Sarah Cooper is a curator, writer, and art historian based in Los Angeles.
She is the Public Programs Specialist for performance at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she directs the experimental performance series Ever Present, among other programs.
She has organized programs featuring artists and musicians including Kim Gordon, Simone Forti, Brendan Fernandes, Patti Smith, Lonnie Holley, Martin Creed, Midori Takada, Helado Negro, Moor Mother, David Wojnarowicz, Derek Jarman, and Solange Knowles.
In addition, Sarah has held positions at The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Royal Academy in London, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
She holds a Master's Degree in Art History from Hunter College, New York. Her thesis, Expanding Experimentalism: Popular Music and Art at the Kitchen in New York City, 1971-1985, explores the creative output of artists' bands and the relationship between popular music and avant-garde performance practices.
sarahannecooper [at] gmail.com
She is the Public Programs Specialist for performance at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she directs the experimental performance series Ever Present, among other programs.
She has organized programs featuring artists and musicians including Kim Gordon, Simone Forti, Brendan Fernandes, Patti Smith, Lonnie Holley, Martin Creed, Midori Takada, Helado Negro, Moor Mother, David Wojnarowicz, Derek Jarman, and Solange Knowles.
In addition, Sarah has held positions at The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Royal Academy in London, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
She holds a Master's Degree in Art History from Hunter College, New York. Her thesis, Expanding Experimentalism: Popular Music and Art at the Kitchen in New York City, 1971-1985, explores the creative output of artists' bands and the relationship between popular music and avant-garde performance practices.
sarahannecooper [at] gmail.com
Feburary 2017
Broadcast on 106.5 FM
Archived at www.getty.kchung.news
Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Los Angeles' artist-run community radio station KCHUNG was in residence for two weeks at the Getty Center to broadcast in-depth news programming and build opportunities for spectacle, performance, and live engagement that imagine alternative uses and definitions of the news. Complementing the exhibition Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media, the residency will produce between 6 to 10 episodes, featuring a diverse breadth of content from KCHUNG's artistic community including interviews, performances, and live reporting, to explore both exhibition themes and current events.
KCHUNG is an artist-run radio station operated from Los Angeles' Chinatown by a community of over 200 visual artists, musicians, writers, and other creative thinkers. Founded by artists Solomon Bothwell, Luke Fischbeck, and Harsh Patel, KCHUNG was created to redefine community radio as accessible and transparent, offering a community of listeners the ability to create their own content and learn about broadcasting. Today the station has grown to more than 200 contributors, who broadcast over 100 regularly scheduled shows each month.
In 2016, KCHUNG was awarded a Creative Capital grant to launch an in-depth news service. Titled News Body, it is an experimental platform dedicated to user-sourced, urgent news. The Getty residency will serve as an opportunity for KCHUNG's artist community to further develop the News Body project and workshop methods of reporting, interpreting, and distributing news content, while exploring its ever-evolving role in contemporary society.
KCHUNG's work has been featured in the Hammer Museum's Made in LA biennial, and they have forged collaborations with cultural organizations at all scales, including schools, non-profits, artist-run spaces, galleries and museums, performance venues, bookstores, and restaurants, as well as music, film, art and literary festivals. Recently, they provided extensive public programming for Current: LA Water, Los Angeles's citywide biennial of public art, and forged collaborations with community partners such as The Youth Justice Coalition and Liberated Arts Collective.
Live Episodes & Events
EPISODE 1
Live Observational Field Report from the Getty Museum
Tuesday, January 31 at 3:00 p.m.
Listen to the episode at www.getty.kchung.news
Artists John Birtle and Jasmine Nyende file a live observational field report from the Museum Courtyard, reporting on describing all aspects and actions of all the things that are happening in the immediate area. Striving to be as objective and as detailed as possible with everything they can see, Birtle and Nyende flip the close-analysis the Museum's artworks typically receive onto the interstitial spaces and the visitors themselves, delivered as a deadpan, literal news report.
EPISODE 2
Virtual Reality News
Sunday, February 5 at 1:00 p.m.
Join us on the Garden Terrace or tune in to 106.5 FM and www.getty.kchung.news
Virtual reality and journalism brings the public to the news. It reenacts and will soon be recording stories in as high resolution as a lens can bear. What are the implications of this for radio journalism and sound? This special broadcast from Problematic Radio (KCHUNG) features a few expert guests who will discuss the potential of virtual reality sound and its implementation in radio journalism, attempting to configure and execute a virtual reality recording of the broadcast.
Featuring Christy Roberts Berkowitz, Jahi Sundance, Hannah Harris Green, Sofia Hultquist, Anne Jimkes, Adam Tillman-Young, and Jonathan Sims.
EPISODE 3
Newspaper Reading Club
Tuesday, February 7 and Sunday, February 12 at 2:00 p.m.
Tune in to 106.5 FM or www.getty.kchung.news
Artists Fiona Connor and Michala Paludan host the "Newspaper Reading Club," where participants are asked to read the daily newspaper of their choice as they normally would, but verbalizing the process of skimming, commenting and personal editorializing that naturally occurs. Established in 2011, the "Newspaper Reading Club" takes many forms including performances, radio broadcasts, publications, and posters that investigate how people retrieve their news and how they engage with larger narratives of current affairs.
EPISODE 4
Performance Now: Simone Forti, News Animations
Saturday, February 11, performance at 4:00 p.m., video screening at 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 12, performance at 4:00 p.m., discussion at 5:00 p.m.
Join us in the Breaking News exhibition galleries, West Pavilion or tune in to 106.5 FM and www.getty.kchung.news
KCHUNG Radio program "Performance Now" discusses the latest happenings in the world of performance art, hosted by John Tain and Carol Cheh. For this special episode they host two performances by legendary artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer Simone Forti. Forti will perform News Animations, a piece she developed in the mid-1980s that translates the imagery and language of newspaper reports and newscasts into improvised movement compositions.
Following Forti's Saturday performance, three recent video pieces by the artist will be screened, each a story of a body and voice navigating the comings and goings of the world. On Sunday, a discussion will take place after the performance between Forti and "Performance Now" hosts in the Museum Lecture Hall.
February 11 videos include:
Zuma News, 2015
Flag in the Water, 2015
A Free Consultation, 2016
EPISODE 5
The Invisible Cruising Ground
Hosted by Hannah Harris Green
Saturday, February 11 at 7:00 p.m.
Join us in the Museum Lecture Hall, or tune in to 106.5 FM or www.getty.kchung.news
A story about the changing meaning of public spaces to queer communities, mixing location recordings, interviews, and commentary with live guests.
EPISODE 6
Truth to Power
Hosted by Veronique D'Entremont
Sunday, February 19, at 12:30 p.m.
Join us in the Museum Courtyard, or tune in to 106.5 FM and www.getty.kchung.news
Impact the news. Museum visitors are invited to gather and write postcards to their elected representatives, with the opportunity to read their messages on the air. Postcards, writing materials, and stamps provided, as well as addresses for representatives.
EPISODE 7
Public Fiction
Hosted by Lauren Mackler
Saturday, February 25 at 4:00 p.m.
Join us in the Museum Lecture Hall, or tune in to 106.5 FM and www.getty.kchung.news
"Public Fiction" is a multi-faceted project run by curator Lauren Mackler that explores artistic experimentation in Los Angeles. The program is a "live essay" on the translation of fact into fiction and fiction into fact, as seen on television. This collection of ideas are footnoted by clips such as archival footage of art and activism from public access television, segments from contemporary news coverage, and TV fictions.
EPISODE 8
John Berger's Ways of Seeing Live Reading
Sunday, February 26 from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Join us on the Garden Terrace, or tune in to 106.5 FM and www.getty.kchung.news
Join us for a collaborative table reading of Ways of Seeing, the influential essay by British writer John Berger, who died in January of this year. Originally broadcast on BBC television in 1972, Berger's text is a tool kit for deciphering the meaning and impact of images in media and art. A lineup of local artists, curators, and creative figures will read the book in its entirety to celebrate Berger and his ever-relevant thinking.
Additional Programming
In addition to live broadcasting, KCHUNG contributors have pre-recorded episodes and events to rotate on-air between live sessions. Featuring:
Susannah Tantemsapya, The Land Recordings
Christina Gubala, Slam Dunks From The Freethrow Line
Gabie Strong, Earth Art Radio
Erin Anadkat Schwartz, Recordings from the Women's March
Margie Schnibbe, Recordings from the Women's March
Angi Brzycki, Recordings from the Women's March
Frau Fiber, Talk Labor
Elisabeth Houston
Jess Castillo
Michael Shaw, The Conversation
Michael Piña, Nature Boy
Nicholas Phillips, No Binary for Clear Tears
Michal Kamran, Grocery Store Report
Sandy Wilson
Peter Hernandez
Tania Doles and Andy Peter, Meso Mechanics
Yelena Zhelezov