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26/1/2007

Alejandro Almanza Pereda + eteam

Art in General, New York

Andamio (Temporary Frameworks)
Alejandro Almanza Pereda

From January 27-March 31, 2007, Art in General will exhibit Andamio (Temporary Frameworks), a new sculpture by artist Alejandro Almanza Pereda. Partly written in Spanish, and partly in English, the sculpture’s title references scaffolding, temporariness, and frameworks—the characteristics itself of this work. Assembled with fluorescent light tubes, glass, and other familiar objects, the sculpture, which is modular, resembles the ladder-and platform-type mechanism of scaffolding that adorns the facades of a plethora of buildings under renovation or construction in this very city.

Alejandro Almanza Pereda received his BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso, where he majored in sculpture and minored in graphic design. His solo exhibitions include "Stand Clear" at Magnan Emerich in New York City; "Mix Series" at the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art; "Verdevete" at Glass Gallery in El Paso and "Impermeable" at Union Gallery in El Paso. Among other group shows, Alejandro's work has been included in "Queens International 2006: Everything All at Once"; SCOPE New York; in Mexico City, "El Equilibrio y Sus Derivados" and Performagia 3. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Best of Show Arlene McKinon Award at UTEP in 2005, 2003 and 2002; the Best Sculpture Award at UTEP in 2003 and Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the international Sculpture Center in 2003. Alejandro has also participated in a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and received a grant from FONCA, the Mexican National Fund for the Arts and Culture.

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International Airport Montello
eteam

The International Airport Montello is a project by the New York-based artist’s collective known as eteam, in collaboration with citizens of Montello, Nevada, that centers on a 10-acre piece of land purchased by eteam from an auction at eBay.com. The project entails “the production of memories," described below, and now also a multi-channel video installation, which will be on exhibition at Art in General from January 27-March 31, 2006.

International Airport Montello consists of a series of recurring events in or about an abandoned airstrip—that is approximately 6000 feet and located nearby the eteam’s land—in order to reignite its use or potential. This has included the creation of events that would generate or revitalize a culture around the airstrip, and that would consequently help revaluate its use as a vital and entertaining site that would further developments in Montello. With the assistance of eteam, a number of local restaurants and businesses in Montello will revamp their interior spaces turning the town into a place “like any other" airport.

On Friday, September 15, 2006, an 8-passenger Beechjet 400 of AiG Airlines was on its way to Las Vegas for a weekend of art and gambling, when the pilots received a radio call about a sand storm in Nevada causing an unexpected 8-hour layover at the International Airport Montello (IAM).

Fortunately, the IAM was prepared. The terminal’s food court and services were ready to serve, including the five star Juan’s Coffee Shop, the VIP Sky View Dinner Club, the Cowboy and Saddle Sore Bars. And the IAM employees welcomed AiG Airlines passengers and other layover tourists with the utmost attention. Adventurous travelers and unique characters were among the passengers who were stuck at the IAM, adding to the distinctiveness of this layover. Despite that the IAM kept its air conditioning at extremely low temperature and its fans at high speed it was the perfect airport to experience an extended layover.

The trip and the layover was in fact promoted and organized by Art in General as a unique art getaway to Las Vegas—not emphasizing that the 20 hour layover at the International Airport Montello was the exact “destination." The travel package included a creative array of activities, particularly in Las Vegas, but really focused on the typical layover’s numbness that could be experienced in any other airport. Being in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the flight, doing nothing will be part of this aesthetic experience.

The town of Montello turned their cafeterias as the food court of the airport; the town’s church was the information booth; the bars were part of the airport lounge. The citizens of Montello enacted and performed as if they were airport employees, and the travelers were invited to “assume" that town as the International Airport Montello, and their stay there simply as a layover. The travel tickets were sold at Art in General, and a free seat was given away to a person proposing to play a creative role in the trip.

Before the layover, IAM hired the Brooklyn-based artist and writer Jason Dean as one of its Layover Crewmembers, who together with eteam was present at the layover. For a view about an audience-turned-participant of the project, read the texts by Jason Dean published in Big, Red, and Shinny. http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/frameset.pl?section=out-of-town&issue=issue50&article=MONTELLO_INTERNATIONAL_AIRPORT_1518527

Two staff members from Art in General were also there, Anthony Marcellini, who rather than being the curatorial assistant performed as the Airport Shuttle Driver, and myself, curator and programs manager turned AiG Airline stewardess. The AiG Airline passengers also experiencing the layover were curators, writers, and art patrons, as well passengers from other airlines.

Prior to this layover, a number of events and programs in New York City were designed to attract audiences.

In June 2005, in a program at the New School’s Vera List Center for Art and Politics with writer Jeffrey Kastner and Matthew Coolidge of the Center for Land Use and Interpretation, eteam presented IAM to New York audiences. Weeks later, curators Jeffrey Walkowiak and Rachel Gugelberger of Sara Meltzer Gallery helped eteam turn that gallery’s penthouse into an airport gate, where passengers waited for hours to catch a plane that never came.

Since the project’s early developments, in 2005, eteam had been traveling to Montello, writing stories, making photographs, shooting videos, and creating other mnemonic devices with the townspeople about the International Airport Montello. The idea was that the production of these “memories" intensified progressively until “the idea" of the airport was confused with its “actuality". Some of these memories began circulating from the very start of the project through a wiki-website managed by the eteam and the Montellonites: www.internationalairportmontello.com.

Around that time, Art in General furnished the town of Montello an Apple computer, and hooked up a satellite dish for them to have high-speed internet access. The computer was conveniently located in the city’s main gathering point, the Chapel of the Midnight Sun, where the town’s food-stamps are distributed weekly; a year later, the computer moved site. For over a year, the equipment is used by a number of people there, and is always connected online with eteam. The wiki-website has multiple entries, authors, and memories from Montello.

Back in New York, the programs and communication of the International Airport Montello continued.

Thanks to park ranger Linc Hallowell, eteam used the runways of Floyd Bennett Airfield in New York City to connect to the middle of nowhere where IAM operates.

In October 2006, Linc Hallowell, a historian and ranger of the National Park Service, led a guided tour of Floyd Bennett Airfield in New York City. He talked about that airfield’s peek moments, its decline, and the process of renovation that is currently underway. Afterwards, eteam created a 28-piece drawing in the shape of an airplane, and invited the public to act as a passenger, a pilot, an engine, and to take-off from the gates of historic Hanger B.

With and at these events, programs, performances and simple exchanges, eteam has created a series of memories that are now brought together to form a new on. This time, the memory is presented as a multi-channel video installation at Art in General’s 6th floor gallery, on exhibition from January 27-March 31, 2006.

The International Airport Montello by eteam and the citizens of Montello is commissioned by Art in General. The website component of the project is co-commissioned by Art in General and the Digital Matrix Commissions of Longwood Arts Projects in New York.

eteam’s members are Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger. Their work is guided by a process of understanding the circumstances and possibilities of a specific place or site. They have worked in such sites as skyscrapers, public parks, the internet and the desert. Their projects have been recently featured in exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and Momenta in New York City; The Soap Factory in Minneapolis; Grizedale Arts in England in Liverpool and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, among other places. To develop the International Airport Montello, the eteam has participated in the Center for Land Use Interpretation residency in Wendover, Utah.

eteam’s website: http://www.meineigenheim.org

The construction and operations of the International Airport Montello are possible thanks to many people. Art in General and eteam are grateful to them: the citizens of Montello; Matthew Coolidge and the Center for Land Use and Interpretation; Jason Dean; Kelly Goodwin; Linc Hallowell and the Floyd Bennett Airfield in New York City; Olukemi Ilesanmi; Henry J Casolari and the Church of the Midnight Sun; Carin Kuoni and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School; Jeffrey Kastner; Jim Peterson and the Wendover Airfield Base; Nevada Red and Darla from THAT place, Computer Ed; and, Jeffrey Walkowiak, Rachel Gugelberger, and Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Art in General
79 Walker Street
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 12—6pm

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