March 22 – April 11, 2012

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, Dan Herschlein, Graham Hamilton, and Alex Casso: Me and Everyone That is With Me underwent constant modifications; the features of this page provided accruing information on the Session’s developments and will continue to track the project’s progression beyond Recess’s walls.

Events

About Dan Herschlein, Graham Hamilton, and Alex Casso: Me and Everyone That is With Me

On January 2012, artists Alex Casso, Graham Hamilton, and Dan Herschlein, working under the name After School Special, began collaborating with the Education Department at the Whitney Museum of American Art on several in-depth classes for students aged 6-14 from the Regent Family Residence. Employing Fluxus-inspired prompts, the artists and children used the classroom and the Whitney’s galleries to investigate the overlap of play and performance. During workshops, the artists gathered audio and video footage and collected students’ drawings and collages.

From March 22 – April 11, the artists will translate their findings in the form of an immersive installation at Recess. Statements, sketches and actions generated through collaborations with the children will become sets for improvised and prescribed actions. Using multiple live video feeds and simultaneous projections, visitors to Recess will take on the role of performer as their presence is enmeshed within these sets and replayed throughout the space. Placing the viewer in these mirrored stages, the artists will replicate the performative play generated by the children.

About the Artists

After School Special is a program more than a collective. It is organized by Alex Casso, Graham Hamilton and Dan Herschlein. This program facilitates the artists working together, and against one another, in a way that challenges the often singular and isolated perspective of the artist. After School Special asserts itself in communion with the collaborative nature of youth and art making. It is a system of checks and balances, but also an aggregator of extreme distractions.

Alex Casso lives and works in New York. He received his BFA from NYU in 2011. As an artist he mixes painting, digital media, and playwriting in order to explore everything and nothing, what he calls, “sound bites of the human condition.”

Graham Hamilton lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA from NYU in 2011 and his work investigates desire and the object through painting, among other mediums. His exchange between the object and artist, painted object and viewer is a mirror for our everyday relations.

Dan Herschlein lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from NYU in 2010. His work consists of projected handmade slides, as well as short videos made on outdated technology. Both explore the relationship between the degraded image and the physical body.

Many thanks to all the participating student artists!

Alliyah, Ana, Bryanna, Ellis, Emmanuel, Indera, Jared, Makajah, Melody, N-dia, Shamel, Taniyah, Tatianna, Teionna, Trinity, Tysean, Valentín, Vanity, Victoria and Zaire