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Martha Rosler

The Revolution Might Still Be Televised: “Public Access/Open Networks” At BRIC House

by Emily Colucci on March 31, 2017
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Sometimes an exhibition succeeds more as a source of creative inspiration than a collection of timely artworks. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current group exhibition Public Access/Open Networks at the Gallery at BRIC House.

The show, curated by BRIC’s Jenny Gerow with freelance curators Reya Sehgal and Lakshmi Padmanabhan, gathers historical and contemporary video art that was broadcast publicly whether through public access TV or YouTube. The physical exhibition is just aspect of the show, which also includes an assorted program schedule of screenings, live tapings and symposiums.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Winter is Coming

by Michael Anthony Farley on March 13, 2017
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The week is of course dominated by two news items: The Whitney Biennial and The Wintery Downfall.

After the blizzard, Wednesday is a great opportunity to get yourself in the snowy mood, art-wise. Enjoy doses of culture from freezing, windswept regions, including Marsden Hartley’s Maine at The Met Breuer (if you’re missing the Whitney’s old digs) and Berlin-based Danish/Norwegian duo Elmgreen & Dragset in conversation with Dan Cameron at The Flag Art Foundation. Later, catch the Icelandic thriller Hevn at Scandinavia House’s New Nordic Cinema screening series.

Other highlights include Fort Gansevoort’s female-perspective sports show March Madness Thursday night and TRANSFER’s four year birthday party, which will feature affordable editions from some of our favorite digital artists.

Oh yeah, and make time to check out the Biennial. I’m told it’s good, but “traumatic”. An appropriately bleak show to match our physical and political climate?

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Anxiety on High

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on January 16, 2017
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Let’s face it—the bulk of this week’s chatter in the art world isn’t going to be about Donald Trump’s Inauguration, but Marilyn Minter and Madonna’s talk Thursday evening at the Brooklyn Museum lamenting it. And that’s as it should be. Resistance to this new presidency is essential.
Friday, we’ll be participating in the #J20 Art Strike, so no content on our website will be available but for a livestream of Rachel Mason lip synching the inauguration as FutureClown. Those seeking to participate in the art protests can head to the Whitney where Occupy Museums will be hosting a “Speak Out”.

Other than that, we’re recommending a show about soul crushing anxiety and despair at LUBOV, and a show called “Infected Foot” at Greene Naftali, because sickness also seems like an appropriate theme for the week. Sorry to be depressing. Unfortunately, there’s no other honest way to paint the events.

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Do The Divisions Between Artist, Writer and Activist Matter Post-Election?

by Emily Colucci on December 9, 2016
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What is an artist’s role in activism? A panel at e-flux on Tuesday night explored the question many in the arts community have been wondering since Trump’s election a month ago.

The panel What Now: The Artist-Writer As Activist-Critic not only considered artist writing as a form of sociopolitical and institutional critique, but it also took a more expansive look at the intersection of art and activism. And this focus struck a nerve. Even on a rainy and miserable evening, the event space at e-flux was filled to capacity with over 70 people searching for a way forward in the forthcoming Trump administration.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Future Bodies are Everywhere and Scary

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 17, 2016
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There’s plenty of heady discourse this week—future bodies, hypothetical architectures, theories of curation and criticism—and of course plenty of election-related hand-wringing.

Kick it off Monday night at Jersey City’s Word Bookstore, where the Brooklyn Institute of Social Research is inaugurating a lecture series about cyborgs. Or head to Manhattan’s Red Bull Studios for an event celebrating Grand Arts, the Kansas City project space that launched dozens of conceptual art projects and, now, a catalogue. Tuesday night, Paddy Johnson joins other art critics to talk shop at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Cultural Center, and Tyler Coburn talks genetic engineering and body mods as the future of humanity at e-flux. If you’re looking for something more hands-on (or a chance to move your feet), there’s a survey of handmade prints at Site:Brooklyn and an epic-looking disco fundraiser for El Museo del Bario Wednesday night. Thursday, White Box is opening a jam-packed group show (with some impressive names!) all about political angst. Friday we’ve got a talk from Maura Riley at Stony Brook Manhattan and Underdonk opening a class-conscious solo show by Patrice Renee Washington.

But the weekend brings us back to what we like the most: artwork that investigates the weird. Selena Gallery’s two person show from Dalia Amara and Florencia Escudero looks for uncanny surrogate female bodies in consumer goods on Saturday night. Sunday, Sascha Braunig’s work at MoMA will likely strike a similar chord. And MARC STRAUS opens a solo show by Chris Joneswho builds fantastical dioramas (pictured) from mundane images.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Immortalizing Bushwick

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 26, 2016
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What a week ahead of us. It begins Monday with the first presidential debate, so naturally, we’ve got a conversation with artist and political hound Martha Rosler on Tuesday. Ostensibly, the conversation will cover Rosler’s career, but knowing her, a good portion will be dedicated to discussing the current political climate.

There’s plenty going on between now and Friday, but let’s face it: pretty much everything that falls over the weekend will take a sideline to Bushwick Open Studios. So, kick off your Friday with the beloved indie-pop band Lower Dens at Pioneer works and prepare to spend the rest of your time gallivanting around Bushwick. Expect to see crass real estate dealings and misguided beer sponsored art events, mitigated by inspiring artist-led exhibitions, performances and open studios.

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The Real Estate Blues Again: ”If you can’t afford to live here, mo-o-ve!!” at Mitchell-Innes & Nash

by Emily Colucci on June 29, 2016
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One of the first works you see in Martha Rosler’s exhibition If you can’t afford to live here, mo-o-ve!! is a dark and ominous portrait of Donald Trump. Leaning against a wall, the Trump tableau sits behind three glass bottles filled with urine. Is the piece a biting comment on Trump’s pissant Republican presidential campaign? Is it a playful but terrifying foreshadowing of his future official White House portrait?

Andrew Castrucci’s Untitled (Donald Trump) is neither. A quick glance at a nearby wall label confirms Castrucci’s Trump was painted in 1986. Created well before Trump’s presidential ambitions, Castrucci’s work instead critiques Trump as a reckless developer gobbling up large swaths of New York and Atlantic City real estate. As relevant then as it is now, Untitled (Donald Trump) reveals the uncanny confusion between the past and present that runs rampant throughout Rosler’s overstuffed exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

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This Week’s Must-See Events: Queer Power Edition

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 13, 2016
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Monday’s been a rough day for us here at AFC as I’m sure it has for many readers. We’re still processing the horrific news of Orlando’s mass killing Sunday morning and it’s made writing much of anything difficult. Is there anything that can be said on the subject of guns, prayers, Islam, hate crimes and ISIS that social media hasn’t covered?

Probably not, that doesn’t diminish our need to mourn. One way we’ve decided to do this is to  focus on queer events in this week’s must see events. It’s a small gesture to be sure—we’re not saving any lives. But it’s what we can do to say to the families, friends and lovers of those lost that, “you’re not alone.”  

So, let’s talk all things homo-tastic: Monday night, Neil Goldberg revisits the David Lynch classic ERASERHEAD with a queer perspective. Tuesday, the unsung godfather of glam illustration Antonio Lopez gets his long-overdue retrospective at El Museo del Barrio, and two events at BRIC and Mitchell Innes & Nash bring queer/feminist perspectives to the city’s affordability crisis. Wednesday night, dyke icon K8 Hardy opens a mysterious solo show at Stap-On Projects while Thursday offers a one-night-only performance/installation from Scottish duo Ruby Pester and Nadia Rossi, who will be tackling sexuality, gender, and more at Bannerette. Friday night, head to Bushwick, where the Hot Summer Nights gallery crawl has some queer-tastic highlights in time for Pride month—be sure to catch Los Ojos’s all-LGBTQ group show and Vincent Tiley’s solo project at Christopher Stout Gallery. Also in Brooklyn Friday night: solo shows from AFC favs Björn Meyer-Ebrecht and Rachel Stern at Studio 10 and Black & White Projects, respectively, both located in the same building.

If you’re not politically/emotionally exhausted by the weekend, we recommend checking out the massive group show Of the people on Saturday at Smack Mellon. It’s all about the issues involved in this fucked, fucked election cycle. So when you’re feeling thoroughly anti-establishment, check out the Queens Museum’s Sunday panel on the visual legacy of punk.

It’s too late to wish everyone a happy Pride Month, but hopefully we can at least have a thoughtful one.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Old School Survival

by Paddy Johnson and Rea McNamara on June 6, 2016
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Urban survival, whether it’s the cost of living in New York or even riding along Sag Habour in a self-sustaining houseboat, looms largely in this week’s events. Tonight’s lecture at the Morbid Anatomy Museum suggests that this dates back to Weimar Berlin’s era of anarchy and decadence, where fake fakirs — religious ascetics who live solely on alms — got by with their gnarly nails and pins piercing. Flash forward to Saturday’s MoMA opening of Nan Goldin’s famous 1986 visual diary “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, and those piercings became the battle scars of surviving the East Village’s punk bohemia. Today, we’re thankfully more practical in eking out our incomes: we look to the sun and its instruments (see this Thursday’s opening of the “Heliotropes” group show at Geary Contemporary) or envision terrible futures in our analogue pasts (“that old school dystopia” at Theodore:Art on Friday). But sustainability, if we quickly cut to the chase, really involves supporting each other, which is why this weekend’s workshops around the nuts and bolts of artist finances or even writing and editing an artist statement will get you ahead. No need for any physical scars.

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