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First Fridays at the Mill: July 2024
July 5 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
BASEMENT
OPENING FRIDAY, JULY 5
FIRST FRIDAYS AT THE MILL | 6-9PM
Open artist studios with the Eno Arts Mill Studio Artists
Live Music: Skylar Gudasz
Local food truck: Cilantro
Beer from Red Oak, Ponysaurus Brewing, wine, and NA beer selections
Art Activity: Free African Paper Dolls with Eno Mill Studio Artists Tiffney Marley and Audrey Pinto
Free Kids’ Activities
ABOUT THE SHOW
Western philosophy defines the body politic as a collective entity imagined as a metaphorical physical body-an embodied system, ideology, or practice. In celebration of the 5th anniversary since the formation of BASEMENT Art Space, an alternative, experimental, and socially-oriented artist collective, Body Politic exhibits the work of the art space’s current members. Collectively, the work of these artists has been the catalyst and genesis of change, growth, and the evolution of BASEMENT.
This installation contemplates bodies as evidence of politics, colonialism, philosophy, and absurdity. Chieko Murasugi reimagines the traditional Japanese kimono, crafting it with cheesecloth which once wrapped napalm dropped by the United States on Japan during World War II. Chloé Rager collects remnants and evidence of the body’s presence, filling pothole cavities, gathering queered fragments, and archiving signs of our existence. Laura Little examines the body from a medicinal perspective, mining medical archives to create dystopian and liminal perspectives on the US medical system. Her collages and altered readymades envision alternative paths for healing the body.
Jonh Blanco, an undisciplined artist, employs the body to render useful things useless. Clumping, leaning onto, attaching, and stacking objects, they narrate
explore the lived experiences of the refugee and immigrant narrative. Collectively, these artists materialize the discomfort from our bodies as products or manifestations of US colonialism and failed systems.
This exhibition is curated by Julianne Miao in collaboration with Jonh Blanco, Laura Little, Chieko Murasugi, Chloé Rager, and Hồng-An Trương.
ABOUT BASEMENT
Founded in 2019, BASEMENT is a provisional artist-run project space located in Chapel Hill, NC that supports experimental and critical art practices. We choose to strengthen and build connections between artists and communities specifically in the regional southeast.
To us, working with artists is not only a singular event but is intended to be a long-term commitment to using our platform to uplift each other. We view our support as an important ongoing investment in building relationships with critical art practitioners from and for our local and regional Southern community.
About Skylar Gudasz
With her luminous voice and captivating songcraft, Skylar Gudasz has won the admiration of some of the most distinguished artists in music. In the past few years alone, the Durham, North Carolina-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist has shared stages with the likes of Ray Davies, Cat Power and Sharon Van Etten as part of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts, opened for Television and toured from the US with Teenage Fanclub to Europe with the Mountain Goats, and appeared as a background vocalist on albums by Superchunk and Hiss Golden Messenger, making her TV debut with the latter on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Gudasz is set to release her third full length record in summer 2024. Her previous album, Cinema, in April 2020, was recorded between the famed April Base in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and in secret studios across the lush forests of the rich NC music scene. This sophomore album was the follow-up to her much praised full-length debut Oleander (a 2016 release, produced by Chris Stamey, that prompted The Bitter Southerner to praise her as “the Joni Mitchell the South never had”).
Growing up with a musical family in rural Ashland, Virginia, Gudasz first found her affinity for music by learning to play flute at age five, and soon started writing songs of her own. She later taught herself to play piano and guitar, drawing inspiration from use of alternate tunings in developing her own distinct style. Although she spent time in folk and rock bands after heading to North Carolina for college (where she studied Acting and Creative Writing), Gudasz has continued to strike off on her own with her lushly textured, sculpted singular sound.