“Multitudinous” Exhibition @ Aferro Gallery, Newark, NJ - October 7th – November 18th, 2022

Curated by Emma Wilcox and Candace Nicholson

October 7th – November 18th
Opening Reception – October 7th, 6-9pm
Eleta M. Caldwell and Rodney J. Gilbert Memorial Gallery

Participating Artists:

Katrina Bello
Ruth Borgenicht
Amy Faris
Bud McNichol
Lisette Morel
Michael K. Taylor
Mary Valverde
Heather Williams

Finding commonality when things are firmly controlled and anticipated is not hard. However, there is much to prefer instead in the pleasurable labor of making connections across our idiosyncrasies, our differences, and our approaches to art-making.

In Multitudinous, select alumni of Gallery Aferro’s two fellowship programs – the Sustainable Arts Fellowship and the Lynn and John Kearney Fellowship for Equity – will each present a profound representational artwork while answering the question: How do we first come to understand each other as a purposeful community of artists? 

By excerpting the ceaseless activity of 73 Market Street’s studios operating within the 16-year context of an artist-founded urban workspace, Multitudinous also celebrates a more recent development: the Sustainable Arts Foundation awarding Gallery Aferro prestigious multi-year funding in recognition of the excellence of our fellowship program for artist-parents, out of a national landscape of equally collaborative artist workspaces.

The residencies and fellowships here at Aferro do not tie artists to any specific mandate, but honor the labor for “the common wages of their most secret heart.” Several fellowship artists included in the exhibition will be making site-specific work, evidencing the important role of an artist-run space in supporting experimentation.

Multitudinous is also a joyous rejection of the alternative space as a mere “foyer” for commercial gatekeeping, to borrow Martha Rosler’s phrase. This is the pleasurable labor of seeing each other, in and out of moments of mainstream visibility, through processes, dialogues and realizations.

“Collecting Every Fragment” Fundraiser @ Pilot Projects, October 8th, 2022

The work includes 4 pieces or "Constellations" from "Cosmologic Balance," a multi-site ongoing installation started in 2016. Similar pieces from the work have traveled to multiple states and regions including Philadelphia, New York, Haiti, France, and the Middle East. Pieces of the larger work have been displayed in galleries, biennales, and public spaces.

Collecting Every Fragment presents a beautiful and diverse gathering of works for auction in service of benefitting our colleague, collaborator, confidant, co-conspirator, comrade, and above all friend, Filipe. In March Fil experienced a mental health crisis which led to his arrest and he has since been in county jail awaiting trial proceedings. His primary need now is support towards his legal fees and future health care. Through the auctioning of these works we hope to raise as much aid as we are able for our friend who has only ever shown equal kindness. With that in mind, we want to thank you for participating and hope you see something you love!

When you set a max bid, bids will automatically be placed on your behalf to outbid new bidders up to your max bid amount.

https://pilotprojects.betterworld.org/auctions/october-art-auction

We also have a gofundme page if you would like to contribute directly to his health and legal funds:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-help-our-beloved-fil

“Pages” @ Studio Montclair, Montclair, NJ
September 9 - October 15, 2022

Montclair, NJ, (August, 2022) – Studio Montclair is delighted to present “Pages,” an exhibit of contemporary artists books on display from September 9 through October 15 at Studio Montclair Gallery, 127 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, NJ. An opening reception will take place Sunday, September11 from 3:00 to 5:00pm.

Artists books are publications that have been conceived as artworks in their own right and can be created in formats ranging from traditional letterpress or illustrations on bound paper to scrolls or even elaborate sculptures. Materials may include paper, leather, fabric, metal, plant matter, feathers, string, wood—the list is endless.

According to Juror Pam Cooper, “No two artists can agree on the definition of an ‘Artist Book.’ The possibilities are endless. The book can be stitched, folded, glued, hung on cord, pinned to the wall, adhered to a substrate and framed or contained within a structure possibly influenced by the book form. Large or small it is a world of surprises…We were all told that with the inception of the digital book, the traditional book would be dead. Thankfully not, and there seems to be an increased interest in the artist book. Some artists took up the challenge and made books [specifically] for this exhibition opportunity.” Digital books are convenient but no substitute for the physicality of an actual book, and creativity suffers no limits within this art form, as you will see from the 40 books included in this intriguing and awe-inspiring exhibit.

Participating Artists:

Donna Bassin, Amy Benfer, Terry Berkowitz, Virginia Schaffer Block, Mariette Boerstoel, Buttered Roll, Maureen Bowie, Lynne Buschman, Suzanne Dittenber, Anne Elliott, Erica Engfer Pizza, Edward Fausty, Sally Fica, Jodie Fink, Sophia Francesco, Karen Fuchs, Colleen Sweeney  Gahrmann, Daniel Gluibizzi, Pam Grafstein, Alice Harrison, Marion Held, Jordan King, Susan Lerner, Eryn Lewis, Patricia Malarcher, Sarah Matthews, Chuck Miley, Karen Murphy,  Leslie Nobler, Jennifer Place, Astrid Sarkissian, Maria Scarpini, Debra Schore, Ela Shah, Alix Anne Shaw, Heather Stivison, Michael Taylor, Dara Tesse, Bill Westheimer, Sonia Yaco

Gallery Aferro, Project for Empty Space, and Index Art Center are pleased to announce an official joint partnership for Newark’s Spring Open Studios, held on Saturday, April 13th, from 12-5pm, in Newark, NJ.

This collective invites the general public to come visit 75+ artist studios between our three non-profit anchor arts institutions. Between gallery/studio facilities we house creative practitioners ranging from photographers, to musicians, painters, writers, multidisciplinary artists and more.

This alliance came out of the natural shared interest to best serve both our artist community and our tristate area art enthusiasts. We’d like to capitalize on the fact that there is a wealth of artists within walking distance of one another that attendees can celebrate on one lovely Saturday. The day will culminate with an after party from 6 – 8pm at the Newark Print Shop, where artists and attendees from all three spaces can meet and celebrate. We look forward to welcoming all of you to engage with the arts in Newark.

For more information visit newarkopenstudios.org

THE BODY QUESTIONS: CELEBRATING FLAMENCO’S TANGLED ROOTS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 15–16, 2018 NEW YORK CITY

Program Link

The Foundation for Iberian Music at The Barry S. Brooks Center for Music Research and Documentation at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Department of Film, Media, and Performing Arts at The Fashion Institute of Technology are hosting a two-day international conference and flamenco performance festival in New York on October 15–16, 2018.  

This interdisciplinary series of events, free and open to the public, fosters dialogue between scholars, flamenco artists, and audiences about flamenco as a diasporic and migratory art. We aim to articulate the work of dance in transmitting culture—including ideas about race—and to broaden understanding of the historical and political forces driving these processes. Marking the release of K. Meira Goldberg’s monograph Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco (Oxford University Press, fall 2018), The Body Questions will present research and experimentation which foregrounds the power of the body to question, to disrupt outmoded discourses of “authenticity,” and to work instead to relocate flamenco within a vibrant intersection of art as a celebration of diversity and agency against racism. We seek to identify, deconstruct, reflect on, debate, and ultimately reformulate our understanding of Spain’s impact on slavery, of dance as questioning and disrupting racism, and of flamenco as an Africanist art form.

Performance Festival 

On October 15, a performance festival, free and open to the public, will be held at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in the Haft Theater (Feldman Center building). It features a screening of Miguel Ángel Rosales’s powerful documentary film, Gurumbé: Canciones de tu memoria negra(2016), telling the little-known story of slavery in Spain, along with a performance by Yinka Esi Graves, whose emergence onto the international stage is disrupting the “color barrier” in flamenco, and a conversation between Rosales, Graves, and renowned dance historian Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild (Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance, 1996). Two additional concerts showcase a diverse group of black and brown flamenco dancers, whose work challenges us to see flamenco in a new light.

Gallery Aferro’s 5th Sustainable Arts Fellow (Fall/Winter 2019)

Michael K. Taylor is a project-based artist primarily developing interactive artworks using sculpture, performance, and audience interactivity. His artistic practice is founded in researching and experiencing communities, environments, and social theories as primary influences for narrative-based works. Material, color, line, and form are used as metaphors referencing a wide range of subject matter from observing physical movements of people within a community to re-articulating site-specific history into speculative fiction futuristic narratives.

Most recently, Taylor has been working toward bringing together his art-making, researching, and teaching into art projects that function as archives for art history and community experiences. In the last few years, he’s traveled to countries such as Japan, Haiti, England, and France doing research into institution, academic, and community archives.

As he’s continued his work over the years, his primary questions have been, what are some ways humans have creatively archived and shared the human experience outside of art-making and art history? Can those strategies and approaches be reincorporated into contemporary art practices and used to increase the accessibility of artists’ perspectives back into a diverse general public? Can I find creative ways to maximize that accessibility to under-served communities using sensory stimulating art strategies and aesthetics? He is now pursuing answers to these and other questions through his art-making practice.

Additionally as an experienced educator and performer, he is greatly interested in how art education and interactivity can function like a medium or media in an art practice that gives back to its audience.

Alchemist Archive Performance 2016 Thesis at Tyler Contemporary

Water Plus Time (Lost Video Performance Still)