art camp: day 4

September 7th, 2008

After the success of the third day, we could immediately sense a change in the dynamic of the group; everyone was closer and more relaxed.  The first project for the day was to create a re-enactment of one of the performances we discussed the day before.  Barbara and I kicked it off by doing a short performance re-enactment of one of Vito Acconci’s pieces.  Barbara would mime movements and I would copy them, except through the façade of a strange constructed art piece at the Alumix.  It was funny and got everyone excited about working.  They broke off into small groups and got to work.
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art camp: day 3

September 7th, 2008

On day three we met and immediately went to the third floor of the Museion in order to explore the concept of time as it relates to five specific works.  They split up into five groups of three or four and we gave them each a sheet of paper with the name of a work and artist and the prompt Time as…  The five pieces were:
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art camp: day 2

September 5th, 2008

Day two we met at the Ex-Alumix site which is a bit of trek from the city into the industrial zone (which may in part explain the very poor attendance at Manifesta this year).  We were excited that 16 of the 20 came back and one new person joined us.  After a very brief introduction to the history of the building we set them free to explore the space and choose a space for their performance. Read the rest of this entry »

art camp: day 1

September 4th, 2008

This week Barbara and I started our weeklong “art camp” a workshop for teenagers on contemporary art. Our workshop is sponsored in part by Manifesta7, and in part by the Museion, the local modern and contemporary art museum in Bolzano. The Musion opened the doors to its new museum in May and the exhibit that is currently up is full of great examples of early performance and conceptual art.  The Manifesta7 site in Bolzano is at an old abandoned Aluminum factory that was part of Mussolini grand plan of “italianizing” the south Tyrol region in the thirties by building industry and bringing workers to the area.  It is a fascinating space, and for the exhibit, while there was a lot of renovation, the building still retains the feeling of its former use. Read the rest of this entry »

Bicycling Bolzano

August 31st, 2008

This region is crazy for cycling. Everyone in town gets around by bicycle and on weekends it seems the whole town (or all the tourists) suit up in their spandex and heads out to the mountains on their mountain or road bikes. I’ve been feeling a bit jealous and sorry that I didn’t go through the effort of bringing my bike with me. It is quite pricey to rent a good bike for a day. Okay, well, I do actually have a bicycle here, Manifesta has lent me one of their bicycles, a heavy city clunker of a bike that’s been incredibly convenient these past couple of weeks. Yesterday I wanted to ride out of the city for some exercise, so I decided to test the limits of my bicycle (or my limits) and see how far I could go. There are bike paths leading out in every direction from town; hugging the highway on one side and the mountains on the other. So I headed north, following the bike path. After about 10 miles, the path ended at a construction site. Rather then follow the road without a helmet until the path started up again, I spotted a small trail to the right and followed it. After passing a rickety bridge the road all of a sudden went vertical. So I continued… and was immediately out of breath and gears and the bike was swaying left and right. I paused to reconsider my route, I rested a bit, had some water, walked my bike for a minute, when an old man flew past me on his bicycle. I decided to follow him. Calmly I kept riding and climbing (approximately 2000 feet in elevation) when after an hour and a half I reached the mountain hamlet of Fiè Allo Sciliar where I rested and had a coffee and prepared for my descent. I thought i’d follow a different route down and so went on the road pointing to Bolzano only to find that i was on a two lane highway without a shoulder going downhill way too fast without a helmet. Caution (and lack of health insurance) got the best of me after 10 scary minutes of descent and I pulled over at a bus stop and got the next bus to the bottom of the hill.

Here are some pictures from my adventure… (the first eight)

on italian radio

August 29th, 2008



IMG_0707

Originally uploaded by nkatz22


Manifesta: week 1 and 2

August 29th, 2008

September is just about here and this means i officially start my employment with Manifesta 7. Not to say these past couple of weeks have been just sightseeing though. Most of my days have been spent visiting the various Manifesta venues and studying up on curatorial themes and artists work.

The exhibition takes place in five towns over the entire region of South Tyrol/Trentino in northern Italy. Politically this area is quite interesting as it was a part of Austria until just after World War I and is culturally more Austrian then Italian. During Mussolini’s era it went through a process of “italian-ification” with construction of large industrial plants and relocation of thousands of Italians to the region. In the 1970’s the region gained partial autonomy from Italy and benefits from many tax priviliges and as a result is a quite wealthy area.

Against this backdrop the exhibition takes place in various “post” sites, such as a former aluminum factory, a tobacco plant, and a 19th century fortress closed to the public until now. The venues are rich with history and beautifully set in the landscape of the region surrounded by the Dolomite mountains of the Southern Alps.

Actually to tell you the truth… being saturated with so much art, but not being in conversation about making has been draining on my creativity. At first it felt the opposite of graduate school, here everything is already in a state of having been completed, it’s on exhibit, it’s a show after all… I felt like I arrived to the party too late and everyone is already gone. The excitement of the opening of the show is over, the artists are gone, and attendance has been pretty low.

My hope was to use the art mediation as an intervention, a live element in a show that is already “dead” by virtue of it’s being on show.

This brings me to my first project here. In collaboration with Barbara Campaner, a brilliant and very talented art educator, we’ve devised a week long workshop for teenagers which will consist of a series of re-enactments of performance art pieces. As our classroom we are using the new Modern and Contemporary Art museum Museion that just opened in town and has a show filled with videos of historical performance art pieces, and the Former Aluminum Factory and now site for one of the Manifesta exhibits. The concept of the workshop is to experience key concepts in contemporary art through a physical engagement with them, analysis of them and re-invention of them.

Yesterday we were interviewed on radio for a local culture show. It was pretty cool, we talked about the concept of the workshop and also how it relates to my practice as an artist.

bolzano: week 1

August 24th, 2008

in bolzano, italy.

i haven’t been feeling terribly inspired to blog, still settling and soaking in the place.

blogging to start soon though… until then here are some photos 

youth–denied

August 13th, 2008



youth–denied

Originally uploaded by nkatz22


juror’s selection

August 10th, 2008

my work at the boston young contemporaries show was awarded the juror’s selection for new media.  i was awarded a gift certificate for an art supply store which jeanne teased me about since i haven’t used art supplies in a long time…

the show will be up for one more week so if you are in boston, check it out.