James Fuentes
04.09.2006 @ Landmark 18:00
EXTRAORDINAIRE James Fuentes -
ARTSTAR
A lecture by the man behind the American reality-TV series ARTSTAR. Fuentes will screen the first and the last episode and also talk about the making of the show.
“The goal at the outset of the program is to identify an artist for a solo show at Deitch’s trend-setting SoHo gallery. But, as the series unfolds, the realities of the art world subvert the “rules” of television and reveal surprising stories about creativity and growth.”
This lecture is presented in collaboration with Landmark/Bergen Kunsthall and the Bergen National Academy of the Arts with kind support from the Norwegian Arts Council, Bergen Kommune and Norsk Fotografisk Fond.
Chronicle by Lars Nilsson about ARTSTAR in Göteborgs-Posten, juli 2006. (Swedish)
About the selection of participating artists to the show in Artforum.
BIOGRAPHY James Fuentes
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JAMES FUENTES LLC was founded in 2005 to initiate innovative art projects and exhibitions and to work closely with artists, collectors and museums to ensure ideal placements for important art works.
James Fuentes began curating and art dealing in 1998 when he founded James Fuentes Gallery, a platform primarily for emerging artists based in New York City. Significant exhibitions at the gallery included Jonas Mekas’ This Side of Paradise (1999) and Open Space (1999/2000) a series of 45 solo exhibitions that changed every 48 hours and took place within a three-month period, with an opening reception for each, the exaugural exhibition for the location at 558 Broome Street was William Stone’s Mind Your Head (2000), the exaugural exhibition for the 601 W 26th Street location was Cheyney Thompson’s 1739, 1854, 1928 (2000). Fuentes started curating independently when he received a JM Kaplan Fund grant to curate The South Bronx Story 2001), an exhibition that hypothesized that Fashion Moda (1978-1988) was a precursor to New York’s East Village movement.
In 2002 he and Jeffrey Deitch started conceptualizing a television show that evolved into Artstar, an eight episode television series shot in HD which premiers June 1st 2006 on the Dish Network, Fuentes is Co-creator and Co-executive producer.
In 2002 he organized The United States of America vs. Alfredo Martinez with work by an artist who at the time was incarcerated in a federal prison for forging work by Jean Michel-Basquiat. Martinez’ work was subsequently acquired by the Judith Rothschild Foundation collection of contemporary drawings and reviewed by Art in America.
Fuentes inaugurated Gavin Brown’s Enterprise at Passerby in 2003 with a series of consecutive exhibtions including four solo exhibtions (David Perry, Nicholas Zinner, Jonas Mekas & Alfredo Martinez) a group show (Reverberations) and two performance events (Services & Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom).
Jonas Mekas’ Farewell to Soho (GBE at Passerby 2003) was consequently included within Jonas Mekas: Diary Film curated by Liutauras Psibilskis and Magnus Af Petersens, in Göteborg Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Fuentes has been at guest at institutions including, Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen avd. Kunstakademiet (2001), New York University (2005) and Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (2006). He is a member of NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance). Fuentes was the director of Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York in 2004 and in 2005 served as Director at Deitch Projects, New York.
James Fuentes was born in New York City in 1977 and graduated from BARD College in 1998.