WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART study sessions

On Friday, June 9, 7:30–9PM, Codify Art will be hosting a Study Session at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

So what is a Study Session? From the Whitney's Public Programs:

Study Sessions is a new, ongoing event series inspired by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s notion of study as “what you do with other people.” For each Study Session, an artist, writer, or cultural worker selects an artwork on view in the Whitney’s galleries as a departure point for thinking through an urgent question in our contemporary political landscape. Participants are invited to join in open-ended discussions and engage with creative practice. Study Sessions may take the form of workshops, listening parties, performances, readings, or film screenings.

For our Study Session, we will be responding to the Whitney’s newest exhibition, WHERE WE ARE: SELECTIONS FROM THE WHITNEY’S COLLECTION, 1900–1960. 

Where We Are "traces how artists have approached the relationships, institutions, and activities that shape our lives. Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s holdings, the exhibition is organized around five themes: family and community, work, home, the spiritual, and the nation." 

War Series: Shipping Out by Jacob Lawrence

Codify Art will facilitate a conversation around the themes of Nation and Work with Jacob Lawrence's War Series (1947) and Elizabeth Catlett's I am the Negro woman linocuts as our departure points. Framed as a writing and zine-making workshop, our Study Session examines the work as each artists' effort "to create her or his own vision of American life" and invites you to share your own contemporary reimagining. Bring a pen or pencil!

THE SURVIVAL LIBRARY at The Whitney Study Sessions

ICYMI, Codify Art is working with Pioneer Works' School of the Apocalypse to bring you The Survival Library, a project that:

...aims to consolidate and contribute to an ongoing collection of publications and media works centered around the personal narratives of W/Q/T/POC. We respond to the hostility of American society by amassing the knowledge gained in the course of our individual navigations into a shared archive. The Survival Library does not seek to replicate pre-existing nexuses developed for concrete resistance actions, which are invaluable and already available. Instead, it seeks to create an analogous resource for emotional responses: a confirmation that You Are Not Alone in your experiences, a torch warded against this gaslighting world of “alternative facts.” The [works are] available online and/or in-person—depending on optimal channels of dissemination—as a guerrilla hub of valid, examined feelings.

searching for a home that holds all of me (2017) Sharina Gordon

Trans (2017) Jarrett Key

Physical works from this archive will be on view at our workshop! Be inspired, feel seen, and connect with folks from your community. Our goal for the Study Session is that you leave with the beginnings of a zine that tells your story. We hope that you'll contribute to this ever-growing collection of QTPOC voices and works. See you soon. 

STANDARD STANDARD FEATURE: EMILY OLIVEIRA

As we end the fourth day of our exhibition STANDARD STANDARD at SPRING/BREAK Art Show, this evening’s feature is no other than Emily Oliveira. You have never seen anything like their Labor-In-Vain series, so come to room 2324 on Sunday or Monday, March 5th and 6th!

Labor-In-Vain is a series of embroidered pillows and banners featuring women bodybuilders. The work highlights the connection between the domestic labor of women’s crafts, the invisible labor of outsourced black and brown women textile workers, and the labor of women bodybuilders. The assemblage materials used on the pillows interrupts their utility and rejects the misinterpretation of the handmade as a charming relic of the past. Instead these materials place the act of the handmade in the present and visceral world of global labor and materials culled from dinner scraps. Labor-In-Vain touches upon the ways in which feminized labor is marginalized both when it aligns with the desires of men/the market, and when it directly opposes and seeks to subvert those desires.

Emily is a Brooklyn-based performance artist, sculptor and costume designer. They are a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and studied performance at Brown University. Outside of their visual art practice, Emily’s performance works include I Am One of Them and So Are You (Brown University), DELILAH (What Is Love? Baby Don’t Hurt Me) (Hot! Festival of Queer Theater at Dixon Place), Everything Happens for a Reason (Judson Memorial Church), So Thick That Everybody Else in the Room is so Uncomfortable (Cloud City), Do You Ever Long for True Love From Me (Judson Memorial Church) and KINGS AND QUEENS OF LOVE (Ars Nova). Their work uses transcribed text, original and popular music, dance, and full-body costumes to subvert the despotism of white femininity and examine narratives about love, sex and race in American popular culture. Their costumes have been shown at The Judson Memorial Church, Invisible Dog, The Center for Performance Research and Theatre for the New City.

Emily’s pieces are such a satisfying complement to the strong QTPOC narratives found in STANDARD STANDARD. 4 Times Sq. Don’t miss out!

STANDARD STANDARD FEATURE: MARTINE GUTIERREZ

We had a great first day at SPRING / BREAK Art Show! Be sure to check us out at 4 Times Square, Floor 23 in Room #24. We'll be here March 1-6, from 11am-6pm daily. 

Next up in our artist feature is Martine Gutierrez.

Sitting down with Martine was such a pleasure. The conversation about her work began with her name: Martín to Martine.

“Hands Up was kind of the first music video. I guess I made a few music videos in high school, but this was kind of the beginning of this pop star persona I started cultivating. And at that time also, my name was spelled Martín—with an accent over the “i,” no “e.” And no one could say that—especially in Vermont in high school—And they would just add the “e,” like a French girl, Martine. That kind of switch of gender, that fluidity of gender… it was such a gift that I really didn’t fully appreciate until college. And then in college I thought I should play with it as this pop star character. So I gave that pop star that name, and it’s funny because now that’s the name I’ve adopted in my real life.”

— Martine (edited)

Interested in the fluidity of relationships and the role of genders within them, Martine offers mannequins in her own stead to explore the diverse narratives of intimacy. Acting as a conduit, Martine supplies a framework that facilitates a dialogue requiring the viewer to question their own perceptions of sex, gender, and social groups.

Hands Up, reflecting old Hollywood glamour, was the first time that she had collaborated with many people. It also features her first unreleased single, which was selected by Saint Laurent Paris for their Cruise Collection 2012 video editorial. Her music has since been featured by several other fashion houses, including Christian Dior and Acne Studios.

Don’t miss a chance to check out Martine’s iconic installation at STANDARD STANDARD.

STANDARD STANDARD FEATURE: JON KEY

Today is the first official day of SPRING / BREAK Art Show! We'll be featuring the individual artists in our curatorial project STANDARD STANDARD throughout the exhibition. Be sure to check us out at 4 Times Square, Floor 23 in Room #24. We'll be here March 1-6, from 11am-6pm daily. 

First up is Jon(athan) Key. Jon is a Black Artist, Designer, and Writer. Raised in rural Alabama, Jon started visual art and design at an early age. At 10, Jon taught himself HTML and Java Script. Design became a major tool for his artistic expression. It wasn’t until high school that he began to focus on developing a strong traditional art practice. After summers spent at SCAD and RISD in pre-college programs, Jon matriculated to RISD for his formative art years.  

Jon’s work explores the tension and fragmentation of identity. Through collage, installation and painting he creates intimate spaces that recount the experiences of confronting his own queerness, blackness, southerness, and family. He has two pieces from his Man in Violet Suit Series showing at Codify Art’s booth in SPRING/BREAK Art Show. He sold his first painting, Man in the Violet Suit No 3 (Red), during yesterday's press preview! The Man in the Violet Suit series plays on the assumption of self-portraiture. The collaged elements are painted, claiming the verisimilitude of photography in role but embodying the ambiguity of pictorialization in form; the Man, who may or may not be the artist, explores how distance from perception cannot fully negate the gradation between the viewer and the self.

Building upon queerness and blackness as themes in his work, Jon’s installation Cotton and Magnolia focuses on family and southerness. This series forces the viewer to reflect on the past and present burdens of the Black Family in the South. Harkening on bourgeois home aesthetics, the Cotton and Magnolia wallpaper signifies the historical and transgenerational trauma built within the foundation and walls of our society. With a statue cast from his own hands and a collage film based on images created for his zine WE, Jon builds strong narratives that immerse the viewer in a breadth of perspectives and ideas.

We are so proud to have Jon's work as a part of our show STANDARD STANDARD. Check it out, before it’s too late!