Venus X
In Conversation with Kari Rittenbach
As a DJ, Venus X isn't afraid to draw widely—from Dominican dembow, local underground rap, Turkish techno... you might even catch a bit of Al Jazeera in there. She's a beloved Warm Up DJ (gracing us in 2010, 2017, and 2018), and on Friday, August 12, she's BACK for Summer Fridays, our curated series of DJ sets in August! Grab a ticket to reserve your spot (it's free with admission!).
In preparation for the set, Venus X sat down with Assistant Curator Kari Rittenbach for a conversation about the ✨ created between DJs and audiences on the dance floor.
Related Program
Summer Fridays
Summer Fridays
Artists Make New York
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Video: Noel Woodford
“New York has seen a lot of different versions of myself. And what can be more home than that?”
You're not a real New Yorker until this city has seen you cry, yell, fall in love, fall on your ass, and fall asleep on the train at 2 a.m. Tatyana Fazladah takes us on a walk through Bed Stuy, Brooklyn to show us the block that has SEEN her.
Tatyana collaborated with Nanibah Chacon and Layqa Nuna Yawar on a participatory mural project, After the Fire, which comes to life on our Courtyard walls in just a few weeks!
Related Program
After the Fire
Life Between Buildings
Becky Howland. Tied Grass. 1977. Site-specific installation on traffic island bounded by Franklin Street, Varick Street, and West Broadway
Courtesy the artist. Photo: Becky Howland.Black Trans Liberation
Power and Purpose
Black Trans Liberation: Power and Purpose at MoMA PS1 on 16 Aug, 2021. Photo: Noel Woodford
Black Trans Liberation founder Qween Jean led a closing event for the Homeroom activation Black Trans Liberation: Memoriam and Deliverance. The afternoon included a panel discussion with Black trans leaders Ms. Ceyenne Doroshow, Tahtianna Fermin, Gia Love, Devin Michael Lowe, Raquel Willis, B. Hawk Snipes, and Marquise Vilsón Balenciaga. Following the discussion, Qween Jean held space on Rashid Johnson’s Stage to mark the closing.
Cooking with Artists
C. Spencer Yeh
To be clear: you're DEFINITELY f🥗cking up your salad. But you won't find any in our next Cooking with Artists. C. Spencer Yeh explores noise, embodiment, and experimentation as entry points into the fine art of Taiwanese fried chicken. 🍗🤘🍗
Grab the recipe and read the full conversation with Mina Stone, Chef and owner of Mina's restaurant in MoMA magazine below. And for goodness sake, bring napkins.
To be clear: you're DEFINITELY f🥗cking up your salad. But you won't find any in our next Cooking with Artists. C. Spencer Yeh explores noise, embodiment, and experimentation as entry points into the fine art of Taiwanese fried chicken. 🍗🤘🍗
Grab the recipe and read the full conversation with Mina Stone, Chef and owner of Mina's restaurant in MoMA magazine below. And for goodness sake, bring napkins.
2
Image courtesy of C. Spencer YehDeana Lawson
Deana Lawson. Hair Advertisement. 2005. Pigment print. Courtesy the artist; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. © Deana Lawson
Cecilia Vicuña on her Sidewalk Forests
As told to Jody Graf
Cecilia Vicuña. Sidewalk Forests. 1981 (printed 2022). Archival inkjet prints. Site specific performance installation by Cecilia Vicuña.
Photo by Cesar Paternosto. Courtesy the Artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London. ©️ Cecilia Vicuña, 1981.Cecilia Vicuña. Sidewalk Forests. 1981 (printed 2022). Archival inkjet prints. Site specific performance installation by Cecilia Vicuña.
Photo by Cesar Paternosto. Courtesy the Artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London. ©️ Cecilia Vicuña, 1981.Cecilia Vicuña. Sidewalk Forests. 1981 (printed 2022). Archival inkjet prints. Site specific performance installation by Cecilia Vicuña.
Photo by Cesar Paternosto. Courtesy the Artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London. ©️ Cecilia Vicuña, 1981.Cecilia Vicuña. Sidewalk Forests. 1981 (printed 2022). Archival inkjet prints. Site specific performance installation by Cecilia Vicuña.
Photo by Cesar Paternosto. Courtesy the Artist; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London. ©️ Cecilia Vicuña, 1981.Cecilia Vicuña sat down with Jody Graf, curator of Life Between Buildings, to talk about her Sidewalk Forests—small, site-specific performance installations she made in easily-overlooked interstitial spaces of the city. She saw these works, in which bits of thread and dashes of chalk highlight weeds bursting through the pavement, as “small altars on the streets of New York, air vents for the earth, pasture born in the gutters.”
These ephemeral actions exist today in photographs and an accompanying poem that Vicuña wrote on the back of one, which translates to, “the earth breathes through the pavement’s cracks.” Drawing on Indigenous knowledge and her ecofeminist thought, Sidewalk Forests distill an awareness of the fragility and persistence of nature in the face of human intervention.
Related Program
Life Between Buildings
The New York Oyster Conference
A conversation about oysters is about so much more than oysters.
Full video of the New York Oyster Conference is now available! Held in conjunction with Greater New York, the conference brought together artists, environmental advocates, and scholars to discuss not only the evolution of New York's oyster population, but what oysters can teach us about how colonialism has shaped the social and ecological landscape of the city.
The event included Alan Michelson and Shanzhai Lyric, artists featured in the exhibition, in addition to Tanasia Swift of the Billion Oyster Project and Omar Tate of Honeysuckle Projects. They discussed the myriad of cultural and environmental roles that oysters have played in New York’s past, along with the future possibilities for oysters in the city’s cultural and environmental preservation. The presentations was followed by a conversation moderated by Ayasha Guerin, Assistant Professor of Black Diaspora Studies at the University of British Columbia.