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Wednesday, April 17, 2002

By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic

New York may have the Whitney Biennial -- considered by many to be the most important regular exhibition of contemporary American art, if not the least controversial -- but because of some very savvy local arts groups, Pittsburgh audiences are getting the chance to meet some of the exhibiting artists.

	Performance artist Miranda July in a scene from "The Swan Tool," a "live video" that she's bringing to Pitt's Alumni Hall Friday. July, a Whitney Biennial artist, also will lecture and screen her videos at Carnegie Mellon University tomorrow.

Last month, Peggy Ahwesh presented her videos at a Pittsburgh Filmmakers Film Kitchen and at Carnegie Mellon University.

This week, Miranda July -- a 27-year-old Portland, Ore.-based performance and video artist and mentor to women artists -- will be in town to lecture about and screen her work at CMU and to give a performance on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

Ahwesh was sponsored by Filmmakers and CMU; Pitt Arts joins those groups to bring July to town.

These selections are both hot and significant.

New York Times critic Holland Cotter deemed the "lively" film and video program "a high point" of the biennial, while the Times' Roberta Smith noted that the show is "startlingly undiverse" since only about one fourth of the artists are women. So Pittsburgh's visitors are select among the select.

Steve Seid, curator at Pacific Film Archives, calls July's works "cryptically playful." Picture a mix of Tony Oursler's kooky pop psychological situations and Matthew Barney's dark meditations, blended with artful technical experimentation, and you get some idea of what to expect.

	At 7:30 p.m. tomorrow July will give a free lecture and screening of her videos at the Regina Miller Gouger Gallery in CMU's Purnell Center. At 8 p.m. Friday she'll perform "The Swan Tool" in Pitt's Alumni Hall (the former Masonic Temple on Fifth Avenue, Oakland). Tickets are $7, $3 for students and Filmmakers members. For information call 412-624-4498 or 412-682-4111. Tickets for Friday's performance are available at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' theaters, Pitt Arts or CMU's University Center.

In "The Swan Tool" -- described as "a live video" that incorporates performance, video, live music and voice -- July inserts herself into the work on a narrow catwalk built between two screens.

It may be thought of as a narrative, but one that's suggestive and full of double-entendre, open to varying interpretations. Part dream world, part too real, the piece is an assemblage of vignettes for a disconnected experience, moving toward a point, dissolving. As a metaphor for a despondent woman who has abandoned her selfhood, it's chilling. But that's just one interpretation.

July's been touring with the work, which was commissioned by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Rotterdamse Schouwburg (Netherlands) and the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, premiering at the latter in January 2001.

Aside from European gigs, July's played progressive alternative spots like New York's The Kitchen, Hallwalls in Buffalo, The Walker in Minneapolis and the Wexner in Columbus.

July is also known for the support she's given younger artists. In 1995 she founded the Joanie 4 Jackie project (formerly Big Miss Moviola), an "alternative distribution system for videos and films made by women."

Melissa Ragona, a research fellow at CMU's Center for Arts in Society (one of this week's sponsors), describes it as a "video chain project for young women across the country" who were isolated once they left school but were making "subversive tapes." It was a sort of neo-feminist action, and Ragona says it taught women how to curate and to present work outside of the art market structure. Participants also reviewed one another's work.

Tomorrow's screening will include Joanie 4 Jackie shorts, as well as July's earlier work like "The Amateurist," a 14-minute film that Derk Richardson in the San Francisco Bay Guardian said "taps directly into submerged contemporary anxiety."

Pittsburgh sonic artist Colongib (Christopher Graves) will do cut-and-click sound mixing -- fusing electronic music and live feed sampling -- at the reception following Friday's performance.