We are collectors……Thank you Fountainhead Arts

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Randi Renate

HESSE FLATOW is pleased to announce that Randi Renate will be our artist in residence for the month of July.

On the occasion of her residency, she will present a solo exhibition of her sculptural work in the gallery’s Amagansett location, on view from July 20 through August 3.

As an individual who explores the world spatially, Renate has interests that lie in between architectural memory (embodied and dissociated), subaqueous states (psychic and physical), and allocentric entanglement (human and non-human). Her diverse, large-scale architectonic structures agitate an investigation on the somatic and cognitive ways of understanding our embodied being-in-the-world.

Randi received a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014 and moved to Berlin where she maintained a studio and artist-run project space, TRACE.

She is a 2020 MFA graduate of the Sculpture Department at the Yale School of Art. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships including Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NY, Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, NY, Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, Fountainhead in Miami, FL, and Santa Fe Art Institute in Santa Fe, NM.

Randi Renate has shown both internationally and nationally, with solo and group exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NY, and ROCKELMANN & and Galerie im Turm in Berlin, DE among others. Her 2021 permanent public sculpture, “blue is the atmospheric refraction I see you through,” at the Adirondack History Museum, was made in part by the 2021 New York State Council of the Arts DEC Community Arts Grant and featured in Interior Design Magazine.

Her most recent public sculpture in NYC for the 2022 Socrates Annual exhibition “Sink or Swim Climate Futures.”

Randi also produces the podcast CORALESCENCE: conversations highlighting the connection between art and science. These episodes are “studio visits” she conducts with scientists and other researchers in their fields, exploring a broad range of topics like coral conservation, neuroscience, cosmology and beyond.

July 20 – August 3, 2024
Opening Reception: July 20, 5-7PM
68A Schellinger Road, Amagansett, NY

Roger Federer’s Graduation Speech Becomes an Online Hit

At Dartmouth College, the retired tennis champion offered his thoughts on winning and losing.

By Steven Kurutz

There are thousands of commencement addresses on college campuses each spring. Most are unremarkable and go unremarked upon. But occasionally one gets people talking and gains traction online. That was the case with the speech given by the retired tennis champion Roger Federer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., on June 9.

Mr. Federer, who dropped out of school in his native Switzerland at 16 to play professionally, noted early in his remarks that he was not an obvious choice for a commencement speaker.

“Keep in mind, this is literally the second time I have ever set foot on a college campus,” he told the more than 2,000 graduates.

After some warm-up jokes about beer pong (which is said to have been invented at a Dartmouth fraternity party) and a few shout-outs to local institutions (“I got a chance to hit some balls with my kids at the Boss Tennis Center … I also crushed some chocolate chip cookies from Foco”), Mr. Federer got down to business and offered the graduates some tennis lessons that doubled as life lessons.

The part of the speech that has caught on with audiences far beyond the Ivy League environs of the Dartmouth campus — prompting numerous TikTok videos, many of them set to inspirational string music — was his reframing of his years of dominance on the tennis court.

“In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80 percent of those matches,” Mr. Federer said. “Now, I have a question for all of you. What percentage of the points do you think I won in those matches?”

The answer was 54 percent.

“In other words,” he said, “even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play.”

He went on, “The truth is, whatever game you play in life, sometimes you’re going to lose. A point, a match, a season, a job.”

A video of Mr. Federer’s speech has garnered more than 1.5 million views on Dartmouth’s YouTube channel, putting it in the company of earlier commencement addresses that have left a lasting impression.

In 2011, Conan O’Brien, a Harvard graduate, stood behind the same tree-stump lectern at Dartmouth and roasted the idea of elite higher education to uproarious laughter. Mr. O’Brien’s speech continues to be watched as a comedy master class, with 4.8 million YouTube views.

A 2005 speech by the writer David Foster Wallace to the graduating class of Kenyon College, titled “This Is Water,” circulated online as a transcript in the pre-social-media days and, in 2009, was published as a book.

Another noteworthy commencement speech, known as “Wear Sunscreen,”was not delivered as an address but rather written as a 1997 column for The Chicago Tribune by the journalist Mary Schmich. (It was the speech Ms. Schmich would have given, if asked.) Her piece inspired a hit spoken-word song by Baz Luhrmann, “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen),” and was also published as a slim book, “Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life.”

Mr. Federer’s decision to quit school seemed to work out for him. Over a 25-year career, he won 103 tour singles titles, including 20 Grand Slam titles, and was acknowledged as one of the greatest tennis players. Two years after his retirement, Dartmouth awarded him an honorary doctorate, citing his work as an athlete, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Grabbing a racket toward the end of his speech, he left the Dartmouth graduates with one final lesson: “OK, so, for your forehand, you’ll want to use an eastern grip. Keep your knuckles apart a little bit. Obviously, you don’t want to squeeze the grip too hard.”

Then he added, with a smile, “No, this is not a metaphor! It’s just good technique.”

I walked into the Provincetown Public Library to see if I could secure a reading for Eliot’s book and I met a grown up Fearless Flying Fannie. The assistant director of the library calls herself Library Girl. Courtney Francis has the moxie that we wish for all girls and boys in the future. She shows her power by helping others. We will announce the events we are planning together very soon. Thank you Gail Williams for telling me not to miss seeing the inside of this historic establishment.

Episode 20 – Dianne Beal

 

If you want to expand your horizons in the art world, listen to this episode of Art Lovers Forum. I am speaking to Dianne Beal, an independent curator and private art dealer in Washington D.C., Paris, and Miami. Dianne is a good friend of mine.

 

She is absolutely a well-known specialist of non-conformist art. Let’s put it this way, the bipartisan political power couple, Mary Matalin and James Carville, are just two of her celebrity status clientele. 

 

Dianne has developed an excellent reputation for promoting intellectually challenging projects in Washington, Paris and most recently, Miami.  During the pandemic, she created an online artist interview series Square Dose and spends time now organizing diverse exhibitions with impactful curatorial themes. After operating galleries in Washington, DC in the early part of her career and then founding Galerie Blue Square in Paris in 2007, Dianne continues to focus on art projects that link local and international concerns. She has collaborated with American university art museums as well as major museums, including the Louvre Museum and Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

 

Curatorial exhibitions include The Color of Light (2021-22) featuring five international artists and three venues in Latvia and France; Riga Photography Biennale (2018); Tribute -Yves Ullens (2017) Mark Rothko Art Centre, Riga, Latvia; RED!!! Russian American XXI c. Visions (2017) George Mason University; Crude – Andrei Molodkin (2013) American University; and Russian Constructivist Roots: Present Concerns (1997-98), University of Maryland, University of New Hampshire, Dickinson College, and The World Bank which traced the legacy of the Russian avant-garde movement of the 1920s and 1930s through the works of 13 leading contemporary Russian artists.

 

From 2011 – 2014, Dianne served as a consultant to UBS bank, acting as a private guide to its top Private Wealth clients at Art Basel Miami Beach. Galerie Blue Square hosted a booth of its artists at Art Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais for several years.

 

Dianne has been invited to give interviews and has delivered lectures at leading universities and has served as guest curator and juror for various public and private exhibitions. In 2010, she contributed to a book published by the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow about émigré artists.  Dianne earned a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan and a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the George Washington University. She speaks French and Russian.

 

Listen to episode 20 of the Art Lovers Forum podcast here – https://www.artloversforum.com/e/episode-20-dianne-beal/

 

 

The Art Lovers Forum Podcast is also available on popular podcast sites:

 

Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-lovers-forum-podcast/id1725034621

Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/5FkkeWv83Hs4ADm13ctTZi

Amazon Music – https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/77484212-60c5-4026-a96f-bd2d4ae955c6

Audible – https://www.audible.com/pd/Art-Lovers-Forum-Podcast-Podcast/B0CRR1XYLZ

iHeartRadio – https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-art-lovers-forum-podcast-141592278/  

 

 

 

Contact:

Lois Whitman-Hess

loisw@hwhpr.com

———————————————

———————————————-

———————————————-

Fearless Flying Fannie is in the front window of East End Books Ptown. This is a true honor. Thank you Jeff G. Peters.

————————————————

Siblings unite to see how they can help their feathered friends. These children now live in our coop apartment in NYC since we moved out. The circle of life. Photo by @aviador143 Sharon Marantz.

————————————————

A delicious dinner at Debbie and Derik’s. DDDD, Joan, Al, Maddie, Don, Eliot and me. Four hours of non stop food and talking. Missing Gail and Dawn.