We are pleased to be part of the Whitney Art Staff Show 2019 already for the second time. We will be showing Sitings, series of collages investigating street life scenes and situations of the unconventional use of the public space in New York City.
From its origins in Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Greenwich Village studio in 1914 to its relocation to the Meatpacking District in 2015, the Whitney Museum of American Art has always sought to support living artists at critical moments in their careers. Many of the Museum’s staff members, who make the Museum’s exhibitions, programs, publications, and day-to-day operations possible, are artists themselves.
Barbara Botting / David Brooks / Jorge Colombo / Barrbara de Vries / Mark Dion / Hope Ginsburg / Dennis Gordon / Gary Graham / Brooke Grant / Heather Greene / Amanda Heidel / Aaron Hicklin / Jeffrey Jenkins / Alex Jones / Cameron Klavsen / Abby Lutz / Pam Mayer / Kristyna Milde / Marek Milde / Rebecca Purcell / Garnett Puett / J. Morgan Puett / Joshua Quarles / Gina Siepel / Laura Silverman / Allison Smith / Matthew Solomon / Caroline Wallner / Allison Ward / Paul Ward / Natalie Wilkin / Amy Yoes / Mary Lou Zelazny / Jim Zivic / and others swarming the topic – FACTORY.
Factory-made, industrial products are synonymous for the notion of the modern, pristine clean and perfect. The soap is an ultimate tool defining our culture, which is based on constant elimination of what is dirty and filthy. In Toto challenges the modern obsession with extreme cleanliness and the fear of dirt represented by the constant use of antiseptic hygiene products. For Mildes dust is a unique substance, a matter universally present, which they explore for its environmental and cultural significance. It is an inclusive entity consisting of many small particles of all possible things both natural and man-made like shavings of cloths, parts of human bodies and stardust from far away galaxies. In Toto represents idea of wholeness reflecting the matter in transition, its constant, accumulation, and dispersal in the cycle of nature, that we as humans attempt to interrupt, succeeding only temporarily. It represents a model of reality as a whole.
Reinventing the Conversation Bench
Westport Arts Center, CT
51 Riverside Ave, Westport, CT 06880
Exhibition Opening: Friday, March 8, 6-8pm.
On view March 8 – extended until May 25, 2019
Participants
Andrew Algier, Andranik Aroutiounian, Austin Ballard, Stephanie Becker, Thomas Berntsen, Lucienne Buckner, Trace Burroughs, Louise Cadoux,
Frederic Chiu, David Dear, Stephen Dull, Jeanine Esposito, Jason Farrell, Barbra Fordyce, Ben Geboe, Shiela Hale, Vesna Herman, Kevin Huelster,
Jana Ireijo, Anastasios Kokoris, Lauren Kushner, Heather Lawless, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Constance Old, Ivan Simandi, Scott Springer, Dina Upton
Jurists
John Edelman, CEO, Design Within Reach
Patricia Kane, Curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery
Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning American architecture critic
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Homescape – prototype, living sculpture, moss, ferns, installation view at the Westport Art Center
We are thrilled that our project Homescape , which won the collaborative category at the Tête-à -Tête: Reinventing the Conversation Bench exhibition at Westport Arts Center is now on view there until May 25th.
Thankful to jurists John Edelman, CEO, Design Within Reach; Patricia Kane, Curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery, and Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prizes winning American architecture critic for selecting us.
The show is proposing new platforms for conversation. It re-imagines and reinvents the Victorian-era conversation bench–also known as a tête-à -tête. Homescape: Tête-à -Tête is a model of a living sculpture that reframes and elevates the environment. It transforms the landscape into a bench to create a space for dialogue. Based on a design commissioned by Wave Hill for our solo show at Sunroom Project Space curated by Jennifer McGregor and Gabriel de Guzman. Now on view at Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center as part of the public tour.
Tête-à -Tête, is a unique piece of French furniture that emerged in the 19th century and translates to head-to-head–describing the early functionality of these seats during the Victorian era as a courting bench, conversation bench, kissing bench and gossip’s chair.
The traditional tête-à -tête seat features chairs with S-shaped, curved backs facing opposite directions that share a center armrest. Early tête-à -tête pieces were designed to enhance many kinds of discrete yet intimate conversations such as courtship. The exhibition is envisioned as a symbolic way to encourage conversation and civility within our community. We aim to foster dialogue in these polarized times–as people sit, talk and listen, their understanding and tolerance of each other will organically improve. A contemporary re-imagining of the conversation bench will make this project relevant to today’s sensibilities. Our categories—fantastical, functional and collaborative—allow for a wide range of exhibitors with diverse artistic training and abilities.
Our hope is that, ultimately, the winning bench will find a home along the Saugatuck River or be an installation piece that travels around town or becomes part of Westport’s Permanent Art Collection (WestPAC). Creative programming developed by community organizations and centered around the idea of listening is the natural outgrowth of this project.
Kristýna a Marek Milde – Petra Gupta Valentová
G18 Gallery Zlin, Czechia
Opening: Wednesday, March 13, 6pm
On view March 13 – April 25, 2019
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Dům v domÄ›/ Home in a Home, 2012 – 2019, wallpaper detail
a pattern designed with stories shared by the project participants about their favorite objects they collect to create a sense of home
On March 13th, 6 pm is the opening of the Exhibition (In)Visible Patterns/ (Ne)viditelné vzory by the artist duo Kristyna and Marek Milde and Petra Gupta Valentová curated by Silvie Stanická in Galerie G18, Zlin, Czechia, show is open thru April 25th.
The theme of the (In)Visible Patterns, engages the issues of everyday lifestyle, in consumerism and how they connect to larger environmental, social and cultural context. The current global world and consumer lifestyle bring together many issues and basic questions for which there are no simple answers, it is vital however to examine and look at them in context, not in isolation. One of such challenges is the current environmental crisis and the role of the individual in relation to (post) industrial society and to the so-called third world.
The exhibition (In)-Visible Patterns by Kristyna and Marek Milde and Petra Gupta Valentova present a selection of their environmental projects that seek to actively contribute to the general discourse. Mildes follow the phenomenon of a special kind the modern man, which they named Homo Interius, an individual who spends most of his life in a bubble inside a white cube separates himself from the surroundings, passively, with a purely interior attitude to the world. They present a series of installations Home in a Home, Do-It-Your-Self: Color of a Home and Cabinet of Smells, addressing the environmental deprivation by searching for the color, smell, and essence of home.
Petra Gupta Valentova founder of the IM.PRINTED brand focuses on the technique of Indian wood-working and Czech blueprint. Valentova is also behind the BBs – Bagru Bhabhis project, representing the tread patterns and gauge from the Bagru printers. However, the author is by no means interested in the products themselves only, but she is striving to contribute to the current topic of sustainable cooperation with third-world craftsmen who she believes should become real owners of their work, not just suppliers.
Czech:
Výstava (Ne)viditelné vzory pÅ™edstavà ve dnech 14. 3. – 25. 4. 2019 úspěšné Äeské umÄ›lce žijÃcà v New Yorku – Kristýnu a Marka Mildeovi spoleÄnÄ› s výtvarnicà Petrou Gupta Valentovou. Vernisáž výstavy, jejÞ kurátorkou je Silvie Stanická, probÄ›hne 13. 3. 2019 v 18:00 v G18.
Téma výstavy se zabývá problematikou každodennÃho životnÃho stylu v konzumerismu a tÃm, jak se dotýká Å¡irÅ¡Ãho environmentálnÃho, sociálnÃho a kulturnÃho kontextu.SouÄasný globálnà svÄ›t a spotÅ™ebnà způsob života pÅ™inášejà spoustu základnÃch otázek, na něž neexistujà jednoduché odpovÄ›di, je vÅ¡ak existenciálnÄ› důležité je hledat a nahlÞet nikoliv izolovanÄ›, ale v souvislostech. Jednou z takových výzev je environmentálnà téma, a to jak ve vztahu k (post)industriálnà spoleÄnosti a roli jednotlivce v nÃ, tak k tzv. tÅ™etÃmu svÄ›tu.
Výstava (Ne)viditelné vzory vÄ›novaná tvorbÄ› Kristýny a Marka Mildeových a Petry Gupta Valentové pÅ™edstavuje výbÄ›r z jejich environmentálnÃch projektů, které se snažà aktivnÄ› pÅ™ispÃvat k obecnému diskurzu. Mildeovi sledujà fenomén zvláštnÃho druhu modernÃho ÄlovÄ›ka, kterého pojmenovali Homo Interius, jedince, jenž trávà vÄ›tÅ¡inu svého života v bublinÄ› uvnitÅ™ bÃlé krychle separován od vlivu okolÃ, pasivnÄ›, s ryze interiérovým postojem ke svÄ›tu. V rámci výstavy prezentujà sérii instalaci Home in a Home, Do-It-Your-Self: Color of a Home and Cabinet of Smells, které se vÄ›nujà tématu enviromentálnà deprivace a hledajà barvu, vůni a esenci domova. V tÄ›chto projektech domácà prostÅ™edà sloužà jako laboratoÅ™ ke zkoumánà ztracených a Äasto neviditelných spojenà kultury a životnÃho
Gupta Valentová nedávno založila znaÄku IM.PRINTED zaměřenou na techniku indického dÅ™evotisku a Äeského modrotisku. Stojà též za projektem BBs – Bagru Bhabhis reprezentujÃcà dezény a metráže od tiskaÅ™ek z Bagru. Autorce vÅ¡ak v žádném pÅ™ÃpadÄ› nejde jen o samotné výrobky, ale pÅ™edevÅ¡Ãm o aktivnà pÅ™ÃspÄ›vek k aktuálnÃmu tématu udržitelné spolupráce s Å™emeslnÃky z tÅ™etÃho svÄ›ta, kteřà by se mÄ›li stávat skuteÄnými vlastnÃky své práce, nikoliv jen jejÃmi dodavateli.
The NYC Creative Salon is a series of discussions that take place bi-weekly. Each discussion is approximately an hour and a half long and takes place on a weekday evening. Each series is six discussions under one topic and each discussion has a different group of participants speaking on the topic. Ultimately, there will be six different discussions on one topic, in hopes of reaching a thorough investigation of that idea. The participants include a moderator and approximately 8 people working in various creative fields. We restrict the number of participants to 10 people in order to keep the group intimate and the discussion focused.
We produce and consume information. We accumulate fragments of the world we live in. We store and archive these crumbs in books, hard drives, and heads. We have developed the need of having notions for the interpretation of the past and theorization of the future. Like erected mile-stones in a flat field, we use them to orient ourselves in our living.
As art and cultural institutions are strictly connected with this entire process of producing, questioning and reinterpreting the ever-changing foundation of our contemporary being. How do we build knowledge that fuels our existence?
On View: October 28 – December 2, 2018
Please join us for the opening of Saunter Trek Escort Parade…(S.T.E.P.), curated by Christina Freeman, Emireth Herrera, and Moira Williams.
The first part of the exhibition and related events took place September 6th – September 30 in and around Flux Factory. The second part of the exhibition is taking place at Queens Museum’s Community Partnership Gallery, October 28 to December 2.
S.T.E.P…. seeks to be an overlapping convergence and entanglement of walking, walk-based works and programming, mobilizing throughout New York. S.T.E.P… embraces the many ways and bodies we walk while asking how walking as a creative act can challenge notions and open conversations around visibility, gender, labor, exploration, counter-mapping, colonialism, feminism, motherhood, contesting borders, community building, calling out gentrification, street harassment, (dis)ability, carbon debt, who sets the pace and measurement of the world, the power of dreams, and our entanglements between all of these and one another. S.T.E.P…. is open to all people of all abilities.
Walks and events occurring at the Queens Museum will be posted shortly.
About the Curators:
Christina, Emireth, and Moira met at Flux Factory’s residency in 2016. Christina’s practice intervenes into existing systems, approaching culture as something we actively shape together. Moira Williams’ co-creative practice weaves together performance, bio-art, food, sound, sculpture, and group walking as a lived experience. Emireth Herrera is a curator who aims to reveal social transformation through democratic processes.
Participating Artists + Collaborators:
Ariel Abrahams + Tal Gluck, Francheska Alcantara, Artcodex (Mike Estabrook + Vandana Jain), Annie Berman, Tom Bogaert, Becky Brown + Annette Cords, Compassionate Action Enterprises (Joan Giroux + Lisa Marie Kaftori), Xenia Diente, Magali Duzant, Katie Etheridge + Simon Persighetti, Brendan Fernandes, ray ferreira, Gudrun Filipska + Carly Butler, Alexander Freeman, FRONTVIEW, Angeline Gragasin, David Helbich, Claire Hind + Gary Winters, Lisa Hirmer, Maya Kaminishi Jeffereis, Walis Johnson + Paul Sue-Pat, Kyla Kegler, Kubra Khademi, illesha Khandelwal, Dominika Ksel, gillopez + Mitch Waxman, Magsamen + Hillerbrand, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer, Lisa Myers, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Sara Morawetz, Clare Qualmann, Morag Rose + The Loiterers Resistance Movement, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Julie Poitras Santos, Marcos Serafim + Jefferson Kielwagen + Steevens Simeon, SleepWalks (Lee Pembleton + Andrea Williams), Camille Turner, Geert Vermeire + Stefaan van Biesen + Simona Vermeire, Jevijoe Vitug plus Walking Discourse (Astrid Kaemmerling + Minoosh Zomorodinia)
Support + Sponsors:
Support for Saunter Trek Escort Parade… (S.T.E.P….) is provided by Friends of Flux, Queens Museum, the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, in-kind support from Materials for the Arts, ART WORKS arts.gov, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the New York State Legislature.
A Guide to the Field: Storefront Practices in the Social Realm
Opening October 6th, 12pm – 8pm
With David Brooks / Jorge Colombo / Barbara de Vries / Mark Dion / Hope Ginsburg / Leila Gordon / Gary Graham /
Brooke Grant / Jeffrey Jenkins /Alex A. Jones / Cameron Klavsen / Abby Lutz /
Kristyna & Marek Milde / J. Morgan Puett / Rebecca Purcell / Gina Siepel / Shelley Spector / Allison Smith /
Caroline Wallner / Allison Ward / Natalie Wilkin / Caroline Woolard / Amy Yoes //
2 Post Hill Road and Main Street / Mountaindale, NY 12763
Join us for the opening of the exhibition Encampment on October 6th at the A Guide to the Field: Storefront Practices in the Social Realm,a new project gallery by J. Morgan Puett and Abby Lutz, where we will be showing new collages from our project “Sitings”, that explores the domestication and “encampment” of public space.
Encampment,A Guide to the Field’s inaugural installation, offers visual and functional conversations around living in an ever-migratory society. Visitors will experience a storefront apartment environment, where artist’s works are responses to one’s daily activities of clothing, cooking, cleaning, making, playing, resting, and thinking/being.
A Guide to the Field: Storefront Practices in the Social Realm exhibits and sells socially and politically sensitive artworks, textiles, sculpture, clothing, furniture – fine art in the everyday – set in topic-driven installations (Swarmings) by artists working in the social sphere.
Sitings, 2018, 16″x 20″, collage, part of an ongoing project documenting the use and domestication of public space in Lower Manhattan started as part of the LMCC Process Space Residency at Governors Island in 2016. Sitings is a series of site-responsive sculptures functioning as furniture exploring the phenomena of unconventional domestication of public space. Sitings examines the conventions and limits of design and urbanism and its isolating effects on the human relationship to the environment.
A Guide to the Field
2 Post Hill Road and Main Street / Mountaindale, NY 12763
There is a Coach Short Line bus traveling
from NYC’s Port Authority to Mountaindale.
field@aguidetothefield.com
Instagram: @aguidetothefield
www.aguidetothefield.com
One day. One planet. One goal.
Millions of people in 150 countries uniting to clean up our world,
in the biggest civic action in human history.
aaaaaaaaaaaa
“Meet Kristyna and Marek Milde – an artist couple from Czech Republic residing in New York,
who interpret the city through the things its people throw away on the streets.”
Check out our latest interview we did as part of the international Word Cleanup Day on September 15, talking about our projects Looking for a Home, Public Library, and Natural Cleaners, where we use recycling and cleaning as an art strategy.
On 15 September, volunteers and partners worldwide will come together to rid our planet of trash – cleaning up litter and mismanaged waste from our beaches, rivers, forests, and streets.
A powerful ‘green wave’ of cleanups will start in New Zealand and end 36 hours later in Hawaii, with millions of people working towards one goal: a clean and healthy planet.
World Cleanup Day harnesses the power of everyday people to achieve incredible things by joining together. Its beauty lies in cooperation and collaboration: building bridges between disparate communities, and including all levels of society – from citizens to business, to the government.
A world changing idea with a humble beginning. The movement was born 10 years ago in Estonia, when 4% of the population came out to clean the entire country of illegally dumped waste, in a matter of hours. This captured the imaginations of people worldwide, who were inspired to follow suit with the same ambitious ‘one country, one-day’ formula.
This was the beginning of a global bottom-up civic movement, Let’s Do It! World which has spread like wildfire around the globe. The movement has grown to be the biggest of its kind in the world – uniting people from all corners of the planet to work together in cleaning the world of trash.
But, the Let’s Do It! Movement has never been purely about cleaning up trash. It also works to raise global awareness and implement lasting changes to end the global waste epidemic, once and for all.
As Estonia celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, World Cleanup Day 2018 is the country’s gift to the world.
Please, join us for the opening of the Whitney Staff Art Show 2018, where we will be showing for the first time our piece “Timescapeâ€, a sculpture made of bricks found on the shores of the East and Hudson Rivers. The bricks rounded by water over a time to pebbles of various shapes are assembled together according to their size to resemble a relief of a landscape. From its origins in Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Greenwich Village studio in 1914 to its relocation to the Meatpacking District in 2015, the Whitney Museum of American Art has always sought to support living artists at critical moments in their careers. Many of the Museum’s staff members, who make the Museum’s exhibitions, programs, publications, and day-to-day operations possible, are artists themselves. For the third time in its history, the Whitney’s Staff Art Show will be held in a public space, offering staff an opportunity to share their work and deepen connections with one another as well as a wider audience. This year’s exhibition will include the work of over ninety artists, presenting a wide range of mediums and content and reflecting the diversity of thought and artistic practice among Whitney’s staff.
Timescape, 2008 – 2018, 40″x 40″ x 8″, installation view at the Westburn Gallery, bricks found on the shores of the East and Hudson Rivers
New work by Mckendree Key, Katerina Lanfranco, Kristyna and Marek Milde, John Monti, Colin O’Con, and Carolyn Salas.
Curated by Tom Kotik
Commissioned by Arts Brookfield
On view April 9 – May 19, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 12, 6 – 8 PM
Grace Building at 1114 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan
Please join us for the opening of the exhibition Human Nature featuring our new sculptures Petrified Times commissioned by Arts Brookfield. Nature, and our relationship to it has been a theme in art since humans began drawing on cave walls during prehistoric times. Over the millennia, our methods of expression may have changed but our fascination with observing the natural world remains constant. Commissioned by Arts Brookfield, Human Nature presents six new works by seven contemporary artists inspired by the natural landscape and the use of organic forms. Utilizing visual cues from nature, the artworks in this exhibition are distinct interpretations of our environment and the complex relationships to it. Some works utilize organic materials such as plants and natural fibers to reveal creative interactions with the earth’s resources; others rely on man-made and industrial materials, highlighting the contrast between the modern world and the idealized vision of nature we inherently possess. The vibrant and unique interpretations in Human Nature serve as visual landmarks in our perpetual quest to understand the ever-changing world that surrounds us. – Tom Kotik, curator
The show will continue to travel to:
One Liberty Plaza, 165 Broadway, NYC, May 21 – June 29, 2018
300 Madison, NYC, July 2 – August 10, 201
Petrified Times – Art,2018, From the series Petrified Times, NewYorkTimes Art section, newspaper collected for one year, glue, metal stand, 19†x 12â€x 5â€
Wilder LIC
Group exhibition organized by the Flux Factory
Participating artists and performers Amirtha Kidambi, Andrea Haenggi, Alex Nathanson, Christopher Kennedy & Thomas Choinacky,
Ellie Irons, Jessica Pavone, Johann Diedrick, Katya Khan, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Richard Garet, Valeria Haedo…and Flux Iron Chefs!!!
Curated by Lorissa Rinehart and Nat Roe.
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 5, 6p – 8pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, May 10 at 7pmOn View: May 5 – June 16
Windmill Community Garden, 39-22 29th St, Long Island City, NYC
Join us for the opening of the exhibition Wilder LIC, where we have been commissioned by the Flux Factory to create a new permanent living sculpture “Plantarium -Tea Garden” at the Windmill Community Garden located across the street of the Flux Factory which Flux co-founded with neighborhood partners in 2016, this marks the opening of the very first group exhibition in this new location. The exhibition curated by Lorissa Reinhart, independent curator, and Nat Roe, Director of Flux, includes artists and performers who explore the urban wilderness and our relationship to the often overlooked environment. New artworks will be on view May 5 – June 16, with special events and performances throughout the month. In his recent book Feral, George Monboit discusses his theory of ecological boredom that posits much of the existential ennui experienced by urban denizens is a result of our self-distancing from the wild in favor of more homogeneous landscapes. To advance this idea further, one might postulate that our evolutionary biology seeks and yearns for biodiversity, recognizing this as the keystone of a sustainable environment. Simultaneously, our contrary desire is to find safety in the controlled and understood leads us to create places where the other is wholly absent. Thus we find ourselves increasingly migrating to megacities devoid of any contact with what one might call nature as even city parks are highly regulated spaces where an errant leaf is a cause for a gas powered blower. Outside the city is hardly better as agribusiness monoculture creates unbroken seas of Roundup-ready cash crops. By banishing any hope of the aleatory, these barren spaces inhibit imagination and creativity. This exhibition seeks to channel what is wild through familiar media and technologies in order to create an accessible platform for new ideas about ecological and cultural diversity. It suggests the wild can be understood as a complicated system necessary for the perpetuation of life as we know it, rather than the chaos that should be simplified and abolished. Finally, this exhibition encourages artists, scientists, programmers, and designers to work together and borrow from each other to create new lenses through which we might see and experience our wilder nature.
Schedule of Events:
May 5th, 3p-7p – Opening reception, catered by Juquila Kitche
May 10, 7p – Flux Thursday potluck and artist talks
May 12, 1p-5p – “Good Vibrations Acoustic Cartography Tourâ€
May 13, 6p – “Party Noireâ€, part of Open Engagement conference
May 26, 2p-3p – “Weedy Nomad: A Performative Field Studyâ€
May 27, 2p-3p – “Weedy Nomad: A Walking Tour of LIC’s Forgotten Landscapesâ€
May 27, 4p-7p – Amirtha Kidambi and Jessica Pavone (solo and duo sets) with supper from Flux Iron Chefs
June 3, 4p-7p – Richard Garet (solo) and Andrea Haenggi’s “DON’T TOUCH ME: A Participatory Fieldwork Performanceâ€, with supper from Flux Iron Chefs
June 17, 6p – Closing Reception
About the Plantarium Tea Garden:
 Kristyna and Marek Milde, Plantarium – Tea Garden, Flux Factory/Windmill Community Garden, 2018,
view of the work in progress, transplanted foraged wildflowers, soil, stones, steel, 12′ x 12’x 6′
Plantarium – Tea Garden is a new permanent installation commissioned by Flux Factory taking a form of a wildflower garden functioning both as a living sculpture and an open platform, serving the local Windmill Garden Community to grow and harvest plants for teas and infusions and host variety of events, tastings, and educative workshops to deepen the interest in native plants and learn about its cultural, culinary and medicinal use. Plantarium – Tea Garden consists of an organic interlocking system of circular garden beds featuring a spectrum of uncultivated local plants displaying native alongside the introduced species hardy perennials herbs such as the Bea Balm, Mountain Mint, and St. John’s Wort reflecting the evolving culture-nature relationship. The design is based on the idea of an interlocking mosaic of wild plant in nature, where they connect with each other to create a living social network a parallel to the diverse communities living in NYC. Some of the circles will also function as seating areas, where people could relax, socialize and experience the textures and smells of the plants. The project evolves in series of walks, studies, and workshops gradually establishing a wildflower garden in collaboration with the local community reflecting the natural diversity through the seasonal change. The project is part of series of site interventions and participatory actions where we engage themes of environmental alienation by promoting an active experience of wild plants through use, consumption, and interpretation to explore our relationship to the environment. It father expands concepts of our developing project Plantarium, Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, a wildflower garden, and an educative platform, which we started in 2017 at Mildred’s Lane in PA that explores local wild plants and flowers its use and cultural significance. With our project, we aim to enable positive change in our relationship to the environment and public space on the social, ecological and urban planning level. We want to facilitate awareness about the space we live in and connect people to their immediate environment raising awareness about current alienation and disconnections from our surrounding. We are interested in activating local communities through direct experience and interaction to thrive towards a more responsible and sustainable future.
About the Windmill Community Garden
Located across the street from Flux Factory, the Windmill Community Garden was founded in 2016 and is a permanent GreenThumb NYC Park. The Garden is led by three neighborhood nonprofits including Flux Factory, The Growing Up Green Charter School, and the Dutch Kills Civic Association, in addition to local community members.
Wilding, Wasting, Workstyling
Mildred’s Lane Sessions 2018
YEAR OF TIN & CHINAJune 18 – 24, 2018
Accepting Applications!
Session Leading Artists: Donna Cleary, Daria Dorosh,
Kristyna and Marek Milde, J. Morgan Puett, Shelley Spector, Amy Lou Stein
Wildcrafting is a term defining food as naturally medicinal, concerned with sustainability. Fellows are engaged in detailed studies of the dynamic landscape at Mildred’s Lane, practicing foraging routines with a focus on transforming food/waste systems and critically processing plants throughout the seasons. Local naturalists, gardeners, botanists, and other contributing artists will workshop around topics including collecting, pressing, tincturing, planting, soil biology – wilding; while focusing on the dynamic transformation of the Mildred’s Garden adjacent to the Mildred’s Lane TransHistorical Society and Museum. The group becomes an emergent collective working on all projects concerning botanicals of Mildred’sLane. Kristyna and Marek Milde are working on their permanent site project, Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas. Donna Cleary presents workshops on drying botanicals in preparation for tincture making. Amy Lou Stein is advising on a mother indigo dye system, starting with planting. Shelley Spector shares applied skills in the art of soap-making from recycled products. With collective outcomes, we will experiment with our printing press. J. Morgan Puett refines our daily workstyles as we go. Other special guests include a TOWN Friday with Daria Dorosh.
TOWN FRIDAY, June 23, is free and open to the public. Daria Dorosh talk, titled “Take back your body.” It considers the current commodification of the body, how to take it back, and why it matters now more than ever. Our five senses are key in this exploration as well as conventional fashion and gender politics.
Application details here.
Download the info-zine here.
Donna Cleary pulls from her experiences as a Registered Nurse, mother and Herbalist to embody Healer, Medicine Woman, Wise Woman. Donna’s interest lies in traditional healing practices. A descendant of Irish Herbalists, she has reclaimed that familial knowledge. Focusing on the rituals, ceremonies, and objects that accompany medicinal vehicles, her crocheted fertility sculptures reflect on the past by comingling the Feminine Mystique with Pagan Goddess Symbolism, the cycles of life, death, and regeneration. Graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 2014, her exhibitions include Freight and Volume, Petzel Gallery, A.I.R., Art in Odd Places, with reviews by Roberta Smith, Hyperallergic, Rhizome. She attended residencies at MASS MoCA, Cill Rialiag, chaNorth, Mildred’s Lane and founder of 184 Project Space. www.donnacleary.net
Kristyna and Marek Milde are Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artists duo, originally from Prague, Czech Republic. Their work takes a form of sculptures, installations, and participatory site interventions that investigate codes and mechanism of culture and modern lifestyle exploring its shifting relationship to the context of environment and nature. The Mildes were awarded residencies at ISCP, LMCC Process Space, Queens Museum Studio in the Park, EFA SHIFT, and A-Z West. They exhibited in the Queens Museum, MoMA Studio, Wave Hill, Smack Mellon, EFA, Abrons Art Center, Knockdown Center, HVCCA, Russell-Wright-Design Center, Temple Contemporary, DOX Center for Contemporary Art; Futura; Meet Factory. Their work has been featured in the New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art, Hyperallergic, BTR Radio, and Czech National Television, among others. In 2007 they received MFAs from the Queens College, CUNY. www.mildeart.com
J. Morgan Puett. Georgia. BFA, (painting and sculpture, 1981,) and MFA, (sculpture and experimental filmmaking, 1984); from SAIC. Puett is a trans-disciplinary, creative with accomplished work in installation art, clothing & furniture design, architecture, film, writing and more – rearranging multiple intersections by applying conceptual tools and research-based methods with interests in history, environment, design, craft, and collaboration. Morgan’s early work forged new territory by intervening into the fashion system; and since innovative in the realm of social engagement, founding Mildred’s Lane. She continues to explore genres, citing that being is profoundly a social and political practice. Most recently, Puett received The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award and The Pollock- Krasner Foundation Award, both in 2016.www.mildredslane.com, www.jmorganpuett.com
Shelley Spector is a multidisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. In her practice, she responds to available resources, often discarded, in combination with a changeable work environment. She produces specific bodies of work in search of universal themes. Currently, she is working on several long-term projects through which her work is intended to generate rather than deplete resources. Her work is part of many public and private collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which presented her solo exhibition “Keep The Home Fires Burning†in 2015, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Human Rights Campaign in Washington, DC. Spector has received grants from the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Leeway Foundation. www.shelleyspector.com
Amy Lou Stein is a fiber artist who works with natural dyes, eco-printing, textiles, and crochet. She is the founder of Craftwork Somerville, a makerspace that since 2015 has aimed to build community through craft by curating workshops and classes for makers of all ages. Her passion for plants and botanicals grows out of a commitment to sustainably interact with nature and to find creative fulfillment for herself and other by repurposing and reusing. She has taught at Squam Art Workshops and Lakeside Fiber Retreat; and received a technical scholarship to develop her craft and assist teaching at Haystack. Amy Lou draws inspiration from fashion, music, film, and other media: as a principal of Ozma Designs in Los Angeles, she has worked as a costume designer and wardrobe consultant for Beck, Beth Orton, Mercury Rev, and the Eels.www.amyloustein.com
Daria Dorosh, Ph.D. is a co-founder of A.I.R. Gallery, NY, and adjunct faculty at SMARTlab, University College Dublin, Ireland. She was a keynote speaker at VSMM 2017, a conference on Virtual Systems and MultiMedia at UCD and has given many presentations including The Future is History: feminist legacies in contemporary art, at the Brooklyn Museum. Dorosh studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, NY. She taught fashion design at FIT and fine art at Parsons School of Design, NY. Her Fashion Lab in Process, LLC, is a research platform to identify new economic models for artists. www.dariadorosh.com
www.mildredslane.com
Sessions 2018: YEAR OF TIN & CHINA2018 is a notable year for us. We are celebrating the tenth season of sessions and the twentieth anniversary of the project site we call Mildred’s Lane. We invite you to share experience and knowledge during the Summer Sessions 2018!
Check out the images from the session here:
Daily Walk: Chance Ecologies
Organized by the Brooklyn Public Library as part of the Democracy Lab
Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY
Tuesday, June 10, 2018, 6 – 7pm
Guided walk through the neighborhood focused on exploring the un-designed landscapes and wilderness found in around Grand Army Plaza, focusing on wild plants and animals who found a home in our dense urban environment.
Led by artist and curator of Chance Ecologies Nathan Kensinger, artists duo Kristyna and Marek Milde, presenting a herbal drink made with wild plants gathered on their foraging trips and expeditions, Sarah Nelson Wright and Edrex Fontanilla, featuring a virtual-reality glimpse into distant chance ecological sites, and Matthias Neumann intervention engaging the idea of “invasive” and “illegal” species.
Chance Ecologies is a public art project that explores un-designed landscapes and wilderness found in New York City’s abandoned spaces, post-industrial sites, and landfills.
www.chancecologies.org
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Check out the images from the walk here:
Interview with Kristyna and Marek Milde
Peripheral ARTeries Art Review – Aniversary Edition
We are pleased to share a newly published interview we did for the magazine Peripheral ARTeries. We very much enjoyed talking to the curators of the Peripheral ARTeries Dario Rutigliano (United Kindom) and Melissa C. Hilborn (USA/ Germany) discussing in detail our collaborative artistic process and strategies we utilize in our recent projects. The article is available on page 4-31.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Check out our interview on the BTR Radio as part of the Art Uncovered series hosted by Kimberley Ruth. In the interview, we discuss many topics and projects including the Public Library currently on view as part of the exhibition Building and Rebuilding at Repair the World. It was a very rich conversation and we hope you will enjoy it!
Tags: Bees | Books | Collaboration | Environment | Furniture | Home | SustainabilityArt Uncovered brings you interviews with an eclectic mix of artists and creators. On the show, they discuss their work and how it may intersect with technology, pop-culture, science, and the larger culture. Kimberly Ruth is a New York-based multi-media artist, radio host, founder of the Gnome Magazine, and Professor of Journalism and Photography at SUNY New Paltz. Her work explores the failures and inconsistencies of language, especially in the digital age.
Play
Presented by Asylum Arts
Exhibition curated by Shlomit Dror
Featuring works by:
Noa Charuvi, Esperanza Mayobre, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Naomi Safran-Hon, and Ivan Stojakovic
at Repair the World NYC
808 Nostrand Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
(2,3,4,6 Train to Nostrand Avenue)
November 3, 2017 – January 14, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 30, 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Public Library, 2017, installation view at Repair the World, exhibition Building and Rebuilding
collections of discarded books found on the streets since 2012, custom sized plywood boxes, dimensions variable
Please join us for the opening of the exhibition Building & Rebuilding curated by Shlomit Dror on November 30 from 7 pm- 9:30 pm at Repair the World, 808 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn presented by the Asylum Arts. The exhibition presents our new installation project “Public Libraryâ€, a sculpture and a growing archive of found books rescued from the New York City waste stream. The piece functions as an interactive library allowing for browsing and reading of over 30 book collections we gathered over several years in the trash on the NYC streets. The library takes a form of irregular conglomerate sculpture, serving as a bookcase built of a variety of custom sized rectangular segments, housing individual book collections, resembling elements and structures of architecture. Public Library preserves these collections as cultural statements, which we consider as curated selections that at the same time function as imaginary portraits of unknown characters reflecting the multitude of unique contexts and cultural narratives defining a place such as NYC. The project is an inquiry into the theme of books and their changing role in consumerism, examining the cultural significance of collecting and disposal, it is a part of series of projects in which we utilize the idea of an archive, and collections as a platform to explore current issues of society and culture. The concept of the Public Library is open-ended while suggesting a parallel to the city and urban development, its shifts and expansion, the library will further continue to grow in size and shape with the addition of new finds. Learn more here.
This group exhibition Building & Rebuilding addresses the effects of the rapidly-changing landscape in our urban surroundings as a result of sprawl, evident by endless demolitions, empty lots and new high-rises. The works in the show contain familiar elements from city landscapes, such as scaffolding, urban detritus, abandoned buildings, and public gardens, all addressing the hurried transformation of cityscapes closely related to gentrification. The social and architectural shifts in which many neighborhoods in Brooklyn (and elsewhere) encounter are primary themes within the artists’ works. Some of the works in the show are more abstract than others, presenting imagined structures as a way of exploring the notion of permanence and impermanence in “new†territories and spaces. Other works in the show mirror a tangled topography and inspire association with urban sprawl, interrogating urbanism and the tension that occurs due to shifts in the landscape.
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Building and Rebuilding Exhibition Press Release
Group Exhibition curated by Jennifer Mac Gregor and Gabriel de Guzman
September 10 – December 03, 2017
Opening Reception, Sunday, September 10, 2 – 4:30pm
Wave Hill, Glyndor Gallery, 675 W 252nd Street, Bronx, NY 10471
Kristyna and Marek Milde, In-Tree-Net, 2009-2017, installation view at Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill, 10,5′ x 1,5′ x 6“
tree trunks and branches, plumbing hardware
We are happy to invite you to the group exhibition Call & Response at Wave Hill at the Glyndor Gallery curated by Gabriel Guzman, where we will present our project In-Tree-Net, a site-specific installation on the theme of borders architecture creates towards the natural world. Please join us for the Opening Reception on Sunday, September 10, 2 pm – 4:30 pm. In the spirit of experimentation synonymous with the Sunroom, a space devoted to site-specific work by emerging artists, Wave Hill’s curatorial team has invited 50 artists who have shown in the Sunroom over the last ten years to return and present new responses, encompassing an exhilarating re-examination of the site. The show will feature new work, ranging from art objects created using natural materials on site, to sound and video pieces, outdoor installations and performance works.
For the exhibition Call and Response at Wave Hill Kristyna and Marek Milde created a site-specific installation titled In-Tree-Net, a part of a series of sculptural interventions, responding to issue of environmental fragmentation embedded in architecture. In-Tree-Net takes the form of an organic nervous system growing through the building. The installation is made with trees and branches assembled together with plumbing hardware resembling pipes and engineering structures. At Wave Hill, the installation penetrates the walls of the historical rooms in which once dwelled families of Roosevelt’s and the writer Mark Twain. Trees and their complex interconnection present in the ecosystem of the woods are here reduced to a rigid model of a machine representing the common mechanistic perspective of nature.
The Mildes say: “We are interested in connecting our insulated interior reality to the environmental context. In the project, we confront the cultural notion of framing and dividing nature with artificial borders. In-Tree-Net represents the vital element of nature symbolically crossing these barriers, pointing to the continuity of environment.†The artists conceived the project In-Tree-Net as a developing algorithm open to being applied site-specifically to a variety of sites and places, institutional, public and private. The project already evolved in response to a number of sites and places in the US and Europe confronting borders and limits of architecture. They are interested in reviewing proposals from individuals and institutions to consider possible interactions with specific sites.
The Sunroom Project Space provides an alternative to the kind of white-box setting a contemporary gallery might typically offer. Instead, it features distinctive, arched windows, bringing awareness of the vibrant garden oasis beyond into the installation space and informing and inspiring the work within. For ten years, Wave Hill has opened the space to emerging, New York-area artists to create a site-specific solo project, responding to the unique natural environment of Wave Hill’s gardens, setting, and history. This flourishing program draws artists from the Bronx, as well as other parts of New York City, and is an integral part of the cultural life of the borough. More info here
Media Covrage:
“NY gallery offers space for young artists”TV Reportage from the opening of the Call and Response Exhibition at Wave Hill, featuring our site-specific installation In-Tree-NetSeptember 10, 2017
The Riverdale Press
Exhibition review about the anniversary Call & Response show at Wave Hill, where we presented our site-specific installation In-Tree-Net.October 6, 2017
Please join us for our Open Studio Event taking place at our Studio, Home and Backyard this weekend held as part of the 11th annual neighborhood-wide festival Bushwick Open Studios festival (BOS) September 22-24, 2017.
You will get insight into the process of making our newest projects we worked on in the last months, such as the developing installation Felling Times targeting media narratives, and project Home in a Home focusing on the theme of domestic integrity we created during our recent ISCP Summer Residency. There will be many more new works to see and we look very much forward to have you over for an informal visit and discussion. We will have some home-made refreshments, please BYOB. Our BOS 2017 listing FB event page
There is much more happening around us, the Bushwick Open Studios Festival features several hundreds of participating artists and cultural events, concerts and performances made in Bushwick. So visiting this weekend is a unique opportunity to explore, the currently hottest NY artist neighborhood. Check out the official Festival Website for more information: Bushwick Open Studios 2017
During the weekend most studios will be open from 11am – 7pm on Saturday and Sunday with opening night festivities on Friday night kicking off AiB’s annual Seeking Space group show. Some studio hours will vary, check the community events calendar for studio listings with precise locations and times. You can also browse by location, category or search our artist directory. Visitors and neighbors can also enjoy a series of events, performances, and panel discussions coordinated by AiB in partnership with local businesses and cultural institutions. Some of the Official Arts in Bushwick events during BOS weekend will include:
Opening night of Seeking Space at Beyond Studios NYC
272 Seigel Street
Friday, September 22, 2017 from 7-10pm: The weekend’s kick-off party and opening reception launching the Bushwick Open Studios signature group show, Seeking Space, open 1-5pm Saturday and Sunday through the BOS weekend. Pick up a copy of Making History Bushwick – cataloging ten years of Bushwick and featuring 400 artists – while you’re there!
“AiB Art Walk†Coordinated with Graham Avenue Business Improvement District
All Weekend, September 23-24: Artists have been invited to display work in storefronts along the avenue. Closest Subway J/M/Z at Flushing Avenue
“Deface vs Displace†Curated by Color Scenes and Bushwick Street Art
1009 Broadway #203
Saturday, September 23, 2017, 12-5pm: This action-packed performance and exhibition event will include live painting, vendors, performances and an art exhibition. Curated by Color Scenes and Bushwick Street Art, in coordination with Arts in Bushwick. Located at Bushwick Street Art Gallery,
The BOS Afterparty at House of Yes
2 Wyckoff Avenue
Sunday, September 24,9pm: Proceeds will go to Educated Little Monsters, a creative focused, youth empowerment organization in Bushwick.
A free information map will be available throughout participating hub sites around the community. This free event is a unique opportunity for the Bushwick community and our visitors to tour hundreds of artist studios throughout the neighborhood and a little beyond, to see and feel firsthand the creative vibrancy of a flourishing community.
For art collectors, BOS presents an incredible opportunity to support local artists and purchase high-quality artworks from emerging and renowned artists alike.
If you are a visitor, we recommend taking the L train or J train. The L will let out at the northwestern part of the area at Morgan, Jefferson and Dekalb Avenues, while the J will land you in the southern parts of Bushwick along Broadway. Note, the M train is running to Myrtle-Broadway, but operates as a shuttle bus beyond this stop. Please visit the MTA website for specific information about subway service.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2017, 6:30pm
ISCP’s second-floor lounge, 1040 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Home in a Home, 2016,
Installation view at Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, wallpaper, digital print on vinyl, molding, furniture, and project’s survey, 144×120×108 in. (365.76 × 304.8 × 274.32 cm)
Please join us Tuesday, September 19, join us for the artist talks by ISCP residents Kristyna and Marek Milde and Yumiko Ono.Kristyna and Marek Milde will speak about their art practice and current project Home in a Home, a research-based work that explores domestic identities. Specifically, they investigate the role of collecting nonfunctional objects and memorabilia in creating personal space. The Milde’s art practice engages themes of modern lifestyles and everyday realities, including domesticity, food, and a variety of cultural rituals that explore society’s alienation from the wider environmental context.Yumiko Ono will address her interest in communist culture, especially in the field of architecture and how the idea of utopia connects to her own cultural background. She will explain how this interest circulates throughout her current research in New York. Ono will also present past works to demonstrate the evolution of her work from a particular point of view about form.
Bellow you can watch a video from the ISCP Artist Talk, the first 30min is Yumiko Ono talking about her work, followed by our presentation.
PDF of the presentation available here.
Click here for more information.
July 1 – August 31, 2017
1040 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
We are thrilled to begin the International Artist Residency at ISCP in Brooklyn, NY!
Thank you ISCP and BBLA for your support!
We are working on our project Home in a Home. Come to visit us at the studio # 203!
The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) supports the creative development of artists and curators, and promotes exchange through residencies and public programs. Housed in a former factory in Brooklyn, with 35 light-filled work studios and two galleries, ISCP is New York’s most comprehensive international visual arts residency program, founded in 1994. ISCP organizes exhibitions, events, and offsite projects, which are free and open to all, sustaining a vibrant community of contemporary art practitioners and diverse audiences. Artists and curators from more than 70 countries, including the United States have undertaken residencies at ISCP.
The Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), established in 1891, was founded as an umbrella organization representing approximately eighty Czech and Slovak cultural, educational and athletic community groups and clubs. With contributions from the newly arrived immigrants, the Bohemian National Hall (Narodni Budova) was built four years later as a gathering place for these organizations in the Yorkville section on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
The original mission of the BBLA was and continues to be to preserve the Czech and Slovak culture in New York City.
Wasting, Wilding, Workstyling II, Mildred’s Lane Session 2017
June 5 -11, 2017
Kristyna and Marek Milde presentation and workshop: Wednesday, June 7, 2 – 4pm
517 Plank Road, Beach Lake, PA, 18405
Contributing Artists:
Morgan Puett, Athena Kokoronis, Donna Cleary, Jan Mun, Virginia Poundstone, Nathaniel Whitmore, Laura Silverman,
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Tom and Cecilia Coacci, James Prosek, Amy Yoes
We are pleased to be the contributing artists for the Wasting, Wilding, Workstyling II session at Mildred’s Lane, while working on our new project Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, a wildflower meadow around Mildred’s Lane bee yard featuring a spectrum of uncultivated foraged local plants. Please join us for our presentation and workshop on Wednesday, June 7, 2 – 4pm at Mildred’s Lane. During the week long session artists, local naturalists, gardeners, botanists, beekeepers and other contributing artists J. Morgan Puett, Athena Kokoronis, Donna Cleary, Jan Mun, Virginia Poundstone, Nathaniel Whitmore, Laura Silverman, Tom and Cecilia Coacci, James Prosek, Amy Yoes will be leading workshops and presentations around topics including beekeeping, collecting, pressing, tincturing, planting, mycoremediation, soil biology – wildcrafting; while focusing on the redesign and dynamic transformation of the Mildred Garden and the Radical Apiary, both adjacent to the Mildred’s Lane TransHistorical Society and Museum.
If you would like to participate as a fellow, please email Mildred’s Lane to get more info, day passes are available too.
More info at www.mildredslane.com
Work in Progress 2017
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees and Teas, a developing site-specific project at Mildred’s Lane, 2017
wildflower meadow designed with transplanted uncultivated local plants and weeds
Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas, a new developing site-specific project taking a form of a wildflower meadow around Mildred’s Lane bee yard, featuring a spectrum of uncultivated local plants transplanted from the wild. While serving the plants animals and humans alike. Plantarium is an open platform promoting an active experience of wild plants through use, consumption, and interpretation to explore our relationship to the environment.
Plantarium – Garden for Weeds, Bees, and Teas explores local wild plants and flowers its use and cultural significance. Mildes gather and transplant uncultivated plants, and weeds on their walks and foraging trips on site and in the Upper Delaware River region. The garden surrounding the local bee yard is designed to accommodate bees and insects, while also serving humans to educate and provide culinary and medicinal herbs for teas and cutting flowers for wildflower bouquets. Plantarium is part of series of site interventions and participatory projects in which Mildes engage themes of environmental alienation, and connecting modern lifestyle with the wider context of nature.
Plantarium aims to recall the significance of wildflowers and weeds overlooked in our culture and to explore its usefulness and role in daily rituals, traditions, and symbolism. In traditional cultures, wild plants were an inseparable part of everyday life, and a valuable resource crucial for survival, connecting natural knowledge and sensitivity to the environment, common skills we largely lost in the western world. The project addresses our vanishing access to natural resources, its mystification, and institutionalization, such as the restriction of harvesting wild plants on the public lands and criminalization of its medicinal use. While our relationship to plants today is dominated by its idealized images, representations, and cultivated forms, Plantarium highlights the wild and uncultivated, bringing them back into the center of our attention. The project is a window into the unique local environment and shifting narratives both natural and cultural, in which the native plants are mixed together with the specimens introduced in the colonial era.
The project evolves in a series of walks, studies, and workshops gradually establishing a wildflower garden reflecting the natural diversity through the seasonal change. The wild plants are planted in a circular form around the bee yard containing 14 different varieties of weeds and uncultivated plants and at the later stage, will be allowed to transform into a wild meadow to blend with its surroundings. The project reverses the idea of a garden, based on growing crops as a monoculture in isolation separated from each other by a mulch, in the Plantarium plants are allowed to go wild and grow as in nature, connecting and interlocking with each other, creating a living social network.
Mildred’s Lane is an arts center on a rustic, 96-acre site deep in the woods of rural northeastern Pennsylvania, in the upper Delaware River Valley, which borders New York state. It is an ongoing collaboration between J. Morgan Puett, Mark Dion, their son Grey Rabbit Puett, and their friends and colleagues. It is a home and an experiment in living, hosting a variety of programs, artist residencies, public events, and site-specific projects. Mildred’s Lane attempts to coevolve a rigorous pedagogical strategy, where a working-living-researching environment has been developed to foster engagement with every aspect of life. www.mildredslane.com
More here
Online Art Auction and Exhibition Reception
Wednesday, June 14th 5 – 9pm
Elisabeth Foundation for the Arts, 323W, 39th Street, NY, NY
Kristyna and Marek Milde, Ha, Ha, Ha, Yo, series Igeology, 2017, hand embroided plastic shopping bag, silk
On the evening of Wednesday, June 14th, EFA honors 25 years of service with a reception and exhibition at EFA Center in Manhattan. The reception will feature an exhibition of the nearly 100 exceptional works of art that are available on our online 25th Anniversary Art Auction. We are pleased to support Elisabeth Foundation for the Arts by donating our artwork Ha, Ha, Ha, Yo, from the series Igeology for the EFA Benefit. The exhibition celebrates and highlights the work of prominent and emerging artists who have benefited from EFA’s mission, full list of artists is available here. The two-week online auction Paddle8.comopens June 14 and will be up until June 28, 2017.
The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts is a public charity dedicated to providing artists across all disciplines with space, tools, and a cooperative forum for the development of individual practice. We are a catalyst for cultural growth, stimulating new interactions between artists, creative communities, and the public.
Kristyna and Marek Milde’s work featured in
Article “Lost Connections” by Sarah Corona
March – May 2017
We are pleased to share that the current issue of Flash Art Czech and Slovak Edition, a leading international magazine, features a comprehensive article about our art practice, written by curator and art historian Sarah Corona. The article “Lost Connections” focuses on a variety of our projects about the environment such as the Gone Wild, In-Tree-Net, Cabinet of Smells. Flash Art issue #43 engages themes of #environment and #anthropocene. English version of the article also available on the Flash Art website.
“Like a hike through the mountains, their art practice involves a well thought-out navigation through our environment that offers new perspectives and views on what we humans might have forgotten in our Anthropocene era.â€
“While Milde’s work reframes modern lifestyle and everyday rituals it is an “archeological†exploration into cultural memes that is also visionary; imagining a future, where the lost environmental connection could be re-established through awareness and active engagement, fostering integrity of culture and nature.â€
Read the article in Czech as PDF here
Continue reading in English
In-Tree-Netfeatured in the new publication
by Barbara Benish and Nathalie Blanc
Published by Routledge, 2017
224 pages | 29 Color Illus. | 29 B/W Illus.
We are very pleased to announce that our installation project In-Tree-Nethas been featured in this new comprehensive publication on environmental and sustainable art by Barbara Benish and Nathalie Blanc.In-Tree-Net, 2011-2013 is a series of site-specific installations engaging architecture and its alienating effects from environment. In-Tree-Net is sculptural installation made with tree trunks and branches, mimicking pipes and engineering systems in architecture, it represents a metaphor for the inherent connection of built spaces to the vital element of nature.
Form, Art and the Environment: Engaging in Sustainability adopts a pluralistic perspective of environmental artistic processes in order to examine the contributions of the arts in promoting sustainable development and culture at a grassroots level and its potential as a catalyst for social change and awareness.
This book investigates how community arts, environmental creativity, and the changing role of artists in the Polis contribute to the goal of a sustainable future from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives. From considering the role that art works play in revealing local environmental problems such as biodiversity, public transportation and energy issues, to examining the way in which artists and art works enrich our multidimensional understanding of culture and sustainable development, Form, Art and the Environment advocates the inestimable value of art as an expressive force in promoting sustainable culture and conscious development. Utilizing a broad range of case studies and analysis from a body of work collected through the international environmental COAL prize, this book examines the evolution of the relationship between culture and the environment.
This book will be of interest to practitioners of the environmental arts, culture and sustainable development and students of Art, Environmental Science, and International Policy and Planning Development.
Czechoslovak Society for Art & Sciences (SVU)
Bohemian National Hall
Wednesday, Nov 9 at 7pm
321E 73rd Street, NY 10021
Come to the fourth installment of the popular SVU’s 6-Minute Challenge: Academic Show &Tell series presenting Czech and Slovak artists, professionals, scientists, students and scholars at local universities and institutions. The 6-Minute format challenges participants to present their project, subject of their research and studies through a presentation in English limited to six minutes.
Participants include: Andrea Cumpelik (NYU-neuroscience), Petr Dubecky-Fawcett (OAX-graphic arts), Hana Gregusova (jazz singer), Monika Hankova (Jewish Museum in Prague -oral history), Michal Horny (Boston U.-Public Health), Pavel Kocourek (NYU—Economics), Kristyna and Marek Milde (environmental art), Paul Linden-Retek (Yale-political science) and Henrieta Scholtzova (NYU– biomedicine).
Moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University
RSVP: newyork@svu2000.org
Queens Museum
at Museum’s Theater and Community Partnership Gallery
October 23, 2016, 12noon – 4:30pm
Exhibition Dates: October 8 – 30, 2016
Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger
We are pleased to invite you to the upcoming symposium organized as part of the exhibition Chance Ecologies: Queens. The event takes place this Sunday, October 23rd from noon till 4:30pm at the Queens Museum’s theater and Community Partnership Gallery. During the gallery talk (1:30pm – 2pm) we will discuss our new evolving project Gone Wild engaging wild flowers and the urban wilderness. The symposium will feature a day of screenings, artists talks, and discussions about Chance Ecologies.
The Chance Ecologies: Queens exhibition, open till October 30, includes projects of 20+ artists working with un-designed landscapes and natural environments found in abandoned spaces and post-industrial sites in Queens. The exhibition curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger is organized by Chance Ecologies in collaboration with Queens Museum and New York City Department of Parks.
While at the museum we also recommend seeing the Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art retrospective.
For more information, please visit the museum’s webpage: www.queensmuseum.org
Facebook Event Page
12noon – 1:30pm: Chance Ecologies in Motion
A screening of new video works by Joianne Bittle, Laura Chipley, Nate Dorr, Maya Edelman, Dylan Gauthier, Nathan Kensinger, Edmund Mooney, Matthias Neumann, and Natalia Roumelioti (ntilit)
Over the past two summers, the artists of Chance Ecologies have engaged with three different sites in Queens: Hunter’s Point South, the Newtown Creek and the Flushing River. The works in this screening present a wide range of responses to these post-industrial sites, ranging from collaborative performances to solitary explorations, and employ a variety of film techniques, including stop motion animation, underwater recordings, and drone footage. Each of these films is a unique creation inspired by a different aspect of these landscapes, and when viewed together, they present a larger picture of the ideas informing Chance Ecologies. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the artists.
1:30pm – 2:00pm: Chance Ecologies on View
Gallery walk and refreshments
The curators of Chance Ecologies will lead a walk-through of Chance Ecologies: Queens, the current exhibit in the Queens Museum Community Partnerships Gallery, giving an overview of the ideas behind Chance Ecologies. Several artists, include Kristyna and Marek Milde, Marisa Tesauro, and Joianne Bittle, will be present to give details about their individual works. Light refreshments will be provided.
“Vegetative Resistance: Weeds and Wildness in Human Dominated Landscapesâ€
Ellie Irons works with cosmopolitan spontaneous plants that thrive in landscapes heavily impacted by human activity. Often described as weeds, they provide a starting point for exploring nativeness, invasion, gentrification and the future of land use in the face of global climate change. As we concern ourselves with big questions of globalization, mass extinction, and climate change, we exert control in small ways by attempting to restore or cultivate landscape fragments to mimic historical ideals. As we pour resources into such measures, what are we losing, erasing, eradicating? Expanding from these questions, Irons will explore the tale of one particular weedy species: Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis), while raising questions about human and vegetative agency in the so-called Anthropocene.
Hidden Vistas: Empathy and Place in Virtual Reality Installations
What does it mean to have empathy for a place? How can we use cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality and 360° video to immerse a viewer in places that no longer exist? That are too difficult to find? Too hazardous to visit? Edrex Fontanilla and Sarah Nelson Wright share their creative process of applying “the empathy machine” to wild geographies.
3:30pm – 4:30pm: Digging into Chance Ecologies
A public discussion led by the curators of Chance Ecologies and Daniel Campo
The closing event of this daylong symposium will open up a larger conversation amongst the artists and participants of Chance Ecologies, lead by co-curators Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger and by Daniel Campo, author of The Accidental Playground.†This discussion will consider the underlying themes of Chance Ecologies: What is the importance of unplanned green spaces? What types of ecologies can thrive in liminal, post-industrial landscapes, and why? How can we responsibly interact with and advocate for these spaces? What is the role of artists, and creativity and community in these spaces? How can chance ecological landscapes become sites of new relational structures between humans, the environment and other species? What will happen to these spaces in the future, as the city faces challenges caused by rising sea levels and climate change?
Chance Ecologies was created in 2015 by Catherine Grau, Nathan Kensinger and Stephen Zacks, and has been supported by the Queens Museum, ArtBuilt Mobile Studios and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation with a residency at the Studio In The Park program, and has worked in partnership with Amplifier Inc., RadiatorArts, and the Newtown Creek Alliance.
HOMESCAPE 
Mark Dion
Kristyna & Marek Milde
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC)
LMCC’s Open Studios event is a window into the process of making our newest project Sitings, a series of site-responsive sculptures functioning as furniture exploring the phenomena of unconventional domestication of public space. During the residency we explore and study non-conformist behavioral situations of diverse individuals such us workers on break, homeless people, tourists, children etc. creating unique and personal forms of interaction with architecture and public space by sitting, lying, reading or eating in undesigned places. The project Sitings replicates sites and specific places found in use for sitting or lying in the form of sculptures functioning as chairs and couches that incorporate architectural fragments such as street corners, stairs, and pavement. While Sitings questions the limits and conventions of the private and the public it amplifies the gesture of choosing freely, where to sit as a creative, performative act transforming the highly defined urban environment.
This summer Holes in the Wall Collective presents a group-curated show Exquisite Corpus: The Maize. Seven artists/artist groups making an exquisite visual dialogue inspired by the immediate landscape, its history and the role of CORN.
The residency is located at Governors Island, in a former Army warehouse (Building 110) embedded in the midst of picturesque landscapes, expansive waterfront views, and unique historic architecture. The Arts Center at Governors Island includes 20 studios for visual artists, two rehearsal spaces for performing artists, and a Gallery space. From March to December, the Arts Center functions as a shared, multidisciplinary space where artists can experience a retreat-style residency just a short ferry ride from the frenetic buzz of the city. While on the Island, artists develop their practice and create new works, drawing inspiration from the unique location, as well as the community of fellow artists-in-residence that forms in the space.
-channel video documenting performance made in various natural and forest environments. In the project, we engage in the activity of cleaning normally reserved to the realm of domesticity here misplaced in to the nature involving cleaning trees, stones, grass and riverbank while using domestic tools such as brooms brushes mops etc. We are interested in how the cleaning taken from its context is reduced to a very basic gesture with an edge of absurdity but at the same time it represents an elemental mechanism of claiming and controlling space. Natural Cleaners looks at cleaning as a form of primeval cultural statement, that draws on the premise of declaration of a space by selecting and eliminating.
The installation Cabinet of Smells (2015), explores idea “What is the smell of a home?†It engages our relationship to smells inherent to our daily surroundings that encompass our bodies, homes and living environments. It examines the boundaries between aroma and odor and the cultural norms that define the pleasant, odd and acceptable. It presents the modern tools that produce constructed landscape of artificial smells such as perfumes, cleaners and air fresheners and their function to blur the distinction between natural and artificial. While the perfume industry attempts to construct fictional scent identity that usually covers the actual context the Cabinet of Smells engages revisit the idea of seeking what actually the real smell of a home is. The project includes a laboratory station, which is used to distill scents of various household objects such as old books, socks or debris etc. Our attempt is to produce a perfume that would represent its origin and identity of a place inclusively.
Brooklyn based artists Kristyna and Marek Milde present their projects engaging culture of living and domesticity . Looking at what is “swept under the carpet,†their work investigates how the comfortable interior environment of our homes produces a culture of alienation from nature. Their projects often take the form of DIY home improvements, and revisit the role of furnishing, cleaning and decorating and its function inside of a white cube to produce the feeling of home. Their work explores ways of transforming our spaces of dwelling, revealing its connection to a larger environmental context of culture, geography and nature.Participants at MoMA Studio will have the opportunity to share their ideas about the elements that contribute to their sense of home. Additionally, participants are encouraged to be part of a 
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