Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas

About

Pratt Manhattan Gallery is pleased to present Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas, an exhibition that investigates contemporary, community-based social art practices in the United States and Latin America while attempting to build a direct dialogue with artists and researchers across the hemisphere to discuss shared concerns, issues and art practices. The exhibition is on view September 27 through December 14, 2019, with a public opening reception and panel discussion on Thursday, September 26, 5:30-8 PM.

Talking to Action focuses on the collaborative dialogically-based form of artmaking that is most often referred to as “social practice” in the U.S. with roots in public practice, community-based, participatory, relational and socially-engaged art. Consequently, the artists in Talking to Action explore a range of trans-disciplinary practices, blurring the lines between object making, political and environmental activism, community organizing, and performance. 

The included projects interrogate issues including migration and memory, critical mapping and cartographic practices, environmental issues and policies, gender rights and legislation, indigenous culture, racial violence and policing tactics and are often produced in collaboration with particular communities in rural or urban environments in politically charged contexts. The title, Talking to Action, underscores the discursive nature of these artists’ practices and their efforts to instigate greater public attention, community participation and political action towards such issues.

Mirroring the educational imperative found in many of the artists’ practices, and Pratt Institute’s

academic commitment to Social Practice, Talking to Action leans on the history of critical, dialogically-driven pedagogies from Latin America such as those greatly informed by Paulo Freire and other important thinkers whose collective efforts were influential to generations of artists, teachers, and activists throughout the hemisphere.

Including artists: Liliana Angulo (Bogotá, Colombia), Efraín Astorga Garay (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico), BijaRi (São Paulo, Brazil), Bulbo and Galatea audio/visual (Tijuana, Mexico), Giacomo Castagnola (Lima, Peru / Mexico City, Mexico), Cog●nate Collective (Tijuana, Mexico and Southern California, US), Grupo Contrafilé (São Paulo, Brazil), Sandra de la Loza and Eduardo Molinari (California, US and Buenos Aires, Argentina), Dignicraft (Tijuana, Mexico), Etcétera (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Frente 3 de Fevereiro (São Paulo, Brazil), Colectivo FUGA (Otavalo, Ecuador), Clara Ianni and Débora Maria da Silva (São Paulo, Brazil), Iconoclasistas (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Kolectivo de Restauración Territorial (Gonzalo Cueto Vera, Jorge A. Olave Riveros, Cristian Wenuvil Peiñan) (Temuco, Chile), Suzanne Lacy (Wasco, California, US), Alfadir Luna (Mexico City, Mexico), Taniel Morales (Mexico City, Mexico), Andrés Padilla Domene and Ivan Puig Domene (Mexico City, Mexico), POLEN (Tijuana, Mexico), Gala Porras-Kim (Bogotá, Colombia and Los Angeles, US), Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (Puerto Rico) and Ultra-red and School of Echoes Los Angeles (California, US).

Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas is curated by Bill Kelley, Jr., Curator and Lead Researcher. Karen Moss is Consulting Curator. Talking to Action is organized by Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, and managed as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI). The exhibition and tour are made possible, in part, with the generous support of the Getty Foundation, PST: LA/LA presenting sponsor Bank of America, the ICI Board of Trustees and ICI’s International Forum.

The exhibition is accompanied by the bilingual publication Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas, co-published by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.

WHEN:                          On View: September 27 – December 14, 2019

Special Events: Thursday, September 26, 2019:

Opening Reception, 6-8 PM

Panel Discussion, Talking to Action: Art and Politics in the Americas, 5:30-7 PM 

Room 213 (adjacent to gallery)

Moderated by Macarena Gómez-Barris, cultural critic, in conversation with Bill Kelley, Jr., curator, and Jennifer S. Ponce de León, scholar.

                                    Additional Upcoming events will be posted on our website: www.pratt.edu/exhibitions

WHERE:                        Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor

Gallery Hours: Monday - Saturday 11 AM - 6 PM, Thursday until 8 PM

ADMISSION:                 The event is free and open to the public.

SOCIAL MEDIA:             #TalkingToAction @prattexhibits @curatorsintl

PHOTOS:                      Images are available upon request, please contact jtravi12@pratt.edu
or ablancat@pratt.edu