CoHosts is the 2014 Speaker Series presented by The Contemporary, a nomadic arts museum located in Baltimore, MD. The series was created in partnership with thirteen local commercial, artist-run, and independent galleries. Each gallery responded to a simple question: Who is the one artist or arts professional that you want The Contemporary to bring to Baltimore? Each gallery cohosted a residency for their selected speaker and identified local artists for studio visits.
CoHosts: Guest Spot & Coco Fusco from The Contemporary on Vimeo.
Video by John Clayton Lee courtesy of The Contemporary
Image: Photography by Olivia Obineme
Coco Fusco on impatience and art: “I don’t pay attention to bad art just because I like the message. Artists, don’t be in a hurry. Making an impact takes a long time. Wait twenty years and see if your work has had any impact.”
Coco Fusco as Dr. Zira from ‘Planet of the Apes’
According to The Contemporary’s Website:
Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She has performed, lectured, exhibited and curated around the world since 1988. She is a recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2013 Fulbright Fellowship, a 2012 US Artists Fellowship and a 2003 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Fusco’s performances and videos have been presented in two Whitney Biennials (2008 and 1993), BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the Sydney Biennale, The Johannesburg Biennial, The Kwangju Biennale, The Shanghai Biennale, InSite O5, Mercosul, Transmediale, The London International Theatre Festival, VideoBrasil and Performa05. Her works have also been shown at the Tate Liverpool, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. She is represented by Alexander Gray Associates in New York.
Fusco’s work combines electronic media and performance in a variety of formats, from staged multi-media performances incorporating large scale projections and closed circuit television to live performances streamed to the internet that invite audiences to chart the course of action through chat interaction. Her most recent media installation, And the Sea Will Talk to You (2012), invites audience into the physical and emotional experience of journeying from Cuba by sea. Participants relinquish their worldly possessions before entering a darkened theater where traditional seating has been replaced by the inner tubes that serve as sea crafts for Cuban rafters.
Fusco received her B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University (1982), her M.A. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University (1985) and her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture from Middlesex University (2007).
Coco Fusco: Observations of Predation in Humans at the Studio Museum in Harlem – Trailer
To read more about Coco Fusco’s Performance and Lecture as Dr. Zira at the Harlem Studio Museum, titled Observations of Predation in Humans, go to The Daily Serving here.
And of course, definitely read Bret McCabe’s recent Q&A with Fusco for Baltimore CP here.
