QMAil: August 2006

Jump to: |EVENTS| 

It is August and rather than extolling the virtues of visiting art museums as a way to expand our understanding of the world at large, it seems that this week in particular, we should all view these vast temples of the visual arts as wonderfully air conditioned escapes from the both the natural and manmade environmental elements that surround us. That said, if you are looking for both a cool, indoor sanctuary and a poignant art experience that will shed new light on the world around you, you are in luck. With four new artist's projects by Carlos Amorales, Graciela Fuentes, Diego Medina and Dulce Pinzon on view, as well as Propia Vision/Our Vision, a new group show of photography by 19 Mexican artists, you will have the opportunity to examine factors of everyday life that are often overlooked. In addition, if you still haven't found the time to experience Mexico City through ABCDF, time is wearing thin. However, if you are the type to shun cool air in favor of the warm breezes of the dog days of summer, join us every Friday evening under the stars for Passport Fridays, our international outdoor film, dance and music series. This month takes you to Korea, West Africa, Brazil and the Middle East. Details are below and we look forward to seeing you at the QMA some time soon. Until then...

August masthead: Marga Carmona-Carriedo, Remembrances, 2004. C-Print.

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Propia Visión/Our Vision

Through September 17

Propia Visión highlights the work of nineteen participating photographers, who responded to an open call to collaborate in this ground-breaking exhibition. As the title suggests, Propia Visión focuses on what they, as Mexican photographers who have lived and worked in New York, experience in their daily lives.

Immigrant artists must transform themselves, taking on a range of jobs for their economic survival and cultural development. The nostalgia for what was left behind can be quite painful and the road to the future is sometimes hard to imagine. It is this process of transformation which is captured and exposed through images and collective undertakings like Propia Visión.

Featured artists: Martirene Alcántara, Eugenia Arias, Mónica Aspe, Brenda Campos, Marga Carmona-Carriedo, Alejandro Esquiliano, Mayra García, Mary Teresa Giancoli, Enrique González Ibarra, Pedro Lasch, Ángel E. López, Israel Lucas, Edgar Márquez, Gabriela Mendoza, Julio Ortega, Cristian Peña, Paulina Perera-Riveroll, Elvis Sol’s, Javier Soriano. Propia Visión is curated by Enrique González Ibarra.

The initial installation of Propia Visión was organized by Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders as part of Immigrant History Week 2006 and was exhibited at The International Center in New York.

Mónica Aspe, The Devil and The Soldier, 2006. Digital C-Print Mounted on Plexiglass.

More information is available here.

Artists' Projects

Through September 17, 2006

Carlos Amorales - Solitario

Solitario, 1998. DVD and mini DV master, color, sound, 14:12 min. Courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert New York.

Solitario portrays a group of girls and boys playing on the ring after a wrestling match has finished. As they mimic their wrestling idols, they battle chaotically one against another. Meanwhile the action slowly progresses and following an adult voice we hear a chorus of children shouting "Solitario," the name of a well-known professional Mexican wrestler, and also the Spanish word for "solitary." The juxtaposition of the chanting of this word with the dynamics of the children suggests a latent meaning in the piece. Solitario highlights the irony of the forlorn feeling that frequently arises in an individual despite-or because of-a crowded and energetic environment.

More information is available here.

Graciela Fuentes - Saida

Saida, 2005. Single-channel video, color, silent, 2:21 min.

Saida offers a reflection on the construction of subjectivity through performative acts. It focuses on a young girl dancing during a family event in Egypt. Employing a formal strategy of visual isolation her body language becomes accentuated, revealing the fluidity between self-awareness and self-absorption. In her performance, Saida appears to traverse the threshold between childhood and womanhood, awkwardly alternating from adult-like seductive gestures to childish jostling. By concentrating on the singularities of her movements, the work transcends its cultural specificity to question notions of girlhood, sexuality and identity formation.

More information is available here.

Diego Medina - Don't Let Money Rule Over Art

Don't Let Money Rule Over Art, 2006. Site-specific installation, pine, wenge, and zebra woods, digital prints, and texts. Courtesy of the artist.

“This piece is about the real reasons for art and making art; I think creativity should not be limited. I think of the struggle of artists to produce art with a minimum amount of money. I think of the importance of creativity not only in art but in daily life and the answers we find for every situation in life.”

More information is available here.

Dulce Pinzon - The Real Story of the Superheroes and Multiracial

The Real Story of the Superheroes, 2004/2005. 13 C-prints mounted on cintra. Courtesy of the artist.

The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of a hero who has gone largely unrecognized. Mexican workers in New York commonly work excessive hours in extreme conditions for very low wages. The hard-earned money is saved at great sacrifice to be sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.

While the Mexican economy has quietly become dependent on the money sent from workers in the US, the US economy has also grown dependent on such an inexpensive labor force of immigrants. Along with the depth of their sacrifice, it is this dependence that makes Mexican immigrant workers a subject of interest.

The Superheroes series pays homage to these brave and determined men and women who somehow manage, without the help of any supernatural power, to withstand severe conditions of life in the U.S. in order to help their families and communities. They are the true superheroes.

Dulce Pinzón, Alfonso Lopez (Taino, Spanish), from the series "Multiracial," 2002/3. Color print on paper, 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

This project consists of 16 color portraits of people of mixed ethnic origin in front of primary color backgrounds. The images challenge the concept of race by highlighting the disparity between the stark natural boundaries between the primary colors, and the ambiguous and artificial, yet commonly accepted boundaries between the different races. This project asks the viewer to question the existence of race in nature.

These portraits strip our idea of race down to its elements. It is in this nakedness that the viewer witnesses the template of racial distinction literally dissolves in front of their face. The tone is neither confrontational nor ironic, but rather unassuming in its directness and intimacy that allow the viewer to confront this disparity without sacrificing the humanity of the subjects.

More information is available here.

ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City

Through September 17, 2006

As the third-largest city in the world, Mexico City and its 22 million inhabitants are exposed to an infinite amount of stimuli that encourages a free and playful interaction of imagery unique to this sprawling locale. ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City features some 165 photographs, video pieces, prints, engravings, animations, short films and objects capturing the true experience of living in this energetic and enigmatic metropolis. Arranged alphabetically, ABCDF literally provides the ABCs of Mexico City, or Distrito Federal, from abasto (supply), represented by Nestor Quiñones' photomural (measuring 12' x 22') of mountains of the empty produce crates that supply the city, to Zoom, a series of six satellite images that capture the urban sprawl. What lies in between is a journey through the wonderfully enchanting, the less-than-desirable, the tragic and completely joyous, all combining to create the first in-depth survey of daily life in the largest city in North America. Features work by Francis Alys, Miguel Calderon, Ximena Cuevas, Silvia Gruner, Gabriel Kuri, Yoshua Okon, Daniela Rossell, Sabastian Romo, Pedro Reyes and Daniel Guzman and others.

Rury Fischelt, Intestine, 2000. Lenticular Photograph, 48 x 48 in.

ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City at the Queens Museum of Art has been made possible by the generous support of: CONACULTA: Mexico's National Council for Culture and Arts. Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, Control Bureau, Fundacion Televisa, SRE: Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affiars, The Mex-Am Cultural Foundation, Inc., The Consulate General of Mexico in New York, Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, Cuervo Tradicional, Mexicana Airlines, Tortilleria Chinantla, Dasein Foundation, Jarritos, Corona, Villacero Group, and Vitro.

More information about ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City is available here.

Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7

Final weeks – closing August 20

Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, 5 Pointz, Long Island City, 2004. Duratran, 40 x 96 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

For millennia, civilizations have laid their roots along the fertile banks of major rivers to reap the rich natural resources. From the Nile to the Amazon and Yangtze, the river basins have become the birthplaces of new cultures and societies. Today it is the manmade arteries that serve as the spines of new communities and none in New York has become home to a more diverse system of societies than the culturally rich soils that surround the #7 train. In his first solo museum exhibition, Taiwanese-born, Queens-based photographer and winner of the 2nd Annual New York Times Magazine “Capture the Times” Photography Competition, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, examines the various enclaves that exist on the route between Times Square and Flushing. Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7 features 30 of Liao's large-scale panoramic images - some measuring 8 feet in width - printed on Duratrans and installed in lightboxes surrounding the QMA's historic Panorama of the City of New York, inviting not only a reconsideration of the ways in which modern societies evolve around the river basins of today, but also the deep breadth and depth of the communities that have developed along a single subway line.

Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7 has been made possible by the generous support of the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan, R.O.C. in collaboration with the Taipei Cultural Center, TECO in New York, JGS, Inc. and Crystal Foundation.

More information is available here.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Fatal Love

Saturday, August 19

For the 6th year, the QMA will host Fatal Love, an event based around the principles of independence, tolerance and freedom of South Asian nations. Designed to raise discussion and examine current global struggles for resistance, Fatal Love 06 will include political and radical readings, discussions and performances by Kiran Desai, Chanika Svetvilas and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Naeem Mohaeimen, Emergency Broadcast Artists and the release of Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality. Editor of the anthology Sarah Husain will be accompanied by contributors Sham e ali Al Jamil, Chaumtoli Huq and Zohra Saeed.

Farheen Haq, Surveillance, 2005.

Schedule of Events

3:15 - Suitcases on Tour: Chanika Svetvilas and AALDEF

Within the performance/installation Suitcases on Tour, red, orange, and yellow suitcases, echoing the homeland security alert levels that have become a part of daily life, will be carried into the Queens Museum from the park by youth participants, followed by a presentation by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). The suitcases echo paranoia and suspicion associated with unattended luggage during a time of heightened security. The images portrayed on the surfaces of the suitcases not only question contradictions or injustices of indefinite detention and racial profiling, concerns the courts have been struggling to comprehend since the 9/11 tragedy, but also the impact on families and the relativity of borders and national identity. An immigration booth right outside the museum manned by the AALDEF will provide answers to questions by the public.

3:30 - The Young Man Was No Longer: Video & Text, Naeem Mohaiemen.
Originally presented at Dictionary of War, Munich

Judith Viorst wrote in Necessary Losses:I would imagine, with absolute terror, the world going on and on forever Ð and me not there. Freud writes that we are incapable of imagining our own death. But I am here to tell you that's not true. Please God, I used to pray, I know you can't take death away. But couldn't you just arrange for me to stop thinking about it?

Naeem Mohaiemen is a filmmaker and tactical media artist. He is director of Visible (disappearedinamerica.org), an artist-activist collective that works on film-art interventions on migrant impulses, hyphenated identities and post 9/11 security panic. Project excerpts have shown in various venues, including 2006 Whitney Biennial (Wrong Gallery). His essays include the forthcoming Hip Hop's Islamic Connection (Sound Unbound, MIT Press, DJ Spooky ed.), Invisible Migrants (Men of the Global South, Zed Books, Adam Jones ed.), Terrorists or Guerillas in the Mist? (Sarai Reader, RAQS Collective ed.), and Why Mahmud Can't Be a Pilot (Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, Matt Bernstein ed.).

3:45 - Voices of Resistance: Sarah Husain, Chaumtoli Huq, Sham e Ali Al Jameel, Zohra Saeed — Readings and Discussion

Sarah Husain conceptualized this collection as a means of redefining the stereotypical depictions of Muslim women that inundate current Western discourse on the Islamic "other." These women engage in dialogues concerning their bodies and their communities. Challenging homogenous stereotypes of Muslim women as the "Islamic Other," this eloquent collection of fiction, poetry, interviews, essays, letters, and artwork celebrates diversity across race, nation, sexuality, and gender. Most contributors live in the U.S., and the focus is on post-9/11 America, connecting multiple immigrant histories and memories of "home" with the personal and political in contemporary daily life.

4:45 - Kiran Desai reading from her latest book, The Inheritance of Loss

Desai's second novel is set in the nineteen-eighties in the northeast corner of India, where the borders of several Himalayan states-Bhutan and Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet-meet. Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.

5:00 - Emergency Broadcast Artists

The Emergency Broadcast Artists take political theater to the streets, subways, parks, and any other public space they can find to stimulate audiences to take action on pressing political issues such as immigration reform, torture, and war in the Middle East, and rampant U.S. imperialism. EBA seeks to inspire folks to pledge to make resistance a part of everyday experience. For Fatal Love, they will be performing a brief skit on the relationship between the war abroad and the war home. EBA artists for the skit include: Tony Alessandrini, and John Baldwin, Miabi Chatterji, Prerana Reddy, Ashwini Rao, Ragini Shah, and Raeconna Smiley.

5:30 - Reception

QMA/Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao 7 Train Photo Contest Show Results

Inspired by the exhibition Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: Habitat 7, the QMA asked the public to capture the essence of the 7 train and then post their images on a blog. What resulted were more than one hundred views of what this singular subway line means to those who depend on it. From those submissions, Liao selected nine for special recognition including three grand prize winners - Travis Ruse, Dan Rubin and Yaohua Zheng Ð and six honorable mentions - Gary Spielvogel, Christine Ghezzo, Rebecca Bratspies, Todd Carroll, John Zwinck, and Carol McCranie. Congratulations and thanks to all those whose imagery brought the richness of the 7 train into focus. The blog will remain on view and we encourage you all to continue to post interesting images inspired by the 7.

The grand prize winners are standing in front of Travis Ruse's winning photo with Jeff Liao on right.

Back to the top...