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…
As this year of all kinds of wonders come to a closing, I’m going to try to remember it through a list of things, exhibitions and events with interesting linkages. This list is in no way all inclusive or written from “perfect memory.” This year was full of death and destruction, and I’m not only talking about the…
When the presence of Black bodies is policed, and the movement of racialized bodies surveilled and criminalized, what does a Black flaneur aesthetics look like? Is wandering a derailing from the constrained roles situated by contemporary art? In Mounting Frustration: The Museum in the Age of Black Power, Susan Cahan writes that the professional categories…
This space will continue to remain unconditionally committed to the artistic visions of vulnerable communities. Women of color, undocumented persons, marginalized genders, marginalized communities, those living with disabilities, the poor, the refugee, the FOREVER emerging–we write because of you and we write for you.
“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…
The question of aesthetics is a question of decisions: what makes a maker choose one thing over the other, one topic, material, medium, angle of approach, display, etc. over the many other possibilities. Whether these decisions are structural or “unconscious”, or an attempt to do away with those structures, aesthetic decisions are deeply and inherently…
Contemptorary fully endorses this letter, written by THE QOLEKTIV in response to Creative Time’s invitation of the founder of the Islamophobic group FEMEN, Anna Hutsol, who spoke at the CT Summit on Saturday, October 15, 2016. THE QOLEKTIV is an anonymous group.
There’s this ancient, trite and ongoing notion that art/poetry is for the good. The good of the people, the good of the country, the good of progress (who the people are, for which countries, what good: these are side conversations brought forth by pessimists and unbelievers). For this reason, Artists and Writers do good by…
Part 2 When we think about Cauleen Smith and our Los Angeles-San Diego-Chicago connecting Skype call, we remember that we would have probably all been sitting somewhere having coffee and chatting, had things “turned out” a different way. We remember that we could have had Cauleen in Southern California as an artist and as a…
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,…