Forest in New York City: A Talk with Fred Forest and Holly Crawford

Join us Thursday, September 29, 7-9pm

Forest in New York City:
A Talk with Fred Forest and Holly Crawford
Moderated by Stéphanie Jeanjean

Concluding a six-month residency in New York City at Residency Unlimited (Brooklyn), French artist Fred Forest will be discussing his last project at the AC Institute on Thursday, September 29, 2011. The focus of this discussion will be Forest’s September 23rd Surprise Performance (Homage to Pierre Restany) held at a major museum in New York City and done in collaboration with artist and art historian, Holly Crawford. Information on the performance will be given by email and Twitter (please email [email protected] or follow on Twitter: @ACDirect)

Following a discussion of Forest’s project and its relationship to the mission of the AC Institute, savage performances, question of immateriality, relationships with the art market, and MoMA’s acquisition of Tino Sehgal, the floor will be opened to the audience for questions and discussion.

Refreshments will be served.

French artist and theorist Fred Forest (born in 1933) is one of the pioneers of video, media, and new media art. His work with interactive environments using computer and video components began as early as 1968. At the forefront of sociology and institutional critique, his work frequently immaterial and relational raises questions about the nature and function of art in a market-driven economy at the age of information. A retrospective of his work was held at the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia in 2007. Forest has exhibited and presented at institutions and venues including the Venise and São Paulo Biennales, Documenta in Kassel, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Holly Crawford, Ph.D., Director, Editor of AC Institute, is a cross media artist, behavioral scientist, economist and art historian. Her art and poetry give new meanings and draws categories themselves into question through transformative juxtapositions. She examines mass media and pop culture and its relationship to art. She has exhibited internationally. 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird site specific installations in Florence, Valencia, Berlin, London, New York City and Southern California. Offerings project was a participating .net project at Ars Electronica & Found Punctuation was screened at the Tate Modern in 2007. Sound Art Limo and Critical Conversations in a Limo were part of Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2007. She has written and edited books and papers that include: Attached to the Mouse, 2006 and catalogue essay, "Disney and Pop" in Once Upon a Time Walt Disney Studio; Artistic Bedfellows, edited, 2008. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Essex in Art History and Theory, B.A and M.A. in Economics and M.S. in Behavioral Science from UCLA. From 2004-2006, she was a non-clinical Fellow at NYU Medical School Psychoanalytic Center. She has taught at UCLA in the Art Department and SVA. She founded and is the director of AC Institute, a non-profit space for experimental work in NYC (Chelsea). She is President of the American Friends of the University of Essex. She was born in California and now lives in New York City.

Stéphanie Jeanjean is an independent curator, critic, and art historian. She is currently a Ph.D candidate in Art History (CUNY, Graduate Center in New York), where she is completing her dissertation on the evolution of the relationship between the viewer and the screen in French art using video, television, and the project image from the late 1960s to the present day. Her research includes a study of Fred Forest’s early works in the context of the French art scene and institutional history. Also based on her current research, her most recent publications “Disobedient Video in France in the 1970s, Video Production by Women Collectives appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Afterall Journal (London). In addition, Stephanie teaches Modern and Contemporary Art History at Pace University and is Gallery Educator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.