Drawing from MoMA’s current installation From the Collection: 1960–1969, artists Kerry Downey and Dread Scott facilitate a gallery conversation and studio printmaking workshop exploring the ways politics have been pictured—both as urgent responses and imagined possibilities, showing what the world is and what it could be. Downey and Scott will discuss how art functions politically. Under what conditions is an artwork made? How is it distributed? What visual strategies are being used? Following a gallery discussion, participants will consider these questions through hands-on experiments with monoprinting. Many profound issues are being debated today: Black Lives Matter, abortion rights, gender norms and the transgender movement, endless war, immigration, global climate change, etc. As this workshop will be thinking expansively about what constitutes the “political,” participants are encouraged to be playful, uncertain, curious, and poetic. No prior skills or knowledge necessary.
Dread Scott makes revolutionary art to propel history forward. In 1989, while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where he received a BFA), he first received national attention when his art caused a controversy over its use of the American flag; the work was denounced by President G.H.W. Bush and outlawed by Congress. Dread Scott's art has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, the Walker Art Center, and the Pori Art Museum in Finland. In 2012 BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) presented his performance Dread Scott: Decision. He is the recipient of a Creative Capital Foundation grant, a Pollock-Krasner grant, and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work is in the collection of the Whitney and the Akron Art Museum. He works in a range of mediums, including installation, photography, screenprinting, video, and performance. He is on the board of directors of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Kerry Downey is an interdisciplinary artist and teacher whose work explores the various ways we come in contact with each other physically, psychologically, and sociopolitically. Downey's videos, prints, and performances reimagine the possibilities and limitations of gender, intimacy, and support in late capitalist America. She is a recent recipient of the Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant and her work has recently been exhibited at LACE, Los Angeles; The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Annandale; The Drawing Center, New York; Taylor Macklin, Zurich; and REVERSE, Brooklyn. Downey has been teaching at MoMA since 2007, and has recently taught at Hunter College and at Parsons School of Design. She holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Hunter College.
Price: Non-member: $50
Member: $40
Student/Educator: $30