Directed by Jonathan Zalben
With artists Aziz + Cucher, Joseph Montgomery, Jody Zellen, Amanda Zackem, and Taylor Krauss
Live Performance by Jonathan Zalben (violin) and Pat Irwin (guitar)
Thursday June 9, 2022 at 8pm
Queens Public Library at Hunter's Point
47-40 Center Blvd. Long Island City, NY 11109
Outdoors, on the East River waterfront by Gantry Park, facing Manhattan.
(Rain Dates: 6/16/22, weather depending, please check here for any updates)
Live performance for Queens Rising, supported by the New York State Assembly Queens Delegation.
Please read more below and stay tuned for more information and updates on this page.
The project is made possible by a City Artist Corps Grant through NYFA.
“People” is a series of audio-visual pieces featuring work of visual artists set to original music written by Jonathan Zalben. The series includes work by visual artists Aziz + Cutcher, Joseph Montgomery, Jody Zellen, Amanda Zackem, and Taylor Krauss. Each of the artists involved has developed a varied practice over the years, but what ties the pieces together in this series, is imagery focused largely around depictions of people. The work combines elements of animation, choreography, poetry, and documentary. This juxtaposition of realism with manufactured and surrealistic depictions of human nature, are all tied to an underlying musical soundtrack. It is important for this work to focus on humanity given this pivotal and historic moment in our society.
ARTISTS:
Pat Irwin most recently composed the score for the Showtime series, "Dexter: New Blood." He has composed the music for many film and television shows including Showtime's "Nurse Jackie" and HBO's "Bored To Death" as well as many animated shows including "Rocko's Modern Life," "Pepper Ann," and "SpongeBob SquarePants." Pat was a founding member of two New York City based "No Wave" bands, "8 Eyed Spy" and "The Raybeats" and was a longtime member of "The B52s." He currently records and performs with "SUSS" who mostly released an EP, "Heat Haze," on the Brooklyn based label, Northern Spy.
Aziz + Cucher have been a collaborative team since 1991. Their interdisciplinary work is project-based and idea-driven, with outcomes ranging from video installations to printmaking, digital animation, sculpture and large-scale jacquard tapestries. Their latest multi-channel video installation, “You’re Welcome and I’m Sorry”, with sound design by Jonathan Zalben, was commissioned by MASS MoCA in 2019. Joseph Montgomery has had recent solo and duo exhibitions include Wrecked Angle: Rosy Keyser and Joseph Montgomery at Ceysson & Bénétière, New York; Pigpen Dispossessed at Galleri Urbane, Dallas; Joe at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague; Via degli Eremiti at CAR DRDE in Bologna; DOLLS (with Sherrie Levine) at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; Rules For Coyote, Dürst, Britt & Mayhew, The Hague; Heads, Calves at Laurel Gitlen, New York; Doll Index at Peter Blum Gallery, New York; Five Sets Five Reps at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Jody Zellen works in many media simultaneously. She creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen was awarded an Artist Fellowship from the City of Santa Monica in 2011 and 2016. She is also the recipient of a 2012 California Community Foundation Mid Career Fellowship, a 2011 Center for Cultural Innovation Artistic Innovation Grant as well as a 2004 COLA (City of Los Angeles) Fellowship. Amanda Zackem is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on parallel narratives, critical thought and the metaphysical realm. Her intuition is the guiding force — allowing the story to articulate itself naturally — at its’ own pace. Her short documentary, American Psychosis, is based off an interview with Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist, Author and Activist Chris Hedges, and discusses consumerism, totalitarian corporate power and living in a world dominated by pervasive illusion. It has screened in film festivals worldwide and was a nominee for Best Short Documentary of 2018 on Vimeo. Taylor Krauss is a documentary filmmaker who brings two decades of professional cinematography, producing, and oral history experience to bear in film and journalism. Krauss trained under Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, producing the seven-part series THE WAR. Krauss received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust and Genocide Awareness for establishing Voices of Rwanda. Jonathan Zalben creates compelling soundtracks for picture drawing on his decades-long experience in music, film, television, and media art. He studied violin and music composition at Juilliard Pre-College, Yale, and NYU. Zalben's art has been viewed at the Hammer Museum in LA, MASS MoCa, Boston Public Library, Sony Wonder Technology Lab in NYC, and art galleries around the world. He won an award for his media art collaboration, Compound Pilot, at SXSW.
Special Thanks to Ms. Eun Young Chang / Queens Public Library at Hunters Point
