Red Sky at Night

EFA Project Space
New York, NY
08.07.24 – 08.16.24

Participating Artists:
Eissa Attar
jordana perrie bernstein
Cicada Chen
Tairan Hao
Rain Jacobson
Lin Li
Victoria Antoinette Megens
Emilie Slater
Di Tian
Jeiming Tsai

Hypothesis
Text by David Hartt

I stopped teaching a class, called Defense Against the Dark Arts, a few years ago. I stopped because I noticed and was frustrated by each student’s entrenchment into the unique precarity of their separate cultural positions. The class, or my teaching, failed to acknowledge or define the larger concept of a public sphere, a space where those individual positions are uncomfortably shared.

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that the University of the Arts, a storied and illustrious Philadelphia institution, was closing its doors. Speculative real estate expansion and declining enrollment spoke to a misalignment of financial and social values. Earlier this year the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest fine art school in the country, decided to wind down its degree granting programs, another casualty of the era. What does it mean to teach art, at an R1 research institution like the University of Pennsylvania? What is the value of art pedagogy and MFA programs, when the role of art is ill defined in the public sphere, when it becomes a reserve of the elite, no longer woven into the broader fabric of society, when we treat it as a form of entertainment in the experience economy, or, as simply an investment grade asset class.

How do we as artists participate meaningfully in the definition of social and cultural positions especially in moments of crisis? Take for example the concept of ‘Sovereignty', what does it mean in an era of failed states, virtual networks, and environmental catastrophe? The .yu domain name was retired 18 years after the dissolution of the Yugoslav state. The island nation of Tuvalu will most likely cease to exist in 50 years due to rising water levels. The 14th amendment, originally designed to grant citizenship rights to slaves, was used to grant personhood to corporations. Sovereignty is an unstable concept with real social, political, and economic consequences. We as artists have the platforms and the tools to investigate and dimensionalize how this or any other term or concept sits in the world. We contribute to the collective health, intelligence, and curiosity of our shared community. The artwork is a space for debate and practice a form of contention; responsive and accountable to the variety of publics it may encounter.

When asked to write something in support of the MFA traveling thesis exhibition, I couldn’t help but think reflectively upon this current moment, with an election on the horizon and the recent closures of arts education programs in Philadelphia, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. A thesis exhibition is already an awkward collection of works, a themeless framework that accommodates the full diversity of creative practice a spectrum of gender, socio-economic, cultural, and temporal positions. Restless as it may be though, perhaps that’s a good place to start, a fitting hypothesis of the public sphere.

Theories of Relativity

Tiger Strikes Asteroid
Philadelphia, PA
06.13.24 – 07.21.24

Curated by Maggie North & Hilde Nelson

Participating Artists:
Rain Jacobson
Alicia Riccio
Em Slater
Jacob Weinberg

Exhibition Text:

Theories of Relativity examines relation as a framework for contact in and across space and time. Relativity here encompasses two connotations, at once emphasizing interdependence—and the shifting, shaping, and mutual inflection implied therein—and modes of kinship and community. Working across video, installation, photography, and mixed media, and employing a range of analog and digital technologies, the artists in this exhibition consider how connection is made both physically and virtually. Thus, this exhibition stages a conversation around the generative possibilities of communication, transference, and the matrix of interrelation.

^{Documentation by Constance Mensh}

What’s A Public For?

Atelier Gallery
Philadelphia, PA
03.21.2024 - 03.30.2024

Curated by DJ Hellerman

Participating Artists:
jordana perrie bernstein
Rain Jacobson
Di Tian
Victoria Antoinette Megens
Jeiming Tsai
Gabe Seamon
Catching on Thieves
Lin Li
Erin Morris


Devil’s Brook I, 2024
Inkjet print, maple frame, acrylic
18 11/16 in x 12 11/16 in

Exhibition Text:

Making art and exhibiting art are two aspects of the vast contemporary art ecosystem. Each has a distinct temporality, methodology, philosophy, and purpose. Sometimes art making and exhibition making are synchronized; sometimes they’re not. Each artist in this show has been asked to present work that best represents what they are currently thinking about.

The practice of making, when characterized by iterative thinking and experimentation, creates specific types of embodied knowledge. These periods of intense growth are amplified by increased pressure and focus, and are often followed by instability – a tentative footing – and a necessary awkwardness that accompanies the pursuit of what’s unfamiliar and unknown. This process almost always happens privately, while exhibiting new work happens publicly. Showing art allows an artist to see the work working, to test if it holds up, and to further understand its language and modes of articulation.

What’s A Public For? is a choreographed, generative, and communal activity designed to bring the acts of making and showing closer together. The exhibition title is intended to encourage a deeper thinking about each artist’s disposition. In addition to focusing on individual artworks, the viewer is invited to pay particular attention to how the artists engage the world around – and within – them to gain a better understanding of their relationship with the public.

^{Documentation by Gordon Stillman}