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A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDERS Jason Price and Titus Kaphar
“We have been at this for a while now,” is an expression often shared between us, then we continue to talk and realize we are just getting started. Our community is undergoing a transformational journey towards a brighter future, and we are proud to lead the way with our innovative arts and impact model. By attracting substantial capital investments, we built a world-class facility that is a hub for emerging artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs from around the world. Our unique approach, grounded in a new paradigm of arts education, is revolutionizing the way our community views and interacts with the arts. In particular, our Dixwell community, which has long been overlooked and underserved, has benefited immensely from our efforts. We are committed to ensuring that cultural capital generated by our team is reinvested back into our neighborhood, and that the entire city of New Haven reaps the rewards of our vision. At the core of our model for positive change is NXTHVN, but throughout our facility this year we have fostered a dynamic partnership between several other ideas and institutions that have planted roots within our space to work hand in hand towards a shared mission. For example, Collab, an incubator for local entrepreneurs, started their pilot residency in NXTHVN’s space, which enables them to have a home base for team meetings and larger events like cohort graduations. Together, these entities are constructing an unbeatable team, working tirelessly to create a better, brighter future for all. We are truly humbled that so many key stakeholders are on this journey with us. Collectively, we march forward into a brighter future. Sincerely, Jason and Titus
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INTRODUCTION Kalia Brooks
The pages that follow record another exciting year at NXTHVN! We welcomed an extraordinary group of burgeoning artists and curators into our fellowship program: Anindita Dutta, Donald Guevara, Ashanté Kindle, Athena Quispe, Edgar Serrano, Cornelia Stokes, Capt. James Stovall V, and Kiara Cristina Ventura. They spent ten months at NXTHVN immersing themselves in a series of workshops, seminars, and studio and site visits while preparing for their culminating exhibition projects. Along with our fellows, we brought in our largest group of high school apprentices since the first year of the program with two returning apprentices and seven new students joining our organization: Victor Adeniji, Assiata Ayinla, Lauriann Burt, Brianna Doctor, Blanche Filipczak, Isaac Perry, Luca Rivera, Ryan Rugarema, and Ashlynn Savannah. The apprentices commit to working alongside the artists and curators while developing individual projects. We started our fall season with a participatory installation of floating balloons titled, the truth is i am you, by Ryan Alexiev and Hank Willis Thomas. We saw this installation as an opportunity to engage with and learn from our audience by inviting them to write their “truths” on the surface of the balloons. In addition to the balloons the exhibition included a video compilation by the Cause Collective, a group in which Alexiev and Thomas are members, where they traveled to various cities in the US and around the world with an inflatable video booth to record peoples’ individual “truths.” We also exhibited a bright red speech bubble shaped bench, Josephine and Kazumi (Real Red) (2018) by Thomas that was positioned outside at the entrance of the building. Visitors to the exhibition enjoyed the addition to our sidewalk so much that we have decided to keep it displayed as a reminder that NXTHVN can be a place for communal rest and reflection. Among NXTHVN’s staff and the many artists, curators, and creative professionals that interacted with our fellows, they had the opportunity for some directed learning from Romi Crawford, PhD, Professor and Chair in the Visual and Critical Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Crawford was our visiting art historian where over the course of the fellowship year she shared her research on artists who informed the Black Arts Movement in Chicago while also conducting studio visits with our artists and curators.
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This year we introduced new programming to our itinerary of events, for example NXTHVN After Dark where we keep our doors open later in the evening to highlight the current exhibition in a festive atmosphere. We also initiated a series of markets that showcased the merchandise of Blackand Brown-owned businesses from the New Haven area and beyond. It was a privilege to bring back programs by popular demand like our annual spoken word event hosted by the high school apprentices, and the Dixwell Walking Tour produced in collaboration with the Greater New Haven African American Historical Society. Our curatorial fellows, Kiara Cristina Ventura and Cornelia Stokes kicked off our spring season with the opening of their exhibition titled, Not For Sale. The show featured artwork by Anthony Akinbola, LaKela Brown, David Hammons, Lucia Hierro, Arthur Jafa, Emmanuel Massillon, and Sable Elyse Smith. This thought-provoking exhibition centers the contributions Black and Brown communities have made to the texture of American life while critiquing the ways in which these communities are most often exploited, violated, and underserved by mainstream society. By Any Means Necessary was an art history class taught by Ventura and Stokes that focused on the use of found and readymade objects, a theme that featured prominently in the show. The art history class, which is an ongoing project of Ventura’s, took place during our annual Open Studios weekend. As our fellowship year drew to a close, we held our keynote conversation. This year we were honored to have internationally recognized artist, Amy Sherald, in conversation with Allison Glenn, co-curator of the Counterpublic Triennial 2023. Sherald and Glenn, who worked together on Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in 2021 that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, illuminated the nuances of representing the Black experience in America during their talk at NXTHVN. Sherald and Glenn also conducted studio visits with our fellows as they were in deep preparation for their culminating exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery. The studio fellows' culminating exhibition RECLAMATION, curated by Ventura and Stokes, marked the end of the ten-month fellowship, and celebrated the work created by our fellows at NXTHVN. We are thrilled to be able to continue our partnership with Sean Kelly on the culminating exhibition again this year. NXTHVN
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The high school apprentices rounded out the year with a TEDx talk. They developed and refined their presentation throughout the year with the guidance of their fellows and NXTHVN staff. Their talk titled TEDx Dixwell provided personal insights on their community from the youth perspective as well as select members from the neighborhood. Our last exhibition of the season was COMMON PRACTICE: Public Access, guest curated by John Dennis. This exhibition explores the role of basketball in community building. In tandem with the show, Common Practice, along with the non-profit organization Project Backboard, unveiled a large-scale on-court installation across the street from NXTHVN on the neighborhood basketball court at Goffe Street Park designed by New Haven-based artist Tschabalala Self. Each year we continue to learn and grow! I hope you enjoy witnessing our work as much as we do. Happy reading! Kalia Brooks, PhD Director of Programs and Exhibitions
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THE TRUTH IS I AM YOU September 24–November 20, 2022
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THE TRUTH IS I AM YOU Kalia Brooks
the truth is i love you the truth is i know you the truth is i see you the truth is i hear you the truth is i fear you the truth is i feel you the truth is i believe you the truth is i become you the truth is i judge you the truth is i respect you the truth is i remember you the truth is i remind you the truth is i am you —Ryan Alexiev and Hank Willis Thomas
The truth is i am you is first and foremost a poem written by Ryan Alexiev and Hank Willis Thomas in 2007. The two are visual artists, and so the poem takes on visual forms. At NXTHVN, it was transformed into a participatory large-scale installation with oversized balloons floating in the exhibition space. The silver-colored balloons with empty speech bubbles printed on them prompted the audience to fill in their truths. We provided black markers at the entrance of the gallery for visitors to write with. Part of the fun was watching people catch their balloon, write on it, and release it back into the swirling mass of shimmering mylar. Even though the contribution was meant to be anonymous, many visitors personalized the experience by taking a picture with their authored balloon. NXTHVN, located in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven, used the exhibition as a listening device to get to know the ideas and assertions that its neighbors hold most dear. The project inspires the kind of exchange NXTHVN wants with its community, where the audience is directly engaged to complete the experience. The exhibition was a bridge of communication between NXTHVN and its neighbors as a means to confront any feelings of alienation that local residents may have toward new people and organizations coming into their community. Considering the realities of generational disinvestment,
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community apprehension around new development is well deserved. We know that this is an ongoing conversation and welcome the challenge of having to earn our position with our Dixwell neighbors. The truth is i am you is a record of the ever-evolving relationship between art and the human condition by inviting the audience to leave their remarks. Thomas and Alexiev have created a space where present experience and personal histories are contained simultaneously. The project’s openended proposition turns personal experience into productive forms of encounter between the arts, the public, arts organizations and the communities in which they reside. By so doing, we opened up the truths shared in Dixwell to broader social and cultural narratives that have been generated through other iterations of the project. Another version of the project, In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth) (2011–2014), produced by Cause Collective, is an inflatable video booth shaped like a speech bubble. Thomas and Alexiev along with other members of the Cause Collective went on tour with the booth for three years to locations around the world and the United States including Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Washington D.C., and Miami, FL. At each location visitors entered the booth to record a two-minute confessional that responded to the question, "the truth is?" In addition to the floating speech bubble balloons, NXTHVN featured a video compilation of The Truth Booth recordings inserting the truths gathered in Dixwell into a global conversation about what people define as real, valuable, and true. A third element that rounded out the exhibition was a vibrant, red speech bubble bench titled, Josephine and Kazumi (Real Red) (2018), installed outside at the front of the building inviting visitors to rest and contemplate. The sculptural bench was so well received by our audience that it will remain on display as a cue to our neighbors that NXTHVN is actively creating public spaces for respite. The beauty of the truth is i am you was that it was both unique to its location, yet ubiquitous in the many articulations used to pronounce the diverse experience of human reality. The exhibition was the result of the collective efforts of the many minds and bodies that were integral in contributing to the project—the makers of the booth, and the participants who bravely provided the content. In this way, it is an example of multivocal production. The process of dialogue building that is essential to NXTHVN
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this project calls to mind the position of arts organizations like NXTHVN in creating new spaces of encounter in the communities in which they reside. The exhibition served as a hub of collective interaction that highlighted the thoughts of its visitors. Although NXTHVN is a new architecture in the neighborhood of Dixwell it aims to go beyond its facade by welcoming the interior thoughts of people who walk through its doors. Each element of the exhibition showed the variety of platforms Thomas and Alexiev employ to interact with the public as they aim to expand the visual perspectives of the art making endeavor. Dixwell is now connected to that network. Thomas and Alexiev used participatory installation, video, and public art to record the dynamism of the people. Dixwell, with a population that is predominantly Black and Brown, is historically a creative environment with organizations, institutions, and businesses that affirm the neighborhood as a site of cultural innovation. As a recent addition to this setting with a focus on arts and entrepreneurship, NXTHVN seeks to honor that past with contemporary projects like the truth is i am you, which makes evident the public, private, and inner/spiritual life of the community. The truth is i am you induced a sense of belonging for NXTHVN and the residents of Dixwell. The project has created space for the voices that make up the community—and so affirms the humanity of its residents, honors the complexity of their lives, and centers their points of view. The open-endedness of the truth project is meant to initiate more critical dialogue about the role of the artist, the public, and the arts organization in the present and future vision of society.
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Hank Willis Thomas and Ryan Alexiev, the truth is i am you, NXTHVN installation view, 2022. Courtesy of the artists
Hank Willis Thomas, Ryan Alexiev, and Jim Ricks, The Truth Booth, NXTHVN installation view, 2022. Courtesy of the artists
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Hank Willis Thomas, Josephine and Kazumi (Real Red), 2018, NXTHVN installation view, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
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NOT FOR SALE March 4–May 21, 2023
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WHAT’S UNDERSTOOD SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE EXPLAINED Cornelia Stokes
it’s not on you, it’s in you black is black ain’t the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice you got McDonald’s money? all my life I had to fight you know the vibes (yktv)
These are a few of the sayings that came to mind when Kiara Cristina Ventura and I brainstormed for our exhibition Not For Sale. Similar to how these phrases instantly bring to mind a moment of cultural reference, we wanted the exhibition to ignite a familiarity that could reach Black and Brown people no matter what. Using feelings of belonging, style, and a collective struggle to guide the direction of the show, I found that as people of color, we often second guess or overexplain ourselves in order for people to understand where we are coming from. Due to this fear of misrepresentation or misunderstanding, we create resilient strategies to avoid the negative misconceptions that are tactically used to oppress our people. By utilizing objects with significant cultural context, the artists featured in Not For Sale intentionally play with ideas of cultural appropriation, expanding what it actually means to commodify the culture. Each artist and their work tells a story, hints at a memory, or incites a personal connection to the object used or what it represents within Black and Brown culture. Those connections are visible to others with shared experiences, and within the exhibition, it becomes less about explaining the culture and more about connecting through the daily realities faced by Black and Brown people—making each visitor’s experience of the exhibition relative. Taking note of the American capitalist structure that historically keeps low-income Black and Brown communities marginalized, the mindset to make do with what is available is born out of necessity but is also what makes it an intangible commodity. Not For Sale recognizes the systemic oppressions causing these struggles and chooses to reflect on and celebrate the experiences that make being a part of this culture priceless. So, what would it mean to articulate these kinds of experiences? Should something natural and culturally relevant for Black and Brown...
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INTUITIVE & RESOURCEFUL PRACTICES THAT COME OUT OF THE HOOD Kiara Cristina Ventura
It was 1983. On an icy winter’s day in New York’s East Village, stood David Hammons behind a well-curated assortment of snowballs in size order, from the size of a quarter to a fist. The snowballs were flawlessly round, and their brightness was highlighted by the warm tones of the rug they rested on. At first glance, it can be assumed that Hammons simply scooped snow off the ground to make products for his outside vending station. This unannounced act, Bliz-aard Ball Sale (1983), documented by photographer Dawoud Bey, took place alongside other street vendors who sold coats and necklaces. This sidewalk performance represents hood1 resourcefulness at its best—its spontaneity, its use of free earthly material, its references to unlicensed street vending in low-income communities to survive and get money, and its refusal of the mainstream art market run by the upper class, fully embracing the streets. Its physical simplicity should not be confused with unintentional absurdity. The snowball forced its excited customers to be present with every fleeting moment as the product slowly melted in their hands. With wit and a dash of humor and play, Hammons created a new market for products that resist permanence— mirroring how auction houses and galleries impose value on even the most ephemeral objects every day. That day Hammons performed being his own salesperson as an artist. The relationship established was between him and the public rather than him, a gallery, and the public. This one-man sale displayed an intuitive act of resistance in true NYC DIY fashion.2 He established more value in what was intangible—being the experience itself, rather than the impermanent product. The exhibition Not For Sale is also a statement of resistance. The chosen artists embrace a sense of resourcefulness in the making of each piece by using accessible media and materials usually found in Black and Brown hoods across the US. As the art world praises pieces made of expensive materials such as high-quality paints and canvases, the pieces in Not For Sale truly take on making do with what one has. The works are made of low-cost media and physical items that can be easily found in the local bodega, beauty supply, liquor, and 99-cent stores—all key shops that signify that you are in a hood. Even though many cultural practices that come out of the hood are often seen as ghetto, the beauty is that ghetto is informed by resourcefulness...
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RECLAMATION June 30—August 11, 2023
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RECLAMATION EMBODYING THE MULTIPLICITIES OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE Cornelia Stokes and Kiara Cristina Ventura
Transforming the gallery space into a site of deep exploration, RECLAMATION presents new works made by the NXTHVN Cohort 04 Studio Fellows: Anindita Dutta, Donald Guevara, Ashanté Kindle, Athena Quispe, Edgar Serrano, and Capt. James Stovall V. Considering contemporary social concepts and ideologies, RECLAMATION collectively challenges the perceptible limits of our social conditioning through the perspectives of contemporary artists of color. These artists are creating forms that contradict the viewer’s expectations of recognizable materials and icons, rendering them in abnormal ways that challenge the perceptible limits of our social conditioning and humanity. Throughout RECLAMATION, each artist salvages the grotesque, burdensome, and socially unacceptable parts of their unique experiences in Western culture and reclaims that power as it relates to beauty, art history, religion, spirituality, and sexuality. They are working on the ever-shifting fringe outside of the dominant culture as a way to explore the multidimensionality of self and point toward liberation. Using personal yet relatable experiences throughout their art practices, these artists combat the destructive fetishization of their intersectional identities and, through this exhibition, reclaim space for others to do the same. Edgar Serrano is reclaiming space by challenging the trajectory of Western art history. His paintings critically confront the canon of traditional portraiture, touching on European art’s misappropriation of Indigenous cultural traditions in Africa and Latin America. Serrano questions what is actually being masked by the faces that are historically recorded and how it affects what the world has become accustomed to knowing. Regarding the visibility of his own Chicanx culture through layers of grotesque, primitive iconography, Serrano states his “quest—personal and artistic—is to unearth invisible states and identities.” 1 Bringing to light a history of exoticizing the other, at NXTHVN Serrano uses his reconfiguration of “monsters,” like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), to challenge the psychological fear initiated by the creation of a fictitious literary character. Because of this fear, society deems misunderstood beings as monsters to justify irrational thoughts and inadequacies, similar to how Western society treats people of color. In this new body of work, Serrano advocates for these newly-formed figures or “monsters” despite their limited,
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Anindita Dutta, प र् दक ष् ि णा | pradakshina | Circumambulation, 2023. Performance with used clothes, fiber pelvic bones covered in velvet clothes, used boots, animal horns, animal fur, bird feathered cap, and knotted velvet rope, 15 minutes. Courtesy of the artist
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Donald Guevara, New American Quetzalcoatl (Ebony Alabaster), 2023. Acrylic paint, oil pastel, graphite, army men, and sandeply, 51 × 69 ¼ × 5 in Courtesy of the artist
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Ashanté Kindle, Every Pathway Cleared, 2022. Acrylic on canvas, 48 × 59 ⅞ × 1 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist
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Athena Quispe, Blood Memory, 2023. Installation, cochineal, chlorophyll, human fluids, ink, polymer, steel, pulverized citrine, and powdered pigment, triptych, overall 193 × 91 × 18 in. Courtesy of NXTHVN and Sean Kelly Gallery
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Edgar Serrano, Secret Fire, 2023. Oil on canvas, 72 × 50 ¼ in. Courtesy of the artist
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Capt. James Stovall V, Judas, 2023. Acrylic, oil pastel, and charcoal on canvas, 50 ⅛ × 75 ⅞ in. Courtesy of the artist
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COMMON PRACTICE: PUBLIC ACCESS June 10 – September 3, 2023
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COMMON PRACTICE PUBLIC ACCESS John Dennis
COMMON PRACTICE: Public Access examines how shared space impacts community culture, signifying the role and importance of “the park.” Utilizing photography, photo collage, and film, featured artists use access to public space to explore the impact of basketball as a cultural medium, and its capacity for community building. Basketball’s approachable nature makes the game uniquely accessible and brings people from all walks of life together. The game itself is nonpartisan—it cares not what your political or religious affiliations are. Gender identity, race, age, and other categorical dividers hold no relevance on a basketball court. More artists and athletes are using their respective platforms as an entry point into social activism. These voices are growing louder on a global scale. Both mediums share ideals and influence how we relate, experience, and understand the world to be. Public spaces provide the same sense of equity. For those who live in urban environments, the economy of space makes public parks not just a commodity, but a necessity. Works in Public Access convey everyday moments, with photography anchoring the show. As a medium, the advent of photography democratized how we experience and share information about our everyday lives. In many ways, basketball has served a similar function over time. More than just a game, it has reshaped perceptions of what sport can mean beyond surface level competition and prompted new avenues for civic engagement and social impact. Public Access includes works from Anwulika Anigbo, Kevin Couliau, Sue Kwon, Hope Mora, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Daniel Ramos, Robin Rhode, Tschabalala Self, Paul Anthony Smith, Ashley Tillery, SHAN Wallace, and Kim Weston. The exhibition supports a point of entry for the Dixwell neighborhood and Greater New Haven residents to engage with artists and ideas that connect with their true-to-life experiences. In tandem with the exhibition, NXTHVN in collaboration with Common Practice and the non-profit organization Project Backboard refurbished the public basketball courts at Goffe Street Park with an on-court mural installation designed by New Haven-based artist, Tschabalala Self. Common Practice is an exploration with no definitive destination; an experiment in how two seemingly disparate applications can work to fortify social change. For me, it developed as a way to stay connected to basketball at a time when physical limitations and injuries were doing
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everything to push me further from it. Changing lenses from competing and participating to listening and making, opened doors to other likeminded individuals and new ways of thinking. At a certain point I realized that basketball could be a solution-based endeavor, and that like art, it could be a mechanism to impact people, and change minds. I owe the people of New Haven, and more specifically the Dixwell community, a debt of gratitude for sharing their time, perspective, and experience with me as an outsider looking in. To the Williamson family, thank you for your trust in helping honor your father’s legacy. To the artists in the show, thank you for believing in the vision from the very start—I admire each and every one of you and I am forever grateful for your talent and participation. Special thanks to SHAN Wallace for visiting, spending time with our neighbors, and creating a beautiful and vibrant tribute to the neighborhood. To Jason Price and Titus Kaphar, thank you for recognizing the value in this project early on. And to the NXTHVN staff, I extend the deepest of thanks for your unyielding support along the way. A special and heartfelt thank you goes to everyone who supported this project from its early stages, most notably Dan Peterson, Sam Peterson, and the entire Project Backboard family. Endless thanks to Tschabalala Self and Five-Star Basketball, without whom the Goffe Street Park Eyeballing installation would not be possible.
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TEDX DIXWELL June 9, 2023
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Luca Rivera, Ryan Rugarema, Lauriann Burt, Victor Adeniji, Hafeeza Ture, Arden Santana, Brianna Doctor, Ashlynn Savannah, and Assiata Ayinla on stage at NXTHVN with Jay Kemp for Tedx Dixwell
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NXTHVN is a 501C3 non-profit organization. We rely on donations, small and large, all of which are fully tax-deductible. NXTHVN is supported by significant funding from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, the City of New Haven, the RISC Foundation, Inc., and the State of Connecticut. Support for NXTHVN is generously provided by Arison Arts Foundation, Sean and Nancy Cotton, Michi and Charles Jigarjian, Suzanne McFayden, and TIDES Foundation. Support for NXTHVN’s Curatorial Fellowships is provided in part by a grant from The Mellon Foundation. Each year, three Studio Fellowships are supported by the TOY family in memory of Yves (1988–2011). NXTHVN’s programs are made possible by generous support from Burger Collection, Ford Foundation, Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Gagosian, the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, the Rauschenberg Foundation, the J.P. Fletcher Foundation, and Stonesthrow Fund. The Apprenticeship Program is made possible by support from The Charles W. and Elizabeth D. Goodyear Foundation. We also want to acknowledge the necessary support of individual donors who make our work possible; and the ongoing support of our Board of Directors: Pamela Franks, Bennet Grutman, Titus Kaphar, Jason Price, Alexandra Shor, and Ellen Susman.
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