The Vera List Center Forum is an international, annual convening of key participants in the field of art and politics. This publication accompanies the VLC Forum 2022, organized within the framework of the VLC’s two-year investigation of Correction*, which explores the act of “correcting” in all its metaphorical, political, and social dimensions and implications. Providing a guide to various entry points to Correction*, this publication looks to the past, present, and future of the VLC as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. 

The first section, “30 Years of Art and Politics,” delves into the history of the Center with a biography on Vera G. List written by Tania Aparicio Morales, a testimonial by founding director Sondra Farganis, and a backstory of the Center featuring two women who have had pivotal roles in its mission: philanthropist and friend of Vera List, Agnes Gund and VLC Board Member and gallerist Jane Lombard.

The section concludes with curatorial essays by VLC Director Carin Kuoni and Curatorial Assistant Camila Palomino about the anniversary exhibition Labor of Love: Vera List Center for Art and Politics at 30. Illuminated through archival material, an expansive timeline of the Center’s history, and a VLC Fellows library, the exhibition also features an installation by Moroccan French artist and 2011–2013 VLC Fellow Bouchra Khalili, who presents her seminal project The Speeches Series for the first time in New York in its entirety. Kuoni and Palomino identify common threads while speaking to processes of self-critical course correction that challenge both archival and curatorial practices.

The second section looks at the present by introducing the 2022–2024 Vera List Center Fellows: Carmen Amengual and Anna Martine Whitehead; Boris Lurie Fellow Omar Mismar; and Borderlands Fellows Beatriz Cortez and Fox Maxy. It also presents two inaugural fellows: 2022–2023 Sámi Fellow Matti Aikio and ArtsLink International Fellow Aleksei Borisionok. Through newly written statements, each artist addresses the implications, contradictions, and promises of correction within their work as they begin to develop their fellowship projects.

The third section focuses on the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, an international, biennial prize that honors artists who have taken great risks to advance social justice in profound and visionary ways. We announce the 2022–2024 Jane Lombard Prize Recipient and the four Jane Lombard Fellows, who are finalists for the prize:

Jane Lombard Prize Recipient
proppaNOW for OCCURRENT AFFAIR (Brisbane, Australia)

Jane Lombard Fellows
Another Roadmap Africa Cluster (Kampala, Nyanza, Lubumbashi, Kinshasa, Maseru, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Cairo)
Colectivo Cherani for Cherani Cultural Center (Cherán, Michoacán, Mexico)
KUNCI Study Forum & Collective for School of Improper Education (Yogyakarta, Indonesia)
Khalil Rabah for Palestinian Museum of Natural Sciences and Humankind (Ramallah, Palestine)

The final section, “Viva Vera! A Celebration for All” looks to the future of the VLC with a spotlight on 2022–2024 VLC Fellow Anna Martine Whitehead’s FORCE! an opera in three acts, performed by Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty, led by Angel Bat Dawid, which concluded the VLC Forum 2022.

“In examining the contradictions of correction, we aim to make space not only to consider existing histories, systems, and modes but also to challenge our own position and relationship to the act of correcting. Accordingly, the asterisk of Correction* holds space for future annotations. As the Vera List Center for Art and Politics rounds out its thirtieth year, the theme is a call for adjustments, revisions, and course correction for the organization as well, as we take up the demands and challenges of our moment.” —Carin Kuoni