X-initiative

BRING YOUR OWN ART

X INITIATIVE TO EXHIBIT ALL ARTWORK DELIVERED WITHIN 24 HOUR
PERIOD BETWEEN 11 AM FEBRUARY 3RD AND 11 AM FEBRUARY 4TH 2010

BRING YOUR OWN ART is a 24-hour marathon that will take place at X Initiative from
February 3rd to February 4th and will be open to everyone. Artists, galleries, curators,
collectors and art lovers are invited to come to X and hang their own artworks with no
restriction. BRING YOUR OWN ART is literally a free for all – a temporary occupation
that will start on the second floor of X Initiative and expand to the upper floors as more and
more art works are delivered and hung on the exhibition walls.

A celebration of the chaotic energies of art and a joyful subversion of hierarchies, BYOA is a
spontaneous gathering that offers a DIY platform where any kind of art can be exhibited in
a museum-quality space. Inspired by Walter Hopps’s experimental Thirty-Six Hours, an event
that the legendary curator organized in Washington in 1978, during which he installed
anything anybody brought that would fit through the door, BYOA is a festive occasion that
fosters unusual collaborations between artists, art professionals and dilettantes, while
offering an alternative to curated group shows.

During BYOA, on the ground floor, X Initiative will make available a simple stage and basic
PA system for bands, musicians and DJs. Performers are welcome to play any kind of music
for 30 minutes each.

BYOA is a collaboration with the Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN), an online network
originally commissioned by Art in General that connects artists and potential collectors
(adopters). Adopters acquire an artwork without purchasing it by soliciting the artists
through FAAN. The artists choose to whom they will give their work. At BYOA, artists can
exhibit work they are making available for adoption through the FAAN website, in addition
to whatever other work they choose to exhibit. For more info, visit FAAN at
www.fineartadoption.net. To post work for adoption, please contact
info@fineartadoption.net.

BYOA marks the end of X Initiative, an experimental program for contemporary art, which
was founded in March 2009 and will end its activities at 548 West 22nd Street on February 6th,
2010. Founded by Elizabeth Dee and directed by Cecilia Alemani, X Initiative has
functioned as an exhibition space and gathering spot for the global art community, with a
goal to inspire new possibilities for experiencing and producing contemporary art. Since its
beginning, X Initiative has hosted 12 exhibitions and more than 50 events such as panel
discussions, lectures, performances and screenings.

BRING YOUR OWN ART RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:

- Free access for all, doors open on February 3rd at 11 AM
- No advance registration required
- 30.000 square feet space to occupy (2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors @ X Initiative)
- Participants can bring any kind of art they like
- Participants need to come with their own tools (X Initiative can only provide two ladders)
- The works will not be insured: X Initiative is not responsible for any loss or damage to
works
- The space will have security guards
-All works must be deinstalled and removed from the premises by February 4th at 2 pm. All
works not removed by 2 PM on February 4th will be disposed of.

Location:
X Initiative, 548 West 22nd Street, NY 10011, www.x-initiative.org

Date:
From Wednesday, February 3rd, 11 AM to Thursday, February 4th, 11 AM

1/28: Dean Spade and Craig Willse: Free State Epitaph, 7 PM

A journey to the mid-future, or recent past, for an information share about the end of the United States. Topics will include: bee keeping, the time/space continuum, tacos, sabotage, consensus, the social contract, identity verification, herbal remedies, and recycling.
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1/28: Wu Ingrid Tsang, Zackary Drucker and Mariana Marroquin with a video by Rhys Ernst: PIG, 8 PM
Inspired by non-hierarchical forms of gathering, PIG uses tropes of consciousness-raising and group therapy to explore themes of language, collective-identity, and personal agency. Using appropriated dialogue from films significant to transgender history, PIG is an expression of how community persists despite an undertow of misrepresentation, as well as a resurrection and channeling of our sisters voice’s from the past. Exploiting society’s construction of trans as a “monstrous biological joke,” Zackary Drucker, Mariana Marroquin, and Wu Ingrid Tsang manifest a world in which satire, trauma, and kyky sexuality abound. Performed live with video by Rhys Ernst.

1/22: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 7 PM

A performance of new audio/video works by Lucien Castaing-Taylor. Introduction by MoMA Film & Media curator Josh Siegel. Castaing-Taylor, recordist of the critically acclaimed film Sweetgrass, currently playing in New York, will premiere these six works:

Hell Roaring Creek, The High Trail, Bedding Down, Coom Biddy, Into-the-jug (”geworfen”)

1/15: ArtTable presents BLOG THIS! Blogging the contemporary arts, a panel discussion, 6:30 PM

Moderator: Robin White
Panelists: Barry Hoggard, Paddy Johnson, William Powhida, Kelly Shindler, Edward Winkleman

1/14: Leah Gilliam: SET || CLEAR LIMITS, 7 PM
With inspiration from particular moments in the 1960s and 1970s, when artists used specific machines and tools to impact technological and political landscapes, this talk examines ways that artists have used real and imagined technologies to move us from one realm of possibility to another.
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1/14: Jeanine Oleson with Juliana Snapper: What?, 8 PM
A performance concerning language and communication based on the confluence of nature and culture with singing, physical interaction and comedy.

1/13: The Bruce High Quality Foundation University Presents EDIFYING: Christine Rebet, Poison Lecture, 7 PM

Christine Rebet’s Poison Lecture (2009) re-stages the first formal lecture ever dedicated to the art of magic, delivered in Boston in 1927 by renowned conjuror John Mulholland who later on during the Cold War became a consultant to CIA operative agents.

1/9: Sharon Hayes, from Anna Rüling’s “What interest does the women’s movement have in the homosexual question?”, 5 PM
Performers: Becca Blackwell and Oliviero Rodriguez
This performance is presented in conjunction with the Ecstatic Resistance exhibition at X Initiative.

11 AM 2/3 - 11 AM 2/4: BRING YOUR OWN ART
-X INITIATIVE TO EXHIBIT ALL ARTWORK DELIVERED WITHIN 24 HOUR PERIOD BETWEEN 11 AM FEBRUARY 3RD AND 11 AM FEBRUARY 4TH-
BRING YOUR OWN ART is a 24-hour marathon that will take place at X Initiative from February 3rd to February 4th and will be open to everyone. Artists, galleries, curators, collectors and art lovers are invited to come to X and hang their own artworks with no
restriction. BRING YOUR OWN ART is literally a free for all – a temporary occupation that will start on the second floor of X Initiative and expand to the upper floors as more and more art works are delivered and hung on the exhibition walls.
A celebration of the chaotic energies of art and a joyful subversion of hierarchies, BYOA is a spontaneous gathering that offers a DIY platform where any kind of art can be exhibited in
a museum-quality space. Inspired by Walter Hopps’s experimental Thirty-Six Hours, an event that the legendary curator organized in Washington in 1978, during which he installed anything anybody brought that would fit through the door, BYOA is a festive occasion that fosters unusual collaborations between artists, art professionals and dilettantes, while offering an alternative to curated group shows.
During BYOA, on the ground floor, X Initiative will make available a simple stage and basic PA system for bands, musicians and DJs. Performers are welcome to play any kind of music for 30 minutes each.
BYOA is a collaboration with the Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN), an online network originally commissioned by Art in General that connects artists and potential collectors (adopters). Adopters acquire an artwork without purchasing it by soliciting the artists through FAAN. The artists choose to whom they will give their work. At BYOA, artists can exhibit work they are making available for adoption through the FAAN website, in addition to whatever other work they choose to exhibit. For more info, visit FAAN at www.fineartadoption.net. To post work for adoption, please contact info@fineartadoption.net.
BYOA marks the end of X Initiative, an experimental program for contemporary art, which was founded in March 2009 and will end its activities at 548 West 22nd Street on February 6th, 2010. Founded by Elizabeth Dee and directed by Cecilia Alemani, X Initiative has functioned as an exhibition space and gathering spot for the global art community, with a goal to inspire new possibilities for experiencing and producing contemporary art. Since its beginning, X Initiative has hosted 12 exhibitions and more than 50 events such as panel discussions, lectures, performances and screenings.
BRING YOUR OWN ART RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:
- Free access for all, doors open on February 3rd at 11 AM
- No advance registration required
- 30.000 square feet space to occupy (2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors @ X Initiative)
- Participants can bring any kind of art they like
- Participants need to come with their own tools (X Initiative can only provide two ladders)
- The works will not be insured: X Initiative is not responsible for any loss or damage to works
- The space will have security guards
-All works must be deinstalled and removed from the premises by February 4th at 2 pm. All
works not removed by 2 PM on February 4th will be disposed of.

Location:
X Initiative, 548 West 22nd Street,
NY 10011, www.x-initiative.org

X INITIATIVE ANNOUNCES PHASE 3

X Initiative is pleased to announce its third and final phase of exhibitions and programming, which will open to the public in two stages, on November 21st and December 10th. These exhibitions will be the culmination of X, an experimental non-profit initiative that opened in March 2009 and that will end its programs in February 2010. Phase 3 will feature solo shows by Hans Haacke and Artur Zmijewski, the group exhibition Ecstatic Resistance, and In Numbers, a presentation of artists’ serial publications.

Belonging to different generations and following individual styles and agendas, the participants in these four exhibitions manifest an attitude of resistance and friction against social conventions and common assumptions. Each in their own personal way, they explore the deepest folds of human behaviors, investigating radical conflicts while positing new possible solutions.

Opening November 21st:

HANS HAACKE, Weather, or not

On the fourth floor of X Initiative, New York-based artist Hans Haacke will present his first solo exhibition in a New York institution since 1986. The artist will display reinterpretations of some of his historical works along with new pieces conceived for this presentation. Weather, or not will combine large-scale kinetic installations, photographs, and text-based works in a dramatically experiential environment. The show will address political issues of the present and natural processes that the artist has been exploring for over 40 years. Haacke has taken a wide variety of approaches to core issues such as economics, politics, and ecology. His work combines fundamental critical positions with radical gestures, which make his practice even more relevant today. Some of his interventions have led to disputes extending well beyond those of the art world and its market, as in 2000, when a large work by the artist, commissioned by the German Parliament, was permanently installed at the Reichstag in Berlin only after a heated national debate.

Hans Haacke (born Cologne, 1936) had major solo exhibitions at Tate Gallery, London (1984), New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1986), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989), Venice Biennial, German Pavilion (1993), Serpentine Gallery, London (2001), Akademie der Künste, Berlin/Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2006). His works were exhibited at Documenta (1972, 1982, 1987, 1997), Skulptur Projekte, Münster (1997), and the Biennials of Venice (1976, 1978, 2009), São Paulo (1986), Sydney (1984, 1990), Tokyo (1970), Johannesburg (1997), Gwangju (2008), and the Whitney Biennial, New York (2000). With Nam June Paik he was awarded a Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 1993.

ECSTATIC RESISTANCE

On the third floor, X Initiative will present Ecstatic Resistance, a group exhibition organized by New York-based artist Emily Roysdon. Included are works by more than ten international artists and performers who embrace the occurrence of pleasure within the realm of the political and who challenge the vernacular of resistance. The exhibition questions the limits of the impossible and focuses on strategies that re-imagine the representation of power. Ecstatic Resistance is a project that has taken a variety of forms–texts, performance, exhibitions and objects.

Participating artists: Rosa Barba, Yael Bartana, Juan Davila, Sharon Hayes, Xylor Jane, My Barbarian in collaboration with Liudni Slibinai, Ulrike Muller, Jeanine Oleson, A.L. Steiner, Joyce Wieland. Performances by: Leah Gilliam, Sharon Hayes, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Jeanine Oleson and Julianna Snapper, Dean Spade and Craig Willse, Wu Ingrid Tsang, Zackary Drucker and Mariana Marroquin, Ian White.

A related exhibition is on view at Grand Arts in Kansas City, MO through January 16th, 2010.

ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI, Democracies, The Game of Tag, My Neighbors, Repetition, Singing Lesson 1, Them, 80064

Artur Zmijewski will exhibit a selection of his groundbreaking videos on the second floor of X, offering to  the American public the first large-scale presentation of his work to date, which coincides with his  participation in the Projects series at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view through February  2010. Ranging from social experiments to crude documentaries, from investigations of complex moral issues to descriptions of everyday conflicts, Zmijewski’s videos sketch a multifaceted fresco of humanity,  depicted with the cold eye of a documentarian and the piety of a passionate witness. The first ever American mid-career survey of this artist, the exhibition will also feature the US premiere of one of his most ambitious works to date, Democracies, a video installation composed of 20 monitors documenting public events and protest scenes from around the world from various political credo. Images of rallies, strikes, and uprisings are combined with footage from reconstructions of historical events, parades and funerals of controversial political leaders.

Artur Zmijewski (1966, born in Warsaw) represented Poland in 2005 at the 51st Biennale in Venice. In 2007 he participated at Documenta 12 in Kassel as well as at the second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Zmijewski’s work is also currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art with “Projects 91: Artur Zmijewski“ where he is premiering the video Swiecie 2009.

Opening December 10th on the Ground Floor:

In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists

This exhibition represents the first serious effort to define a neglected art form—the serial publication.  Artists have long seized on magazines and postcards to create new kinds of art, often the most avant-garde of its time. The exhibition will survey these works—from Wallace Berman’s Semina through Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots, Robert Heinecken’s modified Periodicals, the Japanese Provoke group, to Raymond Pettibon’s Tripping Corpse and Maurizio Cattelan’s Permanent Food—and will offer a glimpse of rare works by Continuous Project, and a special appearance by North Drive Press. These works have had a profound effect on a diverse range of contemporary artists—such as Terence Koh, Tom Sachs, Scott Hug, and Roni Horn—who have embraced the form and contributed to an explosion of new artists’ publications. The fully illustrated 450-page reference book, In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955, edited by Andrew Roth and Philip Aarons documents the histories of 60 such publications, alongside completely illustrated bibliographies by Victor Brand with essays by Clive Phillpot, Nancy Princethal, and William S. Wilson, and an interview with Collier Schorr to provide historical context. Copies of In Numbers will be available for purchase at Artbook@X during the exhibition.

About X Initiative

X is a not-for-profit initiative of the global contemporary art community that will exist for one year and present exhibitions and programming. Advised by a 50+ advisory board comprised of artists, curators, museum professionals, gallerists, collectors, art historians and critics, X is reaching across traditional boundaries to form a consortium interested in responding quickly to the major philosophical and economic shifts impacting culture.  X will feature durational artist interventions, site-specific projects, historical in- depth exhibitions, one-night performances, lectures and weekly events. Questions posed in the form of programming will address relevant and pressing issues pertaining to the changing landscontemporary art. For press inquiries please contact us: info@x-initiative.org, or 917.697.4886