Category Archives: CREATIVE PROCESS: Artists at Work

Eve Sussman Creates Special Project, “Elevated Train,” To Benefit Creative Capital

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Eve Sussman is a 2008 Visual Arts grantee for her project whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, a fanciful blend of filmmaking, video and digital technology that follows a central character—an anonymous geophysicist code writer—who is stuck in a futuristic city. Its experimental narrative runs endlessly, driven along by the digital decisions of custom-built algorithmic software that edits the film in real time. It has no beginning, middle or end, never repeats the same editing sequence twice, and has its scenes and voiceovers paired at random by what the filmmakers call “the serendipity of the machine.”

When Eve agreed to create a limited series for Creative Capital’s 2012 Benefit & Auction and said she was thinking of combining some version of a stereoscope with black-and-white photography, we were intrigued and, well, surprised. Continue reading →

In Focus: Naeem Mohaiemen’s “The Young Man Was”

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Excerpt from Naeem Mohaiemen’s film, The Young Man Was, Part 1: United Red Army

Naeem Mohaiemen (2008 Visual Arts) is an artist and writer who uses essays, photography and film to explore histories of failed utopias. His Creative Capital-supported project, The Young Man Was, traces a history of the 1970s “ultra-left,” with each chapter in a different medium. The film component of this project, The Young Man Was, Part 1: United Red Army, will have its world premiere on May 1 at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto, Canada, followed by a New York premiere at Anthology Film Archives and multiple screenings at universities throughout Bangladesh. Mohaiemen also has two exhibitions in May of a timeline wall installation, a companion to the film, at A Space Gallery in Toronto (through May 26) and at the Frieze New York with Experimenter Gallery (May 4-7).

United Red Army looks at the 1977 hijacking of JAL flight 472 to Dhaka, Bangladesh, by the Japanese Red Army. Framing this action as a pivot point that ends “Act One of a certain 1970s scene,” Mohaiemen explores how the event led to a hardline change in global governments’ stance on hostage negotiations. The film is constructed from audio recordings of the negotiations between the Dhaka control tower and the lead hijacker, with tension building as “the accord between ransom and reason gives way to breaking point” (Shumon Basar, Tank). Continue reading →

In Focus: Braden King’s “HERE”

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The official trailer for Braden King’s feature film, HERE

On Friday, April 13, Braden King (2005 Film/Video) celebrates the theatrical premiere of his Creative Capital-supported project, HERE, at IFC Center in New York. Shot entirely on location in Armenia, HERE is a landscape-obsessed road movie chronicling a brief but intense relationship between an American satellite-mapping engineer (Ben Foster) and an expatriate Armenian art photographer (Lubna Azabal) who impulsively decide to travel together into uncharted territory. We talked to Braden to learn more about his over seven-year-long journey in bringing this project to premiere:

Creative Capital:  HERE was selected for a Creative Capital grant in 2005. How did Creative Capital’s role as an early funder help the development of the project? In the seven years since you initially proposed the project to us, how has your vision for the film evolved?

Braden King:  Creative Capital’s impact on this project cannot be overstated. The Foundation was the first institutional funder on board—and it came on board at a very early stage, before there was even a script! It’s not an exaggeration for me to say that I’m not sure the film or any of its offshoots would exist without the support—financial and otherwise—that Creative Capital lent it.

In many ways, the film that’s premiering on April 13 is very close to the one I initially proposed. If anything, the project probably evolved in terms of scope and ambition over the years. Creative Capital helped me go from wondering if I could pull this off at all—a multi-platform motion picture revolving around the first American feature film ever shot in Armenia—to wondering how I could most fully realize every aspect of it, from the feature film to the live cinema event that premiered as part of the MoMA series to the photography and video installations. I can’t think of another organization that would take that risk so early on in the process or support an artist more thoroughly throughout such a long-term project’s life. Continue reading →

In Focus: Grand Opening of Center for PostNatural History in Pittsburgh

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A rendering of the design concept for the permanent home of the Center for PostNatural History.

Richard Pell (2009 Emerging Fields) is celebrating the grand opening of the permanent exhibition facility for his Creative Capital-supported project, The Center for PostNatural History (CPNH), in Pittsburgh, PA. The Center is dedicated to the research and exhibition of lifeforms that have been intentionally altered by humans, from the dawn of domestication to contemporary genetic engineering.


Pell has been working on constructing the space at 4913 Penn Avenue into an exhibition facility since 2010. Creative Capital’s financial support helped with the build-out of the library and exhibition case-work in the entry hall. Continue reading →

In Focus: In the Studio with Shih Chieh Huang

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Huang connects wires and inserts a DMX control board into the sculpture body. In the bottom left, the artist is testing a prototype DMX control board, running a test program with computer cooling fans.

Shih Chieh Huang (2009 Emerging Fields) is hard at work in the studio creating and testing new DMX control boards for his interactive computer-driven sculptures. Huang appropriates modern household appliances and materials—including lights, computer parts and plastic bags—and programs them to move and interact with each other using original computer algorithms. Huang writes, “The homemade DMX control boards are finally done, tested and ready to be connected to the sculpture body. This control system will allow silent and quiet control of the final sculpture with more channels than previous homemade controllers.” Continue reading →

In Focus: “Bill Morrison: A Modern Master of Silent Film”

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An excerpt from Bill Morrison’s Creative Capital-supported project, Decasia

Filmmaker Bill Morrison (2001 Film/Video) has two upcoming programs in NYC, and we talked to him about the process of bringing these programs to life. The first is Bill Morrison: A Modern Master of Silent Film, part of the New Sounds Live Silent Film Series at the World Financial Center Winter Garden, curated by WNYC’s John Schaefer (January 31 – February 3). We asked Bill about the ins and outs of putting together a program as complex as this, which includes bringing a 55-piece live orchestra for the event on February 3.

“The original plan was to screen only The Miner’s Hymns (52 min, 2011; January 31) with live performance of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score by the Wordless Music Orchestra, which we had premiered with live performance in the Durham Cathedral (UK) in July 2010. John then told me that he wanted to screen three other films, The Great Flood (80 min, 2012; February 1), Spark of Being (68 min, 2010; February 2) and Decasia (67 min, 2002; February 3). We originally planned to screen them with pre-recorded soundtracks, but we discovered that we would be able to present Decasia as a live performance with the great collaboration of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Continue reading →

Marshall Curry & Sam Cullman’s “If a Tree Falls” Nominated for an Oscar!

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Watch the official trailer for If a Tree Falls

We were thrilled to hear that Marshall Curry & Sam Cullman‘s Creative Capital-supported project, If a Tree Falls, is nominated for Best Documentary Feature in the 2012 Academy Awards. If a Tree Falls offers a behind-the-curtain look at the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s “number one domestic terrorist threat.” Through the story of Daniel McGowan, an ELF member who participated in two multi-million dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies, If a Tree Falls explores how a working class kid from Queens found himself facing life in prison for “eco-terrorism.”

Andrew Revkin, author of the New York Times‘ Dot Earth column, wrote yesterday that an Oscar nod for this “thrillingly fair film about a heated environmental issue” represents “a vote for fearless exploration of complexity in a world drawn to oversimplified depictions of events and problems, heroes and villains.” Read more

In Focus: Sanford Biggers’s “The Cartographer’s Conundrum”

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Sanford Biggers works on a quilt for the MASS MoCA show in his Harlem studio

Sanford Biggers (2008 Visual Arts) is currently installing work from his Creative Capital-supported project, The Cartographer’s Conundrum, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. This major solo exhibition, which opens February 4, is inspired by the Houston-based artist, scholar and Afro-futurist, John Biggers (1924–2001). A cousin of his subject, Sanford Biggers’s goal is to both study and expand the emerging genre of Afro-futurism, which engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora. Simultaneously, Sanford hopes to illuminate John Biggers’s underrepresented career as a master painter and muralist. Continue reading →

More Than Money Can Buy: What Do Artists Need to Succeed? (Part Two)

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Kemi Ilesanmi, Creative Capital’s Director of Grants & Services, introduces a consultant at the 2012 Grantee Orientation in New York

When we think about what artists need, money is often at the top of the list. Money for artists is crucial—but there are other means of support that can make a huge difference to artists. Resources, opportunities and professional guidance may be less flashy than a big check, but they are incredibly valuable services and tools that build artists’ capacity to realize specific projects and reach long-term goals.

After our first 10 years of helping artists achieve success on their own terms, we went back into the “laboratory” to determine key resources we should add to our Artist Services. As a direct result of our recent evaluation and survey (described in Part One of my post “More Than Money Can Buy“), Creative Capital has developed an exciting suite of expanded services for our grantees! Continue reading →

In Focus: Ben Marcus’s “The Flame Alphabet” Releases on January 17

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Ben Marcus (2009 Literature) just shared the completed book trailer for The Flame Alphabet with us! Prepare to be awed (and completely creeped out) by Erin Cosgrove’s brilliant animation and Ben’s chilling story.

The Flame Alphabet, which was just selected as an Amazon Best Book for January, will be published by Knopf on January 17. Ben will be reading at events across the country in the coming months; click here for listings.