Lexa Walsh

The In-Between: Tea Talks

Adobe Backroom Gallery

April 14-May 6, 2017

May 6, 5-8 pm Closing Reception

The In Between: Tea Talks is a series of intimate facilitated discussions over home cooked meals that bring together conflicting populations of artists, activists and workers to discuss topics affecting them in the Bay Area. The conversations will be documented in audio, and through a series of commissioned writings by participants that will be published in a related reader, while artworks will be made in response and displayed during the show.

The project gathers artists, writers, tech workers, “sharing economy” laborers (Uber and Lyft drivers, AirBnB hosts) and their critics (taxi drivers, tenants rights activists) together in a hospitable environment so each may share their positions in a safe yet open and critical dialogue. Each position will be respectfully held in the space.

Adobe Books has always been a space for free speech, riveting conversation and a multitude of voices. It is a particularly poignant location as it sits in the heart of the Mission district and has been a subject of displacement and gentrification.

The goals of the project are to:

Complicate the current good vs, evil/us vs. them narrative while eliciting understanding and extracting nuances from all sides.

Engage in local micro politics while placing these issues in the larger current political landscape.

Create a space for hospitable democracy.

Share understanding about issues affecting our communities to a broader audience.

The meals will take place in the gallery and reserved participants will be the only ones allowed to voice opinions during the talks. Outside visitors can watch quietly and there will be a chance for them to add commentary through a note system.

Tech/Artist Tea: Saturday 4/15, 10am-12pm

Activist Challenge Tea: How the left is being divided by differing activist tactics and media coverage of them. Sunday 4/16 1-3pm

Taxi-Ride Sharing Tea: Monday 4/17 3-5pm

Tenants Rights-Home Sharing Tea: Tuesday 4/18 5-7pm

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WCMA Summer School: A Weekly Mashup of Campus Life Crafted by Artist Lexa Walsh Thursdays in July & August

4 pm: Get a healthy dose of academics in the galleries with a mini course led by Williams College faculty.

5-8 pm: A playful taste of Williams culture with artfully curated food and drinks on the patio.

Ongoing: Study up on artists and exhibitions all summer long in our Reading Room!

https://wcma.williams.edu/summer-school-2016/!

WCMA 107 Enlivening Texture & Textile in Art

Deborah Brothers, Costume Designer and Lecturer in Theatre

Thursday, July 7

4 pm

Whether in paint, marble, or graphite, artists’ renderings of texture, form, and movement beckon the viewer to respond with the body. One might imagine reaching out to touch the ruffed collar of a Dutch nobleman, or turning toward the wind cascading through a figure’s gauzy cloak.  In this mini course, we’ll engage the senses in a close study of the ways costume, texture, and material are rendered by artists. Class Format: Workshop Online Registration

The Art & Science of Beer

Thursday, July 7

5 pm on the patio

Chemistry Professor Thomas Smith and local beer brewer Sam Amoroso team up to show you how and why beer tastes as good as it does. Finish off the evening with a glass of homebrew.

WCMA 114 Museum: The Gathering

David Gurçay-Morris, Assistant Professor of Theatre

Thursday, July 14

4 pm

Can art be democratic? Should it be? Is culture the result of a popularity contest, or should some individuals be chosen to represent us and curate our cultural experience? Players will grapple with these, and other questions as they craft their own aesthetic worlds in this immersive performance. Class Format: Performance Online Registration

No Hook, Finger Crook: Finger Crocheting with Seth Koen

Thursday, July 14

5 pm on the patio

Make new friends and some friendly minimalist art with crochet artist Seth Koen. Pick up some yarn, a few new skills, and create a collective work of art.

WCMA 121 Labeling: A History Lesson

Katarzyna Pieprzak, Chair and Professor of Francophone Literature, French Language, and Comparative Literature

Thursday, July 21

4 pm

Museums constantly make decisions about objects and their reception. Which work gets shared? What is displayed alongside it? How are objects written about and analyzed? These decisions impact the way that works of art, knowledge, and even people have been organized over time. Consider the implications of these decisions by creatively re-crafting WCMA and its taxonomies. Class Format: Workshop Online Registration

Food Lab

Thursday, July 21

5 pm on the patio

Get a taste of the role science plays in your kitchen. Artist and chef Lexa Walsh cooks up some surprises on our patio.

WCMA 128 State of the Art/Art of the State

Christina Simko, Assistant Professor of Sociology

Thursday, July 28

4 pm

It isn’t just propaganda that promulgates state agendas. Think through the many ways that art reproduces, resists, or reformulates cultural and political narratives. Delve into works of art from African Art Against the State and put them into conversation with politically significant American art. Class Format: Lecture OnlineRegistration

WTF + WCMA: A Guided Tour

Thursday, July 28

6 pm

Williamstown Theatre Festival actors bring WCMA’s collection to life in this trip through the galleries that makes protagonists of portrait sitters. The tour starts and ends on the patio.

WCMA 104 After Images: Photography and Its Shifting Stories

Emilie Boone, Mellon Curatorial Fellow

Thursday, Aug 4

4 pm

Whether a family snapshot, a document of political trauma, or a visual tool of cultural triumph, every photograph tells a story. The story, though, is far from fixed. How do those stories change over time and how can we account for their shifting meanings? Class Format: Lecture Online Registration

Athletics & Aesthetics: Mini-Golf

Thursday, Aug 4

5 pm on the patio

Perfect your putt with the help of a pro-golfer on our artist-designed mini-golf course on the patio.

WCMA 111 Markets and Museums: The Economics of Aesthetics

Stephen Sheppard, Class of 2012 Professor of Economics

Thursday, Aug 11

4 pm

How do Museum exhibitions and installations impact the art market? Contemplate the intersections between museum and market, aesthetics and economics and contextualize these theories within WCMA’s walls. Class Format: Lecture Online Registration

Dance Class: Salsa!

Thursday, Aug 11

5 pm on the patio

Get moving to the beat with Latin Dance instructor Alan Franco.

WCMA 118 The Aesthetics of Evolution: Natural and Sexual Selection in the Era of Abbott Handerson Thayer

Luana Maroja, Assistant Professor of Biology

Thursday, Aug 18

4 pm

Consider the scientific role that animal coloration plays in natural and sexual selection. Using the now extinct Passenger Pigeon as a start, we will trace the story of how scientific and public acceptance of natural and sexual selection changed over time. Class Format: Lecture Online Registration

WTF + WCMA: The Dinner Party

Thursday, Aug 18

6 pm

What happens when characters from WCMA’s collection leave the museum walls and sit down to dinner? Grab a bite on the patio and find out as the conversation unfolds across centuries and continents with Williamstown Theatre Festival actors! Reserve a Seat Online

WCMA 125 What’s in a Name?: The Politics of Identification in African Art

Michelle Apotsos, Assistant Professor of Art

Thursday, Aug 25

4 pm

What are the implications of identifying an artist as “Unknown” or using the name of a cultural group in the place of an individual artist? Further, what are the politics of identifying a contemporary artist in a way that they contest? Unpack the politics of identity and identification within the shifting roles of African artists from past to present in African Art Against the State. Class Format: Lecture Online Registration

Athletics & Aesthetics: Badminton

Thursday, Aug 25

5 pm on the patio

Get physical as sound artist Crank Sturgeon amplifies the sounds of a live Badminton game. Take part in the game or kick back and listen.

Watch/listen here:

The Chisholm Yearbook, a work in progress

The Chisholm Yearbook records and shares dialogue about personal histories and civil rights with alumni from the last all-African American High School in New Smyrna Beach, FL before it closed for desegregation in 1969. We will publish a yearbook, make a website and mount an exhibition at the Black Heritage Museum.

We are seeking funds to continue The Chisholm Yearbook in a timely manner. So far I have photographed 100 alumni, and interviewed three. Local artist/activist Shy Morris has recently come on board to help record oral histories.

Both Sides Now, Lexa and Dan Walsh 2016

Williams College Museum of Art

Mapping the Museum/WCMA at Night

Williams College Museum of Art, January 2016

Winter Study offers Williams students the chance to take just one course for four weeks during  the month of January. I recently taught Mapping the Museum- Intervention and Participation in Contemporary Museum Life. In the class, students dove into artists working with Institutional Critique and institutions engaging in experimental practices in order to critique themselves.

The students studied artists such as Fred Wilson, Andrea Fraser, Machine Project and the Guerrilla Girls, and institutions/initiatives like Portland Art Museum’s Shine a Light, Museum of Jurassic Technology, Santa Cruz MAH, and The Hammer. While presenting and researching these individuals and institutions, they looked at how these artists/institutions connect to audiences and reinvent how a visitor interacts with exhibitions or the space.

The class ended with a WCMA at Night event on January 28th, where the students presented museum interventions that engaged with WCMA collections, space, and staff in unconventional ways. We invited Matt Anderson to bring his audio students to participate as well. The project was collectively authored by the students, WCMA staff, and me.

Coming right up: Winter 2016 at Williams College Museum of Art

January 28 2016: WCMA at Night, featuring petite interventions from students of my Williams Winter Study class Mapping the Museum http://wcma.williams.edu/programs/

February 11, 2016: Opening and artist talk for Both Sides Now, with Dan Walsh

February 13, 2016: Sew-In for Both Sides Now

Oakland Stock- Ongoing. since 2013

Oakland Stock is a micro granting dinner series funding art projects one bowl of soup at a time. 7 dinners have raised thousands for local artists projects and built a strong community.

Welcome! Bienvenue! Vitám Vás! Welcome to Lexa Walsh’s current website/blog, highlighting projects from 2009-forward. To see older projects, please go to lexawalsh.com. To see more about specific project blogs, click on the links next to each project post (i.e. Portland Art Museum residency, Librarification, etc).

Artist Statement:

I work as anthropologist, archivist, chef, collaborator, experience maker, explorer, facilitator and participant. The essence of my work is situated in performance and direct engagement, creating platforms for multiple, often unheard voices to build a hospitable democracy.

In these participatory art projects, I bring together members of the public to share stories through conversation, meals, song and scholarly play. These experiences are often the works in themselves, though sometimes there are resulting audio, photo, print, text, web or installation works. These site-specific social interactions, platforms, observations and interpretations (sometimes misinterpretations) investigate elevating everyday activities into tools for community and relationship building, place and space making, resource sharing and institutional critique.

The work addresses subjects such as radical hospitality, generosity and reciprocity, ritual and inclusion, labor, identity, and democracy.

Bio:

Lexa Walsh is an interdisciplinary socially engaged artist based in Oakland, CA. Walsh has lived, worked, exhibited and toured internationally. She was a recipient of Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award, the CEC Artslink Award, Meet the Composer Award, and the Gunk Grant. She has done projects at Apexart, The Lab, Oakland Museum of Californa, Portland Art Museum, Smack Mellon, and the Walker Art Center, and has done several international artist residencies and projects in Europe and Asia.

Her work is informed by her upbringing as the youngest of 15 children, extensive travels, community work and experimental music and performance projects. She was an independent cultural worker in the Bay Area, founding and curating experimental music venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge in the early 90′s. She worked for eight years as a curator and arts administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose mission was to foster cross-cultural tolerance and understanding through the arts. This time is particularly integral to her practice, and the place she learned to cook. She co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra and is a member of the Czech-American a cappella group Kačkala. These projects have been realized at venues such as Cité de la Musique, The Exploratorium, The Lab, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, SFMoMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She is currently making music with two members of Toychestra and her husband Dan Nelson in the group The Pleasure Class.

Twenty years of Dias de los Muertos at the Oakland Museum of California.

In this project I was asked to work with OMCA's Days of the Dead archives. I uncovered a dichotomy between the lively colorful world of Muertos and the 81/2" x 11" sheets of "dead" paper holding reports, budgets, contracts and thousands of hours of labor by many workers revealed the archives. I have recreated a fantasy juxtaposed world of images from the past twenty years, drawers filled with archival materials, and interviews with stakeholders, as well as a small ofrenda for my recently deceased father.

Twenty Years of Dias de los Muertos, Interview with Yolanda Woo.