EFA Interns

A Blog from the EFA Project Space Curatorial Interns Spring 2015

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Speaking Portraits: A Conversation with Stolen Lives and Families.

Last night EFA Project Space hosted an event in conjunction with its current exhibition Double Visions. “Speaking Portraits” highlighted Fay Chiang’s Portraits (on view now as part of Double Visions), and brought together the Stolen Lives Project and the families of young victims of police brutality. This event was very emotionally charged, but also extremely powerful. Hearing these men and women speak about the tragic killings of their children and family members was truly heartbreaking, but the sense of unity and camaraderie amongst the people at last night’s event was very prevalent.

Kathie Cheng, coordinator of the Stolen Lives Project, gave us harrowing statistics on police brutality: “1101 people were killed by police brutality last year in the United States (this only counts the ones reported on by mainstream media). There have been 239 people killed in 2015 so far, and 748 since Eric Garner (July 2014)”. 

“Speaking Portraits” was not just an event to share the stories of these young victims and their families, it was also a cry for change.

The mission of the Stolen Lives Project is to assemble a national list of people killed by law enforcement agents from 1990 to the present. Through grassroots efforts, over 2000 cases were documented in the second edition of the Stolen Lives book, which was published in 1999. Although just the tip of the iceberg, these 2000+ are evidence of a horrifying national epidemic of police brutality. The victims of police violence were part of our society, but rarely are their lives or names publicized, or the real circumstances surrounding their deaths investigated and made known. The Stolen Lives Project aims to restore some dignity to the lives lost. Though their lives have been stolen from us, we will not allow them to be forgotten. 

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"Speaking Portraits": A Conversation With Stolen Lives and Families.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

At EFA Project Space, 323 W. 39th St, 2nd Floor, New York, NY

“The anger and sadness I feel as I paint these young faces cannot be measured against the grief and strength of the families who speak out against the violence wrought upon their own, as though they were animals hunted down by predators.” —Fay Chiang

Cases of police brutality are increasing at an alarming rate throughout the country. But do we really hear the stories of many of the victims and the loved ones affected by this enforcement? For the past ten years, SHIFT resident, Project Reach Director of Programs and Development, and Stolen Lives Project member, Fay Chiang, has been painting portraits to honor victims killed by law enforcement. With the help of Chiang, EFA Project Space welcomes Kathie Cheng—coordinator of the Stolen Lives Project— Iris Baez, Hawa Bah, Nicholas Heyward Sr., Andree Smith, and Juanita Young—whose sons were killed by police—to share the Stolen Lives Project and their stories.

Representatives from other organizations like Cop Watch, People's Justice, and Center for Constitutional Rights will be present to speak to guests about their causes and the opportunities for volunteer work with these issues.The mission of the Stolen Lives Project is to assemble a national list of people killed by law enforcement agents from 1990 to the present. Through grassroots efforts, over 2000 cases were documented in the second edition of the Stolen Lives book, which was published in 1999. Although just the tip of the iceberg, these 2000+ are evidence of a horrifying national epidemic of police brutality. The victims of police violence were part of our society, but rarely are their lives or names publicized, or the real circumstances surrounding their deaths investigated and made known. The Stolen Lives Project aims to restore some dignity to the lives lost. Though their lives have been stolen from us, we will not allow them to be forgotten. stolenlives.org

This event is respectfully organized in conjunction with the exhibition Double Visions on view February 26 - March 28, 2015. For more information, please email [email protected].

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Tonight's the night!

Tonight is the opening reception for Double Visions! 

As part of SHIFT residency, the artists in Double Visions all share a double life, balancing their practice as artists, with their commitment to being arts-workers. Over the past five months, this motley group has been meeting regularly in homes and studios, over home cooked food and drink, to identify the issues that surrond their work and their practice. The result? A camaraderie. When the group had the final meeting to share the projects they plan to include in the show, they discovered a remarkable thing: as if a mirror of the essential thing that connects them all, each artist was working on two distinct trajectories that exist in conversation with each other. 

Stop by EFA Project Space at 323 West 39th Street to check out some fantastic art and grab yourself some free beer!   

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Studio Visit with EFA Artist Beth Ganz

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EFA Studio Artist: Cecile Chong

Every Thursday the three EFA Project Space interns will be going on studio visits around the EFA building. In order to learn more and understand the artists better, we will be posting short bios on the artist and their work the Wednesday before our visit.

EFA Studio Artist: Cecile Chong.

Cecile Chong's work is very whimsical and delicate, but the details are striking. She works in sculpture, installation, and painting and uses encaustic painting in most of her work. Chong draws influence from multiple cultures. Born in Ecuador to Chinese parents, she is interested in how cultures copy one another. One of her series from 2012 called Common Dictionary addresses the similarities in language.

"In this ongoing series titled Common Dictionary, I established a somewhat arbitrary rule where I look for things that have a common beginning sound in Spanish, Cantonese and English (languages that I speak). Once I find a work with a common first sound, I create a visual narrative around that work to add insight to the ways we conceptualize and communicate. often the words I would find were obvious "modern crossovers" (e.g., microphone-micrófono-mai cou fun); others seemed the result of earlier interactions (trade, colonialism) (e.g., coffee-café-ca fe) and some suggested echoes of perhaps an ancient common root (e.g., mother-madre-ma). Still other similarities seemed to be purely random coincidence (e.g., fire-fuego-fo) but who can really say for sure?"

A common object in Chong's work is a "guagua" which represent swaddled babies that are commonly seen in Ecuador. She often creates sculptures of them, but they can also be found hidden in her paintings if you look hard enough.

"I use the image of the swaddled babies, which is a tradition from my native Ecuador. A tightly wrapped baby placed into an oversize shawl or blanket and strapped onto the mother's back is a familiar scene throughout the Andes. These "guaguas" or "thumb babies" in my work suggest a blank slate, ready to witness and experience cultural encounters and question issues of nature versus nurture."

Cecile Chong is currently a studio artist at EFA and will be participating in EFA's Open Studios for Armory Arts Week on March 3rd from 5-9pm. For more information on Cecile Chong and her work please visit her website.

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EFA Project Artist David Brooks discusses with Curator Meredith Johnson at ICI

EFA Project Space Artist David Brooks will have a conversation with curator Meredith Johnson, with Brooks past and current work and projects which explores the relationship between culture and the natural world.

Brooks and Johnson will discuss how our communal and individual relationship to  geologic time can be translated through the ephemeral language of the exhibition, and the role artist play in a political conversation that spans species and epochs.

This event is free and open to the public with RSVP. Please see the Independent Curators International website for more information.

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EFA Project Space artist Trong Gia Nguyen solo exhibition “The Leavers” at Vietnamese Galerie Quynh

EFA Project Space artist Trong Gia Nguyen is now having his second solo exhibition “The Leavers” at Galerie Quynh in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. A series of colored paintings are presented on this show which were inspired by the artist’s current film “DONG,” an exploration of family history through the imperfections of memory.

These paintings were inspired by artist’s old family photographs and the history, culture and psyche of immigrating to another country, in which Trong Gia Nguyen invites the audience to speculate the missing part of the stories. 

Trong Gia Nguyen is an international and multi-disciplinary Vietnamese artist who is based in Brooklyn, NYC. In 2011, he participated in EFA Project Space exhibition “Telefone Sem Fio”.

Exhibition Dates: February 5th - March 28th, 2015

See more information on Galerie Quynh’s website.

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EFA Project Artist Caroline Woolard will present an artist talk at Alfred University on February 23rd

EFA Project Artist Caroline Woolard will present  “Economies of Collaboration: a talk about authorship, debt and duration” at Alfred University on February 23rd. She is an artist and organizer. Her interdisciplinary work facilitates social imagination at the intersection of art, urbanism, architecture and political economy.

In 2012, Woolard was featuring in the group exhibition “To Have and to Owe” at EFA Project Space.

Talk Information:

5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 23rd, 2015

Nevins Theater, Alfred University, Powell Campus Center

Free and open to public

See more information on Alfred University’s website.

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EFA Project Space artist Nikita Kadan’s first solo exhibition in the UK is on view

EFA Project Space artist Nikita Kadan’sfirst UK solo exhibition "Limits of Responsibility" is now on view at a London gallery WatersideContemporary from January through April.

(Image courtesy of Waterside Contemporary gallery )

His recent oeuvre is based on last spring’s events in Independence Square in Kiev, the artist’s native city. The exhibition includes a series of photographic slides that documented the barricade, fires and shelters erected by the prodemocracy activists, a series of watercolor drawings that resemble traditional horticultural and anatomical textbooks, a long with a large sculptural object modeled after a display-board recommended by a Soviet pamphlet.

Nikita Kadan’s participated “Sound of Silence: Art During Dictatorship” at EFA Project Space in 2012.

Exhibition Dates: 29th January – 4th April 2015

See Waterside Contemporary website for details.

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EFA Artist Kate Gilmore's upcoming talk on her exhibition "A Roll in the Way" at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

EFA Project Space ArtistKate Gilmore will have a discussion with the curator Amy Smith-Stewart of herexhibition A Roll in the Way at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum from 2 to 3 pm on Sunday, February 8th, 2015.

( Image courtesy of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum)

A Roll in the Way is now on view at the museum, features the practice of Kate Gilmore’s video, sculpture, photography, performance and installation, including a site-specific work that is a record of a private performance produced within the museum’s walls.

Kate Gilmore was born in 1975 in Washington, DC, and currently lives and works in New York City. She participated EFA Project Space exhibition “Common Jive” in April, 2010.

Exhibition Dates: October 19th to April, 2015

See the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum website for more details.

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EFA Artist Conrad Bakker Featured in "Meta Modern" at Krannert Art Museum

Untitled Project: EAMES ARMCHAIR ROCKER (+ WALDEN), 2012 © Conrad Bakker

EFA Project Space artist Conrad Bakker’s “Untitled Project” is now on view at “Meta Modern”, one of the five spring 2015exhibition at Krannert Art Museum, alongside with other four such as “Artists Including Me: William Wegman,” “Versions and Revisions,” “Speculative Visions of Pragmatic Architectures” and “With the Grain: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Postwar Years.”

 By his work, Bakker intends to “reveal and critically comment upon the political economies and relational networks between persons and things, ” according to his website. Organized by curator Judith Hoos Fox and Ginger Gregg Duggan, “Meta Modern” highlights some of the best metamodernists’ works, and will be on a two and half years, six locations tour across the country.

Conrad Bakker participated EFA Project Space exhibition “I Like the Art World and the Art World Likes Me” in 2011.

Exhibition Dates: January 30 - March 28, 2015

See museum’s website for more details and information

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SHIFT Residency Exhibition Opening Reception

DOUBLE VISIONS 

Thursday, February 26, 2015

6:00pm 8:00pm

Image courtesy of David Court & Louise Barry.

SHIFT residency, formerly the Residency for Arts-Workers as Artists, was launched in August 2010 to provide an unprecedented opportunity: studio space and peer support for practicing artists who also work as arts professionals (administrators, curators, directors, and others). This program honors these individuals' longstanding commitment to supporting fellow artists-- one that necessitates sacrifice of time and flexibility-- with a unique environment to build on their own art practices. Seven residents are selected from nominations based on their outstanding contributions to the art community plus their potential for artistic growth in a shared interactive environment.

To see the current Shift Residences check out the website.

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EFA Artist Simone Leigh's Upcoming Solo Exhibition at KMAC

( Photo: Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft )

EFA artist Simone Leigh is going to have her solo exhibition at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (KMAC) in this spring. Curated by Joey Yates, this exhibition wills showcase Leigh’s use of multiple artistic disciplines to examine both the female body and the influence of African aesthetics on modern and contemporary art. Through installations, sculptures, videos and hand-made ceramic objects, Leigh explores the traditional rituals and gestures that are associated with female artistic activity. Leigh’s solo exhibition is a continuous investigation by KMAC into creative processes, techniques and materiality.

Simone Leigh participated As We were Saying: Art and Identity in the Age of  “Post” curated by Claire Barliant at EFA Project Space in 2014. 

Exhibition Dates: February 7- April 5, 2015

See KMAC’s website for more details and information

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Exhibition from the Archives: I Like the Art World and the Art World Likes Me

In the beginning of 2011, EFA Project Space organized an exhibition entitled I Like the Art World and the Art World Likes Me curated by artist/curator Eric Doeringer, which explored the fraught relationship between emerging artists and the established art world. The title plays on Joseph Beuys’s infamous performance I Like America and America Likes Me. 

"They [young artists] desire to participate more fully and to be recognized but are simultaneously repulsed by some key aspects. There is a critical or iconoclastic character to much of the work, but also a great deal of reverence. Despite their criticism these artists clearly love art."

-Exhibition Press Release 

Jennifer Dalton , "How Do Artists Live?" 35mm slides and projector, 2006 

Simon Grennan & Chris Sperandio - "Modern Masters" 2002 and "Art School Superstars"1998

Exhibition Dates: January 14th – March 5th, 2011

Artists: Conrad Bakker, Marc Bijl, Jennifer Dalton, Eric Doeringer, Nancy Drew, Bill Drummond, Alex Gingrow, Grennan & Sperandio, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Charles Gute, Nate Harrison, Pablo Helguera, Dan Levenson  / Little Switzerland, The Matthew Higgs Society, Loren Munk, Filip Noterdaeme, Laurina Paperina, William Powhida, Ward Shelley, Jade Townsend

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EFA Artist Dread Scott Featured in RESPOND at Smack Mellon

RESPOND, now on view at Smack Mellon in DUMBO, is a sprawling group show organized in reaction to the killings of Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, Michael Brown and countless other black men. This gallery decided to postpone a planned exhibition to "respond to the continued failure of the United States to protect its black citizens from police discrimination and violence." Resident Smack Melon Artists, including Dread Scott, combed through over 600 applications to select 200 artists from across the country. 

Dread Scott participated in the exhibition Cultural Transference organized by Sara Reisman at EFA-PS in 2012.

Opening: Friday, June 15, 6–8pm

Exhibition Dates: January 17- February 22, 2015 Gallery hours: Wed-Sun, 12-6pm

See Smack Mellon's website for more details and upcoming events.

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Artist from the Archives: Wafaa Bilal.

Wafaa Bilal is an Iraqi-born artist that aims to shine a light on international politics and conflicts. Living in the "comfort zone" of the United States and having fled his "conflict zone" homeland of Iraq is frequently highlighted in his work. In December of 2008 Bilal came to EFA Project Space to give a talk about one of his previous performance pieces “Domestic Tension”. “Domestic Tension” involved Bilal being confined to a small gallery room with some furniture, a computer, and a robotic paintball gun that could be controlled on a website. Anyone could log on and control the gun and shoot whatever they wanted, whether it be the furniture, the walls, or Bilal himself. He was confined to this room for 31 days and the gun was available for access 24/7. “Domestic Tension” addressed the issue of internet use as an artistic platform as well as the ongoing battle over censorship.

"Domestic Tension", 2007.

Bilal has been in the center of a few censorship dilemmas, one of which was over his 2008 “Virtual Jihadi” video game. Bilal hacked the Al Qaeda version of a video game entitled “The Night of Bush Capturing” and put himself in the game as a suicide bomber who is eventually recruited by Al Qaeda to find and kill President Bush. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the city of Troy, New York both canceled his exhibitions on the game. 

"Virtual Jihadi", 2008.

In 2008 the Chicago Tribune named Bilal "Artist of the Year" for "Domestic Tension". Bilal's work addresses the tension between the United States and his native country of Iraq. His work opens up a discussion about war and conflict, as well as censorship and technology.

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Meet the Interns

Welcome to the EFA Project Space Intern blog! We'll be posting everything from news on upcoming exhibitions and events to studio visits and artist profiles. Get to know us on our "Meet the Interns" Page!