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Diane
Spodarek
Biography: A Canadian born Detroit Native, Diane Spodarek graduated from EMU in 1975 receiving an MFA in video and performance art. In 1977Diane was the co-founder with Randy Delbeke of the Detroit Artists Monthly and the Alternative Space Detroit. She received an NEA artists’ fellowship grant for video art. In 1981 Diane, Randy and their daughter, Dana, moved to New York. Diane traveled to Detroit to collaborate with Jay Yager in producing over 11 video art works, many award winning, including the Larry Kasden Award. Diane is also an award winning playwright and poet receiving the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award for “Happy Hour” and “Poet of the Year Award” from Downtown Magazine. She published numerous essays in Downtown Magazine in a regular column, “Girl Culture” for three years. Actor, writer, musician and visual artist she received three NYFA artists’ fellowships, (two in video art collaboratively produced with Jay Yager, and one in literature). She performed her one-person show “The Drunk Monologues” at the International Fringe Festival in New York in 2004, EMU, Horse Trade Theater, and The Performance Art Festival in Mishima & Tokyo, Japan. Her prose and poetry is published in many anthologies and magazines and her monologues in "Young Women's 'Monologs' from Contemporary Plays" and "Even More Monologues for Women by Women”. Recently Diane performed the lead role of Vivian Bearing in the Pulitzer Prize play, WIT in two productions in 2004. She shaved her head for this role (and made a video work with Jay Yager, entitled, “Hair Cut”). In 2005 “Happy Hour” premiered in New York; the Dangerous Diane Band had two reunion performances in Detroit and she moved to New Zealand. Currently she is living by the sea, teaching yoga and writing a new play, “Winter” about being the ‘other’ in a foreign country. Some upcoming events: an essay about New Orleans to be published in “LePurple” (France); Visual art show at Pataka Museum, (Wellington, New Zealand), and residency at artists colony in Spain. Artist’s statement: I began work on a piece
for this show as soon as I heard about it. However, I have
spent the last nine months moving and getting settled and things
have changed. My intention was to create a portrait entitled, “Elvis Presley, Ray Johnson and
Me” because I wanted to continue with a series of portraits
of dead people, but I miss my daughter so much that everything
I do is called “I Miss My Daughter”. Working for
this show has taken me back to my process. I have always been
a body artist, using exactly what I have at the time I have
it. “Milk” was a very successful early video tape
I made in 1976, about expressing my breast milk into a glass
and drinking it. The exhibit at the DIA brought me death threats
for my “perversion.” The last video was a collaboration
with Jay Yager, “Hair Cut” in which I shaved
my head. Now, I am working in various media and whatever
the sea throws up on the beach.
I recently learned that I can't ship from New Zealand the materials I have been working with, (raw) wood, stone and flax because 2 of 3 are considered live and possible carriers of weird species. Therefore, I have chosen "Boy Blue" to represent my work. This is the most recent video piece with Jay Yager and marks our 12th collaboration. Although told from a single point of view, (using Mother as the universal symbol), violence, war and loss is not singular. Every thing we do has an effect on others. My work now is about seeing all aspects of life and art as interconnected. Jay's editing of "Boy Blue" has made that connection even stronger for me in our work.
For more information on Diane Spodarek's art and music visit: www.dianespodarek.com Diane Spodarek can be contacted at: dianespodarek@earthlink.net |
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Larry Newhouse |
Tom Venner |
Jay Yager |
