Participants: Firelei Báez, Hubert Czerepok, Dread Scott, Juliana Irene Smith. Moderator: Sara Reisman.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Cultural Transference, Turning the World is a conversation among artists Firelei Báez, Hubert Czerepok, Dread Scott, and Juliana Irene Smith, whose vastly different practices examine how culture and cultural production are continually being challenged and transformed. Panelists will present examples of past work while addressing questions of cultural authenticity and how art can facilitate a progressive and broader understanding of identity politics.
Cultural Transference presents recent artwork by sixteen international and New York-based artists whose practices are actively engaged with the transformation of culture in contemporary art and everyday life. Through transactions and exchanges - social, spiritual, economic, and political - artworks featured in the exhibition collectively express how cultural practice is reciprocally changing and being changed by its context.
Panel Bios
Firelei Báez was born in the Dominican Republic to Dominican and Haitian parents and lives and works in New York. Báez received her BFA from Cooper Union, and her MFA at Hunter College. Her work has been exhibited in various national and international institutions, including the New Jersey City Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, The Cortona Archeological Museum (Cortona, Italy), The Caribbean African Diaspora Institute and the Bronx Artist Biennial. She participated in Aljira Center for Contemporary Art's Emerge Program, and was a recent resident artist in The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has received many awards including The Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award, The Jaque and Natasha Gelman Award, and The Bronx Recognizes Its Own Award among others.
Hubert Czerepok was born in Slubice (Poland) 1973. Graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan in 1999. In years 2002-2003 attended the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht in Netherlands and in 2004-2005 the Higher Institute for Fine Arts Flanders in Antwerpen in Belgium. Participated in various group shows in Poland and abroad including solo exhibitions “Devil’s Island” at the La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art in Rennes in France and “Haunebu” at the Zak | Branicka Gallery in Berlin, Germany. Currently works as a Phd at The University of Arts in Poznan, Poland. Currently living and working in Wroclaw.
In 1989 Dread Scott’s work became the center of controversy over its use of the American flag while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received a BFA. His art has frequently been part of public dialogue. The 2006 Whitney Biennial included his art in the Down by Law section. His work was featured in a survey at MoCADA and included in shows at PS1/MoMA and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. He has received a Creative Capital Foundation grant, fellowships from NYFA and is currently a resident in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency.
Juliana Irene Smith is an American artist based in Ramallah and Zurich. She has a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in New York and a Masters in Public Art from the University of Applied Arts and Sciences in Lucerne, Switzerland. Awards include a public art grant from the Cultural Office in Switzerland, a residency at the Qattan Foundation, Masters Grant in Arts and Design from IKEA, Language grant from the Goethe Institute and travel grants from Pro Helvetia. She has participated in three Triangle Arts Workshops, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. In 2010 she participated in the Mobile Artistic Platform in India with Reloading Images and in 2011 she participated in ART OMI in New York. Her latest performance Pathetic Looser was part of the /sin/ Video and Performance Art Festival with Qattan Foundation in Ramallah and Jerusalem. She was a guest curator at Makan Art Space in Amman, 2010 with the public art exhibition Utopian Airport Lounge. This past fall, she exhibited in the On/ Off Language Jerusalem Show with Al Ma’mal and taught a performance in public art workshop at Darat Al Funun in Amman. Recent projects include, Project Dar, Zorten, Ping Pong, and Hotel des Inmigrantes. She is currently working on a research action project, “The Responsible Artist” with Gilles Fontaine.
Sara Reisman is Director of New York City's Percent for Art program which commissions permanent artworks for City-owned public spaces. Recently commissioned artists include Mary Miss, Ben Rubin, Odili Donald Odita, Karyn Olivier, Tattfoo Tan, and Mary Mattingly, among others, all working in diverse media and themes. Reisman has organized exhibitions and written about public engagement and public art, social practice, the aesthetics of globalization, and site-specificity for the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, Queens Museum of Art, The Cooper Union School of Art, Smack Mellon, The Bronx Museum of Art, Socrates Sculpture Park, Momenta Art, Aljira, the Kunsthalle Exernergasse, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Banjaluka, Republic of Srpska, among others. Reisman was the 2011 Critic-in-Residence at Art Omi, an international visual artist residency in upstate New York, and is the inaugural guest curator in 2012-2013 at Forever & Today.
