ISCP Talk
February 16, 2021, 4-5pm

Artists at Work with Tommy Kha on Instagram Live: Return to Sender

For this Artists at Work, resident Tommy Kha will screen a selection of his life-long project, Return to Sender. Since 2010, he has invited friends, strangers, actors, and ex-lovers to kiss him while not returning it. Through collaboration, Kha allows kissers to direct themselves and control their images in these short-lived performances.

Through the framework of the self portrait and the family album, the artist looks at the relationship between performance and photography, and how the camera has influenced the way othered bodies have been imaged and perceived. As Susan Sontag put it, “Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.” Kha is interested in post-immigration experiences and snapshots left out of the family album, often utilizing humor to approach themes of racial identity, sexuality, and representation.

Tune into the Instagram Live here on Tuesday, February 16 from 4-5pm EST.

The screening will last for seven minutes followed by a conversation between the artist and Arts Residency Manager Alison Kuo.

Tommy Kha has exhibited work at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland; International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion, Hyères, France; Baxter Street at Camera Club of New York, among others, and his photographs have appeared in the New Yorker magazine. He has just been named a Foam Magazine Talent of 2021.

This program is supported, in part, by Celebrate the Studio; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust; Hartfield Foundation; Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and VIA Art Fund.

4-5pm

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Participating Residents

Tommy Kha

The artist, a young Asian American man in a red t-shirt, is seated on the floor and leans against the side of a bed covered in patterned quilts. His mouth is closed and his eyes are opened but appear unfocused. From the left side of the frame a young white man dressed in light colored boxer shorts and no shirt is crouched over the artist and is kissing him on the mouth.

Tommy Kha, Chase, East Memphis, Tennessee, 2015, digital C-type print, 6 × 4 in.; 30 × 20 in. (15.24 × 10.16 cm; 76.2 × 50.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist

Current and Upcoming Events & Exhibitions

Somewhere Inside: ISCP and the Studio

Through January 20

Exhibition

Sujin Lim: The Land, Dark and Muddy

Through February 7

Exhibition

Exhibition
February 9–July 30, 2021

Alban Muja: Family Album

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) announces Alban Muja: Family Album, the first solo exhibition in the United States by Kosovar artist Alban Muja.

A 2011 ISCP alumnus, Muja’s exhibition restages his 2019 exhibition Family Album, originally shown in the Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo at the Venice Biennale. A conversation between Alban Muja, Ksenia Nouril, and Kari Conte will take place on March 16 at 1pm EST, introduced by Ambassador Frymëzim Isufaj of The Consulate General of the Republic of Kosovo in New York.

Alban Muja: Family Album features a three-channel documentary video installation which traces the stories of several children living in Kosovo during the time of the Kosovo War in 1998 and 1999. As the war progressed, nearly 800,000 citizens were forced to flee their homes for safety in neighboring countries, including a teenaged Muja. Images of these refugees—many of them children—were captured by photojournalists. The starting point of Family Album is a photograph that Muja found of himself with José María Aznar, Spain’s Prime Minister at the time, in a Spanish-run refugee camp in Albania where Muja was living with his family. This led him to think about other refugee children from the war who were represented in the media, and so he tracked down the now-adults from some of the most well-known images of children from the war. Family Album pivots around interviews with four of these former Kosovar refugee children, bringing visibility to their experiences and memories, while building upon the narratives handed down to them.

This exhibition is curated by Kari Conte, curator, writer, and ISCP Senior Advisor, with Alison Kuo, ISCP Residency Program Manager.

The 2019 Venice presentation of Family Album was curated by Vincent Honoré.

Alban Muja lives and works in Pristina and Berlin. His work takes the form of video installation, short films and documentaries, drawing, painting, and performance and is largely influenced by the ongoing processes of social, political and economic transformation in his native Kosovo and across the wider region of the Balkans. Through his practice, he investigates history and sociopolitical themes, and links them to his life in Kosovo today.

This exhibition is supported by Consulate General of the Republic of Kosovo in New York; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust; Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; VIA Art Fund; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

By visiting ISCP, you agree to abide by the following health and safety policies. Please make sure to plan ahead for your visit.

Four visitors are allowed in the galleries at a time, and appointments are required. Please write to info@iscp-nyc.org to schedule an appointment.
All visitors are required to maintain social distancing, keeping six feet from anyone not in their party.
Masks or face coverings are mandatory.
Hand sanitizer will be available for visitors.
If you have fever, chills, cough, muscle pains, headache, loss of taste or smell, or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19 prior to your visit, please contact us to reschedule.
An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 and other infectious conditions exists in any public space where people are present. Those visiting the International Studio & Curatorial Program voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19, other infectious conditions, and other hazards that may be present in a public space.

Open Hours: By appointment on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from 12-5pm.

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A group of men standing outdoors each looking in different directions

Alban Muja, Family Album, 1999, photograph, 27¹/₂ × 39¹/₂ in. (69.85 × 100.33 cm). Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Skendar Muja at the Hamallaj refugee camp, Albania

Current and Upcoming Events & Exhibitions

Somewhere Inside: ISCP and the Studio

Through January 20

Exhibition

Sujin Lim: The Land, Dark and Muddy

Through February 7

Exhibition

ISCP Talk
January 26, 2021, 4-5pm

Artists at Work: Assaf Evron on Instagram Live

Artist-in-residence Assaf Evron discusses his research on the ancient worship practices of imbuing stones with meaning with Alison Kuo, ISCP Arts Residency Manager.

Evron and Kuo speak about how shrines or objects of worship are connected to the contemporary idea of a readymade. Evron will show documentation of open sanctuaries in desert landscapes, Roman coins depicting monuments, and 7th century B.C. stones representing female lepers. He will also share insights from previous conversations with archeologists and discuss how these sites can be thought of through the linguistic concepts of abstraction and signification. A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Tune into the Instagram Live here on Tuesday, January 26th from 4-5pm.

This Artists at Work is introduced by Hillit Zwick, Executive Director of Artis, Evron’s residency sponsor at ISCP. Artis is an independent, nonprofit organization based in New York, and supports contemporary artists from Israel whose work addresses aesthetic, social, and political questions that inspire reflection and debate.

Assaf Evron is an artist and a photographer based in Chicago. His work investigates the nature of vision and the ways in which it reflects in socially constructed structures. He applies photographic thinking in various two and three-dimensional media. Evron questions the construction of individual and collective identities, immigration of people, ideas, images, and representations of democracy. He has exhibited work at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others.

This program is also supported by Artis; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust; Hartfield Foundation; Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and VIA Art Fund.

4-5pm

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