Hold These Truths by No Longer Empty

Curated by Rachel Gugelberger and Manon Slome November 13, 2017 to March 14, 2018 Opening reception: Monday, November 13, 6 PM – 8 PM Nathan Cummings Foundation 475 10th Avenue, 14th Floor New York, NY 10018 Viewing Hours by appointment: Monday – Friday, 9:30 AM – 5 PM To view the exhibition, email: exhibits@nathancummings.org A series of free public programs accompanies the exhibition For more information visit nolongerempty.org

With alternative facts, fake news and outright lies permeating the national

Foreword

conversation since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the foundation on which democracy relies has been thoroughly degraded. But amidst the resulting social, political and psychic chaos caused by this “post-truth”

Hold These Truths brings together twenty-two artists and collectives

It has been an honor working with The Nathan Cummings Foundation

reality, there has been a growing resistance fueled by a shared sense that

whose work responds to this complex and critical moment in United

to create this exhibition in a manner that reflects our shared values and

things have become so dire, and the cost to humanity so unthinkable, that

States history. Curated by Rachel Gugelberger, Curator, and Manon

ongoing concerns. Consider Hold These Truths an invitation to join in

many cannot stay silent.

Slome, Co-Founder/Chief Curator, the exhibition grapples with themes

this critical exploration of creative action and transparency in a time that

that occur at the intersection of multiple injustices and courageous

requires courage, compassion, and recognizing one’s truth embedded

“In Trump world, facts don’t matter, truth doesn’t matter, language doesn’t

resistance—connecting the actions of artists, cultural organizers and their

within multi-vocal realities that shape our everyday lives.

matter,” opines New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow (“Trump’s

extended networks.

Degradation of Language,” May 1, 2017). “Passionate performance is the Carol Stakenas, Executive Director

As an organization not tied to a single physical space, No Longer

No Longer Empty

Hold These Truths

only ideal. A lie forcefully told and often repeated is better than truth—it is accepted as an act of faith, which is better than a point of fact. This is

Empty has a unique capacity for building and strengthening the social

one of the most heinous acts of this man: the mugging of the meaning,

infrastructure that connects people and places through participatory

the disassembling of rhetoric until certainty is stripped away from truth like

platforms. This commitment resonates throughout Hold These Truths and

flesh from a carcass.”

through a series of public events organized by Raquel de Anda, Director

of Public Engagement with Mica Le John, Education Programs Manager.

What is the role of art in this climate of urgency? Can it help to underscore

Collectively, the exhibition and these programs address timely issues

truths to combat alternative facts? Can it be an illusion that reveals the

such as Media Bias, Immigration, Climate Change, and Labor and Legal

truth? Can it be (as artist Mel Chin argues) a catalyst? More to the point:

Documentation in varied forms such as walking tours that unpack how

Can art even make a claim to be about truth at all? These questions fuel

meaning and truth are creative processes, Wikipedia edit-a-thons, and

the exhibition Hold These Truths, organized in response to this complex

performance workshops that locate current events within the body.

and critical moment. 5

Using an array of creative strategies across a variety of media—editing,

The passage of time and the theme of empowerment are also key

than just a larger-than-life celebration of revolutionary figures in the trans

present-day United States, e.g., disdain for human rights, rampant sexism,

reframing, recontextualizing, culture-jamming—the artists in Hold These

corporate power, corruption and suppression of labor.

elements in Michael Sharkey’s long-term photo documentary project

women’s fight for equal rights: it underscores the lack of inclusion of

Truths urge us to scrutinize the prevailing politics of deceit, to challenge

QUEER KIDS. The portraits in this series, which began in 2006, spurn

transgender women in historical and contemporary feminist movements.

the debasement of facts and American ideals, and to consider the

harmful generalizations while celebrating diversity and toughness in the

Qualities considered characteristic of being a woman or feminine are

Trump’s favored news channel, Fox News, is the main target of Nancy

implications of today’s assault on truth. By radically appropriating the

face of prejudice. By challenging not only social biases and stereotypes,

completely dismissed in the large scale color pencil drawing Crazy

Chunn’s Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear (2016), a satirical series

dominant frameworks to explore counternarratives, they expose the

but also normative perceptions of gay youth, Sharkey, who grew up in the

Bitches (2016). From afar the piece reads as an ornate floral gift-wrapping

that repositions the paranoid bird as a paradigm for the post-9/11

1980’s, amplifies the queer voices of a younger generation. QUEER KIDS

pattern, however, camouflaged within lies a text written by the radical

culture of fear that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. In Chunn’s remix, the

hollowness of proliferating misrepresentations, in the past and present.

encapsulate the complexity and spectral qualities of sexual orientation and

material feminist group, Some Crazy Bitches, that proudly refuses “the

falling acorn is replaced by a television. In the flying sparks, she inserts

The past and present collide in the video I Want A Dyke For President

gender, featuring personal statements of strength and self-awareness.

mechanisms that create and maintain identities of womanhood.”

visual quotations from news, advertising, clip art and cartoons, repeated

(2017), adapted by filmmaker Adinah Dancyger during the lead-up to the

“’Gay’ is really ‘nice’ and ‘friendly,’ says the eponymous subject of

election, and performed by Mykki Blanco, a genderqueer, HIV-positive performance artist and rapper, who recites activist Zoe Leonard’s “I Want a President,” a poem written in the midst of the 1992 presidential election,

Patrick (2010). “Queer is in your face and tough and calling people out

sensationalism. The recontextualization of a children’s book serves to

and not being afraid to speak your mind and that’s more me, more of

Madsen’s ongoing series ephemera, featuring collections of information

amplify the infantilization of American culture, where fear-mongering and

what I’m about.”

and ideas printed on small pieces of paper that muse on a wide range

fake news often dominate conversations.

of topics, from art’s role in the economy and independence movements

when poet/activist Eileen Myles ran as an “openly female candidate.” By proposing alternatives to white, heteronormative, privileged male

Confidence, beauty and strength also exude from Trans Liberation, a

around the world, to various nations’ statistics on mass killings.

The creative team Unlimited, Ltd. also employs the comic format in Are

candidates, the video and the poem it recalls, suggest socioeconomic

large-scale photo series by feminist and social activist Andrea Bowers.

Economically produced and available as PDFs on the artist’s website,

You Powered by God? (2017), a reframing of the clean energy debate

and political disempowerment as a valid starting point for presidential

Created in collaboration with artist and organizer Ada Tinnell, the work

ephemera—mailed to art world colleagues and friends, as well as

as a cosmic choice between Heaven (solar and wind power, from the

candidacy. Fueled by the fear-mongering rhetoric of the Reagan and Bush

appropriates and reinterprets historical activist ephemera from Bowers’

politicians and mass media outlets—echo the use of the postal service as

skies above) and Hell (fossil fuels extracted from deep below). The

years, I Want a Dyke For President is not only particularly relevant to our

personal collection, featuring iconic trans-feminist activists of color as

a subversive circumvention of more “official” systems of art distribution.

installation adopts the Christian iconography of an altar triptych and a

current crisis—a year after the election of Donald Trump—but shows how

models. Throwing Bricks (Johanna Saavedra), from 2016, for example,

Serving as a warning about the growing nationalism under the Trump

baptismal font filled with miniature graphic comic books to spread the

a recontextualization of past texts, images, formats and methodologies

depicts the titular Latina trans activist throwing a brick down a Los

era, ephemera 32: pocket reference is a business card that lists the early

clean energy gospel. The books appropriate the Christian Evangelical

have the power to offer critical re-examinations of what may often be

Angeles street directly at the viewer, in a reference to a poster from the

signs of fascism as featured on a poster from the United States Holocaust

“cartoon tracts” printed by Chick Publications, a well-known series of

May 1968 student uprisings in Paris. However, Trans Liberation is more

Museum, highlighting the disturbing parallels between 1920’s Europe and

more than 250 gospel tracts (with a circulation of over 800,000,000)

considered self-evident. 6

and repackaged in different colors in an unrelenting regurgitation of The notion of ephemera takes on an even more defining role in Loren

that condemn a range of sins, such as homosexuality, masturbation

We Are In Crisis (2016), a collaboration with the collective Winter Count,

forced out of a neighborhood by rampant development, rebranding

Times articles, altering headlines, changing images and redacting

and cannibalism.

and Ati Maier’s 2016 video montage Dispatch from Standing Rock #3

and gentrification.

superfluous text to reveal an essential aspect of a story that is otherwise buried. The original Times headline on the shooting death of Michael

(which Luger narrated), provide a nuanced understanding of his connection to Standing Rock and efforts for mediation. While We Are

Market forces also animate Carey Young’s Cautionary Statement (2007),

Brown by a police officer, for example, was changed from “A Teenager

undergirds The Natural History Museum, an ongoing project by the

In Crisis serves as a gratitude offering to the water protectors opposed

which recontextualizes the disclaimers attached to forecasted earnings in

Grappling With Problems and Promise” to “A Teenager With Promise,”

collective and non-profit organization Not An Alternative. Operating at the

The conversation around the fossil fuel industry and climate justice

to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline—a poetic yet urgent

corporate annual reports. Installed near the reception desk by the artist’s

and its accompanying image of Brown in a baseball cap swapped out

intersection of art, activism and pedagogy, The Natural History Museum is

call to action—Dispatch from Standing Rock #3 documents the artist’s

request, the work might function as a warning for viewers to question

for an enlarged graduation photograph. Wheat-pasted on walls around

an expansive project that features pop-up exhibitions, a mobile museum,

distribution of 500 mirror shields for the water protectors on the Oceti

the true value of the works in the exhibition—or the ideas they seek to

the city and widely posted on social media, these revised articles

workshops and a robust online presence. Partnering with local community

Sakowin camp, and the ensuing performance. Luger’s reflective mylar on

express. Young continues to explore the absurdity of ascribing values in

constitute a new truth, finding distribution beyond the newspapers on

groups, scientists and museum staff, the project establishes a new space

which they are based.

ply-board “mirror shields” were inspired by women activists in the Ukraine

Counter Offer (2008), a two-part work in which one part offers Liberty; the

for scientific inquiry, free from the influence of corporate philanthropy,

who employed the tactic to reflect the images of riot police back at them.

other, Justice. But there’s a catch: Each offer is “automatically withdrawn

political lobbying and special interests. Through alternative tours,

While the shields may not ultimately provide physical protection from

on the making of a counter offer,” creating an endless legal loop in which it

Through re-enactment and crowdsourced testimony, Bayeté Ross Smith’s

recreations and re-enactments of diorama displays, facts that are often left

water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas, they serve as a symbolic,

is impossible to gain neither liberty or justice, a situation with which many

work lays bare the symbolic entanglement of American identification with

out of museum pedagogy (due to the economic influence of the fossil fuel

preemptive and peaceful strike against armed security forces.

are all too familiar.

whiteness and Christianity. Embedded within The New York Times for the documentary project POV (Point of View), Ross Smith—with colleagues

and chemical industries) are laid bare. In this reinvention of natural history, The exposure of living culture also plays a role in Dustina Sherbine’s

Artists dissecting the role of the media as opinion makers or ideological

Saleem Reshamwala and Logan Jaffe—became part of an initiative to

where indigenous cultures are presented as thriving and relevant—not

Core Samples (2016), the title of which refers to the geological research

silos form a central core of Hold These Truths. While there is a concern

develop digital and interactive media around how racism impacts daily

sealed in vitrines as historical artifacts.

methods of sampling deep underground cores of ancient ice to better

that serious journalism is being undermined by special interests and

life in America. Asking a variety of questions—”What makes someone

understand past eras. By using the cool rationality of science as a

a communications revolution that accelerates dubious claims and

American? How do you define American identity? When do you feel most

contemporary issues of land, water and air pollution find a new platform,

foil to investigate the emotional reality surrounding displacement,

opinion as fact, there is also distrust of a media elite that is often out of

American?—the interactive work Hyphen-Nation (2017) features American

artist Cannupa Hanska Luger communicates stories of complex indigenous

Sherbine’s core samples—consisting of construction materials, food,

touch with the public’s frustrations and plagued by bias. The ongoing

citizens of various ethnicities describing their struggle to belong in a nation

identities confronting 21st-century challenges, such as the environmental

personal items and trash, and accompanied by diagrams that analyze

racial bias in mainstream media is uncovered by Alexandra Bell’s series

that both embraces and rejects them. Visitors shared their own stories to

the excavated layers—uncover the personal testimonies of those

Counternarratives, in which she makes substantive edits to New York

fill in the gaps in American culture, contributing to an ongoing narrative.

Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, multidisciplinary

degradation of historic lands. A compilation of short films including 8

Racism and identity politics are at the core of Natalie Bookchin’s Now

circulated video still of the infamous 1991 police beating. Instead of the

White Shoes, she employs her own naked body to demarcate former

the resulting images have a ghostly beauty. Devoid of all the details that

he’s out in public and everyone can see (2017), which documents how

well-known image that zooms in on the four officers beating King, a more

slavery sites—burial grounds and slave markets in New York City, for

a traditional camera captures, the luminous figures appear dehumanized,

digital platforms have transformed and amplified political speech, opinion-

expansive view is presented: King’s body, rendered in silhouette as site

example—using photography to both document and reinsert the black

even alien—a rendering that highlights the political over the corporeal. Still,

mongering and racism during the Obama years. Compiled from an earlier

of trauma, draws attention to the crowd of officers encircling him who

figure into an idealized white American narrative. In 60 Centre Street, New

there is an undeniable tenderness in these images that—much like the

video installation of YouTube video diaries, the work was reformatted into

watched in collusion. Central Park Five (drawings 1-5), 2017, revisits a

York Supreme Court (2017), she stands naked in front of the New York

“camera” itself—inverts the lack of human detail into an intimate lament for

a film in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, making it more

courtroom scene with lawyers in the foreground, and the defendants in the

Supreme Court, gazing directly back at the viewer. Interrogating New

this displaced humanity, hidden behind the barbed wire of refugee camps,

readily available for distribution. Preceded by the disclaimer “I’m not a

headline-grabbing rape case waiting for the 1990 court ruling. Leonardo

York’s slaveholding history, her nakedness speaks to the vulnerability and

capturing what many cannot, or would prefer not, to see.

racist,” speakers offer prejudice as opinion. On President Obama, for

isolates the gestures, body language and facial expressions of the lawyers

dehumanization of the black female body, viscerally connecting history

example, they deliver monologues that betray outrage that a black man

and security guards, omitting the titular defendants, whose moniker

with our present moment through the transformation of a living form into

Invisible and often exploited, informal laborers are writ large and public

could reach the highest level of power. While Bookchin’s compilation of

denied them singular identities. The viewer is left to piece the scene

a monument to collective memory. The series My Country continues the

in the series Luxury Interrupted, a collaborative multimedia project of

these fragments into the continuity of a single artwork may support the

together without the original mnemonic device, challenging to witness

tradition of White Shoes with a focus on national monuments. Fragment

artist Ramiro Gomez and his partner, photographer and filmmaker David

contention that such scripts appear as both the cause and consequence

instead of look, and consider actual history instead of false memory. In

of Evidence, Statue of Liberty (2017), a portrait of the statue seemingly

Feldman. Painted, life-sized, cardboard cut-outs depict workers—nannies,

of our current political crisis, the video highlights the “us vs. them”

Testimony, a series of performative workshops commissioned for the

redacted by the use of a black bar running across the image—a graphic

gardeners, street cleaners—who toil behind the scenes to maintain the

mentality that resists the empathy needed to reach across political and

exhibition, participants will locate intensely contested current affairs within

disruption of a symbolism that has been lost on many.

archetypal southern California cityscape and lifestyle. Installed in public

ideological divides.

their bodies. Utilizing the shifting perspectives embedded in testimony, news reports and memory as a backdrop, Leonardo will guide participants

The invisible is also rendered visible by conceptual photographer Richard

serve as temporary monuments to living workers of Los Angeles

in translating their experiences into physical movements.

Mosse, whose ambiguous relationship to his medium is revealed in his film

communities. Nanny and Child, West Hollywood Park (2013), for example,

multidisciplinary artist Shaun Leonardo breaks down media’s complicity in

Incoming (2017), stills of which are on view. In this work, Mosse forgoes

is informed by Gomez’s own experience as a live-in nanny, where he

shaping, informing and circulating racial bias, and consequently, memories

While erasure may seem a paradoxical strategy for negotiating sites of

a regular camera, opting instead for military thermographic technology—

formed close relationships with other workers on his employer’s estate.

of past events. Through an anatomy of scene that employs strategies

Drawing from images and video footage of miscarriages of justice,

trauma, the insertion of the unclothed form into public space commands

normally used to locate and target enemies by detecting the presence of

This led him to begin creating collages; using architecture and interior

of extraction, omission and the dissection of an image into a sequence

attention upon the body in situ. Photographer Nona Faustine focuses

body heat—to make visible the human tragedies resulting from the mass

design magazines, he reinserted the bodies of laborers into immaculate

of parts, Leonardo challenges the culpability of the viewer’s gaze. The

on overlooked histories, identities and representation, with an emphasis

migrations of refugees across Europe, the Middle East and Africa fleeing

spaces, ultimately inspiring him to make a series of responsive paintings

on African-American history and her own ancestral past. In the series

violence and genocide. With their deep white glow of human presence,

emulating David Hockney’s graphic style, such as No Splash (2013) (after

charcoal drawing Rodney King (2017), for example, deliberates on a rarely 10

spaces, photographed in situ and left behind to chance, the artworks

Hockney’s 1967 A Bigger Splash), in which a pool cleaner is inserted into

Studio (2015–2017), a wall displays pieces from the studio, such as a

to anti-immigrant policies, echoing the experience of citizens of

facts. Fictional museums and companies, questionable legal quandaries

a pristine backyard swimming pool scene.

series of collaborative designs and activist posters, including ones from

occupied countries.

and religious tracts, editorial processes, truth-generating walks and performative workshops all assert multifarious legitimacies that observe

the Jornalero@App Poster Campaign, a collaboration with New Immigrant Esperanza Mayobre also focuses on themes of invisibility through

Community Empowerment (NICE). In 2016, Aramendi developed the

Riffing off various artistic strategies represented in Hold These Truths,

the right to challenge the very mechanisms that reject free expression

visual formats that reflect on travel, exploration, displacement and the

Jornalero Wage Theft App in collaboration with day laborers, community

Kamau Ware’s TRUTH = PROCESS (2017)—a text-based painting and

and participation. Hence the titular reference to the Declaration of

compartmentalization of various aspects of our lives. In Immigrant of the

organizers, artists and computer programmers in their first contribution

walking tours commissioned for the exhibition—explores the concept of

Independence: Hold These Truths is a fragment of a sentence that

Month (2007), she references the reward programs corporations use

to the new labor rights movement, bringing fair labor standards and

truth as a creative process. Intersecting conceptually, but independent

represents an historical proclamation of justice and incomplete history

to motivate employees. The empty frame and engraved plaque invites

immigrant rights together. The installation includes an LED counter made

from each other, Ware’s visual and physical intervention is a generative

of progress. Expressing cultural, political and social criticism, the

immigrant workers to insert their image, commemorating the invisible

in collaboration with Barrie Cline that chronicles the frequency of wage

process of truth-finding in the public realm, specifically the vicinity of the

counternarratives embodied in Hold These Truths seek to expose the

hardships and impact of immigrant labor on the overall economy. A native

theft during the course of the exhibition.

exhibition site, Hell’s Kitchen. Ware is a visual storyteller and founder

vacuity of propagating misrepresentations, a collective effort to correct

of Black Gotham Experience, an expansive and interactive storytelling

the telling of events. There is a quote—apocryphally attributed to George

Venezuelan, Mayobre often responds to her own experiences as an

American immigrant, living in constant translation between English and

In the politically led crackdown on undocumented immigrants (often

project that locates and celebrates the impact of the African Diaspora

Orwell—that encapsulates both our disconcerting moment in time and

Spanish. In the ironic Welcome to the Yunaited Estai (2012), she mimics

exploited and targeted by the same people), Jenny Polak sees an

on New York City through historical research, creative mixers, graphic

the counternarratives that have risen to the call of resistance: “In a time of

the mispronunciation of United States, home to the largest immigrant

unbroken chain from slavery to the mass incarceration of black people,

novels and walking tours. Unlike a traditional tour guided by a single voice,

universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

population in the world. The welcome mat also serves as a larger

and the demarcation and deportation of (predominantly) people of color.

Black Gotham Experience engages participants in conversation while en

symbolic reference to the hospitality shown to some over others.

Protection and sanctuary for people without immigration papers underpins

route. Using devices that engage the body in participatory fact-finding

her ICE-Escape Signs and Design for the Alien Within, an ongoing series

procedures, TRUTH = PROCESS unpacks how meaning—and truth

The experiences of undocumented immigrants are reframed through

of site-specific signs (based on existing fire evacuation signs) located

itself—is ultimately an imaginative process that can be agitated

creative organizing techniques and activism by artist and educator Sol

near main emergency exit doors, revealing safe routes undocumented

and manipulated.

Aramendi. In The Worker’s Studio, a series of nomadic collaborative art

immigrants can take in case of raids by the Immigration and Customs

projects, she reflects the needs and urgency of the groups who come

Enforcement agency. In Design for the Alien Within, a fictional design

At turns disturbing, confrontational and ironic, the various artistic

together to learn about labor rights and issues affecting immigrant workers

company and website offering furniture with built-in hiding spaces, Polak

strategies in Hold These Truths reveal an array of ways in which we

through performance, art making and dialogue. In the installation Worker’s

underscores immigrant-citizen power in promoting acts of disobedience

can approach our contemporary condition of fake news and alternative

Rachel Gugelberger, Manon Slome and Nicole Pollard

Plates

SOL ARAMENDI

ALEXANDRA BELL

NATALIE BOOKCHIN

ANDREA BOWERS

NANCY CHUNN

ADINAH DANCYGER & MYKKI BLANCO

NONA FAUSTINE

Ramiro Gomez & David Feldman

SHAUN LEONARDO

CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER

LOREN MADSEN

ESPERANZA MAYOBRE

RICHARD MOSSE

NOT AN ALTERNATIVE

JENNY POLAK DUSTINA SHERBINE UNLIMITED, LTD.

MICHAEL SHARKEY BAYETÉ ROSS SMITH Kamau Ware

CAREY YOUNG

SOL ARAMENDI | Worker’s Studio, 2015 – 2017 (detail) | Jornalero@App Poster Campaign, in collaboration with NICE, New Immigrant Community Empowerment | Dimensions: 17 x 11 inches | Courtesy of the artist.

ALEXANDRA BELL | A Teenager With Promise, 2017 | Inkjet on bond paper, 8 x 6 feet each | Photo: Darryl Richardson. Courtesy of the artist.

Kamau Ware giving a Black Gotham Experience Walking Tour, August 2017 | Photo: Kay Hickman, Courtesy of Black Gotham Experience

NATALIE BOOKCHIN | Now he’s out in public and everyone can see, 2017 | Video, 24 minutes | Courtesy of Icarus Films.

ANDREA BOWERS in collaboration with Ada Tinnell | Throwing Bricks (Johanna Saavedra), 2016 | Archival pigment print, 78 ¾ x 58 ¾ x 2 ¼ inches framed | Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.

NANCY CHUNN | Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear: Selected Index (Black), 2016 | GiclÃ©e print on canvas with acrylic paint, 30 x 30 inches | Photo: Casey Dorobek, Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.

ADINAH DANCYGER & MYKKI BLANCO | I Want a Dyke for President, 2016 | Video (HD), 2:02 minutes | Courtesy of Dazed & Confused.

NONA FAUSTINE | 60 Centre Street, New York Supreme Court, 2016 | Digital c-print archival pigment print, 30 x 42 inches framed | Courtesy of the artist.

Ramiro Gomez and David Feldman | Nanny and Child, West Hollywood Park, 2013 | Archival pigment print, 2017, 32.5 x 32.5 inches framed, Edition of 10 | Courtesy of Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles.

CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER | Mirror Shield Project, 2017 (detail) | Drone Image Still: Rory Wakemup | Courtesy of Cannupa Hanska Luger.

SHAUN LEONARDO | Rodney King, 2017 (detail) | Charcoal on paper, with two-wayÂ mirrored tint on frame, 33.5 x 46.5 inches framed | Courtesy of the artist.

LOREN MADSEN | ephemera #32: pocket reference, 2017 | Offset print, 2 x 3.5 inches | Courtesy of the artist.

ESPERANZA MAYOBRE | Welcome to the Yunaited Estai, 2012 | Mixed media, 30 x 20 inches, Edition 2 of 60 | Courtesy of the artist.

RICHARD MOSSE | Still from Incoming #99, 2016 | Digital c-print on metallic paper, 12 ¼ x 21 x 1 ¾ inches framed, Edition 1 of 5, with 2 artist proofs | Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Not An Alternative\ | Exhibiting The Gaze, Tiger | Lightbox, backlit film, 38 x 38 inches | Photo Mon Iker. Courtesy of The Natural History Museum.

ENTRANCE YOU ARE HERE

NO EXIT VIA MEZZ.

NO EXIT VIA ROOF

10th Avenue

BACK EXIT

36th Street

In the event of an ICE raid do not use front exits JENNY POLAK | ICE-Escape Sign: Nathan Cummings Foundation, 2017 | Inkjet print face-mounted on Plexiglas, 16 x 12 inches | Courtesy of the artist | Commissioned by No Longer Empty.

BAYETÉ ROSS SMITH | Hyphen-Nation, 2017 | Multi-media digital video, 22.5 minutes | Courtesy of Bayeté Ross Smith, POV and The New York Times.

MICHAEL SHARKEY | Patrick, 2010 | Digital photo giclée print, 30 x 40 inches framed, Edition 1 of 4 | Courtesy of the artist.

DUSTINA SHERBINE | Core Samples, 2016 (installation view), “Bronx Calling: The Fourth AIM Biennial”, The Bronx Museum of the Arts | Mixed media, Dimenions variable. Inset: Core Sample Diagram: Bronx Bricks, 2016 | Graph paper, 17 x 11 inches | Photos: Dustina Sherbine, Courtesy of the artist.

UNLIMITED, LTD. | Are You Powered By God?, 2017 (detail of tract cover) | Mixed media, Dimensions variable | Commissioned by No Longer Empty.

CAREY YOUNG | Cautionary Statement, 2007 | Vinyl text, Dimensions variable, Edition 1 of 3, 1AP. Thanks to Jay Swanson, Dorsey and Whitney LLP, Minneapolis for legal assistance. © Carey Young. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

Acknowledgements

No Longer Empty

No Longer Empty is grateful to the Board and staff of Nathan Cummings

No Longer Empty activates engagement with art and social issues through

Board of Directors

Foundation, especially Sunita Iqbal, Elizabeth MĂŠndez Berry, Artealia Gilliard,

site-responsive exhibitions, education, and public programs. Located

Nancy Schwartz-Weinstock, Co-Chair

Rouane Bayor, Teneil Luces and Joseph Augeri for their collaboration.

in distinctive urban settings, our work generates participatory platforms

Michael Steinberg, Co-Chair

that build and strengthen networks of cultural resources for artists and

Joanna Wu, Treasurer

Special thanks to the artists and Andrew Kreps Gallery, Black Gotham

communities. Since 2009, No Longer Empty has championed a roster

Amy Kaufman, Secretary

Experience, Charlie James Gallexry, Dazed & Confused, Jack Shainman

of artists across diverse practices through 28 exhibitions located in

Frances Beinecke

Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, SRI Fine Art

unexpected places. Staged throughout New York City, our projects create

April De Simone

Services, Reynard Loki, and to Curatorial Assistant Nicole Pollard.

a resonant presence in those unique spaces, which include a former

Julia Draganovic

retirement home in the Bronx, a historic bank in Long Island City Queens,

Naomi Hersson-Ringskog*

a former belt factory in Brooklyn, and an affordable living complex in Sugar

Jon Kurland

Hill Harlem. For more information, visit: www.nolongerempty.org.

Dara Metz

Our appreciation also goes to Michael Taylor for his design of this publication.

Alan Rosenbloom

Staff

Rivka Saker

Carol Stakenas, Executive Director

Manon Slome*

Manon Slome, Co-Founder & Chief Curator

Brett Ziccardi

Rachel Gugelberger, Curator & Director, NLE Lab Raquel de Anda, Director of Public Engagement

*Co-Founders

Mica Le John, Education Programs Manager Eva Vargas, Communications Coordinator 36

Nathan Cummings Foundation

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a family foundation rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice and committed to democratic values, including fairness, diversity and community. It focuses on finding solutions to the two biggest problems of our time â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the climate crisis and growing inequality. The Foundation invests in four focus areas to build a more just, vibrant, sustainable and democratic society: Inclusive Clean Economy; Racial and Economic Justice; Corporate and Political Accountability; and Voice, Creativity and Culture. For more information, visit: www.nathancummings.org.

Hold These Truths SOL ARAMENDI