City Tropical: Closing Celebration

For the Mash-Up closing weekend, Yoshua Okon teams up with the Bordermates collective to create an all-encompassing simulated tropical oasis in Grand Arts’ gallery. Inspired by futuristic aesthetics, “primitive” comfort, and hedonistic science, the group will explore (fu)tourism as a synthetic and authentic experience. This event will include ongoing video screenings, food, music and rest areas. Don’t miss this low-tech intervention into the leisure lifestyle!

All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise stated. For a complete updated schedule of events, please check our website: www.grandarts.com.


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BIOGRAPHIES

ARCHIVE is the collaboration of artists Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick. Walsh, Professor of Video Art at U.C. Berkeley, is also the editor of X-Tra, an art and culture journal based in Los Angeles. Chris Kubick is a sound designer and founder of Language Removal Services, whose work focuses on human speech and sounds. ARCHIVE’s work has been heard internationally on public radio, and shown in gallery and museum installations including the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Getty Museum, and the Institute for Surrealism Studies in Essex, England.

Bordermates is an artists’ collective based in Mexico City. Its members include Gabriel Acevedo, Kelly Coats, Gabriela Jauregui, Paulina Lasa, and Renato Ornelas. Recent projects have included installations at the DaimlerChrysler Services corporate headquarters in Mexico City, and Localismos, a series of public interventions exposing the effects of gentrification in Mexico City’s historical center. Members of Bordermates also served as panelists at the recent 3 Simposia Arte Contemporaneo at the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, Mexico.

Ammar Eloueini is an internationally known architect and designer based in Chicago, where he is the chair of the Digital Media department in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, and principal of Digit–all Studio. His most recent projects include the exhibition design for Skin Tight, the sensibility of the flesh (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago), the stage set design for choreographer John Jasperse’s California performance, and the store design for Issey Miyake Espace Pleats Please! in Berlin.

Brian Conley is an artist based in New York, NY. Conley’s hybrid practice operates in the space between art and science, challenging the boundaries of both disciplines while invoking preternatural visions of the future. Conley’s radio performances, sculptures, and sound-based installations have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, including at the Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London; Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn; and Bitstreams at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Evolution Control Committee (ECC) is an electronic music and performance group based in San Francisco, CA. Dubbed “the godfathers” of the mash-up musical genre, ECC made headlines in 2000 with the song Rocked by Rape, a musical collage featuring the sampled voice of Dan Rather reciting an endless list of violent acts and tragedies around the globe. ECC was featured on the legally challenged compilation CD Deconstructing Beck, and has played hundreds of live venues including the Illegal Art Festival, New York/Chicago, and the TINA/ElectroFringe Festival, Newcastle, Australia.

Fritz Haeg is an architect with practices in Los Angeles and New York who also teaches in the Environmental Design department at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. A curator/social catalyst, he is founder and director of gardenLAb, an experimental program in ecology and architecture at the Art Center, as well as the host of “The Sundown Salons,” a hub for emerging artists, musicians and performers organized in his geodesic dome house in LA’s Mt. Washington neighborhood.

Cameron Jamie is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris, France. Jamie’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including exhibitions at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Christine König Gallery, Vienna; Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles; the 2003 Venice Biennial and the upcoming 2005 Venice Biennial. In addition to working on his own, Jamie has regularly collaborated with the doom metal band The Melvins, who have created original soundtracks for Jamie’s films.

Lucky Pierre is a Chicago-based art–making collective. Since 1996, the group has produced video, performance, music, installation, radio, sound, and various unclassifiable events. Recent projects include Swearline, 2003, a voicemail service that invited participants to leave their interpretation of swearing, and Lucky Pierre Presents 32 Key Concepts, 2004, an eight–hour adducer made up of 32 PowerPoint presentations by invited artists.

Yoshua Okon is based in Los Angeles and Mexico City. Okon’s video, photographic and installation works probe the effects of racial discrimination, class disparity and institutional abuses of power. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at The Project, Los Angeles, and Galeria Enrique Guerro, Mexico City, and as part of the 2003 Istanbul Biennial. Okon also co-founded the alternative exhibition space La Panaderia, and served as a director there until its closing.

François Perrin is a practicing architect who teaches Environmental Design at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, and is a guest critic at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He recently curated and designed a site–specific installation for the exhibition Yves Klein: Air Architecture at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and co–curated with Fritz Haeg The gardenLAb experiment, a six–week–long series of installations, lectures, and exhibitions commenting on LA’s ecology at the Wind Tunnel exhibition space at the Art Center.

THEDINNERPARTY.NET is an anonymous group whose members converse on-line using the Friendster network. As a social experiment circling beyond the art-world orbit, The Dinner Party cultivates real-life social mash-ups, during which strangers sit down to share a meal and revisit the lost art of conversation. To join the dinner party, visit www.thedinnerparty.net, or search thedinnerparty@hotmail.com at friendster.com.

Nato Thompson is Associate Curator at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. Thompson recently organized The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere at Mass MoCA and co-edited, with Greg Sholette, the catalog for the exhibition entitled The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life (MIT Press). Thompson has also been a key organizer for activist projects in Chicago and Oakland including Counterproductive Industries (2002) and the Department of Space and Land Reclamation (2003). Thompson’s upcoming exhibition at Mass MoCA, called Becoming Animal, will feature the work of Brian Conley.

Kerry Tribe is based in Los Angeles. Her work in video, film, installation and other media centers on themes of memory, identity, and representation. She frequently invites the collaboration of friends, strangers, and actors. Tribe’s work has recently been included in the 2004 California Biennial (various venues); Adaptive Behavior at the New Museum, New York; Echo Sparks at the Ars Electronica Museum, Linz, Austria, and in the upcoming exhibition Oversight at Bard College.

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