May 23 - June 23 2014

Penny Arcade | Bobby Miller | Marian Roth | Sam Smiley | Tim McCarthy

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 24th, 6-9 pm. There will be special performances by Penny Arcade and Bobby Miller during the reception, time - approx 7pm.

Penny Arcade

Longing Lasts Longer

"I have always considered myself a conceptualist. Since 1990 I have always worked collaboratively with small and fiercely dedicated groups of individual artists who shared my values and aesthetics. While my work is largely text and performance based, I have always used images, video, and sound as well, for example, using my image and text in street postering to bring the work to the public, even those who might never attend the actual performances. Since 1997 street postering has been illegal in New York, having been taken over by big business mafia using what was once a free, anarchistic art form as a tool of free market capitalist control.

In the 80’s I maintained an anti-product stance, in part to protect my work and myself from the rising onslaught of the art marketplace’s capitalist values. But since 1992, I have long been interested in creating work that the public could take home. “While ART can be product, PRODUCT can never be art.”

Longing Lasts Longer is an intrinsic truth, one that resonates with many. When Debbie Nadolney asked me to participate in this group show at AMP, I knew the moment had come to begin this new chapter in my work. To that end, I gathered a small tribe of collaborators, including my long-time collaborator, video and sound designer Steve Zehentner, composer Chris Rael, photographer and filmmaker Jasmine Hirst, and I invited sculptor Patrick Perry and paper restorer Marina Ruiz Molina to begin working with me, along with artist Victoria Salvador. These collaborators have the ability to work with me intuitively. Steve and Jasmine have worked with me since 1992 and 1994 respectively, and Chris Rael since 1998. Patrick, Marina and Victoria begin with this project.

The public’s relationship with my work is also intuitive, and since the inception of the work in 1985, my relationship has always been first and foremost with the public – not with arts administrators, critics or curators. In this sense Debbie Nadolney and AMP function as collaborators and, in a lovely way, as a midwife."

Penny Arcade, Aka Susana Ventura, is an internationally respected performance artist, poet, writer, and conceptualist experimental theatre maker known for her magnetic stage presence, her take no prisoners wit and her content rich plays and one liners. Her work is deeply rooted in rock and roll and the human experience. Her work has always focused on the other and the outsider, giving voice to those marginalized by society. Her decades long focus on the creation of community and inclusion as the goals of performance and her efforts to use performance as a transformative act mark her as a true original. Since 1999 she co-directs The Lower East Side Biography Project with longtime collaborator Steve Zehentner Website. Bad Reputation, a book on her work is available from Semiotexte Press. Website.

Steve Zehentner, a former architect, is a filmmaker, theater & performance designer/director and archivist based in New York City. Since 1992, he has collaborated with Penny Arcade, creating original staging, sound and video design. With Penny, he is co-founder of the Lower East Side Biography Project, a project that celebrates downtown NY’s diverse tapestry.

Jasmine Hirst is a filmmaker and photographic artist living and working in New York. Her films are collected by the NY Filmmakers Co-op, and have screened internationally to great acclaim. Jasmine's art delves into the darkest recesses of humanity's most ferocious wounds: abuse, broken hearts, suicide and murder. Her work attempts to make sense of the senselessness and brutality of this world. Jasmine has been collaborating with Penny Arcade since 1993.

Chris Rael is an award-winning theatre and film composer. He has been one of Downtown New York's busiest songwriters since the eighties. He leads the pioneering world pop orchestra Church of Betty. Collaborations with Penny Arcade include Bad Reputation (1999), New York Values (2002), and Rebellion Cabaret, which the pair performed at Sydney Opera House in 2005.

Marina Ruiz Molina, born in Málaga (Spain), is fascinated with the practice of art making from the perspective of the ritualistic translation of notions into objects, and the specific choices that the artist makes. Trained as a paper conservator, this collaborative work with Penny and Patrick has given her the rare opportunity to put her intuition into the service of emotions and the recollection of memories.

Patrick Perry is a Canadian born, New York based artist, whose work exists in the interstice of applied media. He holds a BFA from NSCAD University and a MFA from the Maine College of Art. He has exhibited in both Canada and the USA. His practice relies heavily on the concept of making art with others. This exploration into art as a social science and social experiment forges a connection to art making that is new, strange and unsettling. He is consistent in his attempt to shed society's isolated loneliness. He feels by making with others, we no longer walk nor act as strangers.

Victoria Salvador is a freelance illustrator & artist, based in NYC. Born a native New Yorker and raised in the depths of New Jersey; she will forever be a feral drummer, baby sister, and rainbow-painting wizkid. Improvisation, creativity, and problem solving heavily turn her on. Praying for all war to end, she hopes one day explore outer space as one human race in eternal peace and harmony, forever. She has a BFA Illustration from Parsons The New School for Design.

Bobby Miller

New York City Gay Pride Parade 1973 – 2000

When I moved to NYC in 1973 I discovered the New York City Gay Pride Parade. I went to the parade that year and began a 30 year relationship with the event and took photos every year until I left NYC in 2000. These images cover that period and are from a larger collection that will be a part of a slide show film with narration, currently in production to be released in 2015.

Bobby Miller is a performance poet, writer, actor and photographer. He is the author of four books of poetry; "Benestrific Blonde", "Mouth Of Jane",” Troubleblonde” and "Rigamarole". He has been published in many magazines and periodicals including Verbal Abuse, Vice Magazine, UHF Magazine and the Village Voice. He is included in The 1995 American Book Award – winning "Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Cafe", "Verses That Hurt; Pleasure And Pain From The Poemfone Poets, and “The Outlaw Bible Of American Poetry”, listed on the top ten Poetry National Bestseller List. Mr. Miller’s book, "Fabulous! A Photographic Diary Of Studio 54", 144 black and white photographs with text, was published by St. Martin's Press in September 1998, He is also the author “A Downtown State of Mind: NYC 1973 – 1983”, “Wigstock in Black & White: 1985 – 2005”, “Jackie 60 Nights”, “Amina”, “Queer Nation”, “PORTRAITS: Volumes 1 – 3”, ”Ptown Peeps” Volumes 1 , 2 and 3, “Forget Them Not”, ”Fetish and Fairytale Folk”, “Diva’s, Dudes & Dandies”, and “Fabulous! A Photographic Diary of Studio 54: REDUX”. His work has been exhibited in NYC, Palm Springs and Provincetown at AMP Gallery, Patty DeLuca Gallery and Woodman Shimko Gallery. Bobby has been taking photographs since 1974. His first influence was his mother Dorothy C. Miller, a prolific amateur photographer. His first contemporary influences were Christopher Makos, Robert Mapplethorpe and Jimmy De Sana. He studied photography with Lisette Model in 1976 in NYC at The New School during the last year of her life. As a hairdresser and make up artist he has worked with some of the greatest photographers in the business including Lynn Goldsmith, Francesco Scavullo and Robert Mapplethorpe.

As a poet and spoken word artist he has collaborated with recording artist DJ Dymetry of the band Dee-Lite on a recording of My Life As I Remember It, and can also be heard on Epic Records CD Home Alive with Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Joan Jett, and others performing his piece “Keep Your Mouth Off My Sisters”.

He has performed his original material at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Whitney Museum, The Smithsonian Institute, New York University, Westminster College, The Rhode Island School of Design, Bennington College, The American Crafts Museum, The New York Historical Society, The Massachusetts State Poetry Festival, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The CMJ Music Festivals, Jackie 60/Mother/ NYC, ARO.SPACE/Seattle, The Kitchen, LaMama etc., Dixon Place, P.S.122, Fez, and The Downtown Arts Festivals in lower Manhattan. He was also a winner in The National Poetry Slam as a member of The Nuyorican Poets and has performed internationally with poet John Giorno and alone at venues including The Tabernacle, The Battersee Arts Center and The ICA in London and The Glasgow Center For The Arts in Glasgow, Scotland. He has been seen on television on the PBS program City Arts and the BBC/PBS produced program The Clive James Hour. Mr. Miller also curated and hosted Verbal Abuse, a spoken word evening, the first Sunday of each month at Mother Nightclub in New York City.

Mr. Miller is also the recipient of a Jackie 60 Lifetime Achievement Award, four Jackie 60 Awards and a NYC Glamie Award. As an actor he has been seen in Forty Deuce and Theatre Couture's The Bad Weed '73 and The Final Feast Of Lucrezia Borgia. He is also the author and star of his one man show Bobby Miller, Bobby Miller with two successful runs during Gay Pride month at Here Arts Center/ NYC 1998, 1999 and a 2000 run in Provincetown Massachusetts at The UU Theater. Mr. Miller makes his home in Provincetown, Ma. Website.

Marian Roth

Sight Unseen

"Over the twenty five years I have spent making and using pinhole cameras, I have come to understand that they are vehicles to transport me from the physical world to the magical. There are hardly any rules, and even those are meant to be broken. In the time it takes to hold back a piece of tape and allow light to enter the tin can or the van or the dune shack, one is transported into the now, so that when the tape returns to cover the opening, the unseen yet apparent and timeless world has come to record itself inside the camera. Everything about the process of making images with a camera obscura partakes of joy and mystery for me - from the sometimes months it will take to make the camera to the actual moment of exposure, to the moment of revelation. And then it keeps going, so that now I am adding lithographic stencils and marks to the paper positives and negatives. After years of painting I have learned that I can still make more, add to the image with new feeling. I used to think the power of pinhole imagery was in their reflection of a dream world, haunting in their softness and timelessness. Now I have come to understand not only that the camera obscura itself is the place where the dreamer is protected and nourished, but also that there is no separation between artist and camera and image. What a miracle it all is - time and space and light!"

Marian Roth was born in Coney Island in 1944. Although as a child she dreamed of making art, she became obsessed with social justice as a teenager in the 50’s and studied political science, earning a PHD in 1968. Her beautiful career as a professor ended in 1973, when her feminist activity lead to her politically motivated and highly charged dismissal. A self-taught photographer and painter, Marian moved to Provincetown in 1982 to live among artists, fulfill her lifelong yearnings, and open her consciousness to the mysteries and joy of living once again at the edge of the Atlantic. Marian has spent the last forty years attempting to express her innermost dreams and feelings through her art. Her pinhole photography—with imagery crafted from tin cans, huts, a travelling van and lately a geodesic dome—has brought her great acclaim.

Roth received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2001 and has received various fellowships and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council over the last 20 years. Her work has appeared in Eric Renner’s classic “Pinhole Photography”, in various magazines and journals, and a folio of her work was highlighted in “Adventures With Pinhole and Home-Made Cameras” by John Evans. Marian has exhibited internationally and taught widely. She makes her home in Provincetown.

You can listen to an NPR interview with Marian Roth at Website.

Sam Smiley

The Bicycle Thief: in 3-D!, a silent action film

Shot in glorious 3-D, this silent action film features local luminaries, suspense, drama, and Provincetown's favorite transportation technology: the bicycle. David Scarbie Mitchell and Daniel Gómez Llata star in this adaptation of Vittorio De Sica's Italian realist film from 1949.

Sam Smiley is a media artist, educator, and occasional 3-D silent film auteur. Her recent masterpiece was called JAWS 3-D and was shot entirely on location in Provincetown. Her work has been featured on the Boston Cyberarts Art on the Marquee (Boston Convention Visitor's Center), and she has been seen performing last year's Hacking Arts: MIT Media Lab. She screened new work this past spring at Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico City.

Tim McCarthy

First Gay White House Kiss, a video

Tim McCarthy is a gay video historian traveling the world in search of Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender and Intersexed Culture and records it on video. He has been to 90 countries so far and all 7 continents. He does this as a medicine for himself and a gift to LGBTI people 100 years from now. He records today as the past for tomorrow.

Tim is also the first reporter credentialed by the White House for Gay TV. He brought Harry Hay and his long time companion John Burnside onto the lawn of the White House, in August 1996. There, they became the first gay men to openly kiss on the lawn of the White House.

The video portrait is the short video clip of that kiss and their feeling about being there.