ISCP Talk
May 2, 2017, 6:30–8pm

Salon: AKI INOMATA and Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi

AKI INOMATA will speak about her past projects with living things and her current work on the growth lines of shellfish. She creates her artworks through collaborations with living creatures including dogs, parakeets and bagworms. Through them, she explores topics related to identity and questions the status quo.

Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi will present his ongoing curatorial project that problematizes the idea of truth involving three different artists and art collectives. Discussing their use of conventional formats of mediation such as the archive, the science of forensics, the format of academic conferences, interviews and talks, Mopidevi will also explore notions of truth and objectivity in the context of “post-truth.”

This program is supported, in part, by New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
6:30–8pm

Open Studios
April 21–April 22, 2017

Spring Open Studios 2017

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Spring Open Studios is a two-day exhibition of international contemporary art. The 38 artists, artist collectives and curators from 22 countries currently in residence will present work in their studios. Twice a year, ISCP invites the public to Open Studios to view artwork and share conversations with artists and curators from all over the world. Concentrated in one three-story postindustrial loft building on the edge of Bushwick, ISCP has supported the creative advancement of residents for over twenty years, with a robust program of private individual workspaces and professional benefits.

ISCP has invited the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos (CCA)an independent non-profit making visual art organization founded in December 2007 and based in Nigeria, as the 2017 institution-in-residence. Works by three artists from Nigeria—Kelani Abass, Taiye Idahor and Abraham Oghobase—will be featured in the exhibition Orí méta odún méta ibìkan, originally presented at CCA Lagos in 2016 and reconstructed at ISCP during Open Studios. Selections from the institution’s archives will also be included in the exhibition.

Gazelle Lost in Watts, curated by Pat Elifritz, MA candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, will be on view in the Project Space throughout Open Studios. With contributions by past ISCP residents Julie Béna and Megan Francis Sullivan, current ISCP Ground Floor resident Raul Valverde, and poet Harmony Holiday, this exhibition addresses archival research. Gazelle Lost in Watts is organized around a poem of the same name by Harmony Holiday, and considers how every unique point of departure shapes the way history is understood.

Temporary tattoos designed by residents Pekka & Teija Isorättyä will be provided free by Tattly throughout the event, and a limited edition by Cary Leibowitz will be available for purchase.

Gorilla Cheese NYC will be at ISCP Open Studios on Friday, April 21, from 6-9pm.

Open Studios participating artists and curators: Damir Avdagic (Norway), Honey Biba Beckerlee (Denmark), Nina Bovasso (United States), Elaine Byrne (United States/Ireland), Naomi Campbell (United States/Japan), Danilo Correale (Italy), Lourdes Correa-Carlo (United States), Alexis Dahan (United States/France), Anne de Vries (The Netherlands), Mazaccio & Drowilal (France), Constant Dullaart (The Netherlands), Derek Dunlop (Canada), Christian Falsnaes (Denmark), Antonio Fiorentino (Italy), Stephanie Gudra (Germany), Mark Hilton (United States), Tetsugo Hyakutake (Japan), Aki Inomata (Japan), Pekka & Teija Isorättyä (Finland), Jess Johnson (Australia/New Zealand), Ayesha Kamal Khan (United States/Pakistan), Ling-lin Ku (Taiwan/United States), Elli Kuruş (Germany), Sonia Leimer (Austria/Italy), Jia-Jen Lin (Taiwan/United States), Tess Maunder (Australia), Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi (India), Yvonne Mullock (Canada/United Kingdom), Jonas Nobel (Sweden), Liam O’Brien (Australia), Liutauras Psibilskis (United States), Bita Razavi (Finland/Estonia/Iran), Lisa Seebach (Germany), Gian Maria Tosatti (Italy), Raul Valverde (United States/Spain), and Betty Yu (United States).

ISCP thanks the following residency sponsors: Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Alfred Kordelin Foundation; Arts Queensland; Asian Cultural Council; Australia Council for the Arts; BKA – Bundeskanzleramt Österreich Kunst und Kultur / Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria; Brisbane City Council; Creative New Zealand; DAAD – Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst German Academic Exchange Service, North America; Danish Arts Foundation; Dedalus Foundation; Dr. David & Margery Edwards Charitable Giving Trust; Leila Elling; Farnesina Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale – Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; IASPIS – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists; Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation; The Italian Academy at Columbia University; Italian Cultural Institute of New York; Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony; Kunststiftung NRW; Manitoba Arts Council; Michael Buxton Collection; Ministry of Culture, Taiwan; Mondriaan Fund; New York City Council District 34; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund; Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur and Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung; No Standard Pictures; Office for Contemporary Art Norway; Yoko Ono; Saastamoinen Foundation; Toby Devan Lewis Donor Advised Fund of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland; University of the Arts Helsinki; and Alice and Lawrence Weiner.

This program is supported, in part, by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Arrogant Swine; Austrian Cultural Forum New York; Consulate General of Denmark in New York; Consulate General of Finland in New York; Consulate General of Sweden in New York; Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York; Dennis Elliott Founder’s Fund; Google; Greenwich Collection Ltd.; Lagunitas Brewing Company; Materials for the Arts; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; 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; and Tattly.

ISCP thanks the founding members of Director’s Circle for their generous support: Anne Altchek, Janet Brief Ezersky, Adrienne Henick, Ellen Rachlin, Lori Reinsberg, Arlene Richman and Laurie Sprayregen.

Opening Reception: Apr 21, 2017, 6–9pm
Open Hours: Saturday, Apr 22, 2017, 1–8pm
Download Press Release (PDF)Download Open Studios Newspaper

Exhibition
April 21–June 9, 2017

Gazelle Lost in Watts

Opening Reception: Friday, April 21, 2017, 6–9pm

The International Studio & Curatorial Program announces Gazelle Lost in Watts, an exhibition in ISCP’s Project Space, curated by Pat Elifritz. Featuring works by past ISCP residents Julie Béna and Megan Francis Sullivan, current ISCP Ground Floor resident Raul Valverde, and poet Harmony Holiday, the exhibition addresses the competing and entangled timescales of archival research. The curator has asked the four participating artists to reflect on their past work, in and beyond the studio, and to respond to a literary piece grounded in these issues. With a shared point of departure, the works in this exhibition consider how every unique perspective and starting point shapes the way history is told. Gazelle Lost in Watts is organized around the following poem of the same name by Harmony Holiday.

Gazelle Lost in Watts (2013)
by Harmony Holiday

I saw you painted on a ghetto wall last summer and thought don’t submit to this medium … everybody’s running into the wall or running into each other and plagiarizing our future like mummies and nukes, I watched you hug the Mona Lisa. I wanna use the word pariah until it shrugs for us and even their disguises go limp as a fire tumbling down a hillside into the playfulness in my heart, acres and acres of a lean, almost spiritual vibe afraid of  its own momentum and then not afraid again

Julie Béna (born 1982, France) works on environments that draw inspiration from literature, film, theater, and popular culture. Her practice explores the thresholds between one perception and another; between being a team player and a spoilsport; between participation and abstinence. To this end, Béna refers to the exhibition as a “playground.”

Harmony Holiday (born 1982, United States) is a poet and choreographer. Her work tests the limits and plasticity of archives, memory, and language. She is the author of Negro League Baseball, Fence Books, 2011; Go Find Your Father/A Famous Blues, Ricochet, 2014; and Hollywood Forever, Fence Books, 2016. Holiday assembled and now curates the Astro/Afrosonics Archive, a collection of jazz poetics and audio culture. She teaches at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles.

Megan Francis Sullivan (born 1975, United States) works with cultural artifacts and identities. In her practice, she enacts or interprets objects and artworks from specific sources. Her expanding body of work questions the historical baseboard of artistic work as site- and time-specific. Sullivan’s practice interrogates individual works beyond, or removed from, their original context.

Raul Valverde (born 1980, Spain) is a multimedia artist based in New York. His projects are context-specific and often involve the use of appropriation, illusion, and irony. Valverde works with a variety of media, including installations, computer-generated simulations, social interventions, photography, and publications.

Pat Elifritz (born 1988, United States) is a writer and curator living in Dutchess County, New York. His projects reflect on interwoven narratives of biography, architecture, and the history of institutions. He is a Master’s candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and co-founder of the curatorial collective, Anne-Marie.

This exhibition is curated by Pat Elifritz. It is part of a practicum for curatorial studies, a collaboration between ISCP and CCS Bard that is now in its second year.

This program is supported, in part, by Greenwich Collection Ltd., New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Opening Reception: Apr 21, 2017
Download Press Release (PDF)