Going to be in Santa Ana, CA anytime in October? Check out the photos by Mike E and me from our “Lost in the World” series as part of The Universal Festival of Relational Art at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art. And take pictures for us because, as starving artists, we won’t be attending. Check out the catalog here.

You First at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, October 1 through October 29. Opening night reception 5:00 p.m. Performances begin at 7:00 p.m. For more information visit www.occca.org and www.uforafest.com. OCCCA is open Thursdays and Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m and until 9:00 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays. Located at 117 N. Sycamore, Santa Ana, California, in the Santa Ana Artists’ Village. Contact: Rob Mintz or Dalibor Polivka , Email:uforafest@yahoo.com   Ph: 714.667.1517

Artists Rob Mintz and Dalibor Polivka present You First, an exhibit arriving with more than fifty attractions! Dive into the think tank if you dare! Featuring young partisans of the real from the nation’s top schools —  plus a cadre of international art luminaries* — You First presents authentic & genuine Relational Aesthetics: art in the here and now! See it, feel it, think it through! The great dream belongs to everyone! Glimpse the new paradigm. It’s no longer business as usual. (Exhibit may contain language not suitable for children under eighteen years of age.) See poets, slaves, soap-sellers, lovers, inmates, outcasts, scientists, city planners, a guy reading a newspaper, a woman in a tree! See artists, documentarians and photojournalists at the height of their game. Art is more than just another facet of life: it’s the name of a hope, reaffirming the social bond.  During the opening, choreographer Sheron Wray and her dance troupe will improvise interactively with the audience. On the same night, You First will present Zoe Gruni’s performance piece, Urban Jackalope, first seen at the Biennale di Venezia, plus the dance stylings of Derek Fleming of Soul Train fame. Milan Kovac, the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic, will present documentation of  Slovakia’s humanitarian aid in troubled regions of the world.  You First has received the kind endorsement of the French critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud who coined the term, “relational aesthetics.” Another true art luminary, Alfredo Cramerotti, a UK-based artist, author and curator, represents himself with a collaborative blog and videos about the radical European art fair Manifesta. Best-selling social visionaries Michiel Schwarz & Joost Elffers’ will reveal new symbols for a sustainable future. NYC’s favorite rock and roll fashionista, Jordan Betten, will demonstrate how to dress for the party. Marc Pally, a high-power hyphenate, is both the artistic director of Glow (an all night event held in Santa Monica) and an LA-based artist showing sensitive, stylized drawings of a human face, wry, melancholy and somehow heroic. Max Presneill, mercurial director of the Torrance Art Museum, exhibits brooding, painterly explorations of cognition and experience. Arie Galles, a professor at Soka University, artist and gallery director, bears witness to the Holocaust in a series of large-scale drawings of maps and aerial photographs from military archives. Art collectives are a fascinating phenomenon — and there is none more elusive than Finishing School, masters of street-smart provocation.  The artists in You First are graduates of the most prestigious art programs in the nation, among them Art Center, Art Institute of Chicago, Cal Arts, California College of the Arts, Cornell, Cranbrook, Harvard, Mills College, MIT, New York Academy of Art, Otis, Rhode Island School of Design, Rutgers, San Francisco Academy of Art, and Yale. The participants in You First come from the United States, Italy, France, England, Sweden, and Slovakia, nomadic citizens of the planet Art. A complete exposition about You First, the ideas and personalities that shaped it — and the Ufora project in general — will be unpacked in a forthcoming book by the curators.

* The art luminaries include: Base Design, Jordan Betten, Nicolas Bourriaud, Finishing School, Derek Fleming, Arie Galles, Zoe Gruni, Milos Koptak, Marc Pally, Max Presneill, Michiel Schwarz & Joost Elffers, Karen Smith & Ida Hledikova,  Stealthart,  Wolfgang Steahle, Ta Tu, and Sheron Wray.