Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!

Heads Up, Lucky Pennies. Some incredible things have been happening...

In an astonishing act of generosity, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation surprised us with a 3-year, $30,000 operating support grant from their SEED Fund. We are so humbled, thrilled and encouraged by the news!

Creative Loafing gave us two honors in their Best Of 2012 Issue: Best reason to hole up in a cardboard box (Threshold) and Best Dancer (Blake Beckham).

In recognition of the ambitious vision behind Threshold, The Lucky Penny received Spotlight Recognition from The National Endowment for the Arts.

This fall, Lucky's Blake Beckham received a Community Impact Award from Emory's Center for Creativity & Arts.

Our deepest thanks to these fine folks, along with Lucky's supporters, sponsors, volunteers and audiences.

Artist Talk

Artist Talk:  RE: Performance 

On Wednesday, April 25^th at 7:00 pm, a powerful trio of performance artists will reunite in Atlanta for a discussion about contemporary practices of re-performance that have gained increasing popularity amongst curators and institutions of visual culture. Los Angeles-based artist, Adam Overton and New York-based performer Anya Liftig will join Atlanta’s own Andy Ditzler for a talk moderated by Lucky Penny Artistic Director, Blake Beckham at The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

ANDY DITZLER, Atlanta, GA | frequentsmallmeals.com
Andy Ditzler was trained as a percussionist at Indiana University and is a composer, performer, and curator living in Atlanta. He is a founding member of the Artadia award-winning art collective John Q. He has curated over one hundred programs in the ongoing series Film Love, which presents historical avant-garde and experimental cinema to general audiences. Currently he is a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies and a George W. Woodruff Fellow in the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University. As a musician, Ditzler has performed in contexts ranging from classical and jazz to free improvisation and rock. As composer and performer, Ditzler has explored video, audio phonography, performance art, and other forms. His one-man theater show Yes and No was commissioned by Clayton State Theater and premiered there in 2002, later running in Atlanta. In 2006 he released his first music CD, Songs From Yes and No. This was followed by the single Solstice in 2008, with a music video directed by underground film legend George Kuchar. Ditzler released Closet Studies, his latest collection of songs, in 2011. In 2012 he will revive the performance art work Desirium Probe by the New York artist James Nares – the work’s first presentation since 1978.

ANYA LIFTIG, New York, NY | anyaliftig.com

Anya Liftig’s work has been featured at TATE Modern, Highways Performance Space, Exit Art, Panoply Performance Lab, Surreal Estate, Eyedrum, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Center for Performance Research, Chez Bushwick, Grace Exhibition Space, Yale University, INCUBATEChicago, [performance space] london, Performance Art Institute San Francisco, Performer Stammtisch Berlin, OVADA, Roves and Roams, University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, Mess Hall, Joyce Soho and many other venues. Her piece,  “The Anxiety of Influence,” was an intervention into Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present” retrospective at MOMA. Liftig dressed as the elder artist and sat across from her all day. Her work has been published and written about in The New York Times Magazine, Bomb, The Wall Street Journal, Emergency Index, The Art Life, Vogue Italia, Marie Claire Italia, Heeb, Loser, The Other Journal, Flavorpill, Hyperallergic, Mix Magazine, Next Magazine, Now and Then, X-tra, Stay Thirsty, New York Magazine and many others. She is a graduate of Yale University and Georgia State University and has received recent grant and residency support from the University of Antioquia, Casa Tres Patios-Medellin Colombia, and Flux Projects in Atlanta.

ADAM OVERTON, Los Angeles, CA | plus1plus1plus.org

a abilities — acknowledgment, action — adam am, and angeles artist awareness, based between bodymindperson by challenges — [co]existence — composer contact continually depths distance, experimental experiments fascinated: fueled, I, in individuals intimate is living — los maps massage music — my — of overton performer playfully plumbs practices, presence radical rhythm, subjects teacher — the therapist — through transformative various with work.

Idea: Threshold

Idea Capital has awarded Lucky Duo, Blake Beckham and Malina Rodriguez, a grant to support the creation of their upcoming performance work, Threshold. Premiering in late summer, the piece is designed for a house constructed out of cardboard, and examines the home as both a sacred and profane space. The Lucky Penny is currently recruiting architects, designers, and artist volunteers. Contact blake@theluckypenny.org for more information.