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Hello, hello!

Yes, it is true, Kara and I are organizing an exhibition with opening date Dec 7th (2018, that is) at The Clemente, in the Lower East Side. It runs til Jan 20. Installation date: December 5th.

The conceptual framework etc is below. Long story short, each participant will have a 12x12x4″ box to fill in with material inspired by climate change.

To add texture, we are embarking on an adventure of making the wooden boxes this weekend.  Yes, we are (I keep on repeating that line to remind myself that it this is going to happen).

We are secured the parts from salvaged wood, and we will put them together. If you are in, and have a desire to assemble your own box, we can totally give you the pieces. A couple of curatorial directives though: all box frames are to be identical, so no painting or otherwise changing the surface of the wood. Think of it as a common ground, or as a blank canvas for us all to start with, and/or be constrained by. The fourth wall, which would be where the lid is, is free-form – you may add whatever you please to it.

Please let us know asap, and stay away from goblins and other  such last-minute curators…
PS as for the framework below, most of it is pending funding. Hey, who knows.

“Our reference ground for this exhibition has been Joseph Cornell and what we feel is a fundamental part of his art and his life: how he was not confined by limitations. The entire gallery should be viewed as its own “Cornell Box” deconstructed. Each section of the show highlights different characteristics of Cornell’s oeuvre: poetics (literal and visual), collage, assemblage, cataloging, and dance. Additionally, we hope to incorporate Cornell’s role as a caregiver to his brother, and the profound impact this had on their lives. To that end, we are hoping to dedicate a part of the installation to how Hurricane Maria was particularly destructive for people with disabilities and their caregivers. 
The contemporary artwork in the exhibition will be divided into two parts:

• The “Introspective” side of the gallery will display existing works that share common characteristics with Cornell’s oeuvre. Given the foyer location of the gallery, we don’t want to expose unprotected artworks to foot traffic. Instead, we propose to show a wall collage of letterpress-printed broadsides from The Center for Book Arts Broadside Reading Series. This Series pairs a visual artist with a poem 12 times a year and has been in production for over 18 years, so we have hundreds of options to cull from. 
  

• The “Collective” aspect of the show will consist of:
  
  • Work produced as a result of a Paste Paper workshop for New York City Public Schools teens, where the participants will be exposed to the history of assemblage while collaboratively creating content for one or more boxes, which will be put on display;
    
  • A maximum of 20 wooden shadow boxes of set dimensions (12x12x3 1/2”), for which artists will be invited to fill with content inspired by climate change and the Hurricane Maria disaster. The scope of this concept is intentionally broad, ranging from environment and ecology to mass migrations and political disfranchisement. The boxes would be displayed mounted on a grid of 2×4’s that reproduce the installation Cornell did in 1949 for his show Aviary, at the Egan Gallery.

Aside from the “Introspective” (poetry broadside collage) and “Collective” (shadow boxes) aspects of the show, the exhibition would also feature:

• A bilingual wall of text highlighting the experiences of people with disabilities and their caregivers during Hurricane Maria and its aftereffects. This would be paired with a passage of text that talks about Joseph and Robert Cornell’s experience of surviving a hurricane on Long Island
• A projection of dance footage, hopefully from a Puerto Rican or Latina dancer
• A substantial wall-text to guide the viewer through all these elements while offering historical context (also bilingual)
  
• And as a related program, a panel discussion”