The Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), coordinated by Evan J. Garza and Chris Bogia, sponsored in part by Visual AIDS, and now in its fourth year, introduced its residents for 2014 at a gathering at the Community House on August 14. The artists are RJ Messineo from Easthampton, Massachusetts; Jonah Groeneboer from New York City; Ginger Brooks Takahashi from Braddock, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Dana DeGiulio from Chicago; and Sam Ashby from London, and each spoke and showed slides of his or her work.
RJ Messineo began with “A Hand to Hold,” a large work in oil, on a panel, with photographs, and continued with a series of “Shelf Paintings,” “an exercise in anti-design design,” in oil and spray paint on wood, and collages in oil and enamel on panels cut from dressers. RJ’s nest-like “Hole,” composed of paint on steel fencing, aluminum, and glue, appeared on the poster for the gathering.
Jonah Groeneboer’s abstract work reflects a transgender and queer sensibility. Jonah showed a string installation in a corner, a four-dimensional work, the fourth dimension being time, as it “has the property of moving through itself without breaking.” “Your position affects your perspective” on the work, he said. He showed a photo of another string work created for the outdoors, in Nature, and emphasized the “fragility” of the work. He also showed part of a 22-minute video, in gold and black, of “light passing over an arrangement of [3] mirrors,” as well as a photo of a work incorporating prisms.
Ginger Brooks Takahashi began with “Singing We Must Rage,” the words, over a triangle of dots, taken from a publication by Gay Liberation Front in 1971. It continued with a paragraph beginning, “We realize that homosexual oppression is part of all oppression.” “No One Is Disposable” is a phrase that appeared below a triangle of dots, on cocktail napkins, created for a queer art event. She showed photos of a storefront, General Sisters, a project of taking apart a building to see how it is put together, on which she collaborated with Dana Bishoproot, and incorporating a gallery, a garden, and a general store selling ingredients to make food. She also showed slides of her “Projet Mobilivre,” a bookmobile project and “traveling exhibit of artist books, zines, and independent publications,” and of her work with Men, a band of women percussionists.
Dana DeGiulio began with her work “Guess What,” involving a door being moved into the ocean here on Fire Island. Next came a skeleton, holding the skull and taking off a garment, and a “guerilla” work, of cloth, brought into the Chicago Museum by being worn as a scarf, and placed in a corner there. Of her work “Erect,” of female statues as temple columns, she said, “When a woman stands up, they put a building on her head.” Also in this vein are a video of Dana balancing all of her favorite books on her head and vintage photos of women modeling nude for artists. She then showing a work in which she made a hole in a building by driving a car into it.
Sam Ashby showed stills from Derek Jarman and Paul
Humfress’ erotic film in Latin “Sebastiane” and of Joe Dallesandro in an Andy Warhol film, as well as movie posters, which influenced him to start a magazine, Little Joe, named for Dallesandro, about film from a queer perspective. Establishing a screening room, “a safe space to watch these films,” including home movies and pornography, and a classroom followed. He also showed a photo of a project that draws on images from aversion therapy. As part of his residency, Sam is collecting films shot entirely or in part on Fire Island, including Warhol and Paul Morrissey’s “My Hustler,” Wakefield Poole’s “Boys in the Sand,” and Norman René and Craig Lucas’ “Longtime Companion.”