ART ISN’T NEUTRAL: A CONVERSATION WITH CARIN KUONI AND LAURA RAICOVICH

Interview by Sara Wintz
ART PAPERS
Fall 2019

“I came across the work of Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich while in search of art workers who are holding cultural institutions accountable for unethical investments, associations, and labor practices. They are the co-editors, with Kareem Estefan, of Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production (OR Books, 2017). At the moment, they are directors of the seminar series Freedom of Speech: A Curriculum for Studies Into Darkness, which is organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics as part of the center’s 2018–2020 curatorial focus If Art Is Politics. Kuoni is director/chief curator of the Vera List Center; Raicovich is a writer and curator who was president and executive director of the Queens Museum until January 2018. She is currently the inaugural Emily H. Tremain Journalism Fellow for Curators at Hyperallergic. In this interview Kuoni and Raicovich provide numerous reasons that art is politics. They explain the myth of neutrality and provide insight into their work together.”

—Sara Wintz