In a 1995 interview between Lisa Lowe and Angela Davis, Davis states that, “A woman of color formation might decide to work around immigration issues. This political commitment is not based on the specific histories of racialized communities or its constituent members, but rather constructs an agenda agreed upon by all who are a part…
1. Currently you are beloved, apoliticized, or, capitalized. We think of one of your names headlining Hirschorn’s gentrification project, your name invoked as a shield against his. No mention in the headlines of your anti-fascist activism, your writing against the artist bourgeois, vulnerable education systems. It is as if you existed solely, in your own…
This year has been a year of obfuscation, of debates that aimlessly feint, of the personal political transferring into the politicized brand. It has been the year of exhaustion, it seems. This year I wrote a lot of cover letters and quit most of social media. I dedicated my time to writing longer articles, investigation…
“Clearing out the way” is a labor that I am committed to. As the emergent requires new geographies, new movements, and unimaginable possibilities. I’ve decided that every few months, I will take the time to deconstruct a piece of “art” I interact with, where the only response I have is: WHY. I will consider this…
It’s often difficult for me to watch films in art spaces. Whenever I come across a film screening at a museum space or a gallery, I become an official member of camp-narrative, or camp-movie-theater. I want nice chairs, I want popcorn, I want to fall asleep on someone’s shoulders (yes yes, the critique of entertainment,…
I landed in Chicago a few weeks ago and wanted to speak to the artist and poet Larry Lee about his mid-career retrospective. Because I am not the fastest writer, by the time this blog post is published, the show will have closed. So the post will exist as an artifact of my reflection, and…
Susan Cahan’s Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power presents a straightforward argument: US Museums (specifically in her book, NYC museums) were and remain segregated. Museums have been “resistant to racial integration” and hostile to the Black power and civil rights movements. Cahan argues that the resistance against social movements in the museum space was active, as the museum boards were and are made of the very politicians that sat and sit in on policy changes regarding race, oversaw the passing of desegregation laws, and witness(ed) the impact of these new policies. She traces their pathways:…
It’s the end of AAPI month so I suppose this is the perfect time to critique Nikki S. Lee. I’ve been avoiding writing about Lee. I am incredibly over the position of discussing things I find to be deeply deeply racist, hurtful, and at the same time: basic. I want to spend my contemptorary time discussing…