Exhibition
Labor of Love: Vera List Center for Art and Politics at 30
Oct 17–Nov 27, 2022
Exhibition opening reception: October 20, 5–6:30 pm
Open daily 12–6 pm EDT, Thursdays late until 8 pm (Please check holiday opening hours)
Parsons School of Design, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street
The Vera List Center was founded in 1992 in direct response to the pressing debates of the day on freedom of speech, identity politics, and public support of the arts. In this exhibition, we carve out five themes that continue to shape everything we do—democracy, knowledge, identity, ecology, and care. In an expansive timeline, each area will be illuminated through archival and documentary material, tracking whether and how these debates and topics have shifted and evolved. As we identify common threads, we subject our own history to a self-critical course correction and challenge both archival and curatorial practices.
No Vera List Center program exists without art: Art and artists provide the radical, joyous, and forward-looking entry points to new understandings of these topics and inclusive political empowerment. Moroccan French artist and 2011–2013 VLC Fellow Bouchra Khalili returns to the VLC for this exhibition and presents her seminal project The Speeches Series for the first time in New York in its entirety. Consisting of three videos—Mother Tongue, Words on the Streets, and Living Labor—the installation examines the experiences of migrants in three cities, Paris, Genoa, and New York City, through the act of performing political speeches and texts.
Khalili’s installation is accompanied with an interactive library space for New School students and faculty that celebrates and assembles the work of VLC Fellows, the VLC Fellows Library. At least one publication by each of the forty-four fellows who the Center has hosted over its thirty-year history appears on these shelves. Inside some of the books, you will find dedications to the future reader—reflections and notes by the fellows about a particular publication, the research, and their time at the Vera List Center.
Bouchra Khalili was born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1975. She lives and works in Berlin. She graduated in Film & Media Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle and Visual Arts at the Ecole Nationale d’Arts de Paris-Cergy. Encompassing film, video, installation, photography, printmaking, and publishing, Khalili’s practice explores imperial and colonial continuums as epitomized by contemporary instances of illegal migration and the politics of memory of anti-colonial struggles and international solidarity. Khalili’s work has been subject to many international solo exhibitions, including at Bildmuseet, Umea (2021); Oslo Kunstforening and Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2020); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Secession, Vienna (2018); CAAC, Sevilla (2017); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2017); MoMA, New York (2016); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); MACBA, Barcelona (2015); PAMM, Miami (2013). Her work was also included in collective international manifestations such as the 2nd Lahore Biennial (2020); the 12th Bamako Biennial (2019); BienalSur, Buenos Aires (2019); Documenta 14, Athens (2017); the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); the 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011). A nominee of the Guggenheim’s Hugo Boss Prize (2018) and the Artes Mundi Prize (2018), she was also the recipient of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (2017-2018), Ibsen Award (2017), Abraaj Art Prize (2014), Sam Art Prize (2013), daad Artists-in-Berlin (2012), and Vera List Center for Art and Politics Fellowship, New York (2011-2013). She is a Professor of Contemporary Art at The Oslo National Art Academy, and a founding member of La Cinémathèque de Tanger, an artist-run non-profit organization.
Visiting The New School:
Visitors and event guests must provide proof of up-to-date vaccination, including a booster when eligible. The New School has partnered with CLEAR to utilize Health Pass, an online tool that safely and simply verifies proof of COVID-19 vaccination. For detailed instructions on downloading and using CLEAR, visit the “Events and Gatherings” section on our Access to Campus page. Specific questions about using the CLEAR Health Pass to attend an on-campus event can be directed to the event organizer. To ensure expedited access, New School guests should set up a CLEAR Health Pass account with proof of vaccination prior to coming to campus.
Masks that cover the mouth and nose must be worn in concert and lecture venues where events are held.
Labor of Love: Vera List Center for Art and Politics at 30 is presented at The New School as part of the Vera List Center Forum 2022: Correction*. With original documents drawn from The New School’s archives, the exhibition also presents the complete The Speeches Series by Bouchra Khalili, courtesy the artist and mor charpentier. It is curated by Carin Kuoni and curatorial assistant Camila Palomino. Research assistance is provided by Tania Aparicio Morales.
The Vera List Center Forum 2022 is presented as part of the Center’s 2022–2024 Focus Theme Correction*. It is curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira and convened with the support of Tabor Banquer, Re’al Christian, Camila Palomino, Adrienne Umeh, as well as VLC’s student workers Chi Ade, Paria Ahmadi, Anna Hope Emerson, Ash Moniz, Tania Aparicio Morales, and Rebecca Rivera.
The Vera List Center Forum 2022 and free admission to all events are made possible by major support from Jane Lombard and the Kettering Fund, as well as The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, Dayton Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Pryor Cashman LLP, The New School as well as members of the Vera List Center Board and other individuals.