FULL SCHEDULE
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Thursday, February 25th︎⌄
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11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
“Well, is it even a photobook, Dayanita?” with Dayanita Singh and Anshika Varma︎ ＋
Dayanita Singh published her first artist’s book Zakir Hussain in 1986, and in doing so, challenged contemporary notions of photography, book, and form. Five years later, Steidl announced the publication of her student maquette as a three-part book object—a witness to her influence in expanding the book form. In this conversation, Singh speaks with Anshika Varma, founder of the publisher Offset Projects based in New Delhi, India, on the significance of provoking a space between the publishing house and the art gallery, and the endless possibilities presented within it. Presented by Offset Projects. ︎➜ -
12–2pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage ︎
Performances presented by Printed Matter and Noah Klein︎＋
with Laraaji, V. Vale, Sarah Louise, Mutual Benefit, Yasmin Williams, Nailah Hunter, and Lush Agave + Wild Anima. ︎➜ -
12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Beau Geste Press, in conversation with Felipe Ehrenberg, David Mayor, and Alice Motard︎＋
On the occasion of the newly launching publication Beau Geste Press, BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE shares insight into the practice and history of the eponymous publishing house. The program features two interviews between Alice Motard, the chief curator at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux and editor of this new publication, with David Mayor, and Felipe Ehrenberg, who are co-founders of this legendary publishing house. The interview with David Mayor was specially recorded for this years’ CLASSROOM. The interview with Felipe Ehrenberg was recorded back in March 2017 when Felipe visited a show on Beau Geste Press at CAPC just a couple of months before he passed away. Presented by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE. ➜ -
2–3:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Dark Room, with Phyllis Christopher, Michelle Tea, and Laura Guy︎＋
In 1988, at the age of 24, Phyllis Christopher was drawn to San Francisco with her camera to capture a thriving lesbian counterculture involving sex parties, kiss-ins, and street demonstrations. Join this Book Works program for an intimate conversation about lesbian sexuality and documentary on the occasion of Phyllis Christopher’s debut solo publication, Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest, 1988–2003 (Book Works, 2021). Christopher will be in conversation with acclaimed author, poet, and organizer (and contributor to the book), Michelle Tea, along with Laura Guy, editor of Dark Room. Presented by Book Works. ➜ -
3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Call & Response, with Kerry Ann Lee, Giulia Vallicelli, Helen Yeung, and Ysabelle Cheung︎＋
Call & Response is a conversation between international publishers exploring how independent publishing facilitates community-building through punk, protest, and zine-making. Giulia Vallicelli (Compulsive Archive, Milan, Italy), Helen Yeung (Migrant Zine Collective, Aotearoa, New Zealand) and Ysabelle Cheung (independent writer, Hong Kong) will share their work and talk with Kerry Ann Lee (Red Letter Distro) about collaboration, correspondence, and solidarity over time and distances. Spanning over two decades and three continents, the panel will discuss the responsive nature of zine-making, distribution, and archiving as a means of survival and creative resistance from the sidelines. Presented by Red Letter Distro. ➜ -
5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Subject to Change: the Syllabus as Publication, with Collective Question︎＋
The syllabus is a utopian publication. It is asked for and given, and in this exchange it figures as a kind of contract, perhaps even a form of evidence, or a standard against which to measure progress. It directs, draws lines, outlines. It acts like a script, a score, notation, an aid to performance. It's revised each semester to pretend it did something that it didn't do, just in case someone checks, with a hope that this revised version will go the way you want the next time, so that what you thought could have been becomes real. It projects and aspires but is also fraudulent and knows it. This discussion with Collective Question (Chris Lee, Steven Chodoriwsky, and Julie Niemi) is based on their research into Tolstoy College, an anarchist educational community that was part of the University of Buffalo from 1969–1985. Presented by The Southland Institute (for critical, durational, and typographic post-studio practices). ➜ -
6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts︎＋
Editors Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam will lead a conversation with Mel Chin, Aruna d’Souza, Hyperlink Press, and Patrick Jaojoco, all contributors to Paper Monument’s new anthology, Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts. Chronicling everyday lives, dreams, rage, family histories, and cultural politics, the seventy three letters collected within ignite new ways of being and modes of creating at a moment of racial reckoning. The panelists will discuss Best!'s origins, how the project shifted throughout 2020, the intimacy and complexity of the epistolary form, and the urgency of moving beyond and exploding open the model-minority myth. Presented by Paper Monument. ➜ -
8–9pm EST – The Classroom ︎
Transcendent Waves Sound Bath, with Lavender Suarez︎＋
Join sonic healer, meditation teacher, and artist Lavender Suarez for a sound bath, dedicated to the release of Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives. In this new publication, Suarez poses questions to the reader as well as offers scientific evidence and personal anecdotes, all to make the case for the importance of listening and the positive impact it can have on our creative lives. Presented by Anthology Editions. ➜
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Friday, February 26th︎⌄
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10:30am EST – CABC ︎
Books on Places & Books from Places. An Unbalanced Equation, with Briony Anne Carlin, Moritz Neumüller, Azu Nwagbogu, and Nelson de Arrellano︎＋
Some of the most recognized artists’ books dealing with geographical regions were not made by an artist from that place. This round table will analyze the problematic relationship epitomized in such books. It will explore the breadth of these photobooks depicting countries including India, Cuba, or Nigeria, prioritizing photobooks made with artistic intent (as opposed to photographic travel books). -
11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom︎
Photography in the Sensorium, with Fia Backström, Pradeep Dalal, Shannon Ebner, and Sara Greenberger Rafferty︎＋
For the 2019 MFA symposium “Teaching Photographs” at Pratt Institute, artists Fia Backström and Pradeep Dalal organized a workshop in which they proposed “some . . . strategies on how to situate images by building context beyond representational pointers: presentation, discussion, and practical exercises.” To launch their new publication, PPI #2, Photography in the Sensorium, Backström and Dalal will be joined in conversation with Shannon Ebner and Sara Greenberger Rafferty. In this book, the artists offer examples from their own photographic practice as case studies, breaking down and interweaving their individual approaches to knowing, handling, and naming the circumstances out of which their work emerges. This is the second issue in the series Pounds Per Image (PPI), edited and published through the Pratt Photography Imprint, led by Shannon Ebner. Presented by Pratt Photography Imprint and Dancing Foxes Press. ➜ -
12-6pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage ︎
Performances presented with Papi Juice︎＋
DJ sets by: Oscar Nñ, Adam R, Tygapaw, Equiss, Morenxxx, plus Mohammed Fayaz's Visual ASMR, and She Finally Caught A Breath. ➜ -
12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom︎
Media Burn Ant Farm and the Making of an Image, with Chip Lord, Connie Lewallen, Steve Seid, Tanya Zimbardo, Igor Vamos, and Doug Hall︎＋
Media Burn Ant Farm and the Making of an Image is a recently published monograph on Ant Farm's sensational 1975 performance, Media Burn. This program will start with film footage of the event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on July 4, 1975. Connie Lewallen (Berkeley Art Museum Curator) will introduce and contextualize the famous event, and Tanya Zimbardo (SFMOMA Assistant Curator of Media Arts) will moderate a conversation between Ant Farm member Chip Lord and the publication’s author Steve Seid (former Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Archive Curator), along with Doug Hall (artist) and Igor Vamos (RPI). Presented by RITE Editions and Inventory Press. ➜ -
3pm EST – CABC
Artist’s Book Criticism Beyond the Book, with Aaron Cohick, Johanna Drucker, Megan N. Liberty, and Levi Sherman︎＋
As more artists’ books are exhibited, it is increasingly important to understand how the institutional context in which they are shown, from bookstore spaces to museum vitrines, helps and hinders criticism in the field. This panel aims to extend criticism beyond the individual book and address the interconnected institutions and power structures that form the field of contemporary artists’ books. ➜ -
3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom
Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica, with Charmaine Nelson, David Hartt, Frances Loeffler, and Jonathan Middleton︎＋
This conversation takes up the subject of artist David Hartt’s recent poster project for Art Metropole, designed as an advertisement for Charmaine Nelson’s book, Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (Routledge, 2016). These wheat-pasted posters, soon to be on the streets of Toronto, incorporate a photograph Hartt made in Jamaica and uses the language of guerrilla street-art advertising campaigns to promote an academic text that confronts the history of systemic racism in pre- and post-colonial Canada. Hartt’s project points to his own perspective as a Black Canadian now living in the United States, responding to recent events in the US, but also to how these histories are usually suppressed, and how systemic racism continues to be deeply embedded within Canada as well. Presented by Art Metropole. ➜ -
5pm EST – CABC
Critical Convening on Terminology and Contextualizing Historic Material, with Megan N. Liberty, Corina Reynolds, Levi Sherman, David Solo, and Vivian Sming︎＋
How does inadequate, inconsistent, or unclear terminology limit our ability to write critically about artist’s books? How can and should we recontextualize historical artist’s books? After a brief introduction, we invite you to join the founders of BAR and a group of international guests in this convening as we split into small breakout groups to explore these questions and work on developing recommendations. ➜ -
5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom
Sasha Phyars-Burgess in conversation with Texas Isaiah and Zora J Murff︎＋
Sasha Phyars-Burgess joins Texas Isaiah and Zora J Murff on the occasion of her new publication, Untitled (Capricious, 2021). The conversation will consider each photographer's individual practice as they relate to themes from the monograph form, the impact of protests against police brutality in 2020, and the rising institutional interest in Black artists at-large. Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s Untitled, spans three bodies of work, from affecting studies on diaspora, family, and place to revolving social phenomenons in which energy, beauty, and power meet. The monograph also includes poems by Ser Alida and Aurora Masum-Javed, a conversation between Sasha Phyars-Burgess, Juliana Huxtable, and Carolyn Lazard, and an essay by Bill Gaskins. Presented by Capricious. ➜ -
6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom
Four Decades with BOMB Magazine︎＋
Join BOMB's founder and editor-in-chief, Betsy Sussler, for a conversation with past contributors and artists as they revisit the history of the magazine. Born on the kitchen table of New York’s downtown scene in 1981, BOMB was committed then, as it is now, to delivering the artist’s voice and conversations between artists. Join us for a rare look behind the scenes of BOMB and its genesis, with a Q&A at the end to answer questions about the magazine’s history as well as for those looking to start their own art publication. Presented by BOMB Magazine. ➜ -
8–9pm EST – The Classroom
Richard Jackson: Works with Books︎＋
In tandem with a comprehensive exhibition of books and printed matter about the artist Richard Jackson at Hauser & Wirth's Booklab, Art Catalogues presents a discussion with the artist as he takes us through the exhibition to highlight some of the materials on display. The presentation includes his new monograph, featuring an extended chronology of Jackson’s work by Art Catalogues’s Dagny Corcoran, as well as books that made an impact on his artistic practice—ranging from Duchamp to hunting magazines from the 80s. Presented by Art Catalogues. ➜
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Saturday, February 27th︎⌄
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10am EST – Workshop
Artistic Noise Community Zine Launch and Comics Workshop︎＋
Join us for the launch of Artistic Noise's Community Zine, as well as a comics workshop with teaching artist Audry Basch. Artistic Noise youth artists will share their creative inspirations and process used to develop their first-ever zine, co-published with Miriam Gallery. The second half of the event will feature a workshop where attendees are invited to create their own comics as part of a collaborative short-run printed zine. Artistic Noise is a Harlem-based nonprofit that brings the power of artistic practice to young people who are incarcerated, on probation, or otherwise involved in the justice system. Click here to purchase and here to submit your drawings from the workshop. 100% of proceeds will go directly to youth artists who created the book. Presented by Miriam Gallery. ➜ -
11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom
Publishing As Practice, with Hardworking Goodlooking︎＋
"Publishing As Practice" was a three-part publisher residency organized by the Philadelphia-based art bookshop and project space Ulises. The residency gave three experimental art publishers time and resources to explore and expand on their individual publishing practices and further investigate the role of publishing as an incubator for new forms of editorial, curatorial, and artistic practice. The residency, which ran from 2017-19 out of the Ulises storefront, included: Hardworking Goodlooking (Manila, Rotterdam, Portland, New York City), Martine Syms with Dominica (Los Angeles), and Bidoun (New York City and the greater Middle East). Ulises will lead a discussion with Clara Balaguer, Dante Carlos, and Kristian Henson of Hardworking Goodlooking, giving audiences a glimpse into their practices, residency experience, and the fruitful afterlife of the work and ideas created during and since the residency. The conversation will also highlight Ulises’ forthcoming book, Publishing As Practice, published by Ulises and Inventory Press. Presented by Ulises. ➜ -
12–2pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage
Performances presented with Chulita Vinyl Club︎＋
featuring Bien Buena, Cienfuegos, DJ Raquiqui, DJ Sue Problema, Fefa, LaPhDj, Lizzy Al Toque, No Pasa Nada, and Sleepwalk. ➜ -
12pm EST – CABC
Content through Structure, with John Haber, Pablo Helguera, Maddy Rosenberg, Miriam Schaer, and Mary Ting︎＋
With an artist’s book, content and form are interwoven. This panel will provide critical focus to the artist’s book as object, its place within the art world and the constructs of language around it. ➜ -
12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom
The Natural Enemies of Books: A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography, with Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark, Sara Kaaman, Haytham Nawar, Danielle Aubert, and Madeleine Morley︎＋
Departing from their book (Occasional Papers, 2020), feminist graphic design research collective MMS (Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark, and Sara Kaaman) invite colleagues to discuss projects aiming to expand graphic design history beyond the canon, looking into the "messy" histories of BIPOC, womxn, and laborers. The conversation includes graphic designers and educators Haytham Nawar (co-author of A History of Arab Graphic Design together with Bahia Shehab) and Danielle Aubert (initiator and editor of exhibition and book The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing). The conversation will be moderated by design writer and Futuress co-founder Madeleine Morley. Presented by Occasional Papers. ➜ -
1:30pm EST – CABC
Urgent Publishing After the Artist’s Book, with Paul Soulellis︎＋＋
Publishing has always been political, but has it ever felt as urgent as it does right now, in the global distress and intersecting crises of the past year? How can publishing be used in movements towards liberation? ➜ -
2–3:30pm EST – The Classroom
Faux Pas: A Conversation Between Amy Sillman and Rindon Johnson︎＋
Taking Faux Pas: Selected Writings and Drawings of Amy Sillman (After 8 Books, 2020) and Rindon Johnson’s The Law of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss, or I do not walk a line that is thin, straight, or secure (Inpatient Press, 2021) as its starting points, this conversation between Amy Sillman and Rindon Johnson will deal with both artists' writing practices and the central question of form in rethinking art history and aesthetic categories. Presented by After 8 Books. ➜ -
3:30pm EST – CABC
Zine Steganography with Josue Chavez, Bidi Choudhury, Kira Simon-Kennedy, Mikail Wright-Kwon, and An Xiao Mina︎＋
How do you share a zine in places where sharing ideas is dangerous? We will consider the fraught relationship between zines and book criticism through the artists’ decisions to camouflage their text-works as part of larger socially-engaged projects and digital installations. ➜ -
3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom
Surviving Death with Madeline Gins: A Conversation with Paul Chan and Lucy Ives︎＋
Artist Paul Chan and writer Lucy Ives will discuss the writing, architecture, and life of Madeline Gins (1941–2014), a visionary interdisciplinary thinker and artist who, with her partner Arakawa, created the experimental architectural project Reversible Destiny, through which they sought to arrest mortality by transforming the built environment. Chan and Ives will explore related themes in critical theory, philosophy, and contemporary arts practice, as well as the editorial process for The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader, a collection of Gins’s long out-of-print or unpublished writings. Presented by siglio.➜ -
5pm EST – CABC
Critical Convening on Approaches to Criticism for Activist Material as Artist’s Books and Publishing as Practice, with Megan N. Liberty, Corina Reynolds, and David Solo︎＋
Is a different framework needed for artist’s books with activist purposes? What role does the publisher of an artist’s book play in content creation? What is needed to write critically about publishing as artistic practice? After a brief introduction, we invite you to join the founders of BAR and a group of international guests in this convening as we split into small breakout groups to explore these questions and work on developing recommendations. ➜ -
5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom
I Am Inside the Body, with Panteha Abareshi and Vivian Sming︎＋
Made over the course of the quarantine in the spring of 2020, Panteha Abareshi's I Am Inside the Body documents the artist’s own personal grief and processing of the shifting context of their sick/disabled body in the wake of a global health crisis. Suspended in a limbo of isolation, Abareshi turned to a practice of emotional documentation through the form of daily writings, contemplating the form of a diagram as an innate human need to quantify and represent the unknown. This program will begin with a reading from the book by Abareshi, followed by a conversation between Abareshi and publisher Vivian Sming, around isolation, pessimism, and the constraints of the body, as well as art and ritual as coping mechanisms. Presented by Sming Sming Books. ➜ -
6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom
Where are the tiny revolts? with Nicole Archer, Kaucyila Brooke, Dodie Bellamy, Glen Helfand, Alex Kitnick, Marcela Pardo Ariza, and P. Staff︎＋
Where are the tiny revolts? is the first book in an annual series of readers titled A Series of Open Questions, published by the Wattis and Sternberg Press, and distributed by the MIT Press. Each reader includes newly commissioned texts and an edited selection of perspectives, images, and references related to the Wattis’s year-long research seasons. The title of each book comes in the form of a question. Where are the tiny revolts? takes the work of Dodie Bellamy as its point of departure and explores contemporary forms of feminism and sexuality, the rebirth of the author, and ways in which vulnerability, perversion, vulgarity, and self-exposure can be forms of empowerment. In this program, six contributors have chosen to highlight a piece from the book (other than their own). In a series of short presentations, they read and/or introduce the piece and explain why they chose it, with time for a Q&A with the audience. Presented by Sternberg Press and The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts. ➜ -
8–9pm EST – The Classroom
all rainbows / in a brainstem / that we be so contained
A reading with Anne Waldman︎＋
Anne Waldman reads from her recent collaborative publication with Nathlie Provosty. The book features a new poem by Anne Waldman alongside works by Nathlie Provosty, published as an accordion book in an edition of 300 copies. Presented by Hassla Books. ➜
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Sunday, February 28th︎⌄
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9am EST – Friendly Fire
FESTAC ‘77 Mixtape︎＋
Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists, and scholars from Africa and the Black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. With a radically ambitious agenda underwritten by Nigeria’s newfound oil wealth, FESTAC ’77 would unfold as a complex, glorious, and excessive culmination of a half-century of pan African cultural-political gatherings. In this mix, Chimurenga decomposes, arranges, and reproduces the sound-world of FESTAC ’77 to address the planetary scale of the event, alongside the personal and artistic encounters it made possible. Can a past that the present has not yet caught up with be summoned to haunt the present as an alternative? Presented by Chimurenga. ➜ -
10am EST – Friendly Fire
Mutual Aid Networking, with Bryan Villalobos, Zenat Begum, Isaac Miller, and Naomi Lawrence︎＋
8-Ball Community holds a conversation around mutual aid in NYC; how the pandemic and social uprising has impacted—and in many ways, jump started—this critical work. The conversation includes Bryan Villalobos of Public Assistants, Zenat Begum of Playground Coffee Shop, Isaac Miller of Friend of a Friend and EV Loves NYC, moderated by artist, chef, former 8-Ball Board Member and meal planner for EV Loves NYC, Naomi Lawrence. Presented by 8-Ball Community. ➜ -
11am EST – Friendly Fire
Tending to the Present: Care & Pace Hour, with Gaynell Meij, Lorenza Perelli, Ashley L. Schick, John Caserta, Barbara Bryn Klare, Maria Epes, and Alex Muck︎＋
This program is a compilation of recent submissions from geographically dispersed ILSSA members, offering opportunities to reframe each moment through a series of brief reflective exercises, readings, offerings, and meditations centered on care and pace—two themes that emerged from the 2019 call-and-response project, “ILSSA Frameworks.” Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA) is a union for reflective creative practice and publishes participatory projects through the mail. Featuring contributions by Gaynell Meij, Lorenza Perelli, Ashley L. Schick, John Caserta, Barbara Bryn Klare, Maria Epes, and Alex Muck. Presented by Impractical Labor (ILSSA). ➜ -
11:30am EST – Friendly Fire
Tributes to Frederick Weston, with Samuel R. Delany, Devin Morris, Svetlana Kitto, and LJ Roberts︎＋
Visual AIDS celebrates the latest installment of their DUETS publication series, featuring the artist and poet Frederick Weston (1946–2020) in dialogue with the esteemed writer Samuel R. Delany. The book features a wide-ranging dialogue, reflecting on Weston and Delany's overlapping histories in Times Square, the deep impact of AIDS on their creative practices, and the ever-changing intersections of race, sex, language, and art. The book launch features tributes to Weston and reflections on his artwork from Samuel R. Delany, Svetlana Kitto, Devin N. Morris, and LJ Roberts. Presented by Visual AIDS. ➜ -
12–2pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage
Performances presented by Printed Matter and Noah Klein︎＋
with Sonic Jeel, as they lay, Maral, Kohinoorgasm, and Anna Luisa Petrisko (ALL TIME STOP NOW). ➜ -
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