Category: News and Events

Stephen Mueller: Orchidaceous

205 Hudson Gallery
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

September 13 – October 28
Opening Reception: September 13, 6-8pm

Stephen Mueller: Orchidaceous presents a rare look into the late painter’s oeuvre during a period of rigorous creative transformation. The exhibition traces Mueller’s formal and conceptual evolution from his high-octane, impetuous gestural work from the late 1980s to the spatial complexity, exquisite color and sensuous facture of his late paintings. With over 40 paintings and works on paper, this will be the artist’s most comprehensive exhibition to date.

Stephen Mueller (1947–2011) was part of a loose-knit group of New York-based artists—including Mary Heilmann, Jonathan Lasker, Elizabeth Murray, Thomas Nozkowski, David Reed, Pat Steir, Gary Stephan and others—who transformed and reenergized American abstract painting during the late 1970s and 1980s. Building on the tenets of Color Field painting, Mueller’s subtle, luminous images anticipate many of the concerns of contemporary painting. The work overflows with visual puns and associations through sophisticated re-combinations of Asian iconography, cartoons, encyclopedic decorative traditions, new-age sensibility, and electric, synthetic color. Through his endlessly innovative use of acrylic paint, his canvases become portals into radiant space. The trajectory of Mueller’s work reveals an artist deeply committed to inventing his own articulation of the spiritual—an impulse that has particular appeal and resonance for painters working today.

Curated by Carrie Moyer and Sarah Watson with Agnes Gund Curatorial Fellows Evan Bellatone and Sophia Ma and Hunter MA and MFA students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate

Loop-N-Path

Patricia Ayres, Rachelle Dang, Elizabeth Englander, Mathew Galindo, Jameson Green, Zac Hacmon, Kyoko Hamaguchi, Eleanor King, Jessica Mensch

205 Project Space
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

Through September 7
Closing Party: September 7, 6-9pm

LOOP-N-PATH highlights the sensory faculties of the body in relation to maps, tunnels, canals and passages – these various pathways and networks that are part of cities, industry, and the individual.  This exhibit takes as its starting point the location of Hunter’s MFA building at the intersection of the Holland Tunnel, Canal Street, and the Hudson River – historic thoroughfares that have defined New York City.  Eight of the nine artists in this exhibit have studied, worked, and produced artwork in this building over the last several years, and most are long-distance travelers who have taken diverse paths to arrive here: from Nova Scotia and Montreal; Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Long Island; Israel and Japan.  Their work spans photography, video, installation, painting, and sculpture, with a strong emphasis on materiality and touch.  These artists-travelers have overlapping concerns of perception, empathy, politics, and art production; they create visual experiences for the imperceptible and the underexplored.

Roger Herman

Thomas Hunter Project Space
930 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

Through September 28
Reception: September 4, 6-9pm

Thomas Allen Harris: Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

Through September 29

Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA is an exhibition project by artist and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris. Harris will work in collaboration with students from the Hunter College IMA MFA program to build an interactive exhibition at Hunter East Harlem Gallery. Drawing from found, generated, and reimagined archives, as seen in Harris’ project Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, students will remix and expand the archive within the gallery space using methodologies that Harris has been pioneering for the over 25 years in his socially engaged, participatory, and experimental creative practice. Since 2009, through his project Digital Diaspora, Harris has collected over 3,000 interviews and stories where the photograph is the central launchpad for personal narrative. The materials and documentation from Digital Diaspora are interwoven with Harris’ family archive, sourced largely from the Harlem-based church First AME Church: Bethel.

Investigations into historical visual materials like family albums, vintage photographs, archival film, and personal narratives become central to the development of Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA. These archival materials illuminate the neighborhood’s stories, giving shape to a history sourced directly from its residents. The result is a dynamic exploration into themes of collective memory, transference, and renewal within movements and communities. Throughout July and August, gallery visitors and passersby are invited to add their voices to the ongoing performance of the archive inside the gallery. The final outcome is a collaborative exhibition inside the gallery during the month of September 2018.

LeRonn P. Brooks, MFASO Lecture

Hunter MFA Studios, Flex Space
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

September 12, 7:30pm

First Semester Slideshow

Hunter MFA Studios, Flex Space
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

August 29, 7pm

WOTY 2.4: Latino Youth

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

Through September 27

Latino Youth is a portrait series by the Nicaraguan born artist Lola Sandino Stanton. The series depicts a personal reflection on young latinos, some of whom were former students of Stanton’s. The subjects are captured at the moment of discovering their own voice at a pivotal time in their lives. Each painting portrays a symbolic blackbird native to the artist’s home country of Nicaragua, known as a “Zanate”.

Traditionally a black bird represents a malevolent force although in Stanton’s work, the Zanate symbolizes the arrival of guidance, protection, and creativity in the lives of the youth. Stanton is aware of the challenges that most young latinos confront growing up, including immigration struggles, language barriers, and cultural norms that do not reflect their cultural upbringing or beliefs. For these reasons she chose to represent an empowered image of young latinos, unlocking their inner voice and bolstering them into a confident position.

For latinos, the current moment in the United States is one of the most hostile in history with new migratory reform and the zero tolerance policy at the Mexico border separating families and this makes the series “Latino Youth” all the more urgent. Lola Sandino Stanton brings an image of a strong latino youth community — one that is proud of their heritage and rising to have their voices heard.

Closing Weekend Events for Axis Mundo: Zine Fair, Panel Discussion, T-Shirt Making, and Reception

 
205 Hudson Gallery
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

August 18, 1-7pm

1-7pm / Zine fair
with The Bettys, Discipline Press, Luna Rio, Precog Magazine, Cósmica, Sula Collective, and 3 Dot Zine

2-3:15pm / Panel discussion
with Joey Terrill, Rudy Garcia, Tamara Santibanez, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed

4pm / T-shirt making workshop with Joey Terrill

6-7pm / Closing Reception

Axis Mundo presents over two decades of work—painting, performance ephemera, print material, video, music, fashion, and photography—in the context of significant artistic and cultural movements: mail art and artist correspondences; the rise of Chicanx, LGBTQ, and feminist print media; the formation of alternative spaces; fashion culture; punk music and performance; and artistic responses to the AIDS crisis. As a result of thorough curatorial research, Axis Mundo marks the first historical consideration and significant showing of many of these pioneering artists’ work.

Tuesday, July 17, 6:30 PM

Free and open to the public
Invite friends on Facebook here

205 Hudson Gallery
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
Entrance on south side of Canal Street between Hudson and Watts

Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. is the first exhibition of its kind to excavate histories of experimental art practice, collaboration, and exchange by a group of Los Angeles based queer Chicanx artists between the late 1960s and early 1990s. To highlight the New York iteration of Axis Mundo, Visual AIDS and the Hunter College Art Galleries host a guided talk and tour with an intergenerational group of creatives who knew artists highlighted in the exhibition or have been influenced by the artworks included in the show.

The Visual AIDS Talk + Tour of this landmark exhibition, curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz, will center the work of artists lost to AIDS-related complications with reflections by Simon Doonan on Mundo Meza (1955–1985) and Aldo Hernandez on Ray Navarro (1964–1990). To explore the intersections of art, AIDS and activism in the exhibition, the tour will also include comments by J. Soto, Lauren Argentina Zelaya and Alexandro Segade.

As noted in the AIDS Activism(s) section of the exhibition: “The devastation of the AIDS epidemic was acutely felt by intersecting Latinx and queer artist communities. In the face of government neglect, many artists politicized their practices, often taking inspiration from their earlier participation in gay and lesbian and Chicano rights movements. Working within community and advocacy groups, artists sought to raise awareness and educate through quickly produced and accessible mediums such as video and print material. Many artists memorialized those lost to the disease, while others took up their own mortality and disability as content for their work through abstraction and conceptual distance.”
Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. is curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz and was organized by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries in collaboration with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and is organized as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI). The presentation at the Hunter College Art Galleries has been organized in collaboration with Chief Curator Sarah Watson and Exhibitions Manager Jenn Bratovich.

Speaker Biographies

Simon Doonan is a writer, bon-vivant, window dresser extraordinaire and fashion commentator who has worked in fashion for over 35 years. Doonan has won many awards for his groundbreaking and unconventional window displays, including the CFDA Award. In 2009, he was invited by President and Ms. Obama to decorate the White House for the Holidays. Doonan describes his relationship with Mundo Meza: “I met Mundo in 1979. We became boyfriends for a couple of years, after which we remained close pals. We were also creative collaborators, working together on various window displays and videos.”

Cuban-American Aldo Hernández and Chicano Ray Navarro both honed their commitments to society through artistic projects in California and then re-located to NYC. Hernández landed jobs with MoMA and Creative Time, and while visiting LA in 1988 was introduced to Navarro at latin gay party Vasilon through a mutual friend from MoCA where Navarro worked. That June, Navarro moved to NY where they became close friends, AIDS activists, and Art+Positive collaborators until Navarro’s death in November 1990. During that summer, Hernández had begun DJing at the Clit Club & MEAT, where he melded a passion for the groove with graphics and photography as he dove into a life long calling of the sonic & visual. It was an urgent vital time in both their lives that remains powerfully conveyed through Navarro’s incisive art & writings focused on young queers of color.

Alexandro Segade is an interdisciplinary artist whose multimedia science fiction performances exploring queer futurity have been presented at the Broad Museum, REDCAT and LAXART, LA; Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco; Time-Based Arts Festival, Portland, Oregon; Movement Research/Judson Church, Park Avenue Armory, NYC, and Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, NY. Since 2001, Segade has worked in the collective My Barbarian on exhibitions, videos and performance projects at venues including the New Museum, MoMA, The Kitchen, Participant Inc., NY; Museo El Eco, Mexico City; the Hammer Museum, LACMA, MoCA, Susanne Vielmetter Gallery, LA; the 2014 Whitney Biennial, Performa 05 and 07. Segade’s recent writing has been published in Yale’s Theater Journal and artforum.com, and he is cohost of the podcast Super Gay!

J. Soto is a queer brown transgender interdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts organizer. His collaborative writing project, “Ya Presente Ayer” can be found in Support Networks, Chicago Social Practice History Series (University of Chicago Press). His recent writing can be found in Original Plumbing and Apogee Journal: Queer History, Queer Now Folio and American Realness 2018: Reading. A Chicano raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, J. is interested in sex as an embodied way of learning queer history, the impact of AIDS on queer communities of artists and feeling loss through a racialized lens and through the portrayal of sensual bodies in Axis Mundo.

Lauren Argentina Zelaya is a cultural producer, curator, and museum educator based in Brooklyn, NY. As Assistant Curator of Public Programs at Brooklyn Museum, Zelaya curates and produces Target First Saturdays and other free and low-cost public programs that invite over 100,000 visitors a year to engage with special exhibitions and collections in new and unexpected ways. Lauren is committed to collaborating with emerging artists and centering voices in our communities that are often marginalized, with a focus on film and performance and creating programming for and with LGBTQ+, immigrant, and Caribbean communities. Recent projects she presented include Cuerpxs Radicales: Radical Bodies in Performance and Black Queer Brooklyn on Film. Known and respected equally for her nail art and her fierce commitment to bringing art and culture to the people, Lauren was named one of Brooklyn Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2018.

Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano LA

Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano LA is a traveling exhibition that explores the intersections among a network of over fifty artists. This historical exhibition is the first of its kind to excavate histories of experimental art practice, collaboration, and exchange by a group of Los Angeles-based queer Chicanx artists between the late 1960s and early 1990s. While the exhibition’s heart looks at the work of Chicanx artists in Los Angeles, it reveals extensive new research into the collaborative networks that connected these artists to one another and to artists from many different communities, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and international urban centers, thus deepening and expanding narratives about the development of the Chicano Art Movement, performance art, and queer aesthetics and practices.

As referenced in its title, the exhibition also sheds light onto the work of Edmundo “Mundo” Meza (1955–1985), a central figure within his generation. Primarily a painter, but also known for his performances, design, and installation work, Meza collaborated with many of his peers towards developing new art practices amid emerging movements of political and social justice activism.

Axis Mundo presents over two decades of work—painting, performance ephemera, print material, video, music, fashion, and photography—in the context of significant artistic and cultural movements: mail art and artist correspondences; the rise of Chicanx, LGBTQ, and feminist print media; the formation of alternative spaces; fashion culture; punk music and performance; and artistic responses to the AIDS crisis. As a result of thorough curatorial research, Axis Mundo marks the first historical consideration and significant showing of many of these pioneering artists’ work.

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY

and

205 Hudson Gallery
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

Through August 19

Thomas Allen Harris at Hunter East Harlem Gallery

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue at 119th Street
New York, NY

Workshop begins July 11, 2018

Exhibition opens August 30, 2018

5 Questions, 5 Minutes: Artist Talk with Yasmin Ramirez

part of QUEENIE: Selected artworks by female artists from El Museo del Barrio’s Collection

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

May 30, 6:30pm

Please join us and El Museo del Barrio for a rapid fire Q & A session: 5 Question in 5 Minutes, featuring the following artists from QUEENIE: Selected artworks by female artists from El Museo del Barrio’s Collection:

Melissa Calderón
Alessandra Expósito
iliana emilia garcia
Scherezade Garcia
Jessica Kairé
Glendalys Medina
Nitza Tufiño

Artists will answer questions from both audience members and those submitted via social media. The artist talk will be moderated by Yasmin Ramirez.

Dini Dixon: The Long Goodbye

Thomas Hunter Project Space
Thomas Hunter Building
68th Street and Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

May 29 – June 20
Opening Reception: June 1, 6-9pm

“The Long Goodbye is an installation made up of an abstract video accompanied by a series of wavelike sculptures. By recording the movements I make while producing sculptures I create a stop motion video sequence that allows the viewer to follow aspects of my process. I also repeat steps to emphasize the rythmic movements that happen within the act of making. My videos intend to subvert the stoic nature of fired clay by presenting it a digital format that affords constant movement. I am also interested in using the temporal, fluid characteristics of video as a reference to identity as a constantly moving and evolving aspect of our lives. The images I produce represent the projection of masculine identity and explore the themes of power, coolness, strength, and what it means to be heroic. Breaking with the tradition of the male gaze commonly represented in art history, I am depicting masculinity from a voyeristic female gaze. Through this process I seek to superimpose a feminine dialogue over macho imagery I was influenced by growing up in California.”

Jessica Perelman & Jackie Slanley: Opulent Feelings

Thomas Hunter Project Space Hallway Show
Thomas Hunter Building
68th Street and Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

May 29 – June 20
Opening Reception: June 1, 6-9pm

Clay is a material inseparably tied to its functionality, used to form everything from coffee cups and industrial materials to costly and precious objects of desire. Within the field of sculpture, clay can appear weighed down by this inherent relationship. Instead of looking past this condition, artists Jackie Slanley and Jessica Perelman employ the utilitarian connotations surrounding clay to reinforce a narrative centered on opulence and freedom to desire from an unrelentingly feminine perspective.

Their paired works appear in strong contrast visually, but what they have in common sparks an expressive dialogue about the relationship between “low” and “high” art. Referencing everything from domestic items and thrifted curios, to porcelain figurines, glass beads, and fur. Their approaches are united by a distinct attention to texture and a draw towards extravagance and ornate detail. By joining painterly surfaces with ceramic form as well as incorporating two dimensional and installation elements, both artists are working to challenge the boundaries between painting, drawing, and ceramics. Their two versions of rebellion reject unspoken rules and work together to demonstrate the benefits self-governance.

Michael Fujita: Spring Forward, Closing May 25

Thomas Hunter Project Space
Thomas Hunter Building
68th Street and Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

Thomas Hunter Project Space is proud to present Spring Forward, a solo exhibition featuring new work by Michael Fujita:

“Visual instances trigger personal interest and curiosity, which serves as beginnings of pieces.  Through various processes, materials, and the element of time, those visual triggers take on new meaning and identity as objects.  Color plays a critical role in my work transforming the assumed identity even further to a playful offering of my perception.”

5 Questions, 5 Minutes: Artist Talk with Yasmin Ramirez

part of QUEENIE: Selected artworks by female artists from El Museo del Barrio’s Collection

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

May 30, 6:30pm

Please join us and El Museo del Barrio for a rapid fire Q & A session: 5 Question in 5 Minutes, featuring the following artists from QUEENIE: Selected artworks by female artists from El Museo del Barrio’s Collection:

Melissa Calderón
Alessandra Expósito
iliana emilia garcia
Scherezade Garcia
Jessica Kairé
Glendalys Medina
Nitza Tufiño

Artists will answer questions from both audience members and those submitted via social media. The artist talk will be moderated by Yasmin Ramirez.

WOTY 2.3: Ojalá

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

May 17 – June 30

Ojalá is a project by Mexican-American artists Mauricio Cortes Ortega and Maria de Los Angeles. Both artists immigrated to the United States in their early childhood and make work that deals with identity and migration. Under the current Presidency, migrants from Mexico have been singled out and targeted through verbal and legal attacks. Roughly 700,000 young immigrants have been fighting to maintain their status Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act. The lives of this generation of citizens has been threatened recently as the current administration has fought to end DACA, resulting in deporting thousands of young people to countries where they may or may not have family, friends, or be able to continue their careers. Further, a new wall along the Mexico-United States border has been proposed as way to keep out future generations of immigrants. The wall acts as a visual manifestation of xenophobia and acts as a personification of separation.

Ojalá, which roughly translates to “hopefully” is a project that imagines the wall as a liminal space. The drawings of de Los Angeles portray migration, figures striving for a better future and hope for humanity. Cortes Ortega’s ceramic sculptures reference capirotes, a Spanish headdress dating back to the Inquisition, which in their reinterpretation reference the inevitable transformation of objects due to colonialism and immigration. The sculptures set against de Los Angeles’ drawings suggest a dialogue between the origins of contemporary issues surrounding immigration and the current ramifications of negotiating the U.S. Mexico border.

WOTY 2.3: Ojalá

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

May 17 – June 30

Ojalá is a project by Mexican-American artists Mauricio Cortes Ortega and Maria de Los Angeles. Both artists immigrated to the United States in their early childhood and make work that deals with identity and migration. Under the current Presidency, migrants from Mexico have been singled out and targeted through verbal and legal attacks. Roughly 700,000 young immigrants have been fighting to maintain their status Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act. The lives of this generation of citizens has been threatened recently as the current administration has fought to end DACA, resulting in deporting thousands of young people to countries where they may or may not have family, friends, or be able to continue their careers. Further, a new wall along the Mexico-United States border has been proposed as way to keep out future generations of immigrants. The wall acts as a visual manifestation of xenophobia and acts as a personification of separation.

Ojalá, which roughly translates to “hopefully” is a project that imagines the wall as a liminal space. The drawings of de Los Angeles portray migration, figures striving for a better future and hope for humanity. Cortes Ortega’s ceramic sculptures reference capirotes, a Spanish headdress dating back to the Inquisition, which in their reinterpretation reference the inevitable transformation of objects due to colonialism and immigration. The sculptures set against de Los Angeles’ drawings suggest a dialogue between the origins of contemporary issues surrounding immigration and the current ramifications of negotiating the U.S. Mexico border.

Tania Bruguera, Zabar Visiting Artist Lecture

Hunter MFA Studios, Flex Space
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

May 9, 7pm

RSVP here

The Hunter College Department of Art and Art History is pleased toannounce a public lecture by Tania Bruguera, the Spring 2018 Judith Zabar Visiting Artist. Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 7:00 pm at Hunter’s MFA Studiosat 205 Hudson Street in Tribeca.

For over 25 years Tania Bruguera has created socially engaged performances and installations that examine the nature of political power structures and their effect on the lives of their constituencies. Her research focuses on ways in which art can be applied to everyday political life, and on the transformation of social affect into political effectiveness. Her long-term projects are intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education, and politics. Her works often expose the social effects of political forces and present global issues of power, migration, censorship, and repression through participatory works that turn “viewers” into “citizens.”

By creating proposals and aesthetic models for others to use and adapt, she defines herself as an initiator rather than an author, and often collaborates with multiple institutions as well as many individuals so that the full realization of her artwork occurs when others adopt and perpetuate it.

Tania Bruguera has been awarded an honorary doctorate by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, selected one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, and was shortlisted for the #Index100 Freedom of Expression Award. She is a Herb Alpert Award winner, and has been a Guggenheim, Radcliffe and Yale World Fellow. She was the
first artist-in-residence in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Bruguera has recently opened the Hannah Arendt International Institute for Artivism, in Havana: a school, exhibition space, and think tank for activist artists and Cubans.

Michael Fujita: Spring Forward

Thomas Hunter Project Space
Thomas Hunter Building
68th Street and Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

Through May 25
Opening Reception: May 11, 6-8pm

Thomas Hunter Project Space is proud to present Spring Forward, a solo exhibition featuring new work by Michael Fujita:

“Visual instances trigger personal interest and curiosity, which serves as beginnings of pieces.  Through various processes, materials, and the element of time, those visual triggers take on new meaning and identity as objects.  Color plays a critical role in my work transforming the assumed identity even further to a playful offering of my perception.”

Alessandra Expósito in Conversation with her Therapist

part of QUEENIE: Selected artworks by female artists from El Museo del Barrio’s Collection

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Avenue
New York, NY

May 17, 7pm

Join us as artist Alessandra Expósito and her “Licensed” Psychotherapist explore recurring themes in her paintings, sculptures and dreams including common childhood maladies, girly animal trophies, pet names for dogs, and the joy of eBay©. The looming spectre of death haunts her work while a lifelong love affair with hypochondria lightens the proceedings.