Simone Leigh and Chitra Ganesh. Untitled #1 (From the series “my works, my dreams, must wait till after hell”), 2012.

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art opens November 17 at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and includes a video by Girl, the collective practice of Chitra Ganesh and Simone Leigh. Billed as “the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black artists,” the show features work by artists from the early 1960s to today, and draws on “the history of performance art as a manifestation of radical shifts in social thought and artistic practice.” Looking to enhance scholarship surrounding what curator Valerie Cassel Oliver considers a largely unexamined tradition, the museum will also present an exhibition catalog. What a show! Check it out here.

Lori Nix, “Natural History,” 2005.

If you’ve enjoyed Carbon 13, check out Nature’s Toolbox, a show that recently opened at the Field Museum in Chicago. Produced by Art Works for Change, the show considers our natural environment as a “teacher and ‘research and development’ laboratory.” Like Carbon 13, it has an activist edge, suggesting that “humans aren’t just part of the problem but also the solution,” and furthermore, that art in correlation with science is “a powerful catalyst for creating awareness, engaging communities, and encourging individual and collective action.” Check it out here.

Spokesman Spivey said the multiple departures were coincidentalAnd the CRD expects Esquimalt residents to be oh so grateful for this “generosity”.

But Aguirre, whose side face Jordan, Iraq and Palestine in Australia, denied his hand had been forced after a poor run culminating in a 4 0 thrashing by Brazil in October when Neymar ran riot, scoring all four goals.

Actuar con cautela con los pedidos de antiguos consumidores si de pronto las caractersticas habituales de su compra varan.
The evocative video and slide projections by Wendall K.
The change is a milestone on the road toward a new carrier business model, focusing on networks and data.

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

— Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices, 1996

(via mikkipedia)

Alex Chilton signing “I Will Always Love You,” live on WLYX Memphis, 1975. Courtesy of writer Lindsay Zoladz.

Luis Camnitzer, The Discovery of Geometry, 1978/2008, featured in the group show at Simone Subal Gallery

・Ballroom faves Linda Matalon and Rosy Keyser have a group show with Robert Kinmont and Luis Camnitzer at Simone Subal Gallery. I love their work, so hit the opening on Thursday, July 5, from 6 to 8 pm.

・The charismatic Marisol Hernandez of La Santa Cecilia, the band who played our last Marfa Dialogues, gives an audio description of her Los Angeles neighborhood. Listen to it over at NPR.

・And then this video from Noisey, featuring Merrill Garbus from tUnE-yArDs and Annie Clark of St. Vincent. Words of inspiration pre-show: “Let’s leave no ass unf*cked.” –NI

It is a very sad goodbye to the “Godfather of go-go”, music legend, Chuck Brown. If you have spent any time surfing the airwaves in the DC metropolitan area, you have heard his distinctive sound, or you have at least heard one of the multitude of amazing go-go bands that has been born from his influence. Chuck Brown invented the unique genre distinctive to Washington DC, and will be sorely missed. -HdP

Roberto Pugliese, whose incredible installation A Voice In the Desert is currently humming in our courtyard, is about to open a new solo show at Studio La Citta in Verona, Italy. Arithmetical Sound Architectures continues the artist’s investigation of the “relationship between architectonic space and sound conveyed by mathematical laws.” This time, instead of culling data from the internet, the pieces use data drawn from the physical parameters of the installation itself, from “the architectural measurements of the room hosting the work, to the acoustic resonance present in the room itself, and to the length of the steel cables to which the speakers are fixed.” Read more about the show , and check out this review of Roberto’s work from NY Arts Magazine. Sounds good, looks good! – RM

Photo: Studio La Citta

British artist Anthony Gormely, whose work will be included in Ballroom’s upcoming exhibition Carbon 13, has a new show up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Facts and Systems is a special project of the White Cube gallery, and the recent work included in this show is a counterpart to a concurrent retrospective at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. Check it all out here! –RM

Ballroom’s Associate Curator Erin Kimmel, Gallery Manager Hilary duPont, and Drive-In Project Manager Melissa McDonnell outside the gallery.

Today was so lovely outside we had to stop and admire this agave plant! A sign of full-on spring-almost-summer, the agave grows its mast and flowers only once in its life. (I should add that the title of this post comes from here).

Well, at least that’s not all it is. Smithsonian recently rated Marfa the 8th best small town in America citing not only Prada Marfa and the mystery lights as draws, but the upcoming DRIVE-IN project as well. Read the article here!