Films, Panels, Performances, and More

·       June 14 - 18

·       Full Schedule

Tickets!

Join us for Exploring the Earth as Lover: Ecosex and the City, a four-day symposium to forge new relationships with the environment, engage in human/ non-human collaboration, critique calcified ideologies, and engage in new sexualities—all through the lens of environmentalism that is feminist, queer, sensual, sexual, posthuman, exuberant, and steeped in humor and play. Ecosexuality offers the opportunity to reimagine our relationship with a world wounded by anthropocentrism, capitalism, and ecological destruction. It is a way of living propagated by PS122 icon, Annie Sprinkle, and her longtime partner and collaborator, Beth Stephens who “humbly propose ecosex as one of many pathways to healing the pain of both the present moment and the horrific injustices of the past by encouraging people to love the Earth.” Bring your animals, costumes, plants, your microbial/biome cloud and mingle with various communities of artists, scholars, sex workers, queers, fashionistas, animals, spores, water drops, clouds, in a weekend full of rituals, paradigm-shifting panels, performances, poetry, music, environmental activism, food, and a free Sidewalk EcoSex Clinic.

Schedule
*Please click on each event title to reveal more details.

Wed, June 14 (12:30pm - 2:30pm)

12:30 pm—Sidewalk Ecosex Clinic

Fri, June 16 (7pm - 9pm) For adults 18 and over

7pm—Welcome to Exploring Earth as Lover introduced by Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle with an activation by lifeist Linda M. Montano

7:30pm—The Ecosexual Gaze: Short Films & Videos

8:30pm—Eco-Jeopardy! Game hosted by Veronica Hart with co-host Sam McGinnis

8:40pm—Strawberry Score with Sweet Labour Art Collective

9pm—The End

Sat, Jun 17 (11am - 9:30pm)

11am—Ecosex In The City with Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle

11:25am—Presentation of the Altars - Cassils with Pratt Sculpture II students

11:30am—Panel 1: Strange Kin

1:30pm—Break

2pm—Panel 2: Elders & Ancestors

4pm—Break

4:30pm—Entanglements: Hooking up with Many. SCORE by Sweet Labour Art Collective

5pm—Break

7pm—Ecosextravaganza: Performing Earth as Lover (For adults 18 and over)

9:30pm—The End

June 18 (12pm - 4pm)

12pm—Panel 3: Dendraphilia, Hydrofeminism, Compost & Beyond

2pm—Break

2:30pm—Audience Open Mic

3:30pm—Closing with Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, and Linda M. Montano 

4pm—The End

*Friday and Saturday night are for adults only. Some films, panels and performances may be sexually explicit, which may not be suitable for audiences under 18 years old.

Healing Light is a word-and-picture book by the artist Elizabeth Munro, with an interview by Nicolás. 

As a very young child, she was sexually abused by a elderly man who was known to the neighborhood kids as “Uncle Happy."

Munro studied art at Leeds College of Art and moved from London to  New York in the ’60s, where she became a part of the art scene, all the while struggling in silence for many years with mental pain, anguish, and confusion. 

This interview, together with her artwork, helped her to finally understand that what happened was not her fault. It was time to take that load of bricks she had been carrying and put it down. The work on her Healing Light series and her responses to the interview questions by Nicolás helped her heal.

It had been hard for her to live with the repercussions of her abuse and the survival patterns she had been repeating for such a long time.

Munro primarily conceived and did this series and the photographs in the book for all of people she cares about and loves. She has learned to love.

 The making of Healing Light is also the healing of Elizabeth Munro.

 What is the best is that Munro is now spreading the Light-- 

 To download a free copy of Healing Light, a publication by Elizabeth Munro, click HERE

EMERGENYC is a space for artists who are either beginning their careers or feeling a sense of urgency to move into new territory. The programs provide an opportunity to spend an intensive period of training, exchange, mentorship, and challenging conversations with a specific focus on racial justice and cultural transformation. Rather than training in one specific craft, participants immerse themselves in a challenging, supportive environment, engaging with multiple lineages and approaches to art-making. They delve into issues of personal significance as they engage in the work, and with one another, as their whole selves. Our participants leave the programs having deeply researched questions that become the heart of their artistic and activist work.

FLAGSHIP PROGRAM (in person at Abrons Arts Center)

led by george emilio sánchez 

This is the flagship program that has been the heart and soul of Emerge since 2008. Designed and led by george emilio sánchez, this program is open to artists in the New York City area, and is comprised of weekly workshops facilitated by george, as well as workshops by guest artists who are leaders in the field of performance and politics. With a decolonial lens, we explore the intersection of art and activism through creative writing, autobiographical narratives, group work, and other multi-disciplinary adventures—all while creating and re-creating a space in which all participants build community with one another, actively listen with their bodies, and build intentional trust to lay a foundation where compassion and risk-taking guide our work together. We ask applicants to define issues that are important to them and explore how creative practices can harness their political voice. Through the years, participants have explored themes of racism and racial violence; police brutality and mass incarceration; radical joy as resistance; disability rights; undocumented immigrant activism; war and human rights; environmental justice; and myriad topics that affect their lives. These engagements have resulted in the creation of performance art pieces, multimedia installations, theatrical explorations, street performances, video art, and more.

In 2023, the flagship program takes place at Abrons Arts Center every Sunday (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time) from Sunday, March 26 to Sunday, June 18th. During this time frame, there is an Intensive Week of daily workshops from Monday, April 24–Saturday, April 29. The workshops will include various guest leaders that will be announced later in the semester. Final works-in-progress will be presented live at Abrons on Thursday, June 22 and participants must be available the afternoon/evening of June 21st for tech. Abrons Arts Center is wheelchair accessible. *Please note: You need to be fully vaccinated for COVID in order to participate in person.

This in-person program, which includes a final production at Abrons, has a fee of USD $1000.
Financial  aid will be available to cover part of the tuition on a need basis. If  your enrollment depends on financial aid, please let us know in your application. We will work it out.

To apply click HERE

VIRTUAL PROGRAM, ANALOG BODIES AND VIRTUAL ACTIVATIONS

led by Nicolás Dumit Estévez & Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

Through a series of weekly sessions at the very core of performance art, activisms, and care and love for one another, participants in EMERGENYC’s Analog Bodies and Virtual Activations are encouraged to investigate genders, sexualities, class, race, politics, and spiritualities from the interstitial space between the analog and the digital that this pandemic moment has intensified. How do we as artists, instigators, dissenters, mediators, or meditators, wrestle with the back and forth between our flesh-and-bone bodies and the virtual spaces that allow us to bilocate, multiply, clone, and project our presences around the globe at any time and at all times at once? This program will pay equal attention to how these two seemingly opposing forms of engagement can mix and mingle, remain aloof or dissolve into each other. Some of the formats we will use include performance, writing, dance/movement, deep listening, visualization, somatic practices, and conversations, plus visits by and presentations of the work of mainly BIPOC and gender non-conforming practitioners from the Americas and the Caribbean. With all of this in mind/heart, participants are invited to reflect upon themselves, their audiences, and the shifts that their analog movements in virtual realms have the power to ignite—way out there in the cosmos, and right here in our changing, aging, living, dying, breathing, pulsing bodies.

This virtual iteration of Emerge, which takes place via Zoom, will begin on Saturday March 25 (11:00 AM–3:00 PM Eastern Time), and then meet every Sunday from April 2nd to June 18th (11:00 AM–3:00 PM Eastern Time.) To find how Eastern Time maps to your time zone, please use this Time Zone Converter. Final works-in-progress will be presented online at the end of the program on Saturday, June 24th (time TBC).

The Emerge virtual program started in 2022 with a cohort of 16 artists as part of Emerge’s expansion in availability to national and international participants.

This virtual program has a fee of USD $600.
Financial aid will be available to cover part of the tuition on a need basis. If your enrollment depends on financial aid, please apply and let us know your needs in your application. We will work it out. Please note, if you are able to pay full tuition or more, you will make it possible for those who cannot afford full tuition to attend, which will strengthen your cohort. 

To apply click HERE

—WHO IS ELIGIBLE?—

— The in-person flagship EMERGENYC program is open to emerging artists/activists who live in the NYC area.
— The virtual program is open to emerging artists/activists outside the NYC area and who cannot attend in person.
— All applicants must have prior experience in various performance genres and/or activist practices. Age is not a determining factor (past participants have ranged from 18 to about 45, all bringing their best selves to the experience); what we define as ’emerging’ is fluid, and has more to do with how you self-define than anything else. We very much encourage BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled artists to apply.

—HOW TO APPLY—

Submit your application via Submittable by Wednesday, February 1st, 2023.

You will be asked to submit:

—A biographical statement (maximum 500 words) This is your chance to let us know who you are, where you’re from, your performance background, and your current obsessions/projects. Please do not submit this in the third person or copy and paste your bio—we want to hear your story in your voice, in the first person. Talk to us.

—A statement of purpose (maximum 750 words) This
statement describes the reasons you want to participate in EMERGENYC. Please outline the specific issues you would want to address through the program and any preliminary ideas about the communities or practices that would ground this work.

—Your resume or CV

—Two (2) work samples (See Application Form for details)

—Contact information for the two (2) people writing you letters of recommendation. (Please select two recommenders as soon as possible, giving them ample time to write and submit your letters before February 1st.

—OPTIONAL: A paragraph explaining your request for financial aid to cover the tuition. Be as detailed as possible to help us understand the circumstances of your needs. Please note, if you are able to pay full tuition or more, you will make it possible for those who cannot afford full tuition to attend, which will strengthen your cohort.

Finalists will be interviewed via Zoom in February; the first registration payment will be due the second week of March. For any questions about the application form or how to apply, please send us an inquiry via the form below.

APPLY NOW BY CLICKING HERE

Nicolás: It is clear to me how Covid has revealed systemic oppression and exploitation. This applies to the institution in general and to the work that needs to be done from within. I admire the legacies of people like Angela Davis, Marcella-Althaus Reid, Robin D. G. Kelly, and bell hooks because they have made sure to talk to about class. I find that missing within the arts, including museums and galleries where conversations on race, gender and sexuality do not address issues of class. Did any of this surface in your conversations with people during Talk to the Future? 

María José Contreras: Coming from a Latin American country as Chile where class, more than any other factor, determines the opportunities you will have, the education you will get, and the health care you will access, I can’t avoid but thinking in terms of the oppressive system of classes. When I first came to the U.S. I was surprised that this didn’t seem an issue that received much attention. Of course, oppressive systems are always intersectional, but I agree with you that issues of class are usually missing in the arts here in the North. 

To read the full Q&I click HERE

Nicolás: I think of so many Caribbean comrades and of a Caribbean solidarity movement, at least within the creative field. Jean Ulrick Desért has generated a Creative Caribbean Community and Diaspora passport. The Salon has a copy of it in its archive. So complex. I mean the Caribbean, with all of its colonial connections and the severing(s) to be made. Where are you in this conversation about Caribeñidad? 

Quintín Rivera Toro: I have a basic argument regarding the fundamental processes for the unification of the Caribbean thought and efforts. First, there is language. All of the Caribbean speaks in different languages due to the cruel reality of having been colonized by the French, English, Danish, Spanish and, more recently, north american exploiters. Therefore, in a general, basic sense, we can’t communicate. Forget Babel, look at the Caribbean. Second, as romantic as it all may sound to develop a solidarity movement, for this, people need to meet, congregate, exchange and commerce together. Our airways and waterways are completely restricted by the military powers that be. We cannot visit our own fellow islanders freely, we cannot commerce freely, we are neoliberal slaves to north american capitalist interests. A sad and harsh truth. The place where the conversation ends and we drink up to forget.

To read the full Q&I click HERE

SEMINARS WITH ARTISTS
Join our Artist Research Fellows as they speak more about their experience working with the Hispanic Society's Collections!

We are pleased to announce a new series that brings contemporary artists into dialogues with the Hispanic Society vast collection. The first four seminars in this series have all received a grant from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to produce a new body of work during 2022. These artists have also received support prior to the NYSCA grant from the Vilcek Foundation to conduct research with our curators on the Hispanic Society’s Collection that related to their own artistic practice.

Here are the first four that will be presented virtually via YouTube Live: 

Thursday, November 10 at 6:00pm ET
Blanka Amezkua will present her project, FLORAL CURE: Pre-Hispanic medicinal flowers, consisting of 20 papel picado objects from the 185 illustrations in the Cruz-Badiano codex in which a facsimile copy is in the collection of the Hispanic Society. Using the traditional papel picado (paper cutting) technique, its tools and tissue paper, she will also discuss her floral papel picado depiction and their medicinal properties taken directly from the codex. Blanka Amezkua was formally trained as a painter. Her creative practice is greatly influenced and informed by folk art and popular culture, from embroidery, papel picado to comic books. Collaboration, radical pedagogy, and community building are central to her art practice and projects. Her identity, experiences, and artistic decisions are shaped by the reality that she is an immigrant  Mexican born-American artist living in New York City. 
To join the Live Stream, please use this link.

Thursday, November 17 at 6:00pm ET
Cecile Chong has created a bilingual (English/Spanish) Stop Motion Animation video depicting the origin and production of Talavera Poblana, the tin-glazed ceramics produced in Puebla Mexico. She will focus on blue-and-white ware and its development and trajectory from China to the Middle East, Europe and Mexico. The title “Conversations in Blue-and-White” refers to the intercultural dialogues carried on through trade throughout history, and exchanges and influences among cultures throughout the world. Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macau. Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation and video layering materials, identities, histories and languages. Her work addresses ideas of cultural interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share in our relationship to nature and to each other.
To join the Live Stream, please use this link. 

Thursday, December 8 at 6:00pm ET
Jessica Lagunas will discuss a new project “Feather Works” based on her research at the Hispanic Society, mainly in the textile collection. Her research on the collection’s Featherwork Bishop’s Miter and its PreHispanic technique has inspired her to retake, explore, and experiment with feathers, a material she briefly worked in the past. She also has been conducting research on the Mantones (shawls) de Manila.  She is presenting projects with feathers on paper and one on fabric—based on the HSM&L’s (Peony) Mantón. Jessica Lagunas grew up in Guatemala. She presents works that deal with the condition of women in contemporary society. She works with unconventional materials—makeup, hair, perfume, thread—to approach projects that question our relationships with others and with ourselves, and confronting fears by working obsessively in an intricate and laborious way.
To join the Live Stream, please use this link.

Thursday, December 15 at 6:00pm ET
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles’s research on the Virgin of Altagracia’s iconography, the spiritual protector of many in the Dominican Republic, as well as Haiti and the diaspora. Through Visioning the Brown Mother, an experiential excavation of HSM&L’s collection of images of the Mother exported/imposed to the so-called new world, Visioning the Brown Mother seeks to decolonize this iconography in varied geo-political perspectives through one-on-one dialogues/reflections, and through spontaneous in-person exchanges in the streets of the City. Nicolás’s one-person pilgrimage from his home in the South Bronx to Washington Heights (also home to the Hispanic Society), two enclaves of Dominican presence in New York City, takes into consideration a back and forth between these two loci informing one another culturally. Nicolás was born in the Dominican Republic. He threads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively or through experiences where the quotidian and art overlap. Many of his work is ephemeral as it is the experience of engaging with it. Nicolás’s creative praxis often includes community involvement and/or religious/spiritual questioning.
To join the Live Stream, please use this link. 

About the program
The artists’ new works and presentations are supported in part by, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State. The Artist Research Fellowship Program is also supported, in part, by the Vilcek Foundation.    

The exhibition Indecencia, curated by artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, provides an aesthetic context inspired by Indecent Theology, a theoretical framework coined by Argentinean Marcella Althaus-Reid (1952–2009). In the words of the author:

“Indecent Theology is a theology which problematizes and undresses the mythical layers of multiple oppression in Latin America, a theology which, finding its point of departure at the crossroads of Liberation Theology and Queer Thinking, will reflect on economic and theological oppression with passion and imprudence.”

The curatorial proposal questions ideas around "latinidad" and its relationship to religion, enfleshment, and sexuality. This selection of Latinx artists prove that representation and reflection on the margins of gender identity and sexuality need not be condemned to secularism. Through a wide diversity of media in which ephemeral acts are the protagonists, the exhibition addresses themes regarding the performativity of desire and self-determination, the seemingly contradictory religious cultures in Latin America, and the possible atonement for the abundance of guilt and resentment we have inherited from different processes of colonization. 

To read the full essay in English click HERE

Para leer el ensayo completo en castellano hacer click AQUÍ

INDECENCIA Participating Artists: Luis A., Arantxa Araujo, Arthur Avilés, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, Anna Costa e Silva y Nina Terra, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Marga Gomez, Félix González Torres, Nadia Granados (La Fulminante), Noelia Quintero y Rita Indiana, Carlos Martiel, Carlos Leppe, Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero, Iván Monforte, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Charles Rice-González, Jesusa Rodríguez y Liliana Felipe, Carmelita Tropicana & Uzi Parnes & Ela Troyano, y Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis.

Curated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

About Laura Rivera-Ayala:

Laura Rivera-Ayala obtuvo su bachillerato en Historia del arte en la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras y una maestría en Administración de Artes en New York University. Ha trabajado en The Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, The Mellon Foundation y proyectos curatoriales independientes. Laura is también fellow del National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute 2021. Ha publicado en Caribbean Studies Association Journal, Visión Doble (UPR) y The Puerto Rico Review.

To learn more about The Latinx Project click HERE

La transgresión como forma de combatir al sistema, el cuerpo como arma política, la sexualidad como forma de revolución, son algunos de los argumentos de ‘Indecencia’, muestra que recopila la obra de artistas latinxs en el Leslie-Lohman Museum que reivindican desde «la rabia, la fiesta, la protesta y la alegría de vivir». Una crónica de Andrés Senra.

De tod+s es bien sabido, aunque por much+s no reconocido, los estragos que el imperio español causó en lo que desde el reino de España se llamó “El Descubrimiento”, que consistió más bien en una invasión a fuego, hierro y crucifijo con el consiguiente genocidio de las Naciones Originarias del continente americano.

Para leer el ensayo completo hacer click AQUÍ

INDECENCIA / Artistas Participantes: Luis A., Arantxa Araujo, Arthur Avilés, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, Anna Costa e Silva y Nina Terra, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Marga Gomez, Félix González Torres, Nadia Granados (La Fulminante), Noelia Quintero y Rita Indiana, Carlos Martiel, Carlos Leppe, Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero, Iván Monforte, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Charles Rice-González, Jesusa Rodríguez y Liliana Felipe, Carmelita Tropicana & Uzi Parnes & Ela Troyano, y Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis.

Curada por Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

To learn more about Andrés Senra click HERE

CEC ArtsLink is pleased to announce the Art Prospect Residency Fellows 2022. 18 artists and curators from USA, Ukraine, and Belarus will conduct research, create new work, and collaborate with arts communities at Art Prospect Network partner arts organizations in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus/Germany, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan.

The Art Prospect Residencies focus on transnational collaborations in socially engaged and public art. The 2022 Art Prospect Fellows creatively work with host organizations and communities to address a spectrum of critical current issues, including forced migration, the transformation of the social environment, contested public monuments, energy infrastructure and climate change. 

Arts Prospect Residency Fellows 2022

Adrian Aguilera, conceptual multiform artist, TX, USA
Host: Silk Museum, Georgia

Annie Albagli, multimedia social and environmental artist, CA, USA
Host: Oberliht, Moldova

Bazinato (Bazil Stachievich), artist, researcher, social and environmental activist, Belarus
Host: Art and Creative Solutions Public Foundation, Kazakhstan

Natasha Chychasova, curator and researcher, Ukraine
Host: Suburb Platform, Armenia

Kevin Doyle, writer and director, NY, USA
Host: Art and Creative Solutions Public Foundation, Kazakhstan

Meredith Drum, interdisciplinary artist, VA, USA (residency completed)
Host: Structura Gallery, Bulgaria

Nicolás Estévez, multimedia artist and performer, NY, USA
Host: ArtEast, Kyrgyzstan

Lance Johnson, visual artist, OH, USA
Host: The Ilkhom Center for Contemporary Arts, Uzbekistan

Nastia Khlestova, curator, Ukraine
Host: Oberliht, Moldova

Tatiana Kochubinska, independent curator, writer and lecturer, Ukraine
Host: Structura Gallery, Bulgaria

Aliona Makhnach, multimedia artist, Belarus
Host: Oberliht, Moldova

Jill Miller, visual artist, CA, USA
Host: Suburb Platform, Armenia

Daria Pugachova, artist, performer and art activist, Ukraine
Host: Salaam Cinema, Azerbaijan

Sasha Razor, curator, researcher and author, CA, USA (residency completed)
Host: Ambasada Kultury, Belarus/Germany

Nadya Sayapina, interdisciplinary artist, Belarus (residency completed)
Host: Ambasada Kultury, Belarus/Germany

Jessica Segall, multidisciplinary artist, NY, USA (residency completed)
Host: Salaam Cinema, Azerbaijan

Kateryna Taylor, Ukraine
Host: ArtEast, Kyrgyzstan

Bogdana Voitenko, artist and educator, Ukraine
Host: Silk Museum, Georgia

Image: Film stillfrom"Human Energy", by USartist Jessica Segall. During her recentArtProspectResidencywith Salaam Cinema in Azerbaijan, Jessica focused on our addictiveandintimate relationship with oil. Azerbaijan, one ofthemost prolific oil producing countries, has a unique culture of using crude oil as a medicinal bathandsalve. In her performance forthevideoartwork, Jessica Segall considered oil's toxic legacy as well as its materiality as a medical salve.

The Art Prospect Network Residencies are supported by the Kettering Family Philanthropies, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

The Elders Council of Thrive Network & Thrive East Bay is offering two monthly Elders Circles – one for BIPOC folks and another for White folks - starting in Oct 2022. These circles are open to anyone over the age of 50 who is interested in exploring and claiming the identity of Elder, and to elder-identifying participants in Thrive’s. To join the Elders Circles, click HERE

These monthly Elder Circles will explore themes of conscious aging, Elder developmental qualities, the place of Elders in community, the dynamics of oppression/privilege in the lives of Elders, and other themes chosen, on a regular basis, by the members of the circles. The Elder Circles will be open on a drop-in basis and with an encouragement to attend regularly for the purpose of building community and deepening our journey into Elderhood.

The BIPOC Elders Circle will be facilitated by Ann-Ellice Parker & Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles, and the White Elders Circle will be facilitated by Drew Sproul & Kurt Kuhwald. Our intention is for the members of these two groups to ground themselves in their respective identities and to establish group agreements, creative processes and close relationships that will sustain their work. Given Thrive is a mixed race, multi-generational, collaborative network working to build Beloved Community for these times—we envision bringing these two Circles together over time in multiple ways that meet the authentic needs and developing vision of the members.

If you are someone who may be interested in joining us, click HERE. If you know anyone who may also be interested in these Elder Circles, you are welcome to share this opportunity with them.

To email the Elders Circles click HERE

We look forward to connecting further with you.

In partnership,

Thrive Elders Council   

To learn more about About Thrive Network click HERE

To register for one of the one-on-one sessions, click HERE

To discuss a time outside this schedule, please contact Nicolás HERE

Calling specifically people of Dominican and Haitian descent–living in the island or abroad–and Dominican, Haitian and BIPOC neighbors of Washington Heights, the Bronx and New York at large. While I am happy to making space for people from other backgrounds, the emphasis is mainly on the communities described above. During our encounters we engage on relational practices, conversations and stories regarding our mothers, mother figures or mother presences in our lives, as well as challenges we might be facing or have faced with this relationship. We will also dialogue about class, gender, race, colonization and decolonization as it pertains to the Virgin of La Altagracia. To participate contact me @interiorbeautyaslon

Painting of La Virgen de la Altagracia by Josué Gómez. Photo of offering and painting by Josué Gómez. Used with permission from the artist. About Josué Gómez: artwork / culinary services

In 2022, I engage in a one-person pilgrimage centered on La Virgen de La Altagracia, Tatica, the protector of the Dominican Republic and to some, of the whole Island. I hence plan to travel from the Bronx to Washington Heights, two enclaves of Dominican presence in the City. Up until recently, Washington Heights, Little Quisqueya, has been the epicenter of Dominican cultures, that is, until the burgeoning Dominican communities that are rapidly arising in the Bronx as a result of the gentrification of “The Heights.” My journey takes into consideration the back and forth between these two loci. Tatica, the short or nickname for Altagracia and the name of the Dominican protector and guardian saint of the country, has evolved to become one of the loas, spirits, of the Vodun pantheon named Alaila. Tatica is celebrated on January 21st. This pilgrimage will be presented as part of an artist fellowship research with the Hispanic Society of America, and it is funded by a NYSCA grant. 

This experience is dedicated to the late Juana Camacho (Mami) / A long-term Dominican resident of Washington Heights

We're pleased to announce the opening of INDECENCIA.

TO RSVP for the opening click HERE

INDECENCIA brings together a cohort of queer/rare* artists from Latin America and/or of Latin American descent and living in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean or in-between spaces/identities, whose praxes center on performance art and ephemeral actions. From the perspective of several generations, countries, and sociopolitical contexts, these artists invite us to consider Latinidad/Latinxidad and its relationship to religion, enfleshment, and sexuality. Their inquiries extend—through videos, props, scripts, costumes, and other channels—to the disjointed corpus of an entire hemisphere where, for many, the colonized and the colonizer can easily wrestle within a single body.

* “Raro” is the curator’s translation of “queer” in Spanish. “Raro” means strange, weird, or unusual.

INDECENCIA has already been named as a must-see exhibition in Hyperallergic's Fall Art Guide!

Participating artists: Luis A., Arantxa Araujo, Arthur Avilés, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, Anna Costa e Silva and Nina Terra, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Marga Gomez, Félix González Torres, Nadia Granados (La Fulminante), Noelia Quintero and Rita Indiana, Carlos Martiel, Carlos Leppe, Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero, Ivan Monforte, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Charles Rice-González, Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe, Carmelita Tropicana & Uzi Parnes & Ela Troyano, and Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis.

Curated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

Please join Leslie-Lohman, INDECENCIA curator Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles, and exhibition artists for an opening celebration September 15th from 6-8pm.

Para reservar para la apertura AQUÍ

INDECENCIA reúne a una cohorte de artistas rares* de América Latina y/o de ascendencia latinoamericana que viven en los Estados Unidos, Europa y el Caribe o en espacios/identidades intermedias, cuya praxis se concentra en el arte performativo y las acciones efímeras. Desde la perspectiva de varias generaciones, países y contextos sociopolíticos, estes artistas nos invitan a considerar la latinidad/latinxidad y su relación con la religión, la encarnación y la sexualidad. Sus cuestionamientos, mediante el uso de videos, utilería, guiones, vestuario y otros canales, abarcan el cuerpo desarticulado de todo un hemisferio donde, para muches, es perfectamente posible que la lucha entre colonizade y colonizadora/or/re ocurra en un mismo cuerpo.

* “Rare” es la traducción al castellano que hace el curador de “queer”.

Artistas Participantes: Luis A., Arantxa Araujo, Arthur Avilés, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, Anna Costa e Silva and Nina Terra, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Marga Gomez, Félix González Torres, Nadia Granados (La Fulminante), Noelia Quintero and Rita Indiana, Carlos Martiel, Carlos Leppe, Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero, Ivan Monforte, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Charles Rice-González, Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe, Carmelita Tropicana & Uzi Parnes & Ela Troyano, and Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis.

Curado por Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

Únase con Leslie-Lohman, el curador de Indecencia, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Raful Espejo Ovalles, y los artistas de la exposición para una apertura pública el 15 de septiembre de 6 a 8 p.m.

Museum Accessibility

For in person visits, five external steps lead to our main entrance: a wheelchair lift is available. All galleries are wheelchair-accessible.There is a single-occupancy accessible restroom located behind the visitor services desk. All restrooms are gender-neutral. For requests or more information, please email info@leslielohman.org

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art provides a platform for artistic exploration through multi-faceted queer perspectives. We embrace the power of the arts to inspire, explore, and foster understanding of the rich diversity of LGBTQIA+ experiences. Through annual exhibitions, public programs, educational initiatives, artist fellowships, and a journal, LLMA forefronts the interrelationship of art and social justice for LGBTQIA+ communities in NYC and beyond. Our collection includes over 25,000 objects spanning 4 centuries of queer art.

The Museum is generously supported, in part, by public funds from Mellon Foundation, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council. Programmatic support is also provided by the Achilles Family Fund; Booth Ferris Foundation; Keith Haring Foundation; John Burton Harter Foundation; and the Henry Luce Foundation. Individual support is proudly provided by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art's Board of Trustees and Global Ambassadors.

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The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is open Wednesday 12-5pm and Thursday - Sunday, 12-6 pm.

A group exhibition at New York's Leslie Lohman Museum of Art shows Latinx artists who reflect on their relationship to religion and sexuality against the background of colonialism and capitalism.

The small Leslie Lohman Museum in Lower Manhattan is New York's only queer museum. Established in 1969 as a private collection and gallery, it rose to prominence during the AIDS crisis when it saved art from dying gay artists that would otherwise have been lost. In 2016, the City of New York turned the collection into a museum, with new exhibition spaces, educational programs, and grants. With its new exhibition Indecencia (Spanish) – or shamelessness in German – it shows works by artists from Latin America who reflect on their relationship to religion and sexuality against the background of colonialism and capitalism.

To read the full text and to listen to the podcast click HERE

To learn more about Andreas Robertz click HERE / To listen to Andreas previous podcasts click HERE

To learn more about click HERE

Image above: Jean Ulrick Désert / The Passion, 2006
Digital prints with digital date stamps, printed 2015 / Courtesy of the artist; support for this installation provided by The 8th Floor, New York

Image Credit: Photo: © Bryson Rand, 2022. Courtesy of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.

INDECENCIA / September 16, 2022 - January 8, 2023 / Curated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

To learn more about Andrés Senra click HERE

Nicolás Dumit Estevez Raful Espejo Ovalles: Luke, we met through Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle in Colchester, not too far from London. The three of you were facilitating The First International Ecosex Symposium. I really relish this time together with the most unusual group of creative beings. Any memories or impressions?

Luke Dixon: It was the most wonderful of experiences, in a very quiet, rather conservative part of England, that embraced the radical ideas of the workshop. We created, experimented, cooked, and ate together, worked late into the night, and all as a way of exploring new ways in which as humans and artists we could reimagine our relationship with the planet. It was a wonderful group of people, coming together from all over the world to share and create. And for me it was a delightful opportunity to reconnect with the miraculous Annie and Beth.

NDEREO: I keep telling people about our Tree-somes, when we were gently tied to trees so as to develop intimate connections with them. So much to unEarth regarding this marvelous time in the English countryside. How did you get involved with this?

LD: I had worked with Annie and Beth on previous projects, including producing their Blue Wedding in Oxford, England.

To read the full Q&I click HERE

To read about Dr. Luke Dixon click HERE

To learn about the First International Ecosex Symposium click HERE

#COLLECTION / Explore the highlights of the El Museo’s Permanent collection on the Bloomberg Connects App @bloombergconnects, including audio by artists Elia Alba @asahinyc, Juan Sanchez @guaninsanchez, Nicolás Dumit Estévez @interiorbeautysalon, and more! To download the app, click HERE

El Museo’s permanent collection offers an in-depth perspective on Latino art and visual culture in the U.S.. Latin America, and the Caribbean. Raging from pre-Columbian to modern and contemporary art, the collection, totaling more than 8,000 objects, is a unique cultural resource that reflects the institution’s decolonized and diasporic history ethos, which since its founding in 1969, has envisioned three main cultures–Amerindian, African, and European–as the basis of visual cultures in the Americas.  

In an effort to create dialogues across histories, media, traditions, and other categorizations, the permanent collection has been re-envisioned into six evolving thematic sections, which include: Urban Experiences, Expanded Graphics, African and Indigenous Heritages, Craft Intersection, Women Artists, and Representing Latinx. With many of the artworks echoing across sections, such groupings represent a new approach to the range of typologies that constitute El Museo’s collection, which reflects the full diversity of Latino art. 

To learn more about El Museo del Barrio, click HERE

SVA’s 2022 Summer Residency City As Site is a nomadic program that explores the diverse communities that define New York City with the aim of creating context-specific, public, visual performative works. Faculty includes Alicia Grullón, Ed Woodham, LuLu LoLo, Kendal Henry, and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo. For more information on SVA’s Artist Residency Programs or to apply, please visit sva.edu/residency.

To register click HERE

Image depicting: Ed Woodham, Danger Deep Water / Courtesy of the artist

To visit the virtual exhibition click HERE

Franklin Furnace actively collects, preserves, and presents art in book form published internationally since 1976. The Franklin Furnace Artists’ Books Collection reflects contemporary artist’s experiments with the book form as a provocative medium, as well as their inquiries into the role of books in our culture and the digital age. 

Artists’ books have challenged centuries of artistic tradition and have finally begun to be acknowledged as valuable to art history. ​​The revolutionary concept of the artists’ book lies in granting artistic status to a commonplace, non-precious, and widely-distributed object through the choices and designations of the artist. Franklin Furnace accepts it at face value when an artist calls their work an artists’ book. The mission of Franklin Furnace’s collection is to promote boundary-breaking bookworks that challenge the entrenched assumptions of what constitutes art.

Curatorial Statement

As a celebration of FF’s 46th Anniversary, this exhibition highlights one artists’ book per year from 1976 to 2022, representing 60 international artists in total. Alongside the work of more traditional artists’ book-makers, and that of interdisciplinary artists whose experiences in performance or mail art influence their publications, “46” also features three new videos demonstrating the interactivity of specific artists’ books, as well as selections from The Anamorphosis Prize, 2015-17, an open competition celebrating the creativity and independent efforts of artists who self publish photo-based books. “46” explores the visual experience of books and “bookness” by highlighting innovations in physical formatting and raising questions about the relationships between the verbal and the visual, between creators and their audiences, mainstream or otherwise. With a desire to democratize and engage the public through inexpensive, wide-reaching formats, artists have made the printed book form into an “alternative space” outside the traditional gallery and museum structure.

To read an artists’ book is to experiment with notions of sequence, repetition, juxtaposition, and duration while allowing for new possibilities within the narratives, mediums, and meanings specific to each book. The works on display in “46” stretch the concept of materiality with their movable parts, specially-constructed containers, and easily-distributed formats including newspapers and pamphlets. Some artists even use forms which preclude turning pages, encouraging the reader to interact with their works in unfamiliar ways, such as flipping, turning, scratching, scrolling, and unfolding.

“46: Artists’ Books from Franklin Furnace Archive, 1976-2022,” the 7th Annual Live at the Library exhibition, is curated by Fang-Yu Liu and Nicole Rosengurt and presented in honor of Michael Katchen, Senior Archivist, Franklin Furnace, in partnership with Pratt Institute Library and support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Nicolás co-presenting with Healing Circles at Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ Foundation series:

Registration opens Monday, April 4th, 2022

Sessions: Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 11:00 AM–Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 12:30 PM EDT

Inspired by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ many lectures and articles, as well as her books,Life Lessons(2000), andOn Grief and Grieving(2005).

“We need time to move through the pain of loss. We need to step into it, really to get to know it, in order to learn.”

“Grief is not just a series of events, stages, or timelines. Our society places enormous pressure on us to get over loss, to get through grief. But how long do you grieve for a husband of fifty years, a teenager killed in a car accident, a four-year-old child: a year? Five years? Forever? The loss happens in time, in fact in a moment, but its aftermath lasts a lifetime.”

- Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

When we come to terms with loss as part of our human existence, the natural grief response guides us through a process of making meaning, finding a deeper purpose, and growing through our human experience. Because the impact of loss and our healing through grief is evolutionary and ongoing, it is greatly supportive to have access to a variety of approaches to sustain us through a lifetime of growth and transformation.

With the guidance and inspiration from Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ far-reaching, comprehensive, and thought-provoking legacy, we learn from experts in the fields of grief and end-of-life to acknowledge and connect with innovative perspectives and creative approaches that embrace loss as an integral part of life and support growth and healing through grief.

TOPICS INCLUDE: Cognitive, somatic, metabolization, externalization, cleansing, psychedelics, meditation, breathwork, art, sound & music, animals, writing/journaling, poetry, and more.

CLASS FORMAT:8 live Zoom sessions, recorded for replay. Participants will receive links to the recordings within 5 days of each live session. $85USD includes all 8 sessions and access to recordings.

TEACHING DYNAMICS INCLUDE:lecture, practice, workshop, conversation, ritual, experiential, and others.

To register click HERE

To learn more about the Elisabeth Kübler Ross Foundation click HERE

To access the archives click HERE

'Dominican Artists in the United States' is a digital project of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at The City College of New York devoted to disseminating the work of artists of Dominican descent living in the United States. This particular collection focuses on the artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful, whose works gain permanence through audios, photographs, props, drawings, rumors, embodied memories, costumes, websites, videos and publications.

Special thanks to Sarah Aponte, Hiroko Suda, Ching Jung Chen, and Jhensen Ortiz

To learn more about the Dominican Studies Institute click HERE

To access all collections click HERE