WRITING
Catalog Essay for Delimitations, or words to live by, a multimedia installation by Alexandra Robinson at Women & Their Work
It was my pleasure to write a catalog essay for Alexandra Robinson's solo exhibition at Women & Their Work. It has been so meaningful to connect with Alex and become invested in her practice. I will forever talk about feeling rooted in our bodies and the definitions of authenticity.
Alexandra Robinson’s solo exhibition, Delimitations, or words to live by uses both drawings and multimedia works to investigate ideas of identity and signifiers that question place and how one exists in that place. Robinson co-opts symbols in order to play with meaning and she is especially interested in an American ideology that was never meant for everyone even if multiplicity is the American experience.
Robinson is deeply connected to the complex history of what it is to be Mexican-American (and one who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish) and of Jewish heritage brought up in a most American institution, the United States Army. These edges challenge and reinforce Robinson’s sense of identity and are directly reflective of how generations of her family internalized what it means to be American.
Catalog Essay for PROOF, a multi media installation by Tiffany Lin at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can
I’m honored to have written a catalog essay for Tiffany Lin’s multimedia installation at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Lin is a visual artist whose work examines how power is expressed in the subtext of American vernacular. Through a multidisciplinary practice that spans drawing, writing, and performance, she demonstrates how language and data are deployed tactically to reify colonial legacies and state power. Utilizing both creative and sociological methods, she combines participatory action, interviews, and social theory to support her claim that desire and belonging in the United States are mediated by external politics.
MAAKE Magazine Issue 11 Curatorial Statement
Maake Magazine is an independent, artist-run print publication and project space featuring contemporary artists and artist-run projects. For issue 11 I selected 19 artists who all work through ideas of care and community resilience in their work.
El espectro de empatía in Spellwork: Technologies and Conjurings
My essay, El espectro de empatía, can be read in The Living Room Light Exchange’s fourth annual publication, Spellwork: Technologies and Conjurings. The issue calls forth the techno-witches, wizards, sorcerers, animists, and magicians. Featuring LRLX artists Morehshin Allahyari, LaTurbo Avedon, Ingrid Burrington, Yetunde Olagbaju, and Cassie Thornton, Spellwork provokes the possibility that technology and magic have always been entangled rituals. These artists explore the double bind of magic in technology and the technology of magic. My essay in particular explores empathy, racial imposter syndrome, and ancestry. This publication also includes a limited edition Silicon Beach crystal pendant bookmark by artist Nina Sarnelle and a survey of LRLX season 5 by Bay Area arts writers. Together we embrace the technologies of witches, demons and goddesses, and we seek the benign magic of the everyday.
*a note about the essay linked here: I am attempting to sort through labels, a white-man’s-idea-of-history, colonization, and US-focused markers of identity in order to find the words for my own identity. The latinx and Mexican-American signifiers are *completely* messy as it can signify so many languages, nationalities, traditions, and so forth. As I continue to study, listen, and learn, I don’t stand by everything that I wrote in this essay linked here. I haven’t received any messages from anyone regarding the content, but I do want to say that how I talk about my identity is in flux, and it is ok to be in flux, and I hope you, dear reader, can appreciate the evolving nature of finding out who we are, who others are, and how we move through the world. I recognize the privilege I have of white skin to not always have my identity in question from others, and I am actively working on breaking down the definition of 'latinidad' and ‘whiteness’ etc, because when I don't, it is a form of oppression of Black lives. When we don't understand how we participate in oppression we risk muting Black voices who need their stories told over others as a form of safety, preservation, life, and enjoyment. For now, I am choosing to keep my essay up here to display a process and changing vocabulary as I continue to write about the subject matter, as I look into family history, and as I find the right (?) words to describe my past and present. Thank you for joining me (or not) on this journey and if you want to discuss more, please, email me to get in touch.
Sonic Futures at the San José Institute of Contemporary Art
Exhibition review of Sonic Futures at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art was a group show featuring works by Sofía Córdova, INVASORIX, Jeepneys, Laura Hyunjhee Kim, Keith Lafuente, Merritt Wallace, and Jenifer Wofford. The works consider social and political conditions such as environmental destruction, ableism, racial inequality, gender discrimination, and white privilege as an entry point to rethink social and cultural norms in the next year, decade, or millennium.
Cyclic Compression: Energetic Contact and the Artist as Medium
Catalog essay for Rhonda Holberton's solo exhibition at CULT.
Contact CULT Exhibitions for the full catalog.
Archives and Algorithms: Compressing Socio-historical Distance
A short form essay of my extensive research regarding taxonomical systems such as archives and algorithms. In the essay I compare the relationship between the historical archive and the categorical nature of algorithms. I note the historical distance between the two systems are not so far apart in terms of the mediation of social identities and relations.
Curatorial Statement for the Humor US Exhibition Catalog
The featured artists in Humor US utilized comicality as a medium to reflect on the world outside of academia in the then upcoming presidential tenure. Through installations, videos, and photographs embedded with wittiness, the artists display personal experiences of disenfranchisement, criticisms regarding the American Dream, and platforms for positive social and political change made possible by the simplicity of simply listening to one another.
The Actionability of the Archive
The essay is an investigation of the archived work by artist Martin Wong and archive theory. The essay was included in the catalog for the exhibition Painting is Forbidden, shown at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA.
Bechdel Test Movie Night: Foxy Brown
The essay focuses on the film Foxy Brown and the film series that filmmaker and educator Cheryl Dunye launched featuring films that pass the Bechdel Test. To pass the test a film must feature at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. This seemingly easy requirement is surprisingly difficult for most films to do. On November 8, 2015 the New Parkway Theater screened one film that does pass, Foxy Brown, and was followed by a question and answer session hosted by Dunye herself. Although this film is not produced by Dunye, of interest to the Art Practical audience is the conversation that followed concerning gender inequality in film. Dunye has been a long time advocate for women’s rights in the arts and politics, and the topics that she and the audience brought forth in the question and answer portion of the evening elicited a moving discussion. This review focused on the topics raised, the importance it has for the broad population of the Bay Area, and promotes the importance of such events that address gender inequality.
Catalog Introduction: Ali Nashke-Messing 2x2 Solo Show
I Took Some Time, But I am Writing With Love
In the catalog Bathed in Sunshine, Covered in Dust, I consider the arts community of Reno, Nevada––a place that shaped the beginning stages of my career as a curator, a colleague, a studio-mate, a confidant, and my sense of a supportive arts environment. The exhibition that the catalog draws from digs deeper into what makes art made in Reno so unique, strange, an intimately tied together. There is a deep investigation into a sense of place, memories, myths, and nostalgia that emerges from the show.
View the full pdf of the catalog and my essay here