ISCP Talk
December 17, 2019, 6:30–8pm

Sonia Leimer: Via San Gennaro exhibition catalog launch

This catalog launch for the new book, Sonia Leimer: Via San Gennaro, published by Mousse Publishing in December 2019, will take place while the artist’s solo exhibition is on view at ISCP through January 3, 2020. The exhibition and accompanying catalog focus on a new body of work addressing the spatial politics of the Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Italy, vis-à-vis migration and economic and cultural transformation. The event will feature a discussion between Leimer, curator Kari Conte and architect Alessandra Cianchetta. Designed by Other Means, the 112-page catalog features new essays by Conte, Cianchetta and Luigi Fassi, as well as 30 pages of full-color images, including numerous research photos and installation views.

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.

This program is supported, in part, by Italian Council (Directorate-General for Contemporary Art and Architecture and Urban Peripheries, Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities); Barbara Gross Galerie; BKA – Bundeskanzleramt Österreich Kunst und Kultur; Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder; Hartfield 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; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF); The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and Austrian Cultural Forum New York: ACFNY.

6:30–8pm

Participating Residents

Exhibition
December 10, 2019–March 6, 2020

Walter Scott: The Pathos of Mandy

Walter Scott’s new body of work The Pathos of Mandy focuses on a fictional artist named Mandy. The exhibition presents a video and accompanying installation which comment on alienation, the myth versus reality of the artist figure, and self-representation. Dealing with the loss of legal ownership of a character he invented at the axis of his work, Mandy is portrayed as a solipsistic artist, who becomes increasingly desperate to piece together who he is—both personally and artistically—now that the central focus of his art practice is gone.

In a text accompanying the exhibition, independent curator Loreta Lamargese writes, “The question of artistic license, often romantically conjured as an open field of play, is closed down and stifled by the bureaucratic structures that grant us further access to one’s creations. Within these new confines, Mandy’s journey takes us from an intimate conversation with his partner, his reading of Kathy Acker and Roland Barthes, to finally landing wryly on his adoption of a new artistic medium, quilts. With Wendy occupying the role of Walter Scott’s alter ego, the emergence of Mandy opens up an infinitely regressive field of identifications. This reverberating grid of persons and their potential doubles, is a site as emancipatory as it is claustrophobic.”

Walter Scott (born 1985) is was an artist-in-residence at ISCP in 2019. Scott is an interdisciplinary artist working across comics, drawing, video, performance and sculpture. His comic series, Wendy, chronicles the continuing misadventures of a young artist in a satirical version of the contemporary art world.  Wendy has been featured in Canadian Art, Art in America, and the New Yorker. It was selected for the 2016 edition of Best American Comics, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York. Recent exhibitions include Who Isn’t She? A Wendy Retrospective, Galerie UQO, Gatineau; Slipping on the Missing X, Macaulay Fine Art, Vancouver; and Betazoid in a Fog, Remai Modern, Saskatoon. Scott’s new graphic novel, Wendy, Master of Art, will be available from Drawn & Quarterly in Spring 2020. Scott’s residency is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts grant supporting the arts and cultures of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples.

Major support for this exhibition is provided by Canada Council for the Arts. This program is also supported, in part, by 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; Hartfield Foundation; and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

Participating Residents

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.