Swiss in Situ | Against The Romance of Community
Thie exhibition focuses on social dynamics, as well as the rhetoric, images and processes that organize or influence group behavior.
Against the Romance of Community (2016)Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Taking its title from a 2002 book by theorist Miranda Joseph, the exhibition draws on Joseph’s questioning of the term “community”, which is nearly always invoked as an unequivocal good with romantic or nostalgic connotations.
ideas (2016) by Ramaya TegegneSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Featuring historical and contemporary work, the exhibition includes several experimental positions that draw from city planning, architecture, choreography, advertising, and oral history.
Against the Romance of Community (2016)Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
The exhibition is bookended by two projects from the 1970s in which experimental practices intervene in local administration.
My Neighborhood Score (1971) by Connie Beeson and Halprin WorkshopsSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Connie Beeson’s Portapak video footage captures the ‘Leadership Workshops’ held by architect Lawrence Halprin and dancer Anna Halprin in 1971 in San Francisco.
Against the romance of community (2016)Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
As part of an initiative to train community leaders, participants in the workshop created and performed ‘scores’ on the subjects of conflict, race and neighborhood relations.
Against the Romance of Community (2016) by installation viewSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
For Dissolution (1975-1976), conceptual artist Raivo Puusemp was elected mayor of Rosendale, New York.
During his tenure, Puusemp used phenomenological approaches developed through his art practice to convince the people of Rosendale to dissolve the village government in order to resolve their financial and bureaucratic problems.
If This Means You (2016) by Jibade-Khalil HuffmanSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Three video works adopt highly persuasive aesthetics, designed to motivate groups politically.
Kiss and Cry (2015) by Liz Magic LaserSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
In Liz Magic Laser’s Kiss and Cry (2015), figure skating children voice their anger at being deployed as pictures of innocence and announce themselves as a political class.
If This Means You (2016) by Jibade-Khalil HuffmanSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
In Jibade-Khalil Huffman’s IF THIS MEANS YOU (2016), persuasive rhetorical poetry has been wrought from seductive advertising imagery.
The Struggle Against Ourselves (2011) by Jesse JonesSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
In Jesse Jones’s The Struggle Against Ourselves (2011), dancers recreate études from Soviet biomechanical workshops in the style of a Busby Berkeley musical, highlighting aesthetic dialogues between ideological paradigms.
Ideas (2016) by Ramaya TegegneSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Ramaya Tegegne’s research focuses on the movement of gossip amongst artist communities, and her performance lecture Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz (New Jerseyy) compiles oral testimonies to narrate a short history of New Jerseyy, an artist-run space in Basel, Switzerland.
Rossella Biscotti’s jacquard-woven textile, Other (current residents) (2015), is a visual depiction of those who were marked ‘other’ during two recent censuses taken in Brussels.
Other (current residents) (2015) by Rossella BiscottiSwiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York
Made with an industrial loom and summoning a Modernist aesthetic, the work articulates several forms of data processing that have long defined our understanding of communities.
