Prelude 11: Artists

REPURPOSING

WE PRESENT A PRESENTATION

Photo courtesy of the artist

Extreme Appropriation

ROBS
Robert Fitterman

ADAM PENDLETON'S "BLACK DADA MANIFESTO"
Will Holder

DICK’S JOKES
Donelle Woolford

Thursday, October 13
9:00pm-10:00pm | James Gallery

Robert Fitterman will be reading from several of his works—all of which highlight repurposed language from the web-- spun together in a Colin Powell-like Power Point presentation.

One of an ongoing series of publications by Will Holder, dedicated to single mothers. Previous editions have complicated Alice Notley's "Dr. Williams' Heiresses", a conversation between Rachel Blau Duplessis & Charles Bernstein, and Simon Amstell's "Do Nothing", in favour of an intensified reception of the gendered author positioned in them. Taking the responsibility to re-present these modernist writings, which – as a heterosexual voicing homosexual longing; or a man reading a woman's words in relation to her body; or a British white citing a 20th century Afro-American canon; or an idiosyncratic minority finding its voice with regard to a grand narrative – "one can't possibly say better [let alone wish to produce more] words to that effect". The series depends on the duality of production & reproduction, him & her, publisher & author, text & body, writing & life, voice & typesetting.

Donelle Woolford, once a promising young artist, is getting a bit long in the tooth. Things have not panned out as she might have liked, so she has developed a strong attraction to humor as a remedy for her increasingly dark moods. For her contribution to EXTREME APPROPRIATION, Ms. Woolford will re-enact, word for word and gesture for gesture, a classic comedy routine by Richard Pryor. Because, if your going to go in a new direction but choose a path that's already been covered, then why not cover the best?

Artists

Photo courtesy of the artist

Robert Fitterman is the author of 12 books of poetry. He grew up in a small suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, called Creve Coeur. His boyhood street is still flanked by a Shell gas station on one side and a Mobile station on the other. His writing is kinda conceptual and sorta involves identity issues that are complicated by the web. And the Mall. Recent titles include: now we are friends (Truck Books), Rob the Plagiarist (Roof Books), and Notes On Conceptualisms, co-authored with Vanessa Place (Ugly Duckling Presse). He has collaborated with several visual artists including Tim Davis, Nayland Blake, Cheryl Donegan, Penelope Umbrico, Klaus Killisch and others. He teaches writing and poetry at New York University and at the Bard College, Milton Avery School of Graduate Studies. The Collective Task will be performing at MoMA in early 2012 as part of the Modern Poetry Series.

Will Holder once read that oral tradition would lead us out of the post-modern condition, and has since become preoccupied with "publishing". More often than not, the publications do not always take the form of ink and paper, and a large part of the preoccupation is spent in finding suitable 'forms' for transmission. He sees conversation as a tool and a model for a mutual and improvised set of production conditions, where design is a responsive moment rather than a desired end. This approach has resulted in working relationships and continued conversations whereby the usual roles of commissioner, author, subject, editor, and designer are improvised and shared, as opposed to assigned and pre-determined. Holder is editor of F.R.DAVID, a journal concerned with reading and writing in the arts, published by de Appel, Amsterdam. In May 2009, he curated Talk Show (with Richard Birkett) at the ICA, London — an exhibition and season of events concerning speech and accountability. Holder is currently editing and designing a biography of American composer Robert Ashley in the form of operatic notation (together with Alex Waterman), and rewriting William Morris’ News from Nowhere (An epoch of rest) (1876) into a guide for design education and practice set in 2135.

Photo courtesy of the artist

Donelle Woolford (1980, Detroit) is an artist and performer based in the Bronx who has had one-person shows in Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam and New York, and has participated in group exhibitions at the CAC Vilnius, the ICA London, and the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates. She has performed in Chicago, Princeton, London, and New York. She graduated Yale University in 2004 with a B.A. in graphic design. Donelle's next one-person gallery shows will take place in Paris in 2012, accompanied by the publication of her second book, titled Dick Jokes.