YANS & RETO Festival de arte para mayores de 60 y menores de 30 de en Nueva York artistas americano y españoles

A festival conceived by Jana Leo,
co-organized and co-produced by MOSIS Foundation
and Spain Culture New York-Consulate General of Spain

ACTION FEST: “7 minutes or less” performances, actions, short films, videos, objects of text, readings, proclamations, comedy, songs etc… by artists and intellectuals over sixty and under thirty.

Within the frame of two hours and in a theater, the Anthology Film Archive, YANS & RETO is an assembly of people engaged in contemporary culture who, regardless of their disciplines, have in common a taste for radicalism and experimental creation. YANS & RETO is a one-night festival of action art by artists over sixty and under thirty. The artists present themselves through short (under seven minute) performance or video pieces, creating energetic, inter-generational encounters. YANS & RETO is a one-night festival where artists and intellectuals get introduced to each other by giving a taste of what they do, either with short intense pieces or with quiet interventions that last for the whole two hours. Pieces will be directed in a way that layers intensity of each individual action to create a single piece for the night. YANS & RETO is against ferocious nonsensical competition among artists.

YANS (Young And Not Stupid) & RETO (Radical Even Though Old) address contemporary issues such as the tendency to equate youth with progressiveness and old age with conventionalism—since the new is not necessarily progressive—and the separation of art from culture. A RETO is a radical person, even if older; a YAS is a stupid young person—that is, one who copies the past while trivializing it. Stupidity is defined as a lack of responsibility, something independent of age; it warns of a problem among generations of young artists: imitation.

What’s coming out of New York is the cheesy “happy day” and “cupcake” culture: it’s taking hold in hipster cafés from SOHO to Malasaña and from the LES to Lavapiés, where spoiled brats living off their parents have “brunch” while checking their emails. YANS (Young And Not Stupid), it reads, the reverse of SANY (We Know About Art in New York), as if that were the most important thing for an artist not to be considered stupid.

Invitation

Coming from the idea that a festival is a public party with unknown participants who share complicity, this festival tries to bring together people who are YANS (Young And Not Stupid) & RETO (Radical Even Though Old).

The festival is a feast of creativity, endurance and enthusiasm, a celebration of being an artist and an intellectual. The festival is also is a situation to encounter others. Different from regular social events where people converse about what they do, here each person is introduced by doing “an action”. As in a jazz session (or a flamenco party, where people take a seat and eventually stand up and intervene), artists are not acting for the public.

The form that the Festival takes

The gathering is a choreography of long interventions that run through the whole evening (two hours) and the short actions that happens in a time sequence for three to six minutes each. You define your participation, I direct the choreography. The short actions are intense and most likely will happen in the stage area or on screen. You may do a performance, have a comedy session, show a short film (a projectionist will be available as we are in a theater) give a short lecture, read a poem or play a piece of music–whatever you want within the limits of the place. The long interventions will happen at the same time and in the same space in a theater that seats 184. A number of seats in the theater will be assigned to an artist depending upon how many seats are needed for his or her action. The remaining seats will be available to the audience. Examples of long interventions are a couple typing a letter to each other; two guys embrace, dancing with no music… The interventions will be visible intermittently and will overlap like an alphabet soup.

About the concept

Youth are defined by stupidity and the old, by wisdom. However, this assumption might be misleading. If one defines stupidity by lapses of responsibility rather than by a lack of knowledge or ability, one finds that one doesn’t grow intelligent but simply grows older. Being “modern” and “progressive” is not related to being young, but to being responsible. Although nobody has the desire to be perceived as stupid, people are quick to use ignorance as an excuse for their misbehavior or lack of attention. In other words, stupidity releases you from thinking and repairing. In reality, stupidity is a deviation from what is ethical. Often, art is a way to dig deep into to a culture. But also, often in art, stupidity is celebrated (this is my take with the use of the concept “emergent artists”). In addition to bringing creative people together, the purpose of the festival is to prove that artists can change culture. Often what is imported from a culture to another are clichés. Often Spanish art is represented either by kitsch or by copying other international artists, this festival looks for artist who are international though Spanish.

Why a Movie Theater for a Festival

To rent a theater and specifically the Anthology Film Archive was a suggestion by Simon Lund. Then when Adeola Enigbokan introduced me to the book by Samuel Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, I realized how appropriate was to do this festival in a cinema. The book is a memoir of porno cinemas in Times Square (first unzip me, and after we do it we will talk about our lives) and a dissertation on the differences between an encounter and networking.

Team

Organized by: Fundación MOSIS- Modelos y Sistemas; Arte y Ciudad from Madrid. With the help and financial support of Spain Culture New York, Consulate General of Spain in New York the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Anthology Film Archives. With the collaboration Simon Lund (technical event recording).