ISCP Talk
December 5–December 6, 2019

ISCP 25th Anniversary Symposium: Cultural Exchange and the Life of the Metropolis

ISCP 25th Anniversary Symposium: Cultural Exchange and the Life of the Metropolis offers a free two-day symposium with more than fifteen renowned speakers focusing on contemporary art and cultural exchange. In a keynote address by art critic Holland Cotter, as well as a series of roundtable and panel discussions, the symposium will foreground the crucial role that art plays in civil society, and the broad impact of international cultural discourse in the metropolis, now and in the future.

On December 5 at 7pm, Holland Cotter will present a keynote lecture. Holland Cotter is co-chief art critic and a senior writer at The New York Times. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Writing by the College Art Association.

The second day of the symposium on December 6 from 10am to 5pm will encompass a range of vantage points on cultural diplomacy, the interrelationships of contemporary cultures, questions of national identity, the ethical responsibilities and commitments of institutions in supporting exchange, new identities, and artistic freedom. Scholars, writers, funders, and artists will reflect upon their own work in relation to broader questions about how residency programs create connections across cultures and build appreciation of differences.

This symposium is organized on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of ISCP, which is the fourth-largest visual arts residency program in the world, and a global leader in its field. ISCP supports the creative development of artists and curators, and promotes exchange through residencies and public programs. Housed in a former factory in Brooklyn, with 35 light-filled work studios and two galleries, ISCP organizes exhibitions, events and offsite projects, which are free and open to all, sustaining a vibrant community of contemporary art practitioners and diverse audiences.

All sessions are at the SUNY Global Center at 116 East 55th Street in Manhattan.

This is event is free and open to all.

Symposium Program


Thursday, December 5

7-9:30pm
Keynote address by Holland Cotter, Co‑chief art critic, The New York Times, followed by a reception

Click here for Part I of the keynote audio recording; click here for Part II of the keynote audio recording. 

Friday, December 6

10-10:30am
Check-in and welcome

10:30-11:45am
Funding Residencies Roundtable Discussion
Speakers: Çelenk Bafra, Director, SAHA Association, Istanbul; Yen-Chang Chou, Cultural Officer, Taipei Cultural Center in New York; Michelle Coffey, Executive Director, Lambent Foundation, New York; and Marja Karttunen, Board Member, Saastamoinen Foundation, Helsinki
Moderator: Susan Hapgood

Click here for Part I of the roundtable audio recording; click here for Part II of the roundtable audio recording. 

12-1:15pm
Border Thinking: Panel Discussion on Cultural Exchange
Speakers: Iftikhar Dadi, Associate Professor of History of Art and Director, South Asia Program, Cornell University; Tao Leigh Goffe, Assistant Professor of Literary Theory and Cultural History, Cornell University; M. Neelika Jayawardane, Associate Professor of English, SUNY Oswego and Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design (VIAD), University of Johannesburg; and Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, PEN America
Moderator: Iftikhar Dadi

Click here for Part I of the panel discussion audio recording; click here for Part II of the panel discussion audio recording. 

1:15-2:15pm
Lunch break

2:15-3:30pm
ISCP, New York: Artists’ Alumni Roundtable Discussion
Speakers: Dylan Gauthier, Camilo Godoy, Steffani Jemison, MDR (Maria D. Rapicavoli) and Marjorie Welish
Moderator: Dylan Gauthier

Click here for Part I of the roundtable audio recording; click here for Part II of the roundtable audio recording. 

3:45-5:00pm
What Matters Today: Panel Discussion on Art, Ethics and New Identities
Speakers: Luis Camnitzer, artist and Professor Emeritus of Art, SUNY Old Westbury; Aruna D’Souza, writer and author of Whitewalling: Art, Race, and Protest in 3 ActsHowardena Pindell, artist and Distinguished Professor of Art, SUNY Stony Brook; and Jillian Steinhauer, journalist and editor
Moderator: Jillian Steinhauer

Click here for Part I of the roundtable audio recording; click here for Part II of the roundtable audio recording.

Reminder: All sessions will take place at SUNY Global Center at 116 East 55th Street, New York, NY

Admission is free but registration is requested here. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

This program is supported by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York; Hartfield Foundation; New York City Council District 33; New York City Council District 34; New York City Council Member for the 33rd District Stephen T. Levin; New York City Council Member for the 34th District Antonio Reynoso; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ISCP thanks the many sponsors, contributors and individual donors for their generous support since our founding 25 years ago. ISCP is also grateful to the members of Director’s Circle for their largesse: Anne Altchek, Tansa Ekşioğlu, Samar Maziad, and Laurie Sprayregen.

ISCP Talk
November 19–November 19, 2019

Joshua Liebowitz, Rahel Aima, and Patrick Jaojoco on the Representation of Mass Violence

In conjunction with ISCP’s current exhibition Ungrounded—a group show featuring the seven artists in residence in ISCP’s Ground Floor Program—Ground Floor resident Joshua Liebowitz will present segments from The Killing of America (1981), a film directed by Leonard Schrader and Sheldon Renan, documenting gun violence in the United States. Following this, Liebowitz will moderate a discussion between Rahel Aima and Patrick Jaojoco on the representation of mass violence.

Given the evolving role of the artist parallel to the complexities of current events, and that the film has to a large extent been overlooked, the discussion will focus on The Killing of America as a springboard for thinking about the relationship between images and violence in the United States.

Joshua Liebowitz pursues research-based practices and works across diverse media. In his work, he addresses the absurdity of the human condition. Liebowitz’s most recent solo exhibition was on view at this year’s SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York. His work has been presented at CAFA Art Museum, Beijing; NARS Foundation, Pioneer Works, and St. Mark’s Church, all New York. Liebowitz’s projects have been written about in a variety of publications and media, including ARTnews, The Atlantic, Gothamist, and Art F City.

Rahel Aima is a freelance writer, editor and critic from Dubai currently based in Brooklyn. She is Special Projects editor at New Inquiry, a contributing editor at Momus and was formerly the founding EIC of THE STATE. She is a 2018 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and is currently at work on a book of exhibition fiction.

Patrick Jaojoco is a Brooklyn-based curator, organizer, and writer interested in how creative practices can aid in public understandings of long-term ecological, economic, and political histories. He currently works as Director of Programs at FABnyc, and is independently organizing the Decolonial Mapping Toolkit, an online map and series of public programs that reframe and seek to undo legacies of colonialism in public space. Patrick is a 2019–2020 member of NEW INC, received an MA in Curatorial Practice from the School of Visual Arts and BA in English Literature and Environmental Studies from New York University, and has held curatorial and communications roles at Storefront for Art and Architecture, Art in General, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Invisible Dog Art Center.

This program is supported by Alice and Lawrence Weiner; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Hartfield Foundation; and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

6:30 - 8 PM

Participating Residents

Open Studios
November 15–November 16, 2019

2019 Fall Open Studios

Opening Reception: Friday, November 15, 6–9pm
Guest speaker: Lia Gangitano at 7:30pm
Open Hours: Saturday, November 16, 1–7pm

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Fall Open Studios is a two-day exhibition of international contemporary art presented by the 37 artists and curators from 25 countries currently in residence. Lia Gangitano, founder of PARTICIPANT INC, whose pioneering work has had a significant impact on the arts in New York City, will make remarks at 7:30pm on November 15.

Twice a year only, ISCP offers the public access to private artists’ and curators’ studios to view artwork and share one-on-one conversations. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, ISCP invites the public to engage in dialogue around contemporary art with arts professionals from across the globe. Concentrated in a three-story postindustrial loft building on the edge of Bushwick, ISCP supports the creative advancement of residents, with a robust program of individual workspaces and professional benefits.

At 8pm, Anton Kats has invited ILYICH to perform Seagull and Hawk, call signs of the cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Valery Bykovsky, in his studio. The performance draws on a semifictional case study of the first radio transmission in orbit, between the Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 spaceships in 1963.

Sonia Leimer: Via San Gennaro, the first solo exhibition in New York by ISCP alumna Sonia Leimer, will be on view. Sonia Leimer: Via San Gennaro is winner of the 4th edition of Italian Council (2018), a competition conceived by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Art and Architecture and Urban Peripheries (DGAAP) – a department of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, to promote Italian contemporary art in the world. The newly-commissioned works in the exhibition address the spatial politics of the Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Italy, vis-à-vis migration and economic and cultural transformation.

In addition, Ungrounded, a group exhibition featuring the work of the seven artists in residence in ISCP’s Ground Floor Program, will be presented during Open Studios. The exhibition considers—from many vantage points—today’s political, social, and ecological urgencies.

Open Studios participating artists and curators: Alya Al Khalifa (Qatar), Tim Bruniges (Australia), Danilo Correale (United States/Italy), Simone Couto (United States/Brazil), Furen Dai (United States/China), Annabel Daou (United States/ Lebanon), Charlotte Eifler (Germany), David Escalona (Spain), Mariajosé Fernández-Plenge (United States/Peru/Germany), Hannah Fitz (Ireland/Germany), Jude Griebel (United States/Canada), Chloé Grondeau (Canada/France), Yasmina Haddad (Austria/Lebanon), Duy Hoàng (United States/Vietnam), Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen (Finland), Anton Kats (Germany/Ukraine), Volkan Kızıltunç (Turkey), Joshua Liebowitz (United States), Fritjof Mangerich (Germany), Maria Meinild (Denmark/Sweden), Alison Nguyen (United States), Helene Nymann (Denmark), Habby Osk (Iceland), Sarah Pichlkostner (Austria), Laura Põld (Estonia), Jasmine Reimer (Canada/Germany), Walter Scott (Canada), Lou Sheppard (Canada), Sille Storihle (Norway), Esther Tielemans (The Netherlands), Allard van Hoorn (The Netherlands), Paky Vlassopoulou (Greece), Sara Wallgren (Sweden), Enlai Wang (China) and Chunhua Zhang (China).

ISCP thanks the following residency sponsors: Alfred Kordelin Foundation; Anonymous; Arts Council of Ireland; ARTWORKS; Australia Council for the Arts; BKA – Bundeskanzleramt Österreich Kunst und Kultur / Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria; Canada Council for the Arts; Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec; Danish Arts Foundation; Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center; Finnish Cultural Institute in New York; Fire Station – Qatar Museums; IASPIS – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists; Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation; KdFS Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen; Mondriaan Fund; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council District 34; Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur and Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; OCA – Office for Contemporary Art Norway; SAHA Association; Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin; Sobey Art Awards, National Gallery of Canada; Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Dublin; Toby Devan Lewis Donor Advised Fund of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland; The Artists’ Salaries, The Icelandic Centre for Research; The Dr. K. David G. Edwards & Margery Edwards Charitable Giving Fund; The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc.; Wang Shikuo Foundation, Today Art Museum; and Alice and Lawrence Weiner.

This program is supported, in part, by Austrian Cultural Forum New York: ACFNY; BKA – Bundeskanzleramt Österreich Kunst und Kultur; Consulate General of Brazil in New York;Consulate General of Canada in New York; Consulate General of Denmark in New York; Consulate General of Estonia in New York; Consulate General of Finland in New York; Consulate General of Sweden in New York; Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York; Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder; Google; Grimm Artisanal Ales; Hartfield Foundation; Italian Council (Directorate-General for Contemporary Art and Architecture and Urban Peripheries, Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities); Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation; Lagunitas Brewing Company; Materials for the Arts; New York City Council District 34; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF); The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and The State of Qatar.

In addition to the many individuals who support ISCP, the members of Director’s Circle are also thanked for their largesse: Anne Altchek, Tansa Ekşioğlu, Samar Maziad, and Laurie Sprayregen.

Opening Reception: Nov 15, 2019, 6–9pm
Open Hours: 1–7pm
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