Monday Night -- 12.15.03 -- Curatorial Series -- Nato Thompson w/
Greg Sholette

Contents:
1. About this Monday
2. Some Questions
3. About Nato Thompson & Greg Sholette
4. About Curatorial Series
5. Wednesday Night @ Rés de Chão
6. Action Alert (for New York Residents?)

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1. About this Monday

What: Talk/Discussion (Curatorial Series)
When: Monday at 7:00 pm
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 5th fl
Who: All are welcome

At the conclusion of May 2004, MASS MoCA will open the doors to "The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere - a brief survey of interventionist political art practices of the 90s".

One part of 16Beaver's participation in this exhibition, will be to foreground the discussions and questions which inform not only this exhibition, but also the practices of the particular artists involved.

No better way to start that, than to invite the curator of the exhibition, Nato Thompson to join us this upcoming Monday. For his talk, he will attempt to accomplish three tasks. 1. Introduce some of the works and ideas in the Interventionists exhibition. 2. Bring to the table certain glossary terms he finds useful in discussing interventionist practices.3. Combine the first two tasks in an effort to imagine an infrastructure for radical visual culture.

Joining us for the discussion will be artist, curator, writer, commentator, and activist Greg Sholette. Greg has been working closely with Nato in developing the catalogue for the Interventionists exhibition and will be introducing some of the particular questions he has been asking in relation to the Interventionists exhibition and the companion catalogue.

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2. Some Questions:

How would one begin to take inventory of politically/socially engaged work since the 90's?
What particular strategies, tactics, questions have been raised or proposed by these works/artists?
What role has intervention played in these works/projects?
How would one begin to speak about or of a radical visual culture?
Given the political/social considerations of these projects/works/approaches, what would be the best terms to evaluate, speak about or consider these practices?
Are there particular threads that link these practices or interventions to previous generations?

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3. About Nato Thompson & Greg Sholette

Nato Thompson is Assistant Curator at MASS MoCA and curator for the upcoming exhibition The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere a brief survey of interventionist political art practices of the 90s. He is a co-organizor at the Department of Space and Land Reclamation and strong believer in radical practice. His writings on art and politics have been published in tema celeste, Parkett, New Art Examiner, the College Art Association Art Journal and In These Times.

Gregory Sholette is an artist, writer, activist, and the Batza Family
Chair of Art and Art History at Colgate University in NY in Spring of
2004. He was a founding member of the REPOhistory artist's collective
and of Political Art Documentation and Distribution, a graduate of
The Cooper Union, The University of California San Diego and the
Whitney Museum Independent Studies Program in Critical Theory as well
as Chair of the Master of Arts in Art Administration at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago and a former Curator of Education for
the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. Sholette has an
upcoming retrospective at Colgate University opening Feb 9. 2004 and
his work was recently featured in the exhibition Critical Mass at the
Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. His critical writings can be found in
the journals Art Journal, Third Text, Afterimage, Oxford Art Journal,
and the New Art Examiner. He is currently editing the book
Collectivism After Modernism with UC Davis art historian Blake
Stimson for University of Minnesota Press and developing a new web
project with Terbor Scholz, Brian_Holmes, Tom Leonhardt and Orkan
Telhan. He is a board member of the College Art Association and
Public Edge.

Sholette:
http://www.artic.edu/~gshole/
REPOhistory:
http://www.repohistory.org
PAD/D:
http://www.moma.org/research/library/library_faq.html#padd
Discussion with Sholette, Cesare Pietroiusti & Brett Bloom:
http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/groups&spacestext.html

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4. About the Curatorial Series

We have over the last few years invited a variety of artists, curators,
activists, writers, and thinkers to present and discuss their
work/ideas.

In this series, we have attempted to give some framework to these
ongoing discussions by focusing on specific curatorial interventions
and the ideas that inform them.

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5. Wednesday Night @ Rés de Chão

Following last week's discussion with Wael, this Wed. 16Beaver will be inviting
artists Irena Taskovski and Filip Remuda to discuss a recent project of their's entitled "Czech Dream"

They will also be on hand for the screening of Remuda's film, Obec Village B at MOMA Grammercy Park, this Sunday. If you are interested, in attending or would like to see the full program of Documentary Fortnight 2003 at MOMA, please visit:

http://www.16beavergroup.org/events/archives/000667.php

For more details, please visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday/archives/000669.php

For directions:
December 17, 8:00-9:30 p.m.
AS A SATELLITE >>Rés de Chão
71 North 7th Street, Brooklyn, New York

Directions: Take L train to Bedford stop in Brooklyn. The loft is located between Wythe and Kent Streets in Williamsburg.

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6. Action Alert (for New York Residents?)

RE: Resolution 909: the bottom line is: if you are in New York call
Speaker Gifford Miller's office asap and let him know that this bill
must be brought to a vote because you are in favor of it, and you
want to see the patriot act stopped cold at our state's borders. - gs

NOW, TODAY, IS THE TIME FOR ACTION ON RESOLUTION 909

This coming Monday, December 15th will be the last meeting of the New York City Council this session. This will be the last opportunity this year for our elected representatives in City Hall to pass Resolution 909, the anti-Patriot Act resolution introduced by Council member Bill Perkins months ago. The resolution has the support of 32 of the 51 members of the City Council, more than enough to pass it, but it has not yet come to the floor for a vote. What's going on?

Simply put, the Speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, is holding it up.

Resolution 909 has widespread support from major labor unions, civil liberties and immigrant rights groups, progressive legal organizations, many elected officials and a broad coalition of community based organizations. People from every neighborhood of NYC have urged the Council to oppose the Bush/Ashcroft wave of violations of everyone's basic rights and to stand firmly in support of the Bill of Rights. New Yorkers want Resolution 909 passed but it has not yet come to the floor for a vote. What's going on?

The Speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, is holding it up.

More than 200 cities and towns and three states around the country have passed similar resolutions. Communities as large as Chicago and Philadelphia and as small as Sunset Valley, Texas have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act and in support of the Bill of Rights, many
declaring themselves "Civil Liberties Safe Zones".  But what's going on here in New York City?

The Speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, has yet to allow Resolution 909 to come to the floor of the City Council for a vote.

Now, before this coming Monday, December 15th, we need to pull out the stops and create an avalanche of calls, faxes, emails to Gifford Miller and demand that he allow the City Council to vote on Resolution 909. There's no more time for fine tuning or modifications or word-smithing....now is the time for action!!

PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN:

1) Call Gifford Miller's office at 212-788-7210. If the line is busy, keep
trying!

2) Send Gifford Miller a free fax right now by clicking this link:
http://64.4.8.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=c823c259602742ab8151072b5f6c7
809&lat=1071246944&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2enycbordc%2eorg%2flobby
http://www.nycbordc.org/lobby
< http://64.4.8.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=c823c259602742ab8151072b5f6c7
809&lat=1071246944&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2enycbordc%2eorg%2flobby

3) Send an email message to everyone in your address book, or do whatever you can to encourage more people to keep the pressure on Gifford Miller.

By the way, December 15th also happens to be the 212th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Wouldn't it be terrific for New York City to pass Resolution this coming Monday!!


Leslie Cagan
a very concerned New Yorker