Carlota Schoolman and Stephen Vitiello

The following conversation between Carlota Schoolman and Stephen Vitiello took place as a livestream event on March 11, 2021. Schoolman and Vitiello are artists who have played integral roles in The Kitchen’s activities as both members of the staff and presenting artists. Schoolman served as the Video Director at The Kitchen from 1974–1977, and later worked to produce large-scale video projects for the organization, such as Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives (1977–1983), an opera for television in seven half-hour episodes. To coincide with this conversation, The Kitchen presented a Video Viewing Room on The Kitchen OnScreen from March 9 onward highlighting Schoolman’s work, including key videos produced before she joined the organization and productions that she oversaw while working with The Kitchen.

As The Kitchen’s Archivist from 2001–2004, Vitiello organized the preservation of archival tapes, curated the CD series From The Kitchen Archives (Orange Mountain Music), and curated the 2004 benefit at Town Hall. Vitiello has presented his work at The Kitchen in various exhibition and performance contexts since 1991, including in the group exhibition Between Thought and Sound (2004) and as the creator of the sound mix and music for Dean Moss’s performance johnbrown (2014).

This event is the fourth in the series of 50th Anniversary Conversations. The previous programs featured Dara Birnbaum and Sondra Perry, Moor Mother and Vernon Reid, and Eric Bogosian and Tina Satter.

BIOS

Carlota Schoolman is a video producer and founder of Fifi Corday Productions. She began her career working on public access television initiatives, first on a research project for Sloan Commission on Cable Communications (1972) and then on the broadcast of artist works on television with Experiments in Art and Technology (1971). In 1972, she formed her own production company in 1972, going on to produce videos with artists such as Trisha Brown, The Grand Union, Joan Jonas, Richard Landry, and Richard Serra. Schoolman later joined the staff of The Kitchen, working as Video Director from 1974–1977 and as Associate Director for TV Production from 1978–1986. In these roles, she produced and curated exhibitions, screenings, performances, and works for television, and she created video documents of performances and concerts staged at The Kitchen. The videos that Schoolman produced with artists have been exhibited extensively in galleries and museums around the world, and aired on television channels in the US and abroad.

Stephen Vitiello is an electronic musician and media artist whose sound installations have been presented internationally at MASS MoCA, the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the 2006 Biennial of Sydney, the Cartier Foundation, Paris, and in public art spaces around the world. Vitiello has collaborated with such artists and musicians as Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler, Pauline Oliveros, Julie Mehretu, Steve Roden, Taylor Deupree, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts, Creative Capital funding in the category of Emerging Fields, and an Alpert/Ucross Award for Music. Vitiello served as Archivist at The Kitchen from 2001–2004. He earned his BA in English at the State University of New York at Purchase. Stephen is currently based in Richmond, VA where he is professor and chair of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.