Recuperative Tactics, Art in General, New York, 2014
Curators: Courtenay Finn and Jon Rider
Pink Wall, 2014. 16 x 30 feet, Acrylic on plywood, theater gels, packing blankets, and plants
Background: Pink Wall, 2014. 16 x 30 feet, Acrylic on plywood, theater gels, packing blankets, and plants. Foreground: Haircutting station for Brittany MroczekBackground: Palette Wall, wooden palettes and various artworks by artists who participated in Crafter Hours. Foreground: Pendant Lamp by Sean Gerstley
Foreground: Tables for Crafter Hours and artwork by Brittany Mroczek. Background: Palette WallView of Palette Wall prepared to receive artworks from Crafter Hours artistsForeground: Crafter Hours tables, palette wall and side view of artwork by Brittany Mroczek. Background: Studio set up for Misha Kahn Studio set up for Misha Kahn
Left: Artworks by Kim Charles Kay. Right: Artwork by Lydia Enriquez as part of you know it when you feel it
Curated by Kim Charles Kay within Recuperative Tactics
Foreground: Painted couch and painting by Kim Charles Kay as part of you know it when you feel it
Curated by Kim Charles Kay within Recuperative Tactics. Background: Tables and palette wall for Crafter Hours.
Presented at Art in General's sixth floor gallery in New York, this New Commission was constructed from donated and scavenged materials, including physical remnants from Raskin's previous works, creating a large-scale immersive environment emphasizing the multiple histories and narratives embodied in the architecture it occupies. Stemming from Raskin's 2013 experience traveling in Afghanistan through a Creative Time Global Residency Grant, the exhibition marks a shift in practice instigated by a desire to escape rule-bound models of capitalist social construction. Eschewing the general maxim of the artist as the sole authorial voice, the work endeavors to foster discourse, collaboration, and inclusiveness, showcasing how dialogue and interaction can uproot a top-down definition of community. Moveable walls, seating areas, potted plants, tables, and chandeliers function as a malleable assemblage regularly shifting in appearance, configuration, and function. Both an installation and a platform, Recuperative Tactics utilizes the gallery space as an apparatus for living and making, creating a framework to subvert the hierarchy of "the solo exhibition." Part of subverting this hierarchy was to extend resources granted to Raskin to others within and outside of myriad art worlds. Recuperative Tactics also served as a physical and material support for several concurrent projects, including but not limited to those detailed below.
Crafter Hours
Crafter Hours was a weekly community gathering at the 6th floor gallery at Art in General, where participants were invited to make objects together using shared materials drawn from Lisi Raskin's two decades of studio practice. More than a crafting session, the program troubled the invisibility of the collaborative labor behind every exhibition, recognizing interns, staff, and fabricators, and fostering intergenerational exchange, urgent conversation, and collective creation. By contributing artworks and dialogue, participants became part of Art in General's exhibition archive and helped generate new forms of authorship and community among makers.
WRITE / CODE / SPEAK
WRITE / CODE / SPEAK features high school girls’ dynamic multimedia stories told through new platforms for writing. Using a variety of mixed media, including traditional writing, audio, GIFs, and HTML coding, the interactive installations of WRITE / CODE / SPEAK showcase the writers’ unique voices, backgrounds, and experiences as high school students in New York City. Youth writers present their media pieces with performances, encouraging the audience to experience their creative processes and stories. This showcase represents the culmination of the Girls Write Now Digital Media Mentoring Program for 2013-14.
Recuperative Tactics: Actionable Items
In this round table discussion, Ava Ansari, Molly Kleiman, and Lisi Raskin facilitated a discussion on the following questions. What is the invisible labor of making? Can we reshape authorship to effect social change? How can we intervene in the seemingly immovable structures reifying the economic inequality supporting, and caused by, our artistic practices?
All photography this page: Stephen Probert
Crafter Hours participants met up every Saturday with Raskin for the duration of Recuperative Tactics. Participants who wanted to leave work to be displayed on the palette wall became part of the exhibition, transforming it from a solo commission to a group show.Donated materials from Raskin's studio that participants could use as starting points for their works.
Foreground: Participant at the materials table cutting grey felt from a roll. Background: Palette Wall and cakes by Roxanne D Crocker.
Group of participants making objects at Crafter Hours.View of in process artworks and participants during a Crafter Hours session.As part of Recuperative Tactics, Raskin made a podium, stage and other exhibition furniture for Girls Write Now's annual showcase WRITE / CODE / SPEAK.