PRESS RELEASE | Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL

CONTACT:  Charles Davis • (901) 487-4053  • AiOPpr@gmail.com                    Ed Woodham  •(347) 350-4242 •artinoddplaces@gmail.com ART IN ODD PLACES PRESENTS 2011 FESTIVAL Rob Andrews, Union Square Cleaning, interactive performance (Photo: Ryan McManus; Designer: Dan Ownbey)        RITUAL   OCTOBER 1-10, 2011 on 14th Street, NYC A festival exploring the odd, ordinary,and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.   OVER 60 ARTISTS TAKE ON 14TH STREET THIS OCTOBER… Press Preview: Thursday, September 22, 1pm at Underline Gallery, 238 W14th StRSVP: AiOPpr@gmail.com NEW YORK, NY (August, 2011) Each year, Art in Odd Places (AiOP) produces a thematic public art festival along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River in New York City. From October 1-10, the 2011 edition of AiOP will take place along this east-west corridor in Manhattan, and will center on the theme of RITUAL, including ideas of ceremony, habituation, myth, obsession, superstition and liturgy. This year’s guest curators, Trinidad Fombella (El Museo del Barrio) and Kalia Brooks (MoCADA), selected over sixty artists to participate in what has grown to become the largest festival AiOP has organized in its fifteen-year history. The curators reviewed applications from an international open call that responded to the idea of RITUAL. The selected sixty plus projects successfully incorporate elements of the “ritualistic,” exploring the sacred and profane of everyday actions in the particular context of the urban environment. As one of New York City’s major cross-town streets heavily populated by businesses, pedestrians and commuters, 14th Street compelled the arrangement of projects that play with the behaviors of the street’s transient congregation. Alejandro Guzman, El Santero: Seven Days Seven Nights, performance. Courtesy of the artist. In the contemporary moment, the idea of ritual is a highly provocative concept. It is most commonly linked to the set of actions in religious ceremony or cultural celebrations, but the notion is also applicable to the socializing behaviors performed among individuals in the daily engagement with the social environment and civic space. This installment of AiOP seeks to subtly disrupt the procedures of the everyday or emphasize the ritualistic character of small gestures or acts in both religious and secular life, to establish temporary moments of ecstatic contemplation in the public realm. AiOP 2011: RITUAL offers artists the opportunity to make art outside formal spaces by reconfiguring their artistic practice as public actions or urban interventions without the confinement of a gallery or museum space. AiOP 2011: RITUAL will engage passers-by, providing them with a new perspective of an otherwise familiar environment through site-specific installations, social and spatial interventions, video and audio projects, performance, new media, and other inventive practices. In addressing the distinct manifestations of ritual, the festival aims to broaden the public’s outlook on art, city dwelling, and social conventions. Projects include interactive group foot cleansings in Union Square, ceremony of tree kissing, 24-hour endurance performances along 14th Street. Also featured: a video suited public disco announcer, Haikus written on toast, dancing costumed ameba cocoons, rose petal walkways, and ceramic deities placed indeterminately along 14th Street throughout the festival. FACT SHEET for AiOP 2011: RITUAL Who: Sixty + artists' projects from around the world. Guest curators: Kalia Brooks, MoCADA Director of Exhibitions and Trinidad Fombella, El Museo Del Barrio Exhibitions Manager/Assistant Curator. Festival Producer, Lucia Warck Meister. Founder/Director, Ed Woodham. Collaborating Organizations are Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), El Museo del Barrio,  Parsons New School for Design, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Theaterlab, 14 Street Y, Norwood Club, 14th Street Park in Hudson River Park. ARTISTS: Sherry Aliberti, Scott Andresen, Rob Andrews, Nobutaka Aozaki, Julia Barbee, Korhan Basaran, Caitlin Berrigan & Anya Liftig, Tom Bogaert, Michael Borowski, Javier Bosques, Brodigy, Corrine Cappelletti, Seth Caplan, Patricia Cazorla, Joanna Chak, Flora Choi, Missa Coffman, Concerned New Yorkers, Bindi Cole, Andrea Cote & Michael Drisgall, Elizabeth Demaray, Konstantin Dimopoulos, Dahlia Elsayed, Margarita Garcia, Lawrence Graham Brown, Alicia Grullon, Alejandro Guzman, Harvey loves Harvey, Judith Hoffman, Alexa Hoyer, Nova Jiang, Doreen Kennedy, Laura LeBreton, Abigail Levine, Lulu Lolo, Alban Low, Mary Ivy Martin, Maski, Scott Mason, Carolina Mayorga, Park McArthur, Marissa Mickelberg, Andrea Moccio, Felix Morelo, Sheryl Oring, Joaquin Palencia, Julie Puttgen, Edith Raw, Leon Reid IV, Ryan Ringer & Jenny Santos, Jacolby Satterwhite, Gene Schmidt, Leo Selvaggio,  Anne-Katrin Spiess, Liana Strasberg, Sasha Sumner,  Katie Urban, Juha Valkeapää and Geert Vaes, Mary Valverde, Gretchen Vitamvas, Lois Weaver & Lori E. Seid, Caitlin Webb, Genevieve White & Rafael Sanchez,  Jenifer Wightman, Alexandra Wolkowicz, and Amy Young. Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/artinoddplaces for high res images.   WHAT: Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL is the 7th annual NYC festival featuring performances, interventions, visual installations, video, sound and more in public spaces.   For more about the event’s history, visit the website. WHEN: October 1 to October 10, 2010; for schedule, visit www.artinoddplaces.org. Press Preview: Thursday, September 22, 1pm at Underline Gallery, 238 W. 14th St (RSVP AiOPpr@gmail.com). Opening Reception: Friday, September 30, 6-9pm (Theaterlab, 137 W14th Street) featuring many of this year’s festival performers. Special Festival Events GLANDATHON WORKSHOP, Interactive Performative Keynote Address: Linda Mary Montano, Saturday, October 1, 2-4pm. (Parsons New School for Design, 66 Fifth Avenue, Kellen Auditorium) Tour with curators to follow. RSVP AiOPnyc@gmail.com RITUAL IN PUBLIC SPACE, Panel:  Tuesday, October 4, 6pm. (Pratt Manhattan Gallery 144 W 14th St, 2nd Floor).  PSEUDO-PUBLIC SPACE, Public Space Panel:  Saturday, October 8, 6pm. (Parsons New School of Design, 65 W11th Street, 5th Floor, Wollman Hall). Tour with the curators to follow. WHERE: 14th Street, Avenue C to the Hudson River, New York City. Subways: 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, W to Union Square; 1, 2, 3, A, C, E, F, V to 14th Street. L to First Avenue, Third Avenue, Union Square, Sixth Avenue, and Eighth Avenue. Maps are available: Parsons New School for Design’s Shelia Johnson Design Centerlobby, 2 W13th Street and 66 Fifth Avenue; 14th Street Y, 344 E14th Street; Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W14th Street; Rags A GoGo, 218 W14th Street and at many businesses along 14th Street & vicinity. WHY:Art in Odd Places (AiOP)aims to present art that stretches the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations.  AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. AiOP is a project of GOH Productions. www.gohproductions.com.