Lecture

Art Test(s) Sites: Nevada Real Estate

Jun 7, 2006

6:30–8:00pm ET

The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center

The artistic collaborative known as eteam and Matthew Coolidge from the Center for Land Use and Interpretation (CLUI) present a set of unconventional sites of cultural production that they have found in or carved into the state of Nevada through original research processes and experimental artistic projects. eteam and Coolidge also discuss the role of real estate acquisition and land use as part of their work.

This program is presented in conjunction with International Airport Montello, a project by eteam and the people of Montello commissioned by Art in General. The project uses as canvas a 10-acre piece of land that eteam purchased in an auction on eBay.com. It includes the production of events and memories about an abandoned airstrip (approximately 6,000 feet and located nearby eteam’s land) to make of it local cultural paradigm. The project’s construction wiki-website is operated by eteam and the people of Montello: http://www.meineigenheim.org/airport/doku.php

eteam’s members are Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger. Their work is guided by a process of understanding the circumstances and possibilities of a specific place or site. They have worked in such unusual sites as skyscrapers, public parks, the internet and the desert. Their projects has been recently featured in exhibitions at the P.S.1 and Momenta in New York City; the Soap Factory in Minneapolis; Grizedale Arts in England; and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Spain, among other places. To develop the International Airport Montello, the eteam has participated in CLUIs residency in Wendover, Nevada. For more info visit: www.meineigenheim.org.

Matthew Coolidge is the founder and director of programming at the Center for Land Use and Interpretation (CLUI), a research organization involved in exploring, examining, and understanding land and landscape issues. The center employs a variety of methods to pursue its mission—engaging in research, classification, extrapolation, and exhibition. Coolidge is the author of several books published by CLUI, including The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to the Nation’s Nuclear Proving Ground and Around Wendover: An Examination of the Anthropic Landscape of the Great Salt Lake Desert Region. He is the recipient of several awards, most recently the Lucelia Artists Award (2006). For more info visit: www.clui.org.

Organized by Art in General in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.