“how we are in time and space" at the Armory Center for the Arts

“how we are in time and space” at the Armory Center for the Arts09:16

Writer and independent curator Michael Ned Holte reflects on "how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Barbara T. Smith," an exhibition he organized for the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena. The show is based on the longstanding friendship between Buchanan, Hafif, and Smith, who were part of the first MFA class at UC Irvine from 1969-71. In this film, Buchanan and Smith speak about their involvement in experimental cooperative art spaces such as F-Space in Santa Ana and the Woman's Building on Grand View in Los Angeles, and their radical, free spirited exploration of unconventional materials, forms, and performance over their decades long careers. The exhibition highlights the divergences as well as the "empathic overlaps" of these three remarkable artists.

Michael Ned Holte is a writer, curator, and Associate Dean of the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts. In conjunction with “how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Barbara T. Smith” at the Armory Center for the Arts, he also organized a parallel program of “annotations” by Neha Choksi, Gabrielle Civil, Patricia Fernández, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Kang Seung Lee, Babsi Loisch, Matt Siegle, Jennifer West, The Feminist Center for Creative Work, and The Revolution School. Previous curatorial projects include “Routine Pleasures” at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, Los Angeles; “TL;DR” at Artspace NZ, Auckland; and “Made in L.A. 2014” (with Connie Butler) at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Nancy Buchanan has been involved in numerous artists’ groups, including as a founding member of F-Space Gallery in Costa Mesa, The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); she has also acted as curator for several exhibitions and projects. Her work has been seen domestically and internationally and she is the recipient of four National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist grants, a COLA grant, and a Rockefeller Fellowship in New Media, which enabled her to complete Developing: The Idea of Home, an interactive CD-ROM, in 1999. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Centre Pompidou; the Getty Research Institute; and was included in four of the Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time exhibitions.

Since the 1960s, Barbara T. Smith’s work has demonstrated an engagement with issues of spirituality, gender, and power, making vital contributions to both feminist discourse and the history of West Coast performance art. Smith received her BA from Pomona College in 1953, and MFA in 1971 from University of California, Irvine, where she was a founding member of F- Space with Chris Burden and Nancy Buchanan. She has exhibited widely since the 1960s, and her work been represented in several historic survey exhibitions including Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia?, Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; State of Mind: New California Art since 1970, Orange County Museum and Bronx Museum and The Radicalization of a 50’s Housewife at University of California, Irvine.

Crew Credits:

Production:
Creator and Executive Producer - Hernán Díaz Alonso
Producers - Marcelyn Gow/Reza Monahan
Segment Producer/Interviewer - Kavior Moon
Segment Producer - Caroline Post
Director - Reza Monahan
DP - John Keifer
B Cam - Robert Moreno
C Cam - Basile Journet
Sound Engineer - Carli Plute

Post-Production:
Story Producer - Kavior Moon
Editors - Claudia Fucigna/Reza Monahan

Soundtrack by Phil Logan

Image Credits:

1:10 BTSblades photo for Orange County Illustrated, "The Gallery Scene" May 1971 by Jerry Muller of Barbara among the blades stored for later showing
1:35 IMG00051
1:41 IMG00091
Allysion Spellacy: [email protected] Marcia Haff: An Extended Gray Scale Los Angeles, CA February - April 2022 courtesy Fergus McCaffrey
3:54 Bob and Nancy
Photograph by Chris Burden
6:59 IMG_1971
7:03 IMG_1972
Images provided by Jasmine Leung - replaced by Catherine Vu
7:38 Scann0053.tif
7:44 field_sign.jpg "Sign for installation at Long Beach Museum" Photo: Boris Sojka
7:45 Field_outdoorInstall.tiff "Outdoors at Long Beach" Photo: Boris Sojka
7:48 Scann004.tif "After one month outdoors actual grass grows through the cracks". Photo: Boris Sojka
7:52 FieldPiece_Cirrus.tif "Installation shot, Cirrus". Photo: Boris Sojka.
7:54 FieldPiece_Cirrus_Install.tif
7:48 Scan0033.tif "Computer racks being connected to the Field Piece".
8:04 1971_FieldPiece_Sojka.tif "Overhead view, Field Piece, Cirrus. Photo": Boris Sojka.
8:10 field_tableAud.tif
8:16 FSpacePoster_18thstreet.tif
Images provided by Catherine Vu of The Box LA