Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova

A weekend-long temporary university of post-artistic practices for the future.

𝙄𝙛 𝙚𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙪𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙙𝙤 𝙬𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧?

••• ℐ𝓉’𝓈 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝒜𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 ℰ𝒹𝓊𝒸𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 will establish a temporary university from June 25th to 27th in Studio ALTA in Prague. The public will be able to meet over 20 artists, artistic collectives and creative practitioners there whose “art work” functions as an umbrella for multilayered practices. But they won’t be teaching art, at least not directly. In the course of the three days, the invited participants will share their knowledge and skills from extra-art fields. The aim of the university is to offer a different perspective to the presented topics as well as a possibility of a fluidly hierarchical (self)educational system, as opposed to a maximized expertise in isolated sub-fields.

The artists, together with the curators, Petr Dlouhý and Magdalena J. Härtelova, dream of the temporary university as a radical (aka containing the potential for change) space, in which we use our experiences from galleries and stages to transform our ideas of classrooms and lecture halls: A space, in which we co-create our own curriculum, cannon, into a system built on the principle of sharing (instead of lecturing) and imagination (instead of dogma).

ℐ𝓉’𝓈 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝒜𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 ℰ𝒹𝓊𝒸𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 builds on the future-changing potential of collective finding, passing on, and establishing of knowledge, asking ourselves: What knowledge do we need in order to be able to create together a future that is anti-racist, feminist, non-heteronormative, that doesn’t exploit neither the natural environment nor human labor, a future that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of physical abilities, age or financial circumstances? What special knowledge do we want to spread for this future? What is the future occupation we are preparing ourselves for right now?

Participating artists:​ add platform, Anna Chrtková, Anna Línová, Barbara Zedková, Darja Lukjanenko, Diane Barbe, Erik Bordeleau, Husam Abed, Ladislav Svoboda, Lucia Kašiarová, Ludmila Vacková, Marika Volfová, Markéta Stránská, Matyáš Grimmich, Mitzi Group, Nicole Nigro, Peter Šavel, Sergio Patricio, Sodja Lotker, Tamara Moyzes, Zdenka Brungot Svíteková, Zeina Kanawati, Zuzana Žabková

Curators: 𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗱𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗮 𝗝𝗮𝗱𝘄𝗶𝗴𝗮 𝗛𝗮̈𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗮 & 𝗣𝗲𝘁𝗿 𝗗𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗵𝘆́

Spatial design: ​𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝗵𝗼𝘃𝗮́

Production​: 𝗔𝗻𝗲𝘇̌𝗸𝗮 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗼𝘃𝗮́

Graphics: 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗷𝗮 𝗟𝘂𝗸𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗻𝗸𝗼

Feather through Generations was an exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Karama Human Rights Film Festival in Amman, Jordan. The multimedia exhibition, installed at the Royal Cultural Center in Amman, outsourced materials from the archive of the festival to look, in the spirit of Aby Warburg, for overlapping gestural patterns connecting the films from the pasts ten years. The display also featured an original immersive sound installation by Härtelova that sonically connected the streets of Amman -imitating the bustling traffic, featuring recordings from street protests, and including ethereal pads evoking the clear light of the desert- with the inside of the cultural center.

Svéráz národního lovu/

Peculiarities of the National Hunt

Desfour Palace, Prague

October 8th - 17th, 2019

Veronika Franková, kolektiv Intelektrurálně, Loretta Lau, Vanda Michalská, Roza Pogosian a SŮL

Ruská komedie z roku 1995 Svéráz národního lovu končí surreálným výjevem. Na stráni sedí účastníci lovu - plukovník, policista a několik místních mužů z vesnice, spolu s mladičkým finským antropologem, který přijel do Ruska v devadesátých letech, přitahován vidinou velkoleposti a noblesy národní tradice lovu. Jsou znavení a připití. V lese právě místo vysoké střelili krávu. Kamera je zabírá, jak odpočívají, když se pozadí hložin změní filmovým trikem v průhled do zasněžené pláně. Po ní se vydává v perfektní choreografii historicky oděná skupina šlechticů na koních na hon. Vložený záběr je přímým pokračování úvodní scény filmu, snové vidiny onoho finského studenta o vznešenosti ruského lovu. V závěrečném dialogu se mladý antropolog obrátí na nejstaršího člena své lovecké skupiny, vousatého muže ve vysoké kožešinové čapce s odznakem srpu a kladiva. „Byl to dobrý lov,“ chce potvrdit svoji zkušenost. „Normální, docela normální,“ odpoví mu Rus.

Tématem letošního ročníku přehlídky Pokoje je svéráz. Svéráz znamená odlišovat se od ostatních. Někdy je svéráz nositelem diverzity. Lpěním na oné osobitosti i v momentech, kdy její gesta nedávají „praktický“ smysl, mohou být uchovávány hodnoty důležité pro určitou komunitu. Tak je tomu v případě mnoha lokálních kulturních tradic. Projekt Praha není Česko kolektivu Intelektrurálně nabourává (nejeden) centrismus a navádí českého diváka ke kritickému zamyšlení, případně i ke komplexnímu předefinování toho, s čím si spojuje svoji národní osobitost.

Udržet si svéráz může znamenat udržet si určité politické svobody. Svobody, které jsou vždy navzájem provázané, jak ve svém díle Genciánová violeť ukazuje Loretta Lau. V jejím rodném Hong Kongu policie momentálně používá slepé náboje s modrou barvou k označení a následnému zatýkání protestujících, kteří se snaží upozornit na omezování svobod a popírání jedinečného statutu státu v rámci Čínské republiky. Během úvodní performance obkreslovala Lau na plátno stejnou modrou barvou obličeje hongkongských, čínských a českých politiků z videí jejich veřejných projevů. Načrtává tak propletenou síť politických zájmů, které se snaží skrýt a zamlžit hlas událostí. Svéráz je gesto vyhraňující se.

Svéráz je také schopnost představit si alternativu. Performativní kolektiv SŮL pohybem vytváří portály do prostor jiných - tekutých, pečujících, propojujících - souvstažností. Bílé institucionální zdi Veletržního paláce v jejich akcích nemusí svazovat, mohou být recyklovány a emancipovány. Umělkyně Roza Pogosian a kolektiv SŮL ukazují, jak silné a materiální může být snění a že gesta a slova hnětou realitu. Jinakost může být nadějná.

„Svéráz“ ale může znamenat i nezájem či nechtění pochopit a vcítit se. Záznam performance SŮL střídá video Vandy Michalské how to criticize her work [Jak kritizovat její umění]. Bolestně přesně jsou v něm zahrány a rozehrány nuance rasismu a sexismu uměleckého světa, nechuť vystoupit sám ze sebe a pokusit se pochopit. Chování omlouvané často právě jako „svéráz“, maskované za kritiku.

Svéráz je rovněž vybočením z normy. Díla Veroniky Frankové jsou sondou do esence norm, normálnosti, normativity. Skrze grafy a analýzy ponouká diváka k otázkám po tom, co a proč považuje za běžné. Jsme-li shrnuti do přehledných grafů a jasných tvarů, můžeme si uvědomit, co nám stojí v cestě a kam je potřeba růst. Všechna díla na výstavě Svéráz národního lovu ukazují tuto tenkou, ale jasnou hranici mezi svérázem přinášejícím rozmanitost a „svérázem“, který je sebestředností. Rozdíl je právě v přístupu k normativitě. „Svéráz“ se snaží sebedefinovat jako normálnost tím, že v případě napadení použije sílu pro potvrzení vlastní pravdivosti. Svéráz se těší z různorodosti. Svéráz diverzity je flexibilní. Svéráz je, doufejme, schopen sám sebe kriticky nahlížet.

Accessibility Note no.5

COVEN BERLIN

Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

April 2nd - 28th, 2019

Curated by: Magdalena J. Härtelova

The fifth and last exhibition of the Accessibility Note series carries the subtitle Neodaddyism It brings to GAVU the feminist, queer, sex-positive, transdisciplinary collective COVEN BERLIN. In turn, COVEN brings a selection of nine meme artists from the U.S., Canada and the Coast Salish Territory, and the U.K. that use memes as a medium for political and social activism.

Neodaddyism is a play at the approaching hundredth anniversary of the first official dadaist exhibition, the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. There are many similarities between the era when dadaism was formed and our current times in the west: extreme social polarization, a sense of approaching destruction, an “après moi, le déluge” [after me, the flood] attitude. Sometimes, history seems to be moving in circles. Dada came from a shared sense of surreal reality, born into a world where it didn’t feel possible to rely on a common vision of “humanity”. Dada’s apparent nonsensicality and straight-out denial of logic and normality has been seen by many of its artists as a necessary step, maybe the very last on left, towards rebuilding. In the same vein, the meme artists presented in this exhibition propose a radical break with many ideas our current society is built on. They uncover the violence of capitalism (Welcome to my Meme Page) and colonialism (@decolonial.meme.queens), the ways white supremacy manifests (@lilperc666), the means through which literally everything is deliberately rigged against disabled people (@hot.crip), and fight back against queer, specifically lesbian, invisibility (@xenaworrierprincess). They hate on the enactors of systemic, state oppression (@DASHAREZ0NE), and they point at the racism and classism of the art world (@art21savage, @socialpracticemafia).

The cheeky, catchy visual language of memes as well as their niche, post-ironic humor seems to be a fitting way to address the aggression and purposeful misunderstanding of the many entangled systems of power these meme artists speak against. What other tools do we have that could stack against this evil machine? As Crab, one member of the collective COVEN BERLIN says, memes “...are culture in both senses, as a knowledge structure, but also as a beautiful breeding ground to ideologies.” As the accompanying workshop, represented in the exhibition by its video presentation, addressed, any tool, any culture—even memes—can and are being used by the alt right to propagate hate, violence, and elitism. Memes are only a tool. In the exhibition, memes are printed out large format, hung, and presented in a white wall gallery as a celebration. But they slide from the walls, they crumble, and some are illegible without the possibility to zoom in.

The gesture of putting memes, that address issues that get relegated to the margins, into a gallery reveals the potential and the limitations of such spaces. On the one hand, exhibitions like this unquestionably facilitate further exposure of the work in an art-specific context. One of the greatest responsibilities of the curator is where they invest the presumptive willingness of the viewer to pay attention, to focus, and to critically consider. On the other hand, the confrontation of the natural, online habitat of the memes with their printed, pixelated versions here draws attention to the static and isolated state of most galleries. The vitality of virtual spaces is supported by the HBOMBERGUY DONKEY KONG CHARITY STREAM video. The meme artists presented in the exhibition are often systematically excluded from the institutional art world, as these spaces are designed to amplify affluent, cosmopolitan, white and western, and able-bodied perspectives. Now their work is here, but its accessibility is limited at best. How many people from similar background to theirs, those for whom the presented matters are an every-day, inescapable reality, are able to enter or feel welcomed, safe, and supported to come? However, as we learned from dada, seemingly surreal actions can still be a way to tackle monsters, even as big as our daddy issues.

As part of the exhibition, you can create your own meme with a collage on paper and display it on the designated gallery wall.

Checklist:

@decolonial.meme.queens, memes, active since 2018

@djinn_kazama, memes, active since ~2017

@covenberlin, memes, 2019

@lilperc666, memes, active since ~2015

@xenaworrierprincess, memes, active since ~2016

@dasharez0ne, memes, active since 2015

@hot.crip, memes, active since 2019

@art21savage, memes, active since ~2017

Welcome To My Meme Page, memes, active since 2015

@socialpracticemafia, memes, active since ~2018

Crab, HBOMBERGUY DONKEY KONG CHARITY STREAM, video, 17 minutes, 2019

Crab, How To Not Lose Yourself To Memes, video, 10 minutes, 2019

Frances Breden, Harley Aussoleil, and Crab, Mark All Read Part II: Electric Bubaloo, performance, April 2nd 2019

ACCESSIBILITY NOTE NO2 / CASSIE THORNTON

Accessibility Note no. 4

Dávid Brna

25. February - 20. March, 2019

GAVU, Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

Fourth in the Accessibility Note exhibition series introduces Slovakian artist Dávid Brna, a student at the New Media II studio at the Academy of Fine Arts. The artist created for GAVU a large scale installation titled How to Talk to Your Body (2019). Part of Brna's exhibition project also are four Get-Together events. During these meetings, co-organized with Barvolam, an organization for artists with „mental handicap“, visitors will have the opportunity to will discuss the topics put forth in the exhibition in the form of a guest artist-lead workshop, each focusing on one medium -ceramics, performance, video, sculpture.

In the gallery, Brna created an acutely material and, at first, unsettling environment. Indeed, the How to Talk to Your Body installation is about unease – of watching yourself, of witnessing one's own mind and body, of being seen by others in a society that still values normality and attempts to shape individuals by comparing. Figuratively and literally, Brna uses the slogan-like language of neo-liberal Internet. Through it, he comments on the contemporary discourse around mental health and neurospecificity, especially as it manifests on popular online platforms. Undoubtedly, the openness of the internet has contributed to de-stigmatization of mental illness in significant ways. However, in the same gesture, the content presented online most visibly often times banalizes neurospecificity, mixing up anxiety over job interviews with psychiatrically diagnosed, paralyzing, anxiety attacks. Browsing through this complex and ambiguous space that provides resources and platforms for discussion but also normalizes, excludes and is always, always, hyper self-observing, Brna looks at the moment of diagnosis. Doing so, by a parallel, his exhibition project at GAVU draws connection between the mechanism of diagnosing and institutionalization of art.

On one hand the liberal discourse around mental health democratized access to information on neurospecificity. Doing so, it challenged many of the stigma of the past around mental illness and made more widely available some resources, such as self-help tools. On the other hand, as we said, the popularity-focused content creating of the internet age banalizes many complex issues. The wide-spread self-diagnosis, often presented as a type of entertainment, may make it seem like there is no need for devising real strategies of inclusion for neurospecific people. Similarly, most art institutions have adopted the buzz words taken from feminism, post-colonialism, queer theory and other philosophies working towards radical change in inclusion, representation and power hierarchies. However, material changes are still sparse and practical implementations of the proclaimed values are mostly oriented towards those already included in/around institutions. One example for all is the exploitation of neurospecific people by the Art Market in what has been the trend of Art Brut.

Brna’s exhibition project doesn’t resort to a gestural or mocking commentary on the situation. He belongs to the new generation of artists that can include humor in their vocabulary but are post-irony. He acknowledges the weight of his and others stake in the matter, acts in practical ways, share. He decided to have a, at the academy quite unprecedented, Get-Together about what is on his mind.

Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

12. 12. 2018 – 2. 1. 2019

Third in the Accessibility Note exhibition series brings to GAVU Katy Jalili (pronouns: they/them), an artist, organizer and writer based in London, born in Isfahan (Iran). Their work, presented here in its digital form, generously offers the audience a look into some of what is the day-to-day life of a genderqueer, trans, femme-presenting person of color. Jalili’s art practice is smart, real and catchy. It is also multi-dimensional, intersectional. And so, if we were to read Jalili’s art only as a testimonial stand-in for what defines their identity -Is this what queer life is like? Is this what it means to be trans? Is this what happens to femmes of color?- we wouldn’t be wrong, but we would miss all the additional layers under the surface.

Jalili’s work draws from multiple sources, including traditional feminist performance, drag, their Iranian heritage, the punk movement and social media aesthetics. The first manifests in the urgency given to the body in Jalili’s performances. The moment when Jalili pulls out a penis-like balloon from their underwear in the EvilEye/I video brings up to date work such as seminal Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975) piece during which the artist extracted a scroll of paper from her vagina with a transcript of a critique attacking her for “too many feelings”. In the spirit of drag, Jalili’s performance in EvilEye/I  funny and existential at the same time, pretty and serious. When the video becomes black and white for a moment, it draws attention to the importance of bright colors used across the artist’s practice, an index of Iranian culture as well as punk influence. The often used pink refuses to be a harmless, “girlish” color. Loud color, including the use of glitter, is one more tool in Jalili’s practice of fighting for voice.

To be heard also requires taking space. In their practice as an organizer, Jalili creates safe and joyful spaces for queer femmes. In their artworks, Jalili multiplies themselves. They are everywhere in the gallery so as to weave a life image. As the gifs say to photography, the artist says to the audience: You can’t capture me in a still. (In case of the Are You a Boi or u Gurl? And I see your racism and I raise you my black pubes prints you need at least 25 frames.) The only moment in the exhibition, when the artist chooses to be represented by a stationary fragment is by details of their body hair. The Body Landscapes are some of the works on display that point out the absurdity of a moment when something natural is deemed radical and reveal the complicated path to finding tenderness towards one’s own body. Fearless, hard won, acceptance then becomes the soil which gives the two still images the power to turn into a garden and overflow with (digital) life again.

In between these two close-ups sits the video Women with Moustaches, one of the core works of the exhibition. In it, the practice of multiplication takes on a specific form of doubling. To the spoken text about heritage, empowerment, and personal history, Jalili comes in and out of themselves. Their mirror image is a special form of sisterhood. When, towards the end, they and their mirror self are joined by their shared arm, it is uncertain whether they are holding hands or flexing muscles. We all are literal embodiments of the community of our ancestors. And as bell hooks, the famous queer African American feminist thinker, says in her book Killing Rage (1995), “Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation”.

However, as bell hooks before them, Katy Jalili is not shying away from complicated matters, including problems within the queer community. Part of the exhibition opening is an embroidery workshop The Goddess of Fear of Femmes, lead by Moldavian educator, artist and theorist based in Prague, Sofia Tocar. Tocar reacts to Jalili’s article “Ya’ll Better Quiet Down” that takes its title from the opening words of trans rights activist Sylvia Rivera’s speech at New York City’s Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in 1973. As Rivera didn’t allow the heckling of the gay men in the audience to quiet her down, Jalili speaks up about misogyny and femmephobia in queer spaces in the article. During the workshop, Jalili has painted on the wall the goddess figure that has been collectively embroidered by the audience under the supervision of Tocar. The image is one more celebration of the strength of those who speak up.

Photos: AVU/Radek Detinsky

Accessibility Note no. 2

Cassie Thornton

6.-29 November, 2018

GAVU, Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

Second in the Accessibility Note exhibition series presents Cassie Thornton, an American artist currently living in Canada. Thornton’s socially engaged art practice is grounded in transfeminism and focuses on the influence of capitalism on our collective and individual imagination. In her project for GAVU, the artist builds on several of her previous works, such as portals-walls of imagination or hired breakdowns venting social pressures, to pointedly ask the viewer: “How much time can you afford to put into an illusion?”

As always, Thornton is confronting the audience head on, challenging us to face the oppressive systems at work in our everyday lives. As always, she does so with humor, sharply yet caringly, without attempting to flatten reality into a black and white narrative but including messiness and ambiguity. For her exhibition at the Academy, Cassie Thornton transports the gallery into a moment of an eclipse. While the lack of sunlight may seem to deform shapes of objects at first, eclipse is actually a time of revelations. It reveals the limits of what we held as reality and thought possible to be arbitrary, unimaginative, plainly false.

The gallery is dominated by a black circle suspended above the space. The circle is an escape portal for those who want to co-create a society organized around different values than monetary productivity, patriarchy, and pathological individualism. The shelf on opposite wall displays contracts for performance that have taken place during the last week. Three actors, merged here into one character, visited various places of patriarchal power in the city. They asked for women and mourned their absence, breaking down with sadness caused by fear of being left behind. Now and then, we can hear them in the space. The men worry women have simply left, that they have joined the queer people, the people of color, the disabled and poor people to create a world of their own, to outgrow the oppression of current society.

The black circle is also a Black Hole that sucks out everything that comes to its vicinity. A photograph forms a line sneaking around half of the gallery. It shows people waiting in front of the National Bank for the centennial coin. Lit by candles, the piece is given a light of unreality. If the line is currently a monument to capitalism, maybe the candles mourn its victims. The eclipse uncovers both: the wounds we try to hide caused by our current economic system together with the remnants of social trauma of so called “communism”, where socialist benefits, such as free health care and education, as well as right for employment and housing, were entangled with loss of freedom stolen by the totalitarian regime.

The black circle is also, very obviously, a table top from the previous exhibition, painted black and lit from the back. It is an illusion. There are two different illusions put forth by Thornton in the exhibition. One is, in Thornton’s words, ‘’the illusion of capitalism as savior, money as wealth, people as competitive, hierarchy as natural, collectivity as a threat.” The other illusion is the portal. A text on the floor asks us to squint our eyes and use our imagination to transform the circle, to see an entrance where we know there is a wall. At the end of the day, all we have is time and the decision as to where we invest it.

Photos by: AVU/Radek D. Detinsky

To see more work by Cassie Thornton visit: feministeconomicsdepartment.com

Accessibility Note no. 1

Hana Chmelíková and Radka B. Doubravová

Gallery of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

October 1st – 25th, 2018

opening: October 2nd, 2018

The first of the Accessibility Note exhibitions opened a loose series of site specific projects presenting socially engaged art and institutional critique. The exhibition by Hana Chmelíková and Radka B. Doubravová, a student and an alumni of the Academy respectively, addresses motherhood, a topic that is, in academic circles, still frequently relegated to a corner. The main question the artists ask is quite universal: Where should we turn when the institutions and places that should provide critique and representation fail us? Chmelíková's and Doubravová's project follows in the steps of feminist institutional critique and conceptual art, such as the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Mary Kelly, in which the artists use the status of art and art institutions to hack the present capitalist, patriarchal system that devalues certain types of labor, labor traditionally labeled as women's work. However, as in the aforementioned early feminist art, Chmelíková and Doubravová don't pine or get angry about injustice. Their project for the Accessibility Note series is ultimately a celebration of the vitality of communities and places that grow like grass through concrete in the most unlikely places -under the kitchen table, by the stove, on Messenger in between breast-feedings.

August 11th - September 2nd, 2018

White Pearl Gallery in Prague

First solo exhibition of the Berlin-based artist Aline Schwibbe in Prague. Discussing topics such as representation of femme bodies, whitewashing or kinship, the exhibition presented a new body of work that expands the artist’s repertoire from drawing and painting to also include objects, installation, and audio work, created during Schwibbe’s residency at the New York University in summer 2018.

An exhibition on race and space in the U. S.

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, March 16th-May 15th, 2017

Co-curated with Megan Franz, Barret Lybbert, Qianjin Montoya, and Amanda Nudelman

Press Release:

Black Light converts the gallery space into a forum for conversation and exchange, taking form as a series of events that address the relationship between cultural institutions and black artists. Presented in a purpose-built amphitheater, invited participants draw on their experiences as artists, art historians, and founders of institutions. Lectures,screenings and workshops are introduced and moderated by the graduating students of the CCA Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice. Key participants in these events include:

Karon Davis (The Underground Museum, Los Angeles), Dale Brockman Davis (Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles), Duane Deterville (art historian and author, Oakland), Jacqueline Francis(art historian, San Francisco), Robyn Hillman-Harrigan (Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter, New York), Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA, San Francisco),and Rasheedah Phillips (Community Futures Lab, Philadelphia).

The project draws its title from a series of paintings created by the artist Faith Ringgold during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s (Black Light, 1967–71). Informed by Ringgold’s legacy as well as the current political climate, Black Light poses questions about how to re-conceptualize cultural representation, engagement, and critique:What spaces for agency are available to black artists today, and by what means have they produced spaces for themselves? What models does history offer artists working now? What role do institutions play?How do communities make themselves visible? Can artists dream the sociopolitical landscape differently, and what forms does this dreaming take?

The events are anchored by a single, large-scale abstract painting, red dust between (2017), by the Los Angeles-based artist Rodney McMillian. Painted on a discarded bed sheet, the work imagines contemporary society—and especially the conditions of black life in America today—as a disorienting and dark fairytale. At the same time,the painting offers glimmers of hope not only in its evocation of sleep,dreaming, and transcendence, but also in its suggestion of the redemptive possibilities of reclaiming and repurposing abandoned materials.

An accompanying publication gathers new interviews with Dale Brockman Davis, Karon Davis, Rasheedah Phillips, and a conversation between representatives of Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter. The publication also features commissioned artwork by Robyn Hillman-Harrigan of Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter in the form of annotated texts and images.

This exhibition is dedicated to Leigh Markopoulos, who continues to guide us.

Press:

KQED, by Sarah Hotchkiss

2016-2017

The Room was an exhibition program showcasing work of emerging artist, graduate students at California College of the Arts. It consisted of bi-weekly duo exhibitions and monthly lecture evenings. The space aimed to develop new strategies of exhibiting in a "traditional", white-wall gallery, address some of the ideologies of visual art presentation, and to promote dialog.

Co-curated with Ella Schoefer-Wulf

The program was funded by the PLAySPACE gallery program.

Exhibited artists: Laura Figa, Richard-Jonathan Nelson, Courtney Trouble, Karina Angelica Rubio, River Black, Xenia Moseley, Ryan Frank Hueston, Holly McHugh, Flavia d'Urso, Alicia McDaniel, Billy, Jamie Turner, Nkiruka Oparah, Tania Balan-Gaubert

2016-2017

Program of weekly installations, performances, and events by MFA graduate students at California College of the Arts in a re-purposed shipping container exhibition space.

The Orange Box focused on experimentation and site-specific installation.

Exhibiting artists included: Lorenzo Cardim, Prima Sakuntabhai, Ben Quinn, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Ann Chen, Patrick Monte, Gianna Paniagua, Yvette Dibos, and many more.

2017

Curated selection of performances of artists affiliated with the Hueston Opera House queer performance space, in The Majestic Opera House installation by Ryan Frank Hueston, as part of the 2017 CCA Commencement Exhibition.

For more on The Majestic see.

2015

California College of the Arts Graduate Building

Press Release:

“The opening of an exhibition could mark the beginning of a curatorial idea, not its end.” Anthony Huberman

Revolving Door is the first collaborative exhibition of the student group 3:1 that presents multiple artists and curators exploring relationships between beginnings and endings, and where they might correlate, complicate and pressurize. Over the course of three days, performance, sculpture, painting and shenanigans will take place as a rotating exhibition.

Together with the exhibition 3:1 will be presenting its first publication “Contents Under Pressure”, which refers to the feeling of wanting to express something but not being able to. This publication allows us to speak frankly from a position of exposed vulnerability to release the pressure.

Featuring artists: Liz Russell, Yee Li, Barret Lybbert

2015

A modular, cardboard, pop-up gallery developed in collaboration with Argentinian architect Franka Martinez Ferro.

Materialized Transfer of Information in the Post-Internet Era

2015

Exhibition project funded by EU Creative Europe grant with 8 shipping containers turned into moving galleries, each providing space for a multimedia installation of one European emerging artist, traveling on a circle route throughout 8 European capitals -Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, Rome, Vienna, Warsaw, and Zurich. The project culminated at Prague with a collective exhibition and an international conference.
 

Press Release: 

How do young European artists reflect the cultural heritage of their homeland? To what extent does the place of installation shape the perception of a work of art? And to what extent is it possible to withdraw the modifying factors that emerge in the process of transporting and reinstalling the art? Travelling exhibition project Contain[era] aims at scrutinizing the relation of art and the context of its exposure. The ambition is to materialize the mode of information sharing which we became entirely accustomed to in the post-internet era: transferring the information with no fundamental
shifts of the meaning in the course of the transferring process. Eight young artists from eight European countries will be introduced independently in a group of eight large shipping containers turned into mobile galleries. These unique exhibition spaces will be travelling on the route connecting eight partnering countries – Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
Eight shipping containers will be turned into mobile galleries, each providing a space for a multimedia exhibition of one contemporary artist from one of the participating countries. Eight exhibitions, each focused on the notion of information transfer and depiction of national cultural heritage, will travel on a circle route connecting all participating cities, presenting the artistic information unmodified, undistorted by local influences. When the circle is complete, all the
containers will gather in the coordinating city, Prague, to form one large combined exhibition.

Participating artists: Adéla Součková (CZ), Dionýz Troskó (SK), Janos Bruckner (HU), Karol Komorowski (PL), Angela Kaisers (DE), Lukas Troberg (AT), Till Koenneker (CH), Carlo Zanni (IT)

Partnering institutions: Containall (Prague), Hotdock (Bratislava), Lookout Gallery (Warsaw), Fiatal Képzőművészek Stúdiója Egyesület (Budapest), Zwitschermaschine (Berlin), Soon (Zurich), Label201 (Rome), Boxircus (Vienna)

Project director: Alexandra Karpukhina
Chief curator: Magdalena J. Härtelova

2014

Galerie K4, Prague & Inkubator gallery, Usti nad Labem

Co-curated with Klara Jarolimkova

Exhibition design by Josef Tomsej

A traveling group exhibition of Czech emerging artists promoting subtlety across different media and forms.

Featuring artists: Tomas Tichy, Tadeas Kotrba, Martin Prudil, Alexandra Karpukhina, Pavel Skrott, Lucie Illesova, Vojtech Berka, Jana Hradecka, Kamil Tupy, Hynek Poul