The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation Announces Spring 2023 Programming at The 8th Floor
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
Announces Spring 2023
Programming at The 8th Floor
Ciaran Short, Soul Search, 2022. Video still. Courtesy of the artist.
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to announce its spring 2023 series of programs at The 8th Floor alongside Land of Tenderness, a solo exhibition by Bang Geul Han, which is now extended through June 24. Events include a discussion between curator and writer Barbara London with artists Bang Geul Han, Kay Rosen, and Erica Baum on media and text-based practices, as well as a book launch for A Sourcebook of Performance Labor by curator Joey Orr, who will be joined in a discussion on the ethics of participation by artist Dread Scott, writer Kyle Carrero Lopez, and artist Rudy Gerson.
The launch of Sight/Geist, our new open call for emerging NYC-based film/video artists, will occur over three thematic group screenings and discussions—Policing Reality, Reproducible Intimacy, and Dislocation—featuring works by Simone Barros, Cassandra Celestin, Lananh Chu, Steven Cottingham, Sarah Friedland, Haisi Hu, Erin Johnson, Anne Sofie Noerskov,Georgica Pettus, Jolie Ruelle, Jess Shane & Katie Mathews, Ciaran Short, Lauryn Welch & Eloise Sherrid, and Yu Yan.
All events are free and open to the public, taking place at The 8th Floor, 17 W 17th St, NYC. RSVPs are required at the individual links below.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Thursday, April 27, 6-8:30pm Sight/Geist: Policing Reality
This thematic group screening centers on the role of violence in day-to-day reality, including active shooter training, police brutality, the wide-reaching implications of the prison system, and the memories of an artist who lost his cousin to gun violence. Selected from our new Sight/Geist open call, these personal and highly charged films include A Camera Captures Images, A Court Sets Them Free (2021) by Steven Cottingham, Signal and Noise (2022) by Jess Shane & Katie Mathews, Soul Search (2022) by Ciaran Short, and Drills (2020) by Sarah Friedland. Event details can be found here.
Tuesday, May 9, 6-8pm
A Sourcebook of Performance Labor: Book Launch with Author Joey Orr and Discussion with Dread Scott, Rudy Gerson, and Kyle Carrero Lopez
This public discussion centers on the recent publication of A Sourcebook of Performance
Labor (Routledge 2023) by curator Joey Orr, which reorients well-known works of contemporary performance and social practice around the workers who have shaped, enacted, and supported them. Emerging from perspectives on maintenance, care, and affective labor, Sourcebook is filled with the voices of collaborators in notable works attributed to established contemporary artists including Francis Alÿs, Tania Bruguera, Suzanne Lacy, Ernesto Pujol, Asad Raza, Dread Scott, and Tino Sehgal. This research aims to add perspectives to the ways we understand these works and their contexts, exploring the category of performance labor through the experiences of participants who helped craft this body of work. In a discussion on the ethics of participation, Joey Orr will be joined by Dread Scott, Rudy Gerson, and Kyle Carrero Lopez. Event details can be found here.
Thursday, May 18, 6-8pm
Barbara London in conversation with Bang Geul Han, Erica Baum, and Kay Rosen
Curator and writer Barbara London will moderate a talk featuring artists Bang Geul Han, Erica Baum, and Kay Rosen, focusing on the conceptual underpinnings of their respective text-based practices. This multi-generational discussion is in concert with Han’s current exhibition Land of Tenderness at The 8th Floor. Each conducts aesthetic interrogations in text: Han examines the impact of legislative texts on marginalized bodies, Rosen finds new meanings in words by transforming their typography and exploding their distribution in space, while Baum’s background in linguistics informs her poetic photographic practice. Event details can be found here.
Thursday, May 25, 6-8:30pm Sight/Geist: Reproducible Intimacy
This thematic grouping of films addresses intimacy in a variety of bodily, reproductive, and emotional forms, chosen from our open call. Selections in this program include The Garden of Earthly Delights (2022) by Haisi Hu, There are things in this world that are yet to be named
(2020) by Erin Johnson, Philosopher’s Stone: The Planet Egg (2022) by Simone Barros, The Body Is A House Of Familiar Rooms (2021) by Lauryn Welch & Eloise Sherrid, and What I Want for You (2022) by Jolie Ruelle. Event details can be found here.
Thursday, June 22, 6-8:30pm Sight/Geist: Dislocation
This final screening program considers questions of land, belonging, movement, and autonomy through a range of artistic strategies and sociopolitical contexts. This thematic grouping features A Speaking Dendrobium (2022) by Yu Yan, Water & Wall (2021) by Cassandra Celestin, Sketches from Europe (2018) by Anne Sofie Noerskov, Coincidence of Wants (He Needs Me) (2022) by Georgica Pettus, and ˈpi-jən (2021) by Lananh Chu. Event details can be found here.
Extended through June 24
Bang Geul Han: Land of Tenderness
Thursdays-Saturdays 11am-6pm, or by appointment. Navigate here for details on visiting.
This solo exhibition by multidisciplinary NYC-based South Korean artist Bang Geul Han presents part one of Terre de Tendre, a new virtual reality work and accompanying video installation. The work is loosely based on the Carte du Tendre: a map created by a group of women in 17th century France that charts the path towards true love. Land of Tenderness also features recent works across a variety of media, with an emphasis on legislative changes including the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the difficult decisions it leaves for the most vulnerable among us in its wake. A full press release and further details can be found here.
About the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
The Foundation believes in art as a cornerstone of cohesive, sustainable communities and greater participation in civic life. In its mission to make art available to the broader public, in particular to underserved communities, the Foundation provides direct support to, and facilitates partnerships between, cultural organizations and advocates of social justice across the public and private sectors. Through grantmaking, the Foundation supported cross-disciplinary work connecting art with social justice via experimental collaborations, as well as extending cultural resources to organizations and areas of New York City in need. sdrubin.org
About The 8th Floor
The 8th Floor is an independent exhibition and event space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin to promote artistic and cultural initiatives. Inspired by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the gallery is committed to broadening the access and availability of art to New York audiences. Seeking further cultural exchange, The 8th Floor explores the potential of art as an instrument for social change in the 21st century, through an annual program of innovative contemporary art exhibitions and an events program comprised of performances, salon-style discussions, and those organized by external partners. the8thfloor.org
Follow: Facebook @SDRubinFoundation, Twitter @rubinfoundation, Instagram @rubinfoundation #LandofTenderness #BangGeulHan #SightGeist #RubinFoundation #The8thFloor #ArtandSocialJustice
For media inquiries, please contact: Max Kruger-Dull, max@bluemedium.com 212.675.1800
Image description: Three ghostly photos, re-colored as white with slight gray outlines, depict different angles of a man casually looking at the camera. The photos float as 3D objects over a dark red and black background.