SIGHT/SEEING @ SAM, Thursday 16 July

There is not such a great difference between construction and destruction. What I'm trying to do is to create poetry through destruction and I think it is beautiful. –Niki de Saint Phalle

The challenge, of course, is not the actual destruction of the painting itself, but rather its transformation into something else. –Hélio Oiticica

SIGHT/SEEING
Curated by A. K. “Mimi” Allin in response to SAM Special Exhibit TARGET PRACTICE

Live performance by avant-garde musician Andrew Stauffer
Live poetry performances by 13 remarkable poets
SAM | Brotman Forum | Special Exhibit Galleries
Thursday 16 July 2009, 7:30–8:30PM

Curator: A.K. “Mimi” Allin turns one of Seattle’s most talked about special exhibits into an avant-garde collaboration between poets, composers and musicians. Target Practice, on view now at SAM Downtown, transforms into language, music and finally text on the floors of the museum, in this vanguard event on Thursday 16 July 2009. Watch as 13 poets and 1 very special musician play.

Background: 2 weeks ago, 5 Seattle poets (Hugo Bliss, Vanessa DeWolf, Renee Risher, Margaret Roncone and Galaxy Saskill) took a walk through the exhibit with avant-garde guitarist/composer/blind musician, Andrew Stauffer. Each poet spent 15-minutes with Stauffer, relating select works from the exhibit to him in unpracticed, spontaneous language. Stauffer then reteated to his studio where he worked feverishly to prepare a musical response.

Performance: Tonight, Stauffer (pictured above) premieres his response, in a site-specific composition in the SAM galleries for July’s SAM/Word. 5 poets will be seated upstairs, in the galleries of TARGET PRACTICE, listening and responding to a recording of Stauffer’s music. 8 others will listen and respond right here in the Brotman Forum as Andrew Stauffer performs live, also starting at 7:30PM.

Goals: To examine the ways we experience, absorb, process and re-work art. It likewise wants to explore the kinds of collaborations possible for doing so: audio-visual, visual-verbal, poet-musician, sensation-shape. Sight/Seeing also hopes to get at the heart of the question-- Why respond to artwork at all? Isn’t just looking enough?

Poets: The poets participating in tonight’s performance are excellent examples of mixed discipline artists. They write poetry, they make music, they paint and draw and perform. Poets include Rebecca Elliott, Mike Hickey (2009 Seattle Poet Populist pictured above), Jacob Jans, Joseph Kelly, Jed Myers, Doug Nufer, Arne Pihl, Renee Risher and Monica Schley. A younger set of poets, assisted by their very own artist-parents, will be among those responding to Stauffer’s live performance in the Brotman Forum. These include poets (parents): Hugo (Clinton) Bliss and Galaxy (Sage) Saskill. Can't wait to see the results.

SIGHT/SEEING TIMELINE
Deconstruct: 2 July: 5 poets take Stauffer on 2hr walk-through
Reconsruct: 3-15 July: Stauffer composes original score
Deconstruct: 16 July: 12 Poets turn Stauffer’s music into text
Reconsruct: 16 July: Stauffer performs live at SAM