Queens Museum Announces New Artist Fellows, Studio Residents and Services

January 21, 2015, QUEENS, NY — The Queens Museum announces the inaugural recipients of the Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, the 2014-2015 Queens Museum Studio Program artists, and the Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program, three initiatives that exemplify the Museum’s commitment to serving artists. The artists themselves represent the intersection of creative vitality and social engagement that the Museum embodies, and individually bring tremendous vision and skill to their practice.

Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists
The Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists was established in 2014 to help emerging visual artists in New York City. Each year, three dynamic artists will receive stipends of $20,000 each, the opportunity to exhibit a project at the Queens Museum, and professional development support from the Museum’s staff. The following artists were selected out of more than 800 applications by a selection panel consisting of Hitomi Iwasaki, the Museum’s Director of Exhibitions; Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibitions, Museum of Chinese in America; and Naomi Beckwith, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Meredith James (b. 1982, New York, NY): Encompassing video, sculpture, and theater, James’ work explores the mechanism of perception and the fallibility of observation to reveal the surprising and disorienting potential in the world around us. Meredith holds a BA from Harvard University (2004), an MFA from Yale University (2009), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is the recipient of the Abrons Art Center AIR Space Residency (2014) and the Lighthouse Works Fellowship. In addition to her own practice, she is a curator and co-founder of Primetime Gallery in Brooklyn.

Kameelah Rasheed (b.1985, Palo Alto, CA): As an artist-archivist and material-based historian, Rasheed’s work attempts to reconcile her experiences of displacement through archival installations that map conversations between found material culture, ephemeral historical residue, personal objects, self-authored books and photography and act as a forum where the private becomes public and the personal collides into the universal. Originally from East Palo Alto, California, Kameelah Rasheed holds a BA in African Studies and Public Policy from Pomona College (Claremont, CA) and an Ed. M. from Stanford University (2008). She is a photographer, archivist, arts and culture journalist, editor, curator, and instructor based in Brooklyn, NY.

Casey Tang (b. 1984, New York, NY): While tapping into diverse disciplines including ecology, musicology, and narratology, Tang puts actions, experiences, objects and installations into works that create liminal areas that re-contextualize and compare systems, information, histories, and paradigms. Recently, Tang has become interested in abstractions of form and narrative as a means of creating disassociation from cultural norms and incorporating non-western worldviews—such as humor and contradictions found in Zen Koans and ritual clowns—and cultural outputs to create and critique new, hybrid worldviews. Casey Tang has a BFA from SUNY Purchase (2006) and has exhibited in the US, Europe, and China. He will participate in "CAFAM Future” Exhibition: Observer-Creator at the Central Academy of Fine Art Museum, Beijing. Most recently he has had a solo exhibition at Charpa Gallery, Valencia, Spain and is working on the Forest Garden Lab Project at Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY and First Sounds, Booklyn, Brooklyn, NY. He is a recipient of the 2013 New Vision Award from He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China.

The Queens Museum Studio Residency Program
As part of its 2013 expansion, the Museum added eight artist studios and introduced the Queens Museum Studio Program.  One of the only US studio programs housed within a major museum, these highly subsidized spaces are available for one year terms with possible extension to a second year. Artists are selected through a juried open call and  are encouraged to avail themselves of all resources of the Museum and in the surrounding neighborhoods.  

The 2014-2015 cohort brings two new artists and one new artists’ collective—Nobutaka Aozaki, Brian Zegeer and galeria perdida—to the existing group of  Juan Betancurth, Onyedika Chuke, Caitlin Keogh, Jewyo Rhii, and Caroline Woolard.

An exhibition of their work, which will also include 2013-14 studio artists Michael Kenney and Bunny Rogers & Filip Olszewski,will be on view March 22 – June 28, 2015.

Nobutaka Aozaki (b. Kagoshima, Japan): Nobutaka Aozaki is a New York-based artist whose work is collective, participatory, and performative by using his everyday interactions with people as an ongoing source of artistic inspiration. He received an MFA from Hunter College in 2012. His recent exhibitions include "Queens International 2013”, Queens Museum, New York, 2013), "C12 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition” at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2013), "Superpositions: New Wight Biennale 2012”, University of California, Los Angeles (2012). In 2014 His work will be included in "Crossing Brooklyn” at the Brooklyn Museum, New York. He was a recipient of A Blade of Grass Artist Files Grant (2013).

Brian Zegeer (b. Lexington, KY): Brian Zegeer’s works encounter the Appalachian and Lebanese landscapes of his parentage as highly-charged networks of affiliation and group narrative. Zegeer believes that the process of stop-motion animation can catalyze objects in the landscape to reveal metaphoric, political, and forensic content–the ghosts of their obscure histories. At the Queens Museum, Zegeer will stage the Little Syria Archive, a collection of historical artifacts, stereoscopic 3D animations, and public encounters transcribing the history and notable luminaries of New York’s first Arabic enclave. Zegeer also co-hosts the interview-based radio program I Ran into Iran (Creativetime Reports, ResonanceFM, London). He received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, attended Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting in 2010, and has recently shown at The Queens Museum, The Delaware Art Museum, The Jersey City Museum, Louis V. ESP, Regina Rex, Elga Wimmer Gallery, and Stephan Stoyanov Gallery.

galería perdida: galería perdida was established in Chilchota, Michoacán in 2005. They currently live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Past exhibitions include Zelda Zonk, Preface Gallery, Paris 2013; somos fabricantes de alimentos en cuero, Casa del Lago, Mexico DF 2013; Let’s Smell it Together, CUE Art Foundation, NY 2013; If the moment should fail us, Poprally, MoMA; INCIDENT 57: Two Chins to Swallow, Incident Report; La carne de burro no es transparente, Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles; Matryoshka, Recess Activities; all we ever wanted was everything, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. They also host an annual artist residency, What do you know about Chilchota, fool? in Michoacán, Mexico.

Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program
Open A.I.R. draws on the Queens Museum’s resources, staff expertise, and networks to provide workshops and lectures that help artists grow their practice, advance their career, and develop sustainable lives as artists. Given the Museum’s commitment to socially-engaged art that crosses sectors, as well as attention to its role in neighboring communities, Open A.I.R. works to expand the notion of who is an artist and, moreover, utilizes a holistic view of how to support their potential to thrive and contribute to the cultural landscape of Queens and New York City more broadly. Tailored to artists in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx, Open A.I.R. prioritizes the needs of artists of color, queer artists, and immigrant artists, facilitating conversations where art meets activism, and organizing experiences that bring together artists and non-artists. These goals are addressed through the following vehicles:

Public Talks by Artists and Curators
How do diverse artists and curators accomplish their work at various points in their careers, develop methods for sustaining their practice in multifaceted ways, and impact their fields?

Workshops for Immigrant Artists
Technical and conceptual workshops that help artists coming from different cultural backgrounds to access the vibrant art worlds of New York City, while building upon and sustaining their traditions.

Technical Workshops by Museum Professionals
Queens Museum employees have experience in numerous aspects of art production, finance, programming, education, documentation, promotion, and installation that they are eager to share with working artists to accomplish their goals.

Professional Development and Networking for Artists
Collaborations with other artist-serving organizations to connect artists to opportunities, spaces, and people that can support their careers, from speed consultations with local professionals to networking mixers with their peers.

Artists Sharing Methodologies
Get an in-depth look at innovative ways of working with esteemed local and international artists, sometime drawing upon Museum exhibitions and programming.

Dinners Without An Agenda
Informal and intimate agenda-less meetings with other artists and art professionals can be incredibly fruitful and generative for artists. These monthly get-togethers encourage artists to come ask questions, discuss their work, and share a delicious meal at a tasty Queens restaurant.

Funding
The Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship Program for Emerging Artists in New York City is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation, celebrating its 50th anniversary. Artist services at the Museum are made possible by a generous grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. Additional support provided by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Legislature.

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