City-Wide Open Studios 2017: Fract/Friction

October 6–29, 2017

Each year, City-Wide Open Studios adopts a theme that prompts artists and visitors to reflect on and engage around issues that impact our community. This year, we invited artists to respond to the shifting stakes in the use and abuse of truth and alternative facts, the resulting fracturing of the body politic, and the urgency of envisioning new and empowering narratives.

Download the Official Map & Guide here.

Weekends


Weekends

Weekends

1/5

Westville Weekend

October 7–8
After last year’s launch of our new kickoff weekend, all the artists are galvanized to celebrate the tight-knit creative community in Westville.

Armory Weekend

October 14–15
165 artists, groups, collectives, art departments, along with 12 major commissions and specially-invited projects, combine to offer audiences an exuberant and immersive experience across a huge vacant building.

Private Studios Weekend

October 21–22
A rare chance to step inside private homes and work spaces. Use the map to serve as your guide, or join a cycling tour. Plan ahead to catch all the artists- some are open only one day.

Erector Square Weekend

October 28–29
A unique, open-door invitation to visit the largest studio complex in New Haven where some of New Haven’s most established artists work, in what was once the Erector Set toy factory.

November Programs

October 31–November 9
More ways for people to come together to keep celebrating New Haven’s creative community and rally around the upcoming City election, in support of vital causes under threat as never before.

Commissions


Commissions

Commissions

1/13

Pool Noodles

By: Dan Bernier and Dan Gries with the assistance of Common Ground School
Location: Goffe St Armory

Lead artist-mathematicians Dan Gries and Dan Bernier collaborated with students from Common Ground High School to design and produce this colorful installation for the exterior of the Goffe Street Armory. The New Haven and Hamden based duo used computer code to determine how many pool noodles, purchased from the dollar store, could be spliced into ¼ inch sections and placed into the wire grids covering the windows to create a readable image. From afar, viewers can perceive the images as representations of plant life, but the closer they get, the more the image breaks down. At an arm’s distance, the windows transform into a swarm of color.

Students from Common Ground helped choose the designs and install the work, working side by side with the artists and City-Wide Open Studio volunteers over several days. The subject matter celebrates the life of the new community garden, located on the County Street side of the Armory. Since this summer, the garden has grown and been maintained by the New Haven Land Trust and a group of community members, with enthusiasm and support from community leader, Nadine Horton, and city engineer, Giovanni Zinn.

This project was made possible by the generous support of Common Ground School, especially educators Ashton Killilea and Carla Lia, and Common Ground High School Students.

Untitled

By: Brittany Whiteman and Kyle Skar
Location: Goffe St Armory

Our site specific installation takes the viewer on an immersive and self-reflecting journey through light, color, and space. When entering the room, the the participant is confronted with a white wall that is slightly leaning toward them. Cut out of this wall is a 2’x2′ hole. At the back of the room and visually in line with the cut out is a mirror. The mirror is tilted to alter the perspective of the viewer and reveal the back side of the wall; not the reflection of the viewer. The front, sides, and cuts in the wall will be white, but the back of the wall will be a bright red, illuminated with light. Our hope is when the participant enters the room and looks through the cut in the wall, they will see a bright red shape, but it is not immediately known where it is coming from. We also hope for exploration of the space to happen, so the “truth” of where the red square is coming from is revealed.

Come Come

By: Cesar Valdes
Location: Goffe St Armory

Artist Cesar Valdes’ piece “Come Come” occurs within a limited world, a definition of reality. It focuses on the reality of immigrants working in the food industry, which ends up transforming into a regulated system. This limited world results in a mix of fact and fictions.

Excavating the Armory

A collaboration between Yale School of Architecture and New Haven Academy students, lead by Yale University professor Elihu Rubin
Location: Goffe St Armory

Yale University professor Elihu Rubin leads a collaboration between Yale undergraduates and New Haven high school students that explores the architecture and architectural history of the Goffe Street Armory. Multi-media presentations, such as mapping studies, architectural histories, place-based storytelling, and engaging representations form a base exhibit in the Armory. These projects will be accompanied by workshops, tours, and other interactive activities to include visitors and community members. The exhibit is designed to engage community members and visitors in the past, present, and future of the Goffe Street Armory and its surrounding environs.

Neo-American Post-Teen Day-Dream

By: John O’Donnell
Location: Goffe St Armory

John O’Donnell’s performance piece, “Neo-American Post-Teen Day-Dream” starts with a ‘stage’ made to look like a front lawn – fake grass, picket fence, fake flowers, and lawn chairs. Completing the stage will be an inflatable structure referencing a rainbow, a temple and a home. There will also be a mobile performance, where O’Donnell will wear an inflatable suit and push a cart that is a front yard/lawn mower. His performance explores what it means to be American in the current political climate and the failed systems at play in America.

Best Thing to Hold in Your Hands

By: Adam Niklewicz
Location: Goffe St Armory

Viewers get a chance to be a part of Adam Niklewicz performance sculpture as they go onstage and try to guess what could be in his hands. Niklewicz will be seated behind a table covered in brown paper, where participants can write down their guesses. After guessing, Niklewicz will reveal the object hidden in his hands. The juxtaposition of that object with the many guesses covering the table will reveal truths about how we place value on objects of beauty and use.

Paradise Limited

By: Young Joo Lee
Location: Goffe St Armory

Artist Young Joo Lee imagines the Korean Demilitarized Zone as a place both of possible reconciliation and of propaganda and fear, as a dangerous sanctuary. A 3-screen video installation explores this idea of the demilitarized zone; two screens show the opposing military sides, while a third screen in the middle imagines the zone as a feminine entity that allures both militaries. As the soldiers enter the forest, it undresses them, and they enter a lake in the forest to transform into part of the forest.

The Lazarus Library

By: Theresa Gooby
Location: Goffe St Armory

The Lazarus Library tell the story of a wealthy 19th century industrialist who entertains his children with stories of extinct creatures that were mutant beasts. Lazarus hired illustrators to create images of the mutant creatures he described to his children. These illustrations were then slipped into books and left throughout the home for the children to discover on their own. The illustrations in the books provided proof that these creatures were not imaginary, that they truly did exist at one time. Because if its in a book, it must be true. The Lazarus Library takes a museological approach to presenting the remaining books and artifacts in the Lazarus collection.

Sounds for Liberation

By: Maria Gaspar
Location: Goffe St Armory & surrounding neighborhood

“Sounds for Liberation” is an audio project that examines issues of boundaries and divisions between the New Haven Correctional Facility, the New Haven Armory, and the neighborhood surrounding these two institutions. Audio recordings of song, personal narratives, storytelling, and the spoken word, collected from youth, community members, and the currently detained, are available to listen to in various locations around the neighborhood. By focusing on the voice, this project creates a common ground, connecting and building relationships at places of disconnection and isolation. No lines will be drawn, but rather, they will be erased.

Brainwashed

By: Zeph Farmby
Location: Goffe St Armory

Artist Zeph Farmby seeks to question societal ideas of black culture through his piece “Brainwashed”. 8-foot-tall heads of young black men will be set up in the large Drill Hall of the Armory. The top of each head is painted with old pop culture depictions of black culture, showing the stereotypes that society creates and perpetuates through the media. Farmby aims to activate the self-consciousness of the viewers to think beyond their own insecurities and move towards a new reality.

garden - pleasure

By: Ian Donaldson, Daniel Glick-Unterman, and Olisa Agulue
Location: Goffe St Armory

A team of Yale School of Architecture students have created 7 booths that, when seen from a specific vantage point, form an image. Inside each booth is a small mythological garden, created by a different pair of artists, architects, psychologists, writers, journalists, or other producers. As viewers move through the installation, the image on the booth changes, reflecting how representations of truth and order are often based in an individual’s perspective. The 7 disparate gardens create enclosed havens that allow for reflection and mass interpretation.

Collaborators on the project include: Ian Donaldson, Dan Glick-Unterman, Carr Chadwick, Dwight Portocarrero, Olisa Agulue, Lani Barry, Polina Vasilyeva, Suzie Marchelewicz, Caitlin Baiada, Christian Golden, Jeannette Hinkle, Caitlin Thissen, Hyeree Kwak, Isabelle Song, Kevin Huang, Yo-E Ryou, and Matthew Wolff

Exchange

By: A Broken Umbrella Theatre
A project in partnership with Artspace
Location: located at each CWOS weekend

A Broken Umbrella Theatre spent four months visiting retirement communities and community groups throughout the Greater New Haven region, recording stories about participants’ relationships with the telephone, communication, and personal exchange. These stories inspired and contributed to “Exchange,” a production that explores both New Haven’s history as the home of the first telephone switchboard and exchange and residents’ personal histories. The final production, performed twice on Saturday and Sunday on a roving portable theater built on a flatbed truck, explores the relationship that our community has with its history.

fRact/fiction

As we integrate “fact-checking” into the way we consume social media and the news, we face a dilemma: what do we do when we know we are being lied to? The 20th annual City-Wide Open Studios takes this uneasy question as a point of inquiry into four weekends of art-looking. Artspace invites artists to submit a proposal for the production of a new or ongoing work that explores the too tidy distinctions we make between “reality” and “illusion,” “fact” and “fiction,” and “history and myth.” These proposals may ponder our political situation, design alternatives to this moment, or take a formal approach, investigating, for example, the science of perception, memory, performance, and the promise of the speech-act. We are also interested in hearing from artists who seek refuge from this discussion completely, and work to make places that provide safety, well-being and care for the self and others.

Gallery


Gallery


Sponsors

National Endowment for the Arts, New Alliance Foundation, State of Connecticut’s Office of the Arts, Yale University, WSHU Public Radio, Suzio York Hill

Participating Artists


Participating Artists

  • Kwadwo Adae
  • Faustin Adeniran
  • Dionel Altreche
  • Eduardo Alvarez
  • Jonathan Amici
  • Christian Ammon
  • Bek Andersen
  • Hil Anderson
  • Joseph Annino
  • Aspasia Anos
  • John Arabolos
  • West River Arts
  • Thomas Aschenbach
  • Sideways & Askew
  • Anna Audette
  • Lexi Axon
  • Caryn Azoff
  • Lillianna Marie Baczeski
  • Chris Barnard
  • Amanda Bartel
  • Wyatt Baum
  • Hayne Bayless
  • Miguel Benitez
  • Robert Bienstock
  • Kraig Binkowski
  • Sonia Bombart
  • Michael Bond
  • Michelle Bradford
  • Jarrell Brantley
  • Sarah Bratchell
  • Rita Brieger
  • Jay Bright
  • Janet Brodie
  • Alexis Brown
  • Amira Brown
  • Frank Bruckmann
  • Tanner Bryant
  • Colin Burke
  • Marc Burns
  • Claudine Burns Smith
  • Annette Bushman
  • Eskarlin Cabrera
  • James Capuras
  • Alicia Caraballo
  • Eileen Carey
  • Leslie Carmin
  • Bill Carpenter
  • Dennis Carroll
  • Judie Cavanaugh
  • Taylor Chamberlain
  • Adam Chambers
  • Mariellen Chapdelaine
  • Jennifer Cherrington
  • David Chorney
  • Wendy Chorney
  • Susan Clinard
  • Julia Coash
  • Tyler Cofrancesco
  • Kieran Coleman
  • Jeanette Compton
  • Ana Cornier
  • George Corsillo
  • Rosemary Cotnoir
  • Bimshwel Crimmenabim
  • Jeanne Criscola
  • Lipgloss Crisis
  • Nicole Croce
  • Ronald Crowcroft
  • Phyllis Crowley
  • Jan Cunningham
  • Terry Dagradi
  • Neil Daigle Orians
  • Robert Datum
  • Leila Daw
  • Francisco Del Carpio
  • Kathleen DeMeo
  • Charlotte DePalma
  • Geoffrey Detrani
  • Duo Dickinson
  • Anne Doris-Eisner
  • Lydia Douglas
  • Phil Duarte
  • Steven Duchesne
  • Andre Eamiello
  • Howard el-Yasin
  • Eric Epstein
  • Daniel Eugene
  • Roxanne Faber Savage
  • Junko Falcone
  • John Fallon
  • Zeph Farmby
  • Matthew J. Feiner
  • Joe Fekieta
  • Christie Fisher
  • Joan Fitzsimmons
  • Jane Fleischner
  • Brian Flinn
  • Heather Flinn
  • M Flower
  • Heide Follin
  • Robert Fort
  • Oi Fortin
  • Roberta Friedman
  • Scott Friedman
  • Kathryn Frund
  • Howard Fussiner
  • Maura Galante
  • Eric Gallant
  • Kehler Liddell Gallery
  • Molly Gambardella
  • Peter Gardner
  • William Geleneau
  • Edwin Gendron
  • Martin Gent
  • Sergei Gerasimenko
  • Gabriela Gigola
  • Craig Gilbert
  • Leslie Giuliani
  • Jacquelyn Gleisner
  • Rob Goldman
  • Mike Golschneider
  • Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez
  • Ellen Gordon
  • Amber Gratta
  • Debbie Greco
  • Bob Gregson
  • Dan Gries
  • Stephen Grossman
  • Ashley Guerrera
  • Sarah Gustafson
  • Mohamad Hafez
  • Barbara Harder
  • Sidney Harris
  • Louise Harter
  • Grady Hearn
  • Rachel Hellerich
  • Stephen Henderson
  • Taja Herring
  • Lisa Hess Hesselgrave
  • Debie Hesse
  • Karen Hibbs
  • Sara Hill
  • Willie Hoffman
  • Marianne Holtermann
  • Allison Hornak
  • Craig Houghton
  • Donald Houston
  • Ellen Hoverkamp
  • Kat Hyatt
  • Eric Iannucci
  • Dooley-O
  • Joan Jacobson Zamore
  • Mary Janacek
  • Nikole Jewell
  • Keith Johnson
  • Aude Jomini
  • Jacqueline Jones
  • Katie Jurkiewicz
  • Jean Kandalaft
  • Nancy Karpel
  • Kyle Kearson
  • Michael Kellner
  • Katie Kindilien
  • Suzanne Kirschner
  • Beth Klingher
  • Karen Klugman
  • Nikki Korth
  • Sheldon Krevit
  • Kim Krivensky
  • Abbie Kundishora
  • William Kutschinski
  • Bayla Laks
  • Constance LaPalombara
  • Hannah Leckman
  • Mary Lesser
  • Martha Lewis
  • Evie Lindemann
  • Linda Lindroth
  • Robert Lisak
  • Carlos Lopez
  • Karleen Loughran
  • Sharon Lovett-Graff
  • Jane Lubin
  • David Lyman
  • Courtney Lytle
  • Mahmood Mahmood
  • Dan Makara
  • Eric March
  • Charles Maring
  • Barbara Marks
  • Sabrina Marques
  • Alisha Martindale
  • Sven Martson
  • Kiara Matos
  • Zoe Matthiessen
  • Susan McCaslin
  • Rosemary McClain
  • William Meddick
  • Fethi Meghelli
  • Pierre Merkl
  • Lori Michels
  • Miggy Miggy
  • Sharon Mihalyak
  • Jean Miles
  • Christian Miller
  • Denise Miller
  • Irene K. Miller
  • Jane Miller
  • Carole Monahan
  • Maria Morabito
  • Larry Morelli
  • Tyler Morris
  • Eliška Mörsel Greenspoon
  • Lenny Moskowitz
  • Alexis Musinski
  • Eliza Myers
  • Theresa Nast
  • Alan Neider
  • Raheem Nelson
  • Ethan Newman
  • Joneen Nielsen
  • Margot Nimiroski
  • Sean O’Brien
  • Ely Center of Contemporary Art
  • Ryan Olsen
  • Re Olsen
  • Beatriz Olson
  • Hilary Opperman
  • Liz Pagano
  • Hank Paper
  • Ryan Paxton
  • Daniel Pizarro
  • Fellowship Place
  • Southern Connecticut Polymer Clay Guild Inc
  • Mark Potter
  • Michael Quirk
  • Rafael Ramos
  • Shilo Ratner
  • Betsy ratner
  • Steve Reggiani
  • Chen Reichert
  • Thomas Reilly
  • Tim Reimer
  • Ave Rivera
  • Nick Robinson
  • Stephen Rodriguez
  • Rick Rodriguez
  • Susan Rogol
  • Vasilisa Romanenko
  • Dariush Rose
  • Matthew Ross
  • Lesley Roy
  • Anna Russell
  • Jackie Ryan
  • Joseph Saccio
  • Annie Sailer Dance Company
  • Gerald Saladyga
  • Denise Saldaña
  • Steve Sangapore
  • Eliezer Santiago
  • Martha Savage
  • Samuel Sbarbori
  • Niko Scharer
  • Dana Scinto
  • Jean Scott
  • Suzan Scott
  • John David Scully
  • Semi Semi-Dikoko
  • Meghan Shah
  • Polly Shindler
  • Suzan Shutan
  • Chelsea Silbereis
  • Anna Sincavage
  • Brian Sing
  • Stephen Sitko
  • Claudine Smith
  • Joe Sorge
  • Sydney Spiesel
  • Christina Spiesel
  • Timothy Spratlin
  • Mark St. Mary
  • Jeffrey Starkes
  • Marcela Staudenmaier
  • Thomas Stavovy
  • Kate Stephen
  • Kevin Stevens
  • Matt Stevens
  • Joan Strickland
  • Lotta Studio
  • Marcus Surrealius
  • John Sweeney
  • Robert Thomas
  • Christina Tillbrook
  • Elizabeth Tranzillo
  • Ninh Truong
  • Bu Tu
  • Evad
  • Eliza Valk
  • Rita Valley
  • Kevin Van Aelst
  • Kimberly Van Aelst
  • Jennifer Van Elswyk
  • Penelope Van Grinsven
  • Claudia Van Nes
  • Karissa Van Tassel
  • Joe Velardi
  • Katya Vetrov
  • Ariel Visci
  • Michael Visosky
  • Nicki Vitali
  • Amanda Walker
  • Shilo Walsh
  • Gar Waterman
  • Toby Welch
  • Brian Wendler
  • Kim Weston
  • Holly Whiting
  • Jim Whitten
  • Christa Whitten
  • Mark Williams
  • Glenn Williams
  • Marian Wittnik
  • Marjorie Wolfe
  • Mary Wolff
  • Haley Wulfman
  • Don Wunderlee
  • Helen Wyland-Malchow
  • Nina Yuen
  • Kristina Zallinger
  • Jessica Zamachaj
  • Sue Zola
  • Sara Zunda
  • City Gallery