The next deadline for submissions is March 15, 2010. These applications will be considered for 3 month residencies beginning in September 2010 and January 2011. Click here for more information.

Prospective Recess residents will undergo a rigorous application process, submitting a resume, artists’ statement, a letter of recommendation, and ten jpeg images/video representations or other ephemera, characterizing work created in the past two years. In addition, artists should include a statement of purpose that includes a description of the artist’s particular interest in the Recess Program, and a detailed proposal of a specific project the artist will develop during his or her residency.

March 5, 2010 6-10pm. A one-night event exploring the role of human behavior in the construction of meaning in art. This collaborative performance will attempt to replicate an early study on human behavior. The experiment brings together the work of John Watson, Thomas Pynchon and Barnett Newman to establish a theory of behavioral relations. By examining the structure of behavior we can foster an understanding of our own internal order. The event builds on an online investigation that considers behavior modification a form of social sculpture. The project was initiated by Stephen Wuensch at The Bruce High Quality Foundation University.

For more information check out march1904.blogspot.com

stephenwuensch@gmail.com

Every Saturday at 7pm.

This class considers issues such as nostalgia, the mask, collectivity, authorship and cultural appropriation. Conversations begin in response to films and manifest in the creation of props, performance and more filmmaking. The main goal of this open structure is to nourish the terrain for an event. The project will involve group work with clay, actions and films, bringing together a series of seemingly un-related concepts and ideas. The duration of the bulk of the event itself can be determined like a Lacanian session. It could result in a series of sculptures and a film. How the end result could be made public should be discussed by the participants before and after the interactive session.

Other subjects include looking at collective action of all kinds. Especially CoBra, AfriCobra (An AFrican Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) and Blues music. Guests include Dan Graham, David Edelstein, Tyehimba Jess, Nomaduma Masilela,  Goffrey Jacques and  Elvira Dyangani Ose.

Films include Hi Mom!, directed by Brian DePalma and I‘m Not There by Todd Haynes.

Organized by Sarina Basta, Simone Leigh, and Karin Schneider.

Upcoming…

March 6, 2010

A Short History of the Harmonica, the foundation of Blues Music, an informal talk and listening session with Tyehimba Jess.

March 13, 2010

Be Black, Baby

Be Black, Baby a house party. Performance and talks by David Edlelstein, Dean Daderko, Nomaduma, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Kenya Robinson, and more

HARDER. BETTER. FASTER. STRONGER

Opening: THURSDAY FEBRUARY 25 6pm – 9 at RECESS & 6pm – 2am at 350 W Broadway

BRUCEFORMA: SATURDAY FEBRUARY 27 6pm – 9 at RECESS & 6pm – 12am at 350 W Broadway

Since its founding, the BRUCENNIAL has evolved into The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s signature public program, as well as the most important survey of contemporary art in the world ever. Following the triumphant successes of BRUCENNIAL08: Doing it Again (Bushwick) and BRUCENNIAL09: Smithumenta (Carol Gardens), BRUCENNIAL2010: Miseducation brings together 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 discrete disciplines to reclaim education as part of an artist’s ongoing practice beyond the principals of any one institution or experience.

The BRUCENNIAL will be housed at 350 West Broadway. Additionally, BHQFU projects will be on view at RECESS at 41 Grand Street.

Organized by Haley Mellin

Saturdays beginning February 13

4 – 6 pm at Recess

Recess usually happens in the in-between time. We are interested in making it a major sport.

This activity-based course engages with the concept of open-ended play and the imagination as a generative tool. It is based on the conviction that play is a necessary part of life and that we don’t do enough of it. We sacrifice play on a daily basis in pursuit of work and ambitions, stress, life maintenance.

As such the course looks at the philosophies of Dewey, Pierce, Gardner, Waldorf, Amish forms of play, Steiner, et al. We’ll also look at the pedagogy of play and kinder-garden [“children’s garden”] where play and nature combine into learning. During class sessions, participants will engage in activities that question the role of play.

The course is an immediate format, so simply attend the sessions you can make.

6-10pm, every other Thursday beginning February 11, 2010

This course will, in part, examine a particular point in the creative process that we have all likely encountered—the frustration or apathy induced breaking point, the point of abandon that leaves behind what we then regard as an incomplete or possibly even failed work.

The abandoned project, in a variety of its potential manifestations, will serve as the point of departure for each class as well as a point of contention. The course structure will remain fairly consistent, but will also consistently be open to internal (and external) critique, collaborative experimentation, and re-organization. Each class period will begin with a guest who will briefly present to the students one of their own abandoned creative endeavors. Discussed will be the initial ambitions and hopes for the project, what they did achieve so far with the work and how they achieved it, and finally, why they eventually (or suddenly) gave up on their project.

After this presentation, the guest will leave the class and, in doing so, willingly hand over their incomplete project in whatever forms it is tangibly or intangibly available. If the project never made it past it past the idea, sketch, or notes phase, then this is what will be left with the students. The unfinished, abandoned projects considered could range limitlessly from a painting or sculpture, a piece of furniture, a musical composition, a short story/poem, a knitted scarf, or even a culinary recipe. It is then in the hands of the students to collaboratively carry on this project however they see fit over the remainder of the class. Will it be decided to carry on the initial plan of the project’s instigator, or will an entirely new direction be taken? Will the table be finished as intended by its original “author”, or will it be chopped to pieces to make an entirely new object?

Participants in this course, possibly more appropriately described as a collaborative workshop, will thoroughly consider not only this fascinating and complex point of creative abandon, but also conceptual ownership concerning the transfer of ideas, particularly within a collaborative structure. To whom does the work belong? What is its story and who are its authors? Is anything ever really finished?

For updated information on class schedule and location, continued projects, related writings, observations, research, and documentation please visit: http://nothingisfinished.wordpress.com/

Organized by Sally O’Hara Szwed for the Bruce High Quality Foundation University

course contact: sally.o.szwed@gmail.com

Recess and Bruce High Quality Foundation University proudly present The Artist at Work, an ongoing video adaptation of Camus’s story about a painter whose audience overwhelms him.   The class is organized by Sophy Naess and incorporates productions by a large group of artist participants making props, original paintings, song, dance, costume and criticism.

Wednesdays and Fridays through February at 6pm.
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www.sophynaess.com

Examples of classes at Recess include “Occult Shenanigans,” in which participants will create a map of the past, present, and future of the art world based on remote viewing; “The Artist at Work,” which will incorporate painting critiques into the filming and restaging of the Camus story by the same name; “BHQFU Detective Agency,” which will invite “agents” to take on investigative projects, focusing on the documentation of that process. These classes will use Recess as a studio, set, stage and lecture hall. To download this press release, click here.

For a schedule of Bruce High Quality Foundation University classes and events at Recess, check back soon few week for an up-to-date calendar.

In response to evolving modes of artistic production, Recess proposes a new model that fuses public space, studio space and exhibition space. Artists are given street level residencies at 41 Grand Street in Manhattan. The space is open to the public and free of charge.

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