Image: Laura Chipley / Rare Breed Collective, Generations (2015), video still. Courtesy of the artist.
Please join us and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School for an afternoon of projects commissioned in response to the Art and Social Justice Working Group.
Visual artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, who creates contexts for interaction in public spaces, is our travel companion at the Bronx Museum leading our discussion of the work together. Attendees are invited to spend approximately 20-30 minutes with each project as van Heeswijk leads the conversation. The walkthrough culminates in a dialog that underscores the key issues we identify as a group, their impact on the communities and political contexts they engage as well as their relationship to the expanded field recognized as artistic practice today.
The Art and Social Justice Working Group is an informal, fluctuating group of artists, curators and other arts practitioners. The group met periodically over the past 18 months to examine core conflicts that propel, enrich, and complicate artistic efforts that assume agency to enact social change. It was launched by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and A Blade of Grass, organizations dedicated to supporting individuals in pursuit of the intersection of art and social justice through programs and scholarship. Participating artists were commissioned to develop artworks in response to the ideas and perspectives shared at working group gatherings.
Add your ideas and reflections on this topic to the working group’s growing knowledge base online: veralistcenter.org/art-and-social-justice/about
Free and open to the public. Lunch and refreshments provided. Family-friendly and accessible.
Timeline
12 PM: Jeanne Van Heeswijk, introductory remarks
12:30-2:30 PM: Projects A-E Walkthrough
2:30-4 PM: Culminating discussion led by Jeanne Van Heeswijk with participating artists
Project A: Gabriela Ceja + 2014 ABOG Fellow Fran Ilich unite coffee and political discourse through the Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op. The event also launches a new rebel coffee CSA in New York City.
Project B: Nobutaka Aozaki installs a horizontal city landscape made from found advertisements that reveals subtle arrangements in the social landscape, both the geographic composition of communities in the city.
Project C: 2015 ABOG Fellow Laura Chipley / Rare Breed Collective invite children to imagine in an art adventure park. Children four and under must be accompanied by their parents, five and older are welcome to participate on their own throughout the afternoon.
Project D: Gordon Hall responds to Felix Gonzalez-Torres with a diptych of posters free to take. In placing them the participant assigns a relationship to an object by demarcating them, through the text on the sign, as useful or useless.
Project E: 2014 ABOG Fellows Liz Slagus & Norene Leddy lead the SocialSocial, a discussion of social issues and socially engaged art open to all. The goal is to bring fresh perspectives to the SocialSocial, an ongoing series of discussions to model a format “for artists to work with people who actively engage with the public, but not in an art context, to bring a fresh perspective to socially engaged art.” Conversations will be held at 12:30 and 1:30, to RSVP call or text (646) 543-8244 or email info@thesocialsocial.com.
The Art and Social Justice Working Group was launched with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This event is co-hosted by A Blade of Grass, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, and the Bronx Museum.
