Legacy Russell on #GLITCHFEMINISM: In a society that conditions the public to find discomfort or outright fear in the errors and malfunctions of our socio-cultural mechanics—illicitly and implicitly encouraging an ethos of “Don’t rock the boat!”—a “glitch” becomes an apt metonym. 

Glitch Feminism, however, embraces the causality of “error”, and turns the gloomy implication of glitch on its ear by acknowledging that an error in a social system that has already been disturbed by economic, racial, social, sexual, and cultural stratification and the imperialist wrecking-ball of globalization—processes that continue to enact violence on all bodies—may not, in fact, be an error at all, but rather a much-needed erratum. This glitch is a correction to the “machine”, and, in turn, a positive departure." [Note: This text first appeared in The Society Pages Info]

Legacy Russell, the founding theorist behind Glitch Feminism as a cultural manifesto and movement, is a writer, artist and cultural producer. Born and raised in New York City's East Village, her work can be found in a variety of publications worldwide: BOMB, The White Review, Rhizome, DIS, The Society Pages, Guernica, Berfrois, and more. She holds an MRes of Visual Culture with Distinction from Goldsmiths College at University of London. The glitch posits: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a body." The digital is a vessel through which our glitch "becoming" realizes itself and through which we can reprogram binary gender coding. Our "glitch" is a correction to the machine. Legacy Russell's first book Glitch Feminism is now available from Verso. 
Above: Judy Chicago, “Multi-colour Atmosphere” (1970). Fireworks performance. Performed at the Pasadena Art Museum (Norton Simon Museum), Pasadena, CA. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (courtesy of Through the Flower Archives. Courtesy of the artist; Salon 94, New York; and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco)

Thursday, January 28

Public Art Fund Talks / in partnership with The Cooper Union: Stan Douglas

Stan Douglas’ virtual talk on January 28 centers on his new permanent public commission Penn Station’s Half Century, 2020, a captivating photographic series that reconstructs nine remarkable but forgotten moments from the history of the original Pennsylvania Station (1910-1963). 

The artist has created this monumental site-specific artwork for the newly opened Moynihan Train Hall in New York City by weaving together hundreds of photographs of staged costumed performers with digitally recreated interiors of the demolished Station, creating a massive artwork that responds to the historic past and cutting-edge future of the busiest transportation hub in North America. Register See video here

Thursday, January 28, 2021 7:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Aperture Conversations | Meet the Artists: Creating Stories for Tomorrow

This past year, Aperture and FUJIFILM commissioned five emerging photographers to each create a body of work in response to the question: What does tomorrow look like?

From documenting the current political state in the US, to protests in Chile, to the intimate and beautiful in New York, the photographers captured moments that reflect on what the future could hold. In this conversation, Brendan Embser, senior managing editor of Aperture magazine, will speak with Javier Álvarez, Gus Aronson, Widline Cadet, Yu-Chen Chiu, and Silvana Trevale about their work and what “tomorrow” looks like for them. Register

Photo left © Gus Aronson from the series Tokens of an Unled Life, 2020, for Aperture. Courtesy the artist

Closing February 7: We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz. Conceived from a starting point in 2017 of addressing the resurgence of anti-Semitism, this exhibition uses a broader lens to look at oppression and bigotry. The relevance of this exhibition has become more acute as the country continues to reel from numerous incidents of police brutality towards people of color and a reckoning with the history of systemic racism. 

Featuring more than 80 works of painting, sculpture, photography, and video, the exhibition includes new works by Horowitz, along with artworks by Asco, Huma Bhabha, Enrique Chagoya, Robert Colescott, Philip Evergood, Luis Jiménez, Rebecca Lepkoff, Glenn Ligon, Abraham Manievich, Bernard Perlin, Adrian Piper, Fritz Scholder, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Henry Sugimoto, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Max Weber, and Charles White, among others. The exhibition also includes 36 commissioned protest posters by contemporary artists, including Judith Bernstein, Marcel Dzama, Nicolas Galanin, Rico Gatson, Kim Gordon and Jason Smith, Cheyenne Julien, Christine Sun Kim, Guadalupe Maravilla, Marilyn Minter, and Edel Rodriguez. 
Admission is currently free with a reserved timed ticket. Info

Tuesday, February 2, 11AM-12:00PM EST / 6-7:00PM EET (Athens)
Bodies in Bodies in Space: Storytelling and the Moving Image in Extended Reality
Presented by ONX Studio, a joint initiative of Onassis Foundation and NEW INC.

Bodies in Space: Storytelling and the Moving Image in Extended Reality features moderator Loren Hammonds, Senior Programmer at Tribeca Film Festival, in conversation with two artists – Stephanie Dinkins and Loukia Alavanou – whose practices embrace impactful storytelling through VR, AR and experiential design. The talk will center on the exciting approaches in which these new media formats can be combined with the familiar tools of narrative, context, and point of view to tell stories in new ways. This public program takes place during the run of Sundance Film Festival (January 28-February 3). Sundance’s New Frontier selections include Dinkin’s immersive experience Secret Garden, which will premiere at ONX Studio (below). Register Info ONX Studio is a state-of-the-art 3,000-square foot subsidized workspace and presentation gallery, designed by architectural firm Leong Leong and located in Olympic Tower. Info

Notes from the Editor's Desk at the Home Office: I will be teaching Present Yourself, offered by Sculptors Alliance, on Mondays, February 1-22, on Zoom. Thanks to funding by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, this 12-hour writing intensive is again FREE to NYC residents. Just scan the red QR code [left] for info, and the orange QR code [right] to register. Note: You don't have to be a sculptor to enroll for this course, which is open to emerging and mid-career artists ready for new opportunities in the post-COVID art world.