July 20, noon - Book Talk and Birthday Zoom for Nam June Paik

Celebrate Nam June Paik’s birthday with a special online conversation marking the release of a new volume of his writings, We Are in Open Circuits: Writings by Nam June Paik (MIT Press, 2019). As one of the founders of video art, Paik (1932–2006) was a visionary who explored how art and technology serve as global connectors.

Join We Are in Open Circuits editors John Hanhardt and Gregory Zinman as they discuss Paik's legacy in the age of Zoom with Saisha Grayson, SAAM’s time-based media curator, and enjoy selections from Paik's videos work, which will stream over the “electronic superhighway” to your home.

Link to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-nam-june-paiks-we-are-in-open-circuits-tickets-112818378808

July 9, 3pm - Conversation on Arthur Jafa's Love is the Message, The Message is Death

Artist Arthur Jafa’s powerful video examination of Black life in America, “Love is the Message, The Message is Death,” was streamed continuously online by SAAM and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden from June 26 to 28. The video offers a moving montage of original and appropriated footage that explores the mix of joy and pain, transcendence and tragedy that characterize the Black American experience.

Viewers were encouraged to share responses to the artwork, which will guide this online conversation with E. Carmen Ramos, acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at SAAM, Rhea Combs, curator of film and photography at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Saisha Grayson, SAAM’s curator of time-based media. Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, will offer short introductory remarks.

YouTube Link to come

July 22, 4pm - In Conversation with Saya Woolfalk @ SAAM, DC

As both the annual "Happy Birthday, Nam June Paik" speaker and the culminating program of SAAM Arcade, I'm thrilled to welcome artist Saya Woolfalk to the Smtihsonian American Art Museum's McEvoy Auditorium on Sunday July 22 at 4pm.  Saya will introduce her work, and then we'll chat about her practice, how her work extends Paik's legacy and how her proliferating avatars and Empathic universe relate to the role-play and alternate world-making of video game culture. 

June 8, 6-7pm - In Conversation with Ranu Mukherjee @ Gallery Wendi Norris, SF

I am thrilled to be heading west next month, to be in conversation with San Francisco-based, multi-media artist Ranu Mukherjee on June 8 at 6pm at Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco.  This program is planned in conjunction with her recently opened exhibition "Shadowtime." In this, her third solo presentation with the gallery, Mukherjee unveils a series of new yellow, orange, and purple pigment and milk-paint paintings on paper and a hybrid film installation, projected on a sculptural glass screen. 

May 7, 3-7pm - "Archival Resistance" Program @ Abrons Arts Center

Using Archival Alchemy as platform to creatively respond to the rapidly shifting political landscape, this afternoon of programming brings together artists, activist and community leaders for brainstorming sessions, skill-sharing and workshops for those seeking increased visibility or strategic invisibility within the bureaucratic and digital archives of our day. Pop-up performances and engaged art-making for all ages will be ongoing in the galleries. Program details here. 

April 6, 6-8pm - "Archival Alchemy" Opening @ Abrons Arts Center

I'm so excited to open Archival Alchemy, the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) 20th anniversary visual arts exhibition, which I had the honor of guest curating.  The exhibition takes over all three gallery spaces at Abrons Arts Center, and features thirteen artists and collectives from throughout the diaspora, working across artistic media to investigate the resonances found in an archival past on the contingencies of the present.  All are welcome at the opening, or anytime during gallery hours until May 10. 

https://www.facebook.com/events/180615732444270/

Feb 17, 5:30pm - Pedagogy Presentation @ CAA, NY Hilton Midtown

On behalf of myself and co-organizer Natalie Campbell, I'll be presenting on "I want a president...(a collective reading-DC)" at the College Arts Association's 2017 conference in New York.  As part of a panel entitled State of the Art (History): Pedagogy Laboratory, my talk "Electoral Art History: Public & Personal Engagement through Agitprop" will share insights from the writing workshops that became an essential part of IWAP-DC.  The depth of engagement and energy produced through these workshops suggested to us that lessons based in agitprop—an area often skipped in canonical coursework—have great potential for bringing together art history, art making, civic discourse and purposeful writing. 

Oct 16, 5:30pm - "I want a president...(a collective reading-DC)" @ the White House, DC

The culmination of a months-long project by myself & co-curator Natalie Campbell, this collective reading is also the closing event of Creative Time Summit-DC: Occupy the Future. Artists, activists and the general public are invited to come together in front of the White House  to envision representational leadership that seems impossible from where we stand now. Inspired by a 1992 text piece by artist Zoe Leonard, this project has engaged the public in adapting her list of demands to reflect the urgencies of today through in-person workshops and online discussions. Reading these two texts in unison, we will connect the concerns of the past with the needs of the present, and collectively-voiced desires for an alternate future.

Presented in collaboration with Furthermore with thanks to the following community partners: Anacostia Arts Center, Bread for the City, Creative Time Summit, the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University, the DC Public Library Foundation, Pleasant Plains Workshop, Potter’s House, Transformer, Visual AIDS

 

Sept. 29, 7pm Panel on Charlotte Moorman @ The Grey Art Gallery

I'll be participating, along with two other Moorman scholars, in "A Moorman-Eye View of New York’s Changing Avant-Gardism," a panel discussion moderated by Hannah B. Higgins, professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago. I'll be sharing in-progress work from my dissertation on Moorman, Paik and erotic performances of power.  The program coincides with the Grey's exciting presentation of A Feast of Astonishment: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s–1980s.