Artists or Institutions
Feb 25–Apr 22, 2021
Session 1: Alan Ruiz
Session 2: Christopher Udemezue and Andrea Solstad
Session 3: Steffani Jemison and Quincy Flowers
Session 4: farid rakun
Session 5: Florian Pumhösl
Recordings of each session are available below
This spring, SculptureCenter and the Artist’s Institute at Hunter College are co-organizing a series of talks and conversations intended to inspire new thinking about the future of small arts institutions. All of the invited speakers are artists who have deep and varied experiences working within and alongside arts organizations. Experimentation, artistic leadership, racial and economic justice, community building, and sustainability are among the topics they’ll discuss.
This series assumes that as the conditions of living and working in New York have changed over the last 50 years, the city’s arts institutions (museums, non-profits, art schools) have changed too—internalizing rising social and economic inequality through expansion, professionalization, and scarcity-based models of “success.” These changes have dramatically affected how artists interact and find community with one other. They have changed artists’ expectations for their professional lives. We often hear institutions say they care about artists. Yet we want to ask again: What does it mean to center artists and their needs, really?
In the undercommons, Fred Moten exhorts us, drawing on the curriculum of the Freedom School, to ask what we have that we want to keep––working from a place of abundance as we imagine our collective futures. The artists we’ve invited have a plenitude of resources to share, ones we expect will transform how we look at our organizations. We invite others who are working toward a more just and interesting future for artists to join us in hearing what they have to say.
All sessions are free and open to the public. Live captioning will be provided. This program is developed alongside the course “Artists’ Co-Op II” at the Artist’s Institute at Hunter College.
To watch the sessions, scroll down.
Sponsors
Leadership support of SculptureCenter’s exhibitions and programs is provided by Carol Bove, Jill and Peter Kraus, Lee Elliott and Robert K. Elliott, Eleanor Heyman Propp, Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins, and Robert Soros and Jamie Singer.
SculptureCenter’s annual operating support is provided by the Elaine Graham Weitzen Foundation for Fine Arts; the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation; the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; Jacques Louis Vidal; A. Woodner Fund; Libby and Adrian Ellis; The Fox Aarons Foundation; The Willem de Kooning Foundation; Teiger Foundation; Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Cy Twombly Foundation; Stavros Niarchos Foundation; Blavatnik Family Foundation; Arison Arts Foundation; The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation; David Rockefeller Fund; Henry Luce Foundation; Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation; Robert Lehman Foundation; The Destina Foundation; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; New York City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer; and contributions from our Board of Trustees, Director’s Circle, and SC Ambassadors. Additional support is provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation and contributions from many generous individuals and friends.
