Dear World,
Welcome to Art in Odd Places 2018 NYC: BODY festival and exhibition. There are several significant firsts this year. I am excited to be leading the festival as the first artist-curator and AiOP alum (2014, 2015 and 2016). Likewise, for the first time in 14 years, the festival is open only to women, female identifying, non-binary artists and feminist collectives, a decision I made in lieu of our current climate of prejudice and the premise of the festival taking place in the public realm.
Additionally, I am introducing a group exhibition with all participating artists; to take place at Westbeth Gallery, extending the visibility and the dialogue around interdisciplinary, ephemeral and difficult to categorize works situated mostly independently of the commercial market. The gallery site of Westbeth, an artist run and lived-in organization acts as an extension of the body of the festival, positioning works by the artists back into the brick and mortar space, facilitating a festival hub throughout most of the month of October.
Why the theme BODY? AiOP has always been thematically driven in a broad sense of one word, and I immediately gravitated towards the notion of the body as a potential loaded site for investigation and creative, politically charged urgent inquiry. BODY explores agency, politics and status of the “other” in an urban environment, through various media including performance, social practice, installation, sculpture, photography, sound, video, text, etc.
This year, forty five selected local, national and international participants challenge notions and societal constructs of gender, age and beauty, analyze contemporary ideas of self, death, sex, viscera and health, explore issues of otherness, body image, language, memory and belonging through staging of multimedia interdisciplinary projects, movement and participatory works, artifacts and ephemera, considering issues of exclusion, displacement and absence in the current discourse.
Katya Grokhovsky, System Failure, 2018, Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, photo: Walter Wlodarczyk
The scope of applications for our open call this year has been extensive and global, and it is proving to be quite a challenging and exciting process to build the festival together with the AiOP BODY 2018 NYC team: Audra Lambert, Curatorial Manager, Katie Hector, Ximena Kilroe, Curatorial Assistants, Bridget Leslie, Press and Exhibition Coordinator, Ollya Andreeva, Program Guide Designer, Carey Estes, Designer/Developer, Alexandra Sullivan, Designer/Volunteer Coordinator, Alison Pirie, Administrator, Juana Urrea, Intern, Performance is Alive, Media Sponsor and of course, the ever innovative pioneer Ed Woodham, AiOP Founder and Director.
Our ship is in full steam mode and we are on our way!
Bon Voyage,
Katya Grokhovsky
AiOP BODY 2018 NYC Curator
