Past Programs

Many of our past programs are archived on our Vimeo page — watch now!

Image Wars

July 21 - September 3, 2011

Image Wars addresses the representation of conflict in visual culture in an age of global crisis. This exhibition is curated by Miguel Amado and brings together works by Yevgeniy Fiks, Rinat Kotler, Michael Mandiberg, Carlos Noronha Feio, Mary Temple, and Kai-Oi Jay Yung. The artists in this exhibition mix archival documentation and fiction as well as research and personal reaction to daily events to comment on the articulation of geopolitics and the media in the “spectacularization” of warfare. The works on view examine the picturing of zones of conflict, from armed conflicts between countries trough dissent across national borders; the charismatic character of world leaders and unknown soldiers; and manifestations of both control and powerlessness in news and individual narratives.

Chelsea Knight: Frame

July 21 - September 3, 2011

Chelsea Knight explores the political — in her view, a dimension of life of which the essence is dissent rather than concord. In her projects she examines social control in general and the ideologies of authority in particular. Informed by theatricality (among other aspects, stage design, improvisational acting techniques, and spoken word) and language as a cognitive and emotional apparatus, she creates narrative-based videos, photographs, and participatory performances that focus on the current state of democracy — its principles, values, and aspirations.

Miguel Martin: All Good In The Manhood

May 26 - July 10, 2011

Martin addresses the chaotic overtones of violence in contemporary society inspired by surrealist worldviews, street culture, and Gothic imagery. He explores his distinctive, vivid imagination in regard to specific subject matter — ranging from politics to the collective unconscious — to playfully tell stories in black and white sketchbook or wall-sized drawings, as in the case of this commissioned piece. Resorting to a grotesque humor, his projects smartly fictionalize horror in a dramatic, symbolic yet delicate and even poetic style, making him an intelligent if also sarcastic commentator on everyday life.

AIRspace 2011

May 26 - July 10, 2011

The AIRspace 2011 exhibition features new work by current artists Veronica Frenning, Yeon Jin Kim, Beth Livensperger, Nyeema Morgan, and Austin Shull. Opening concurrently with this group exhibition is Miguel Martin: All Good in The Manhood, curated by AIRspace curator in residence Miguel Amado.

(Re)visiting Spura

April 7 - May 22, 2011

A new exhibition by the New School’s City Studio, (Re)Visiting SPURA, explores a whole range of ways to see this complex place, through considering the SPURA diaspora, displaced many years ago, its current conditions, and the complex conversations about planning for its future, this exhibition springs from the City Studio’s research in the community and hopes to continue encouraging productive conversation about the site’s future.

Jane Benson: The Splits

March 6 - April 16, 2011

The Splits is a new collaborative performance project by Jane Benson. The world premiere of The Splits will gather together ten musicians, composer Matt Schickele, and an ensemble cast of rigorously altered instruments for a multi-media event centered on acts of cutting and splicing, regeneration and proliferation.

The Days Of This Society Are Numbered

March 6 - April 16, 2011

The Abrons Arts Center is proud to present The Days of This Society Are Numbered, an exhibition inspired by French thinker Guy Debord’s 1979 declaration that “The days of this society are numbered; its reasons and its merits have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting; its inhabitants are divided into two sides, one of which wants this society to disappear.”

The West at Sunset

December 9 - February 20, 2011

The Abrons Arts Center is proud to present The West at Sunset, a multidisciplinary group exhibition in response to a masterwork of spiritual literature, Rene Daumal’s 1952 novelMount Analogue.

Yonamine: Dipoló

November 12 - December 4, 2010

Yonamine’s socially committed voice stands as a critical inquiry into the signs, ideas, and practices that constitute the ideological landscape of the global age. His output addresses the relationship between contemporary African iconography, colonial history, and identity politics. Bringing together his native country’s mythologies and Western narratives, he examines both the traumatic experience of Angola’s everyday life and the fragmented collective unconscious of a diasporic world.

Tania Candiani: From Confections To Floor Patterns

November 12 - December 4, 2010

Candiani’s community-driven practice examines the political condition of social groups in consumer society, from women to immigrants. In performances and participatory projects, she brings together the representation of the female body, craft traditions such as textiles, and high culture references in the form of texts in order to address the value systems and behavior patterns that generate collective identity. Her output comments on the ideological apparatus that frames class inequality and responds to the effects of capitalist principles in shaping the dominant vision of the world.