Past Residents
Past Resident2013: Canada Council for the Arts
Karen Elaine Spencer
Karen Elaine Spencer’s work questions use values and investigates how we, as transient beings, occupy the world in which we live. The notion of progress is challenged through the repetition of an action that leads nowhere. Metro-riding, rambling, dreaming, and loitering are among the activities Spencer folds into her practice. A project is sustained over time, often a year, and materials of our day-to-day existence are favored. Through a détournement of materials or intentions, Spencer intervenes into specific places, where she marks and is marked by spatial and social geographies. A current project, “hey! mike” the blog, is part of a multifaceted conversation with Mike Bloomberg, the 108th mayor of New York City. Here she questions a system whereby one person can be held up as a philanthropist without a basic acknowledgement of a deep lack of justice between all humans because “no one gets rich alone.”
Karen Elaine Spencer lives and works in Montreal, Québec, Canada. Since 2008, she has been active in a postcard and web-based project entitled Transient Traces, where she steals the words of others to then send these words to politicians and public figures. Her practice oscillates between work in the street, exhibitions in galleries, and disseminations via the web. In 2011, she curated the program Gosser le Furtif at Galerie Skol, Montreal. Her text for the performance group TRAFIC was published in the catalog “Lost and found/Les Bureau des Objets Trouvés,” and she was an artist in residence at The John Snow House in Calgary, Alberta. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and Europe. She is the recipient of the 2012 Powerhouse Prize.
Karen Elaine Spencer, Dream Listener, 2007, Ink on cardboard. Courtesy of the artist.
Karen Elaine Spencer, Eating Oranges After Dark, 2009, Orange peel. Courtesy of the artist.
Karen Elaine Spencer, I Dreamt I Ran Away From Home, 2009, Chalk on pavement. Courtesy of the artist.
Karen Elaine Spencer, Sittin', 2010, 10-day intervention Union Station, Toronto, Ontario. Courtesy of the artist.
Karen Elaine Spencer, Transient Traces, 2011, Postcards. Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2012: Aeroplastics Contemporary
Frances Goodman
Frances Goodman creates atmospheric and immersive sound pieces that cross the boundaries between visual and media arts and unveil everyday routines, obsessions and social interactions. Her works, presented as installations and sculptures, are influenced by South African society and the countries in which she has undertaken residencies. Goodman’s art focuses specifically on the subject of middle class experience and prejudices; looking at everyday obsessions and superficial behavior (such as fanatic exercise culture and conventions of marriage and beauty) she explores the way individuals respond to our contemporary, highly materialistic society and the idiosyncratic coping mechanisms they develop. Her works reflects a morbid ambiguity of excess and loss; a dislocation between appearance and truth. ‘Beautiful’ or seductive objects, environments and installations are used as a ruse to obscure the primary subject matter, which is often dark, complicated and messy.
Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Frances Goodman (born 1975) studied Fine Art at Wits University, Johannesburg. After graduating with an MA at Goldsmiths College, London in 2000, she lived in Antwerp until 2003 where she was artist in residence at HISK. Goodman has given solo exhibitions in South Africa, Belgium and Denmark and has participated in major international exhibitions such as Lust and Vice: From Durer to Nauman at the Kunstmuseum Bern in 2010 and Sphères, at Le Moulin, France in 2009. She has been invited to do a number of residencies, including The Foundation GegenwART Berne, Switzerland, Recollets International Accommodation and Exchange Centre, Paris and Artist’s Work Programme, Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin. Goodman is represented by the Goodman Gallery in South Africa and Aeroplastics in Belgium.
Frances Goodman, Mind On The Money, 2009, Luggage, sequins, thread, speakers and DVD players, Dimensions variable.
Frances Goodman, The Dream, 2010, Satin, silk, sequins, beads, CD player and speakers, 312 × 312 in. (792.48 × 792.48 cm).
Frances Goodman, Fuck Boys, Get Toys, 2012, Riveted Mini Cooper bonnets, 60 × 371/2 in. (152.4 × 95.25 cm).
Frances Goodman, Xanax, 2009, Crystal Beads, pins, needles, steel and polystyrene, 39 × 23 × 19 in. (99.06 × 58.42 × 48.26 cm).
Residents from South Africa
James Beckett
New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Alice and Lawrence Weiner, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Hartfield Foundation, Danna and Ed Ruscha
2021
Berni Searle
Past Resident2012: Danish Arts Foundation
Nanna Debois Buhl
Nanna Debois Buhl works conceptually with film, photography, drawing, text and sound. Combining text and images in various ways, her work is a continuous investigation of the relationship between aesthetics and ideologies. In previous projects, this relationship has been examined through a particular site, from a 19th century Danish amusement park to an abandoned Caribbean sugar mill, in order to investigate how histories and ideologies are inscribed in architecture and urban space. In recent projects, Buhl examines how signs are created and how meaning can change over time and between contexts. In Street Haunting, found photographs are presented alongside diverse readings from five psychics, while Dearest. I Will Be There on Sunday features 63 vintage postcards all depicting the same motif.
Nanna Debois Buhl (born 1975, Denmark) received her MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2006 and participated in The Whitney Independent Study Program, New York in 2008-09. She has exhibited internationally, with recent shows including: Art in General, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Bureau, NY; Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden; Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano, Italy; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; and Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark. Her work is in the collections of the Museum for Contemporary Art and The National Museum of Photography in Denmark. In 2010, Revolver Publishing published her artist’s book A Journey in Two Directions and the collaborative book City Grammar (with Liz Linden). Her work has recently been reviewed in Art in America, Art Forum, and The New York Times.
Events & Exhibitions
Nanna Debois Buhl: Street Haunting
September 19–October 26, 2012
Nanna Debois Buhl, A Journey in Two Directions, 2010, Artist’s book. Photo courtesy of Anders Sune Berg.
Nanna Debois Buhl, Postcards - Tivoli, 2006, 16mm film transferred to DVD, 11 min.
Nanna Debois Buhl, Dearest. I'll be there on Sunday, 2009, Postcard and sound installation, Dimensions variable.
Nanna Debois Buhl, Journey to the End of the Night, 2010. Photo courtesy of Anders Sune Berg.
Nanna Debois Buhl, The Sound of P’, 2011, Installation, Dimensions variable. Photo courtesy of Anders Sune Berg.
