DISCUSSING THE SELF-ORGANIZED — AESTHETIC POLITICS OF THE ARTIST RUN / Sunday July 19, 20152pm-4pm

Participants: Arts & Sciences Projects / New York City / Baltimore, MD ; Lauren Adams / Ortega Y Gasset Projects / Brooklyn, NY; Carl Gunhouse / Transmiter/ Brooklyn/ NY; Rod Malin / Guest Spot @ THE REINSTITUTE / Baltimore, MD;  Matthew Mahler / Small Black Door / Queens, NY;
Mel Prest / Transmitter / Brooklyn, NY; Iemke van Dijk / IS Projects / Leiden, Netherlands; Guido Winkler / IS Projects / Leiden, Netherlands

"The current economic situation and society’s low confidence in its institutions has suddenly demanded artists become more imaginative in the way they organize themselves. If labels such as ‘alternative’, ‘non-profit’ and ‘artist-run’ dominate the self organized art scene that emerged in the late 1990s, the separatist position implied by the use of these terms has been moderated during intervening years. The new anthology of accounts from the front line includes contributions by artists, as well as their institutional counterparts, that provide a fascinating account of the art world as matrix of interconnected positions where the balance of power and productivity constantly shift."   
Occasional Table - Self-Organized

CoHosts: Coco Fusco & Guest Spot (Speaker Series with the The Contemporary)

Monday, January 13, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (EST)

Baltimore School for the Arts, 712 Cathedral Street , Baltimore, MD 21201

Please Join us Monday, January 13, 2014 as we collaborate with The Contemporary to present Coco Fusco for the 2014 Speaker Series CoHosts. The event will be held at the Baltimore School for the Arts at 712 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD. A reception will be held before the lecture at 6pm. Seats are limited please register at ( http://www.contemporary.org/cohosts.html#fusco )

Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She has performed, lectured, exhibited, and curated around the world since 1988. She is a recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2013 Fulbright Fellowship, a 2012 US Artists Fellowship, and a 2003 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Fusco’s performances and videos have been presented in two Whitney Biennials (2008 and 1993), BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the Sydney Biennale, The Johannesburg Biennial, The Kwangju Biennale, The Shanghai Biennale, InSite O5, Mercosul, Transmediale, The London International Theatre Festival, VideoBrasil, and Performa05. Her works have also been shown at the Tate Liverpool, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. She is represented by Alexander Gray Associates in New York.

Fusco’s work combines electronic media and performance in a variety of formats, from staged multi-media performances incorporating large scale projections and closed circuit television to live performances streamed to the internet that invite audiences to chart the course of action through chat interaction. Her most recent media installation, And the Sea Will Talk to You (2012), invites audience into the physical and emotional experience of journeying from Cuba by sea. Participants relinquish their worldly possessions before entering a darkened theater where traditional seating has been replaced by the inner tubes that serve as sea crafts for Cuban rafters.

Fusco received her B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University (1982), her M.A. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University (1985), and her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture from Middlesex University (2007). cocofusco.com

PUBLISHING IN THE DIGITAL AGE Discussion with Waal-boght Press and photographer Carl Gunhouse Saturday March 23, 2013 2-4pm Guest Spot and THE REINSTITUTE are proud to present a discussion with Jason John Würm from Waal-boght Press and photographer Carl Gunhouse. The talk will explore how the current economic state of the US has changed how the independent publisher is regarded and the influence of a culture characterized by a profusion of content. Waal-boght Press is a new independent publisher of small edition photography books and zines located in Brooklyn, NY. Carl Gunhouse is a NYC-based photographer who is also known for his photography writing and his online website called Searching for the Light. The discussion will mark the closing of Carl Gunhouse’s solo exhibition Falling Apart on Saturday March 23, 2013.

NY CENTRALITY THE REINSTITUTE Panel Discussion: New York Centrality and the Artist’s Practice Saturday May 25, 2013 2pm-4pm 1715 North Calvert St. Baltimore, MD. In collaboration with Guest Spot’s current exhibition Same Same But Different, THE REINSTITUTE is hosting a community and panel discussion on New York Centrality and the Artist’s Practice. The program is inspired by recent related articles that depict New York City as not a place for young artists - Vulture: Saltz on the Death of the Gallery Show; and The L Magazine: Don’t Move to New York. The discussion will spark a critical conversation about the exchange and transformation of the artist’s practice in New York and the current challenges that artists face while living in the City. The panelists include three recent MFA graduates from Hunter College (New York City): Jay Gaskill, Fabian G. Tabibian, and Amanda Valdez; the talk will be moderated by the Director of The Reinstitute, Rod Malin. “I’m sad that New York, the city I’ve lived in for more than 10 years, is now barely hospitable to those making the kind of art I love.” Paddy Johnson “Art doesn’t have to be shown in New York to be validated.” Jerry Saltz

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES / A DISCUSSION WITH MICHAEL SCOGGINS *ART STAR

A discussion on the topic of Maintaining Sustainable Practices will be held in conjunction with the closing on February 15, 2014, 2pm-4pm.

ART STAR, a solo exhibition of new works by Michael Scoggins, examines the artist’s psyche with respect to career stardom. Like a page out of a notebook, Scoggins’ insight into political Americana is voiced by his alter ego Michael S., a child-like persona created by Scoggins. While Scoggins’ inspiration is based on comics and superheros, which are generally morally monochromatic in nature, Scoggins confronts the realism of current issues with a bliss of complex satire and irony. In ART STAR, Scoggins turns his sights to the art world and it’s eagerness to cash-in on social, market, and pop culture trends.

Art schools champion increasing enrollment and traditional arts institutions desperately struggle to avoid alienating the general public. Within this context, there are growing misconceptions about the path to obtaining a “career artist” status. As the art stardom zeitgeist settles in the minds of young, eager practitioners, the reality of “making it big” consumes the artist’s psyche. These art world antics reflect the rhetoric of an unsettled institutional mode, which resemble a lead box of Kryptonite for those who are naive enough to think that artists are in control of their own fates.