ISCP Talk
June 28, 2022, 6–7pm

Artists at Work: Pavlo Grazhdanskij with Volk Lika and Anton Varga

For Artists at Work, ISCP’s current resident from Ukraine, Pavlo Grazhdanskij, will speak with Volk Lika and Anton Varga. 

In their conversation, they will discuss working with archival and found materials, countering online disinformation, gathering evidence as an art practice, artistic agency during war, and which artistic medium makes sense (if any) in times of crisis.

Pavlo Grazhdanskij researches strategies of representation from the perspective of Ukrainian culture. He addresses problematics of documentary and found material; artistic approaches and manual labor in data processing and collection; dead-ends and turns of logics of sustainable states; biopolitics; reproduction techniques of existence, including themes of cycles, traditions, rituals, fate, authoritarianism, insuperability, and survival strategies; and abstraction, collaborationism, and intentionality. Grazhdanskij has exhibited at Detenpyla gallery, Lviv; Sörnäinen public bomb shelter, Helsinki; and Rosa’s House of Culture, Saint Petersburg among other venues.

Volk Lika is an artist, and organizer based in New York. In 2020 she organized The Always Fresh art space in the foreclosed pizzeria on the Lower East Side of New York and in 2019 founded Cultural Capital Introspection international program (USA-UA), supported by the American Embassy in Kyiv. She is a recipient of the fellowship of Queens Museum Studio Program, Flushing, NY, and and American Academy in Rome finalist. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Art and Design, NY; Queens Museum of Art, NY; PERFORMA, NY; Luminary, St. Louis; the Ross Art Museum in Ohio; and Knockdown Center Gallery, Brooklyn.

Anton Varga is a visual artist and curator born in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, who received his M.F.A. from Kharkiv Academy of Design and Arts, and, since 2015, has been based in New York, NY. As co-founder and member of Open Group, he was a participant of the pavilion of Ukraine at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and curator of the pavilion of Ukraine at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019).

This program is supported, in part, by AES+F; 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 and the New York State Legislature; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

6–7pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
June 21, 2022, 6–7:30pm

Darian Longmire and Demetrius Oliver in Conversation with Alison Kuo

For this in-person event, two United States-based artists will present and discuss their recent work Demetrius Oliver and Darian Longmire, who were 2022 ISCP Vision Fund residents, will be joined by Arts Residency Manager Alison Kuo for this Artists at Work talk. A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Darian Longmire remixes and recolors  images adopted from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) records. He makes paintings, drawings, prints and mixed media,  and employs physics and space travel to generate abstraction and political commentary in his art.

Demetrius Oliver is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Oliver uses a range of commonplace objects and media to create subtle dialogues between matter and site. These site-specific exchanges are realized through improvisatory, installation-based gestures that call attention to the physical and dynamic properties of prosaic materials. Incorporating photography, sculpture, and video, Oliver elevates even the most ordinary objects to explore diverse phenomena in music, science, and thought.

By visiting ISCP, you agree to abide by the following health and safety policies. Please make sure to plan ahead for your visit.
  • All visitors are required to maintain social distancing, keeping six feet from anyone not in their party.
  • Masks or face coverings are strongly recommended but not 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.

This program is supported, in part, by Hartfield Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; 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 and the New York State Legislature; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; Wilhelm Family Foundation; and Woodbury Foundation.

6–7:30pm

Participating Residents

Exhibition
June 10–August 19, 2022

Steven Anthony Johnson II: Getting Blood from Stone

Getting Blood from Stone is a solo exhibition of work by Steven Anthony Johnson II, recipient of The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund residency at ISCP, curated by Re’al Christian. The exhibition is the synthesis of Johnson’s collection of cross-diasporic narratives from differing time periods, presenting drawings and sound compositions that probe and process inherited trauma, and grapple with queerness, Blackness and class issues.

Working from memory, interviews, verbal histories, and family keepsakes, Johnson navigates cross-generational, cross-cultural, and cross-diasporic dialogues between themselves and their relatives, collapsing the boundaries of space and time to bring new histories to the fore. The work in the exhibition draws from inherited, collected, and captured vernacular photographs as well as recordings of oral family histories and conversations.

Johnson has spent the past two and a half years interviewing their relatives, collecting stories and drawing connections within their family tree, a process the artist likens to “getting blood from stone.” Reticence and reluctance amongst their elders directly translate to the incomplete portraits that Johnson creates. Woven anecdotes, confessionals, and testimonies speak to the intergenerational resilience and wisdom that are likewise captured in the drawings. In their process of recording familial moments, past and present, the archive becomes a form of resistance, a counter-narrative to reckon with the traumas that have been inherited and imposed on Black and Othered individuals.

Steven Anthony Johnson II is an artist, draftsperson, interpretive archivist, and storyteller living in Brooklyn, New York. They received their BFA in 2015 from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and MFA in 2017 from the New York Academy of Art. Utilizing the language of drawing, animation, and photo-documentary their work attempts to make peace between the religious, intellectual, and humanistic ideals in relation to Blackness and “Otherness.” In so doing, they offer a counter-narrative necessary to deemphasize whiteness and “light” as the focal point of our shared inter-cultural narrative. Their drawings and installations utilize traditional techniques, memory, and photography to examine the intersections of Afro-ambiguity, Black mundanity, and the right to self-representation. Johnson has exhibited work at Field Projects, New York; Inbreak, Los Angeles; and Notre Dame of Maryland University, Baltimore, among others.

Re’al Christian is a writer, editor, and art historian based in Queens, New York. She is a contributing editor at ART PAPERS, and the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. Her work explores issues related to identity, diasporas, media, and materiality. Her essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in Art in America, Art in Print, BOMB Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail, among other publications. She has written catalogue and exhibition texts for CUE Art Foundation, DC Moore Gallery, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., and Performa. She worked on the exhibitions The Black Index (2020–21) and Life as Activity: David Lamelas (2021) at Hunter College Art Galleries as a contributor and editor, and on The earth leaked red ochre (2022) at Miriam Gallery as a curator and catalogue editor. Christian received her MA in Art History from Hunter College, and BA in Art History and Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University.

Steven Anthony Johnson II: Getting Blood from Stone is supported by The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund; Hartfield Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Council District 33; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; 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 strongly recommended but not 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.
Opening Reception: Jun 10, 2022, 6-8pm
Open Hours: By appointment Monday–Friday, 10:30am–5:30pm.
Download Press Release (PDF)

Participating Residents