Arleen Schloss
Encyclopedia
Arleen Schloss is a noted "North American performance art pioneer, video/film artist, sound poet, director and curator" who is an influential figure in the Downtown New York art, video, performance art and music scenes. Schloss began her influence through A’s – an interdisciplinary loft space that became a hub for music, exhibitions, performance art, films and videos. A hotbed of experimentation, A’s featured works from Eric Bogosian
, Glenn Branca
, Jean-Michel Basquiat
, The Coachmen
, Kim Gordon
, Phoebe Legere
, Mania D., Thurston Moore
, Shirin Neshat
, Lee Ranaldo
, Sur Rodney Sur, Alan Vega
and Ai Weiwei
In the 1990s A's became A's Wave where website works and other forms of digital media were shown.
Concurrently with A’s, Schloss established herself as a curator, co-organizing shows at Danceteria and The Storefront of Art and Architecture, now a well-known architectural venue in New York.
, Betty Parsons Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Construction Company, Max Hutchinson Gallery in SoHo, Lenbachhaus Galeria in Munich, La Nuit Parcourt La Ceil in Belgium, Cafe Einstein in Berlin, The Kitchen and the Museum of Modern Art
in New York City.
Schloss gained attention as a critically acclaimed performance artist in the 1970s. The New York Times stated that her performances were "superior to much performance art." and the SoHo Weekly News noted that her voice was "musical the way Patti Smith or Yoko Ono are musical."
In subsequent years she performed her media opera "A.E.BLA BLA BLA" at Ars Electronica in Austria and was a featured guest on Willoughby Sharp
's Downtown ’86, a Cable ACE Award-winning program, which showcased the top talent of 1980s performers, artists and musicians.
Additionally, during the 1980s, she began to get noticed for her sound poetry work, most notably for the audio piece "How She Sees It By Her." Schloss' sound work is included in two seminal publications and anthologies, "Just Another Asshole," a short-lived no wave
art/music/sound art magazine publication published by Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess and "Text-Sound Texts" Edited by Richard Kostelanetz
.
Schloss was one of the first national artists to be awarded an 8mm camera from Canon to experiment with 8mm video. With the camera, she created the travelogue video Sun Daze Away, which showed at Central Park’s Summerstage and at various venues in Europe and Asia. In 1990 Schloss directed and produced the video documentary "FromKepler2Cyberspace", with Hi8 equipment loans from Sony. This document featured the pioneers of virtual reality, including Dr. Marvin Minsky, John Perry Barlow, Timothy Leary, William Gibson and Jaron Lanier. During the same period of time, Schloss filmed a series of interviews with John Cage
and included those interviews in a series entitled "Windows of Chance/Change." Nickelodeon
, impressed with her video work and art in dealing with the alphabet and children, hired Schloss in 1989 to direct and produce 15 live video excerpts for the animated TV series Eureeka's Castle
, which won a Cable ACE Award.
In the 1990s Schloss continued her work with new forms of art and media. She exhibited her electronic work "Marbelize" at the international digital and technology show at ISEA, in Rotterdam, Holland and showed multimedia work on one of the first digital art, radio and Internet programs called ArtNetWeb. Art Dirt In-Port Performance 3/25/1997
Schloss received grants, awards and residencies from The Experimental Television Center, Creative Artists Public Service Grant, New York Foundation of the Arts, Harvestworks, Allied Productions and the Ford Foundation. She is on the board of Art & Sciences Collaborations Inc, and her work is in the collections of the Fales Library, AT&T, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and the Donnell Library. A documentary about Arleen's life, called Wednesdays at A's, is currently in post production. Schloss currently lives in New York City.
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...
, Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...
, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
, The Coachmen
The Coachmen
The Coachmen were a lower-Manhattan "progressive garage-rock" band that performed from early 1978 to their final gig at White Columns in August, 1980. The line-up included guitarists Thurston Moore and J. D. King, bassist Bob Pullin, and Danny Walworth on drums, replaced by Dave Keay . Briefly,...
, Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon
Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...
, Phoebe Legere
Phoebe Legere
Phoebe Hemenway Legere is a Multi-Format Artist: she is a composer, soprano, pianist and accordionist; a painter, a poet, and a film maker.Legere has recorded for Mercury Records in England and Epic, Island, Funtone, ESP Disk and Einstein records in the United States. Legere has released ten CDs...
, Mania D., Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
, Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat شیرین نشاط is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography.-Background:Neshat's parents were upper middle-class...
, Lee Ranaldo
Lee Ranaldo
Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...
, Sur Rodney Sur, Alan Vega
Alan Vega
Alan Vega For several years other sources stated that he was born in 1948 – see 'Myth' section is an American vocalist, primarily known for his work with electronic protopunk duo, Suicide...
and Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installation, architecture, curating, photography, film, and social, political and cultural criticism. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008...
In the 1990s A's became A's Wave where website works and other forms of digital media were shown.
Concurrently with A’s, Schloss established herself as a curator, co-organizing shows at Danceteria and The Storefront of Art and Architecture, now a well-known architectural venue in New York.
Life and Work
Schloss studied at The Bank Street College of Education, The Art Students League, Parsons School of Design and graduated from New York University. Schloss started her career in the galleries of SoHo and the Lower East Side of Manhattan as a painter and performance artist who performed and showed her work in the U.S., Europe and Asia at venues such as the prestigious Franklin FurnaceFranklin Furnace
Franklin Furnace, also known as the Franklin Mine, is a famous mineral location for rare zinc, iron, manganese minerals in old mines in Franklin, New Jersey, USA. This locale produced more species of minerals and more different fluorescent minerals than any other location...
, Betty Parsons Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Construction Company, Max Hutchinson Gallery in SoHo, Lenbachhaus Galeria in Munich, La Nuit Parcourt La Ceil in Belgium, Cafe Einstein in Berlin, The Kitchen and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City.
Schloss gained attention as a critically acclaimed performance artist in the 1970s. The New York Times stated that her performances were "superior to much performance art." and the SoHo Weekly News noted that her voice was "musical the way Patti Smith or Yoko Ono are musical."
In subsequent years she performed her media opera "A.E.BLA BLA BLA" at Ars Electronica in Austria and was a featured guest on Willoughby Sharp
Willoughby Sharp
Willoughby Sharp was an internationally known artist, independent curator, independent publisher, gallerist, teacher, author, and telecom activist. In 1968, Sharp co-founded Avalanche magazine with writer/filmmaker Liza Béar...
's Downtown ’86, a Cable ACE Award-winning program, which showcased the top talent of 1980s performers, artists and musicians.
Additionally, during the 1980s, she began to get noticed for her sound poetry work, most notably for the audio piece "How She Sees It By Her." Schloss' sound work is included in two seminal publications and anthologies, "Just Another Asshole," a short-lived no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
art/music/sound art magazine publication published by Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess and "Text-Sound Texts" Edited by Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Kostelanetz is an American artist, author and critic.He was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the composer Andre Kostelanetz....
.
Schloss was one of the first national artists to be awarded an 8mm camera from Canon to experiment with 8mm video. With the camera, she created the travelogue video Sun Daze Away, which showed at Central Park’s Summerstage and at various venues in Europe and Asia. In 1990 Schloss directed and produced the video documentary "FromKepler2Cyberspace", with Hi8 equipment loans from Sony. This document featured the pioneers of virtual reality, including Dr. Marvin Minsky, John Perry Barlow, Timothy Leary, William Gibson and Jaron Lanier. During the same period of time, Schloss filmed a series of interviews with John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
and included those interviews in a series entitled "Windows of Chance/Change." Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon is a US cable TV channel.Nickelodeon may also refer to:-In television:*Spinoffs of the Nickelodeon channel:** Nickelodeon Magazine, a children's magazine.** Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park....
, impressed with her video work and art in dealing with the alphabet and children, hired Schloss in 1989 to direct and produce 15 live video excerpts for the animated TV series Eureeka's Castle
Eureeka's Castle
Eureeka's Castle is an American children's television series that aired on Nickelodeon from September 4, 1989 to June 30, 1995.-Synopsis:The show follows various puppet characters , including Eureeka, a sorceress in training. She and her friends live in a wind-up castle music box owned by a...
, which won a Cable ACE Award.
In the 1990s Schloss continued her work with new forms of art and media. She exhibited her electronic work "Marbelize" at the international digital and technology show at ISEA, in Rotterdam, Holland and showed multimedia work on one of the first digital art, radio and Internet programs called ArtNetWeb. Art Dirt In-Port Performance 3/25/1997
Schloss received grants, awards and residencies from The Experimental Television Center, Creative Artists Public Service Grant, New York Foundation of the Arts, Harvestworks, Allied Productions and the Ford Foundation. She is on the board of Art & Sciences Collaborations Inc, and her work is in the collections of the Fales Library, AT&T, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and the Donnell Library. A documentary about Arleen's life, called Wednesdays at A's, is currently in post production. Schloss currently lives in New York City.