DORSKY: THE ART/LIFE HOSPITAL

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For Immediate Release Contact: Melissa Kaczmarek | (845) 257-3454 December 05, 2018 The Dorsky Museum announces “Linda Montano: The Art/Life Hospital” NEW PALTZ - The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz announces “Linda Montano: The Art/Life Hospital,” an exhibition that explores the Hudson Valley-based artist’s explorations of healing, aging and death. The exhibition, curated by Dorsky Museum curator of exhibitions and programs Anastasia James, will feature rarely screened video work from the 1970s through the present, alongside newly commissioned participatory works and a durational performance by the artist. “Linda Montano: The Art/Life Hospital” will be on view from Jan. 23 – April 14, 2019, in the Dorsky’s Morgan Anderson and Howard Greenberg Family galleries. A public opening reception will be held on Saturday, Feb. 9 from 5–7 p.m. Linda Montano, “I’m Dying–My Last Performance,” 2015, 29 minutes, video, color, sound. Video still copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Linda Mary Montano (b. 1942, Saugerties, New York) is a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art, whose work is critical to the development of video and performance by, for and about women. She works to dissolve boundaries between art and life, exploring her art/life through shared experience, role adoption and intricate life-altering ceremonies, some of which last for many years. Staunchly insistent about the interconnectedness of her art/life, Montano’s output resists categorization on a fundamental level and her legacy has been vastly underrecognized by the establishment. Linda Montano, “Mitchell’s Death,” 1977, 22:20 minutes, video, black and white. Video still copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Montano was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic household surrounded by artistic activity, which produced in her a fascination with ritual and a desire to do humanitarian service. She studied sculpture before devoting herself exclusively to performance art in the early 1970s. Montano established a reputation as a durational artist with performances such as “Three Day Blindfold,” in which she lived for three days blindfolded, relying solely on the assistance of others to navigate the world, and “Art/Life: One Year Performance,” in which she was bound by rope to Taiwanese performance artist Tehching Hsieh, 24 hours a day, for a full year. From 1984 onwards, Montano performed a series of “Seven Years of Living Art” cycles: extensive investigations of the art/life dynamic that took the form of intricate ceremonies and ritual routines. She went on to found the Art/Life Institute in Kingston, New York, which offers residency to aspiring performance artists in the Hudson Valley. She is the author of “The Art/Life Institute Handbook,” a collection of simple performance exercises designed to make performance accessible to everyone. Montano donated her archive to Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University in 2013.

I/EAR PRESENTS DAD ART: BIO AND DAD ART DESCRIPTION

iEAR Presents!: DAD ART: GRIEF/LOVE/LIFE By LINDA MARY MONTANO in Collaboration with RPI Arts Graduate Students, Faculty, and Local Community

 

LINDA MARY MONTANO [ http://www.lindamontano.com ] is a pioneer in contemporary feminist art since the mid-1960s. Attempting to dissolve the boundaries between art and life, Montano continues to actively explore her art/life through shared experience, role adoption, and intricate life-altering ceremonies, some of which have lasted for 21 years. Her artwork is starkly autobiographical and often concerned with personal and spiritual transformation. Montano has taught Performance Art, published seven books, has exhibited internationally, and has over sixty free videos on YouTube.

“In 1998 I began collaborating with my father for seven years: recording on video our meals, time together, and finally getting to know him. For four of those years we enjoyed this art-life collaboration. After he had a hemorrhagic stroke, I literally hid behind the video camera because I couldn’t face my Dad’s situation and failing health. So for those last 3 years I recorded it all so I didn’t have to see it with my unshielded eyes while feeding/bathing/walking with him. The camera became my mask. After his death in 2005, Tobe Carey edited all of the footage together and I first mourned with my art family, showing this video, probably around 2007, at Pauline Oliveros and Ione’s Deep Listening Institute on Broadway in Kingston and then for some time after that I shared the video-performance, but very rarely because the pain was too raw. The story was not ready to be public. But now, I am able to re-share this experience because of many things, especially the support of performer-collaborators and the compassionate assistance of the presenters, but also because of music! My parents had a band in the 30’s and 40’s: Dad played drums and trumpet and sang; Mom sang in the band. So when I began focusing on SINGING FOR MY PARENTS AS THE ART OF MOURNING in DAD ART and seriously included my singing in this INTERACTIVE mourning-meditation, the video took on a teaching-tool function and became a way for me to rise out of debilitating pain and fly toward trance-formation and support in dealing with this great Mystery called Death! Also audiences have a chance to interact with many generous performer-collaborators on stage with me and we all deal with death performatively, which opens a door to REALLY/AUTHENTICALLY being with Impermanence.”

 

We get it: LIFE IS SHORT. Art makes it spacious and long for a minute. The interactive aspect is what makes DAD ART a communal ART OF HEARTFELTNESS/COMMUNITY. 

 

Gratitude to the performers.

Gratitude to the audience for sharing your stories and your collaborative interactions with the performers.

Gratitude to the cultural center,  performance coordinating producer, video documenters and editor, tech support, creative advisor, curators, and  executive producers.

May our life=art=life.

 

—Linda Mary Montano

MY MOTHER ARTIST TEACHER AND FRIEND

MY MOTHER ARTIST TEACHER AND FRIEND

 My Mother - Artist and Teacher.mp4

PUBLICITY FOR 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART: MONTANO'S BOOK

This 220-page portable archive published by C.X. Silver Gallery Press in Brattleboro, Vermont, features Montano's journal writings during 1984-1998, 18 of her ecstatic tantric tales, 52 of her drawings, 119 photo documents related to her performances, and 13 essays and interviews by art historians, curators and writers. Via Montano's instructions, an Art/Life recipe is made available for the reader to practice making life a work of art.  Preview and purchase the book at magcloud.com/browse/issue/1184522 (preview button located under the book cover image.)

More about the book and Linda Mary Montano: cxsilvergallery.com/linda-mary-montano

Adam Silver and Cai Xi, Publishers
Voicemail: 802-257-7898
Email: info@cxsilvergallery.com

SOME SUGGESTIONS BEFORE CLASS WITH LINDA MARY MONTANO FOR TAMAR ETTUN'S CLASS

SOME SUGGESTIONS BEFORE CLASS WITH LINDA MARY MONTANO FOR TAMAR ETTUN'S CLASS

1. GO TO YOU T BUE,  I HAVE 61 VIDEOS ON YOU TUBE. CHOOSE ONE TO WATCH.
2. OR GO TO MY WEBSITE  AND READ  ART/LIFE STORY. 
3. OR GO TO MY BLOG, CLOOSE SOMETHING/ONE THING  TO READ
4. THE DAY I VISIT, DRESS IN YOUR FAVORITE COLOR CHAKRA CLOTHING AND ALSO: 
5. PERFORM/MAKE A VIDEO AND DO THIS AS IF YOU ARE ME. MAKE IT ONLY  FOR  3 MINUTES MAX. MAKE SURE IT IS SAFE/HEALING/TRANSFORMING FOR YOU.
6.   WE WILL LOOK AT  IT TOGETHER WHEN I COME TO THE CLASS ON NOV 29, 1-4. 
7. LINDA MARY MONTANO, PERFORMANCE ARTI