Vernita

(Vernita N'Cognita)

Until I get my blog together, or am able to add a new heading for artists' opportunities, I will just have to list them below in red! I am definitely not a Geek!

There will be a closing reception Saturday, July 17th, 5-7 for the Art of Detritus Show in Turners Falls, MA in conjunction with a show of photographs by Vern McClish at the Hallmark Gallery. To see who's in the show and other information regarding location etc, please click on Art From Detritus 2010 at the top of this page, or click here. The show opened May 21st, 2010 in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts. The Purelight Gallery is located at 37 Main St.

I have recently begun a curatorial space for exhibiting the art of under-recognized artists at the Sabay Thai Cafe in Elmhurst, NY. Far psychologically from Manhattan but an easy E train ride there. And its where the Q60 bus leaves for LGA Airport so you can even fly away after!

Beautiful art & delicious food! Images will be here soon but check out their website for location and menu. If you are an artist interested in showing there, email 6 jpegs (no larger than 500 dpi in either direction), your bio & a brief artist statement to: ncognita@earthfire.org. You might check out the space (& the food!) before so that you can select art that will be appropriate size-wise. I suggest no art larger than 40" square or smaller then 8x10". And of course, ready to hang.

Now on view at Sabay are a variety of my collages from the past few years. Included are my small Haiku collages as well as other works. Just finished was a show of the artful sunmade photographs of Massachusetts photographer Janet McClish. February/March at Sabay featured 2 artists who work with landscape & watercolor in very different ways- E Margo (Edie Schlesinger) studied painting in China for a number of years and as a result, her artistic expression was transformed. George Ludway, a cartoonist for most of his life, turned to watercolor at 75. He trained himself in the difficult media of watercolor, gaining the reputation in his native Ohio as the "Shanty Man" because of his numerous paintings of hidden woodsy abodes. In this show, his traditional Western approach to landscape is contrasted to E Margo's more Eastern interpretation.

As you may know, I am an artist of split persuasions- a performance artist and a visual artist as well as a curator of exhibits in which art and politics touch or,

if necessary, collide. My base is New York City but I love to travel & as often as possible, I use my art as an excuse to go somewhere I've never been.

I've had some wonderful interns these past few months who have been working diligently on archiving videos of my past performances , some of which you can now see on UTube. They also were stage crew for my most recent performance, "Dress", presented at DTW in NYC at the end of June. It was a new piece that I have been developing at Farspace through a Fieldwork grant. I hope that will be up on the web soon too. Special thanks to Jenn Hitchings, Katherine Walton, Joselyn Crocco and Cameron Kafura. I may even take the piece to Tokyo!

I will be performing in Tokyo- actually Ito City- in October, 2010. If you have friends there who might like to attend or friends I can touch base with there, please let me know. I will be performing there with the Japanese guitarist Kazuyosi Yamada at the studio of the friends of artist Namiyo Kubo.

At the end of April, in connection with the TOAST Artwalk I had an Open Studio at my loft on Canal Street. Please email me at ncognita@earthfire.org if you'd like more information (about any of this!) or just want to touch base!

Thank you for all to came to the Artists Talk On Art evening which I hosted to honor Nancy Spero, who died last October and whom I consider to be my "art mother". She was an incredible lady who never compromised her art or her character. She was generous to all with information, support and love and will be greatly missed. A video of the evening will be available soon that includes much footage of her speaking about her art, so contact Artist Talk On Art directly if you are interested. Now there is a wonderful show of Leon Golub's (her husband) last series of drawings & a wonderful vidoe of them both at the Drawing Center in Soho.

In December, I will be presenting an evening of "Open Performance at Artists Talk On Art which meets at Soho 20 Gallery in Chelsea. These will be 5 minute live performances, quick set up & take down with no tech. If you are a performance artist, please send me a brief description of your piece & your website or Utube video of your work to my email address by November 1. 20 or so performances will be selected.

I hope to interview Arthur Danto about his latest book & his thoughts about Art & Philosophy soon on video after we had to cancel our live interview at ATOA. I will let you know when that is available.

I really should start a blog I suppose, but...

My recent past included:

Performances fall/winter 2009 occurred at Soho 20 Gallery Benefit when they moved to their new location @ 547 W 27th St, Chelsea, NYC on October 24; Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research Open Performance Series, on November 18.

In December 2009, I presented a performance at Ceres Gallery in Chelsea called "The Other F Word", presented during their Exposures Exhibition Series. I exhibited 4 large collaged and painted pieces from my dress series and sold "Forgiveness" to a friend/ collector! This body of work has not been seen much but it is a series that I will continue developing in 2010.

I am continuing too my ongoing installation entitled the Endless Junkmail Scroll in which I collage security envelopes into an ongoing artwork that is sold by the linear inch. That work has been most recently shown in 2009 at Manhattanville College in Purchase NY. Before that it appeared at Gallery 128 on the Lower East Side of NYC, at Central Wyoming College in Riverton WY, at Huntington Long Island in June of 2006 and Cape Girardeau MO in September of 2006.. I see it as ongoing, just as our junkmail sadly seems to be, but please don't send me any until I've figured out a way to work faster!

I am also a performance artist in New York City and have been studying butoh for the last 10 years or so which I incorporate into my performances. I' ve practiced Butoh movement with Noboru Kamita, Eiko, Kim Ito, Akira Kasai, Atsushi Takenouchi, Ko Murobushi, Yumiko Yoshioka & others at Japan Society & The Cave in Williamsburgh, Bklyn; I also participated in the Time Based Art Festival in Portland Oregon, September 2004 with 33 Fainting Spells; Deborah Hay, etc. I plan to present a Butoh workshop in Skopelos Greece in 2011.

In 2005 I performed in Darmstadt Germany in an international project of art & performance in gardens. Previously I was part of the 5 Cities Project in Tokyo, as well as being a presenter at the PSI (Performance Studies International) Conference in Mainz Germany.

In January 2006 I presented a guerilla performance at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, France entitled "The Silver Rose." and another in 2007, "Barbie in Paris". In 2007, I also performed in Dublin, Ireland at Monster Truck Gallery and in 2009, I was honored to be selected by Movement Research to perform at Judson Church, where it all began. As you might guess, I love to travel and have been around the world (in 90 days) and in addition to those cities mentioned above, I have performed or shown my art in Budapest, Hu and Mexico City and aim to still add more to the list...