Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of September 27th

 Top Picks for Art Online Week of September 6th

Espaço preto (Black Space), Part One: How to Write a Feminist History of the Recent Past

MoMA, The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America/ Online Lecture, Panel

September 28, 2020/ 5-6pm/ Free w/registration

Espaço preto (Black Space) is a series put on by the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute, an organization dedicated to the study of art from Latin America, specifically relating modern and contemporary art to larger cultural issues as they sit in a global context. This event will pose the following questions: "Where is the history of recent exhibitions organized by Black and Indigenous people in Brazil within the canon of contemporary Latin American art? How might a feminist methodology account for other ways of recording art’s histories and the residue of culture?" The panel will use two specific moments in recent Brazilian exhibition as a lens in which to view the place of emerging, integral histories, the 2015-2017 workshop and platform AfroTranscendence (AfroT) by collaborators artist Rosana Paulino and curator Diane Lima (both on the panel) and also the 2016-2017 conversations and exhibition Diálogos Ausentes (Absent Dialogues) at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo. The panel will also feature the event's organizer, Thomas J. Lax, Cisneros Research Grant Fellow and curator in MoMA’s Department of Media and Performance in New York.

(BTW, the Glitch Feminism Panel at MoMA is at capacity or I would have also included this event!)

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The New Social Environment: Susan Frecon w/Joan Waltemath & Louis Block

The Brooklyn Rail/ Zoom Talk

September 29, 2020/1pm EST/ Free w/registration

The New Social Environment is a series of lunchtime talks that publication The Brooklyn Rail began hosting as a response to the pandemic, in this edition Susan Frecon will be the focus as her latest show at David Zwirner is currently on view until October 17. Susan Frecon is an abstract contemporary painter dealing with geometric shapes and finishes that seem to release the mind from space with form and texture. Joan Waltemath is also an abstract contemporary artist (and editor-at-large at the Brooklyn Rail) with a very different approach: her pieces tend to play in negative space or absence, grids and fields of white and lines intersecting in their own spatial adherence. Louis Block's artwork is an enigma on the internet but his art writing is not, having contributed to many different esteemed publications. 

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Getting Real '20

International Documentary Association/Digital Conference 

September 29-October 3, 2020/Free w/registration (some restrictions)

IDA is an organization that supports documentary culture. The first time I heard of them was when I learned about the "Documentary Core Application," basically a standard guideline for grant applications used across funding organizations, saving documentary teams in time, energy and resources. It is a simple but brilliant way to make the process more accessible, just as they are making their biennial conference, Getting Real, accessible. This year's conference will be hosted entirely online (and free!) and features a massive array of discussions, breakouts and more centering on the themes of access, power & possibility. I'm really excited to finally attend this event and have slowly been building my schedule which so far includes "behind the scenes of field accountability and possibility" and Firelight Media's "#beyondresilience: the liberatory canon."

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Paul Robeson: Here I Stand (1999) by St. Clair Bourne 

Maysles Documentary Center, Virtual Maysles- Made In Harlem: Remembering The Renaissance (2020)/Online Film Screening

September 25-Oct 1, 2020/ Free w/registration

The Maysles description of this event is really quite elegant: "A perfect meeting of subject—singer, actor, activist, lawyer, humanitarian Paul Robeson, and filmmaker—writer, organizer, magazine editor, historian St. Clair Bourne, Paul Robeson: Here I Stand is an epic of the biographical documentary. Bourne’s directing and producing career was dedicated to understanding and portraying people and subjects ignored by mainstream media, and his study of Robeson is a clear-eyed analysis of an oft-misunderstood giant of the 20th century. A master class in the synthesis of archival research and modern documentary filmmaking, and a rightful classic of the form."

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com

Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of September 20th

Top Picks for Online Art Week of September 20th

Joan Snyder: Summer Becomes a Room 

Canada/Zoom Panel Discussion & Q+A

September 20, 2020/5pm ET/free w/registration

American Painter Joan Snyder has been practicing for around fifty years and, like most female abstract expressionists, I have never heard of her. Canada gallery recently opened its first showing of her work and, in conjunction with the exhibition, a panel and Q+A will be happening online. The panel will be moderated by Canada's Director Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle and features curator Mary Schneider Enriquez (Harvard Art Museums), Catherine Morris (Brooklyn Museum) and sculptor Arlene Shechet. The panel will be followed by a Q+A with the panelists in addition to the artist! Looking at the images from the show (Summer Becomes A Room) there is a multi-dimensional quality to the work, moving beyond the canvas to allow for textures to rise slightly from the flat surface with colorful, graphic movement. The abstractions seem to move from shapes to figures, each one embodying its own relationship with the viewer to evoke their personal experience, suggesting symbolic associations but ultimately asking the audience to find their own conclusions and emotions towards her expressive strokes, squirts and sculptured canvases. 

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Smooth Talk (1985) w/Laura Dern, Joyce Chopra & Joyce Carol Oates 

New York Film Festival, HBO/Zoom Talk

September 23, 2020/4:30pm ET/free w/registration (the film is available for rent

The 58th New York Film Festival is upon us! Hurrah! Yet another fest I've never been able to attend but moving the fest partially online has opened up a little bit more possibility in terms of participating in screenings (some available digitally for rent!) and panels. HBO is presenting a series of Free Talks online focused on films new and old. One of the ones I'm pretty interested in revolves around 1985 coming of age thriller Smooth Talk starring a young and (as always) intensely mesmerizing Laura Dern as a woman seeking the approval of men who, unfortunately, ends up attracting the wrong man. Being that the film is inspired by a story by Joyce Carol Oates, I assumed it was a feminist anthem but after doing some light looking online there is some question as to whether Oates is considered feminine as opposed to feminist-- on cursory viewing, this trailer feels a bit final-girl/victim blame-y-- making me extra intrigued by the film's intentions and the talk! The discussion will feature Dern, Oates and Joyce Chopra, the film's Director, and will be moderated by TCM host Alicia Malone.

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Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Art History Curatorial Studies Collective Atlanta University Center & Spelman College Department of Art Visual Culture/ Online Presentation & Conversation

September 23, 2020/6:30-7:30pm ET/free with registration

The exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration is on display at MoMA PS1 curated by Guest Curator Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, Professor of American Studies and Art History at Rutgers University and author of a recently published book that shares the exhibit's title. The book and show focus on works of art from incarcerated artists and non-incarcerated artists with some relationship to the prison system. The pieces "bear witness to artists’ reimagining of the fundamentals of living—time, space, and physical matter—pushing the possibilities of these basic features of daily experience to create new aesthetic visions achieved through material and formal invention....From various sites of freedom or unfreedom, these artists devise strategies for visualizing, mapping, and making physically present the impact and scale of life under carceral conditions." The images from the show are powerful and the topic of the prison industrial complex is one whose devastating effects ripple outward, these pieces of art representations of its ongoing waves. As part of a Distinguished Lecture series, Dr. Fleetwood will present on the subject followed by a discussion between Fleetwood and MoMA PS1 Director Kate Fowle moderated by Dr. Cheryl Finley, Director of the AUC Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective. 

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com

Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of September 13th

Top Picks for Art Online Week of September 13th

Black Women Film Conference

New Negress Film Society/Online Screenings & Conversations

September 7-October 4, 2020/Conversations Thursday & Friday 6:30-7:30 EST on Facebook & Youtube Live/Free (Though I personally suggest donations!)

When I programmed for a women's film festival I came across the work being done by The New Negress Film Society and fell deeply in love. As stated on their website, "The New Negress Film Society is a core collective of black women filmmakers whose priority is to create community and spaces for support, exhibition and consciousness-raising. The group is formed by Chanelle Aponte Pearson, Nuotama Bodomo, Dyani Douze, Ja'Tovia Gary, Stefani Saintonge and Yvonne Michelle Shirley." The work these women are making and mothering is beyond compare: progressive in form and content, speaking to a future of black female creativity through politics, history, and art. If I'm not mistaken, this conference was to take place at PS1 prior to the pandemic but I am so thrilled it has moved online so even more people can access the work being done by this profound collective. The conference features a series of screenings focusing on the work of individual directors and conversations with these directors on topics such as The Specificity of Place: a conversation with Diana Peralta and Faren Humes and also Filming the Self: a conversation with Gessica Geneus, Angelique Webster, and Iyabo Kwayana. 

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Planet Africa 25: Black Film Now w/Dieudo Hamadi, Charles Officer, Tommy Oliver & Dawn Porter moderated by Cameron Bailey

TIFF/Online Conversation

Sepetember 16, 2020/Free

Planet Africa, a series founded by programmer, film critic, Artistic Director and Co-Head of TIFF Cameron Bailey dedicated to film from Africa and the African diaspora, celebrates its 25 Year Anniversary with a special lineup of events and films. Though I messed up and was too late to post the Free events that took place on the 13th, there is still a Free event on the 16th that you can catch! This panel, Planet Africa 25: Black Film Now, will include filmmakers featured in this year's TIFF lineup under the Planet Africa banner. Dieudo Hamadi, Charles Officer, Tommy Oliver and Dawn Porter will come together with Bailey to speak on the current state of contemporary Black filmmaking-- it's challenges and strengths. Each of these filmmakers holds such a distinct vision and voice, it will be fascinating to hear them discuss their perspectives on contemporary filmmaking at such a pivotal, changing time while reflecting on the legacy of this esteemed series.

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Music Critics' Round Table w/ Heidi Waleson, Zachary Woolfe & Zoë Madonna moderated by Naomi Lewin

92Y, Gilda & Henry Block School of Music/Online Class

September 15, 7pm ET/$15

Every child dreams of being a music critic? Wait, no? Ok. Well, I dreamed of being a music critic at some very, very young age. At some point in college I even wrote for an indie arts magazine on campus under a  pseudonym out of fear of recognition and judgment (how ironic!). There is something in trying to describe a strictly sonic experience to others that has always been appealing to me: how does one convey the tone, the notes, the emotion, the rhythm, the lyrics through a written description? How does a music critic listen and translate what they hear to words? The New York Times’ Zachary Woolfe, the Wall Street Journal’s Heidi Waleson and The Boston Globe’s Zoë Madonna will discuss the secret world of music critics with former WQXR host Naomi Lewin. Though the ticket is a bit steep for the times, the 92Y is a great (physical) space that could no doubt use the support. 

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com

Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of September 6th

 

Top Picks for Art Online Week of September 6th

Of Lies & Liars Study 01-05 (2020) by Tony Cokes 

The Shed/Up Close Screening Online

Last installment September 6, 2020-Ongoing Exhibit/Free 

In a new piece commissioned by The Shed, a behemoth of a performance space that was just beginning to come into its own in NYC before the pandemic made live events a matter of life and death, Tony Cokes has been premiering a new video for the past five weeks. The series wrapped up this weekend but all installments are now available online. The piece takes direct aim at the national response to Covid-19 using his signature on-screen text & music montage; the words in white sweep by in frames of bold red and blue. Seeing facts regarding the pandemic in America splayed out across a screen, a screen I am watching nearly trapped at home while the small city I live in is experiencing a college induced pandemic spike putting us in the top ten cities of rapid case-growth, makes me simmer with rage along with pangs of sadness and fear but there is also a little twinge of hope brought on by the fact that this piece of art exists as a creative piece of resistance. Share this piece widely. 

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Confronting the Colonial Gaze 

Open City Documentary Festival/ Online Discussion

September 9, 2020/17:30 UTC/Free

One of the earliest documentary films was Nanook of the North, Robert Flaherty's manufactured account of an Inuk man named Nanook (actually, his name was Allakariallak, changed for marketing purposes for European & American audiences). So much of nonfiction filmmaking has roots in false narratives, an imbalance of power, a subversion of truth, subjective imagery, and biased ethnography. The history of documentary film is fraught, to say the least. The relationship between colonialism, imperialism and doc film continues to be confronted, called out and actively dismantled. In this panel, a group of artists and filmmakers challenging the legacy of nonfiction filmmaking will discuss ways in which they deal with the "colonial gaze" and the flourishing of post-colonial filmmaking practice. The event will be hosted by Fatimah Tobing Rony and feature panelists Onyeka Igwe, Ephraim Asili & Laura Huertas Millán. 

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White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy: A Panel Discussion on Mothers of Massive Resistance

The University fo Chicago Civic Engagement, Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture/ Zoom Webinar

September 10, 2020/3-4pm CT (?)/ Free w/registration

Calling all Karens! Calling all Beckys! Even though it's a much-shared meme, the grotesque racism of Karens and the like over the past few years is not actually a laughing matter. The complicity of white women in the reinforcement of racism has historical precedence, everyday perpetrators of Jim Crow oppression. Elizabeth Gillespie McRae's book Mothers of Massive Resistance, the book at the center of this event, covers the broader implications of women's central role in crafting white supremacist politics. From teaching segregationist family values to protesting busing practices, this under-looked group was integral in the shaping of the nation's racist ideals, a role so often aligned with white male conservatives. Joining the conversation will be author Elizabeth Gillespie McRae (Associate Professor of History, Western Carolina University), Kathleen Belew (Assistant Professor of History, University of Chicago and author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America) and LaToya Jefferson-James (Assistant Professor of Literature, Mississippi Valley State University). 

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Best of TIFF Reunions

Toronto Internation Film Festival/Online events

September 10-20, 2020/Free

I've never been to TIFF in-person but luckily I get to attend digitally this year thanks to one of my employers! Woohoo! Even though passes and tickets co$t big money, there are some free digital events going on, their social media is the best place for updates on this! One (lighter!) event I thought I should highlight is the "Best of TIFF Reunions" series which will focus classic TIFF films from the fest's 43-year-old history, bringing together directors, crew and cast to speak on their filmmaking memories. Films included in this lineup are Full Metal Jacket, Room, Claudia Weill's 1978 influential indie Girlfriends, Requiem for a Dream and LadyBird featuring a Twitter watch party with special guests which will kick off the series on September 8th at 7:30pm EDT. If anyone has any suggestions for things I should see at this year's fest please holler! I have a viewing schedule but I didn't realize how much I rely on marketing to push me into screenings I know nothing about-- maybe digital fests need a digital telephone pole to staple postcards and posters too? 

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com