In Praise of Disorder & Non-Storytelling: Sylvain Durand’s Photographic Work (2019–2024)

ART LAB

SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute

Woodlands Hall 1

March 28–May 31, 2024

Artist Talk: New Perspectives on the Art of Environmental Photography: Thursday, March 28,1:30 pm–2 :30 pm

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 28, 2:30 pm–4:30 pm

ART LAB and SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI), in conjunction with the History & Philosophy Department, are pleased to present In Praise of Disorder & Non-storytelling: Sylvain Durand’s Photographic Work (2019–2024), a new exhibit at the Art Lab opening on March 28, 2024.

This exhibit presents a selection of recent images created by Sylvain Durand, a talented New York-based photographer with a background in chemistry and art history, and a rich experience of travel, notably in Europe and South Asia. Sylvain Durand is well known for his unique approach to black-and-white nature photography. Hallmarks of his art include the use of black-and-white film, powerful flash, and mixing street and studio photography techniques.

Sylvain Durand has exhibited in Europe and the US, notably at Boutique Hugo Boss (2011), Yegam Gallery (2013) and Gallery 128 (2022). Durand has collaborated with jazz artists Mimi Jones, Shirazette Tinnin, and Camille Thurman, and worked as a graphic consultant for Marco Gallotta, Sonia Moskowitz, Kristin Jones, and Dominique Robin. He is currently working as a re-toucher and a printer for Griffin Editions, a photo lab that produces darkroom and digital prints for major exhibits throughout the world.

The artist’s talk, New Perspectives on the Art of Environmental Photography, will be held at Art Lab on March 28 from 1:30 to 2 :30 pm. Part of the History & Philosophy Colloquium Spring 2024 series, this talk raises important questions about nature photography, the concept of environment, and interspecies relations in the Anthropocene.

The exhibition is co-organized by Dr. Sylvie Kande, Associate Professor of History & Philosophy Dept and Dr. Hyewon Yi, Director of Art Lab and Amelie A. Wallace Gallery.

ART LAB Hours of Spring 2024: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: 12:00–3:00 pm, and by appointment.

Melosa Basquiat: Not the SAMO Love Story

ART LAB

SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute

Woodlands Hall 1

www.amelieawallacegallery.org/art-lab

www.oldwestbury.edu

February 7 – March 14, 2024

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 7, 4:00 –7:00 pm (Lounge in Woodlands, Hall 1)

Artist Talk: Wednesday, February 7, 5:00 pm (ART LAB)

ART LAB and SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI), in conjunction with the Black Studies Center, are pleased to present Melosa Basquiat: Not the SAMO Love Story, a solo exhibition by Christine “Melosa Basquiat” Whaley, a largely self-taught Haitian American artist and activist. Growing up inspired by the work of her cousin, the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, Whaley works under the moniker Melosa Basquiat as a tribute to her cousin and the Basquiat legacy of activism. For this solo exhibition, Melosa will present a group of paintings on canvas produced since 2017. In tribute to Jean-Michel, Melosa adopts key characteristics of Jean-Michel’s 1980s paintings, such as his connection to graffiti writing, signature crowns, and color schemes. Melosa places her “crowns” on individuals whom she deems heroes of history, along with saints and other Christian biblical figures. Absent Jean-Michel’s painterly brushstrokes, Melosa’s works are charged with bold graphic elements, strong visible outlines, bold texts, and bright colors. Her lettering, also found in Jean-Michel’s art, evokes the tradition of AfriCOBRA artists who deployed text to form slogans and manifestos with positive messages that ensured accurate interpretation by viewers and critics. Melosa’s bold text provides unequivocal meaning to her images, empowering her subjects and viewers alike.

Melosa’s commitment to the legacy of art and activism is evident in the themes she explores, echoing Jean-Michel’s dedication to justice and the amplification of Black narratives. Inspired particularly by biblical teachings, Melosa seeks justice in all aspects of life. Her Image Bearers is an ongoing series that highlights Persons of Color in history or current culture: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Melosa says that her aim is to remind Black people that “we too are included and present in the biblical narrative, and that we too were made in the image of God as documented in Genesis 1:27.”

For this exhibition, along with her acrylic paintings, Melosa presents a body of work painted on hats, an homage to her grandmother Cheristine’s lasting legacy, as she was a successful hat designer, political activist, and political prisoner in Haiti living under the dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Due to her grandmother’s activism, her family fled to the United States for safety. On these wide brimmed fedoras, Melosa has painted writing and simple images in bold designs, turning them into unique works.

The ART LAB and SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute

ART LAB is collaboratively operated by the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery and the Visual Arts Department of SUNY Old Westbury. Founded in the context of SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI), which embodies SUNY Old Westbury’s historic and ongoing social justice mission, it is housed on the lower level of Residential Hall 1. SEJI is a living-learning environment that enhances student education through civic engagement and applied learning, thus sustaining initiatives for social justice locally and abroad. ART LAB focuses on interdisciplinary exhibitions, performances, and creative activities that draw attention to social and environmental justice issues while creating opportunities for professional artists, students, and faculty to display their work.

For more information, contact Dr. Hyewon Yi, Director of Art Lab and Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at yih@oldwestbury.edu.

ART LAB Hours of Spring 2024: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: 12–3 pm, and by appointment.

Latinx Voices: Art, Activism and Identity

Anto Astudillo / Esperanza Mayobre / Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel / Andrés Senra

September 28 – October 25, 2023

Roundtable: Thursday, September 28, 2:30 pm (Lounge in Woodlands, Hall 1)

Exhibition Opening Reception: Thursday, September 28, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm (ART LAB)

ART LAB and SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI), in conjunction with El Conuco and the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, are proud to present Lantinx Voices: Art, Activism, and Identity, an exhibition of video, documentary film, photography, and works on paper by Anto Astudillo, Esperanza Mayobre, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, and Andrés Senra, from September 28 through October 25, 2023. The show explores themes of social justice, cultural identity, and resistance through the lens of the history of social movements and people’s resistance in Chile, the Dominican diaspora of New York City, and gender identity politics. Through their filmmaking, performances, and visual arts, these artists offer diverse narratives that reflect the past through the reality of the present, while offering hope for global social justice.

In conjunction with the exhibition, El Conuco and the Wallace Gallery will co-host Being a Latinx Visual Artist in New York, a roundtable discussion with the four artists, sponsored by Panther Arts Collective. The exhibition is sponsored by SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute.

Anto Astudillo presents The People’s Revolt (Part1) (15:35, 2022) and Golpes (7:29, 2020). Astudillo has been filming protests in the US and Chile over the past ten years: Chile's "Pingüin" Student Revolution, the Queer Liberation March, BLM, The Women’s March, and Chile’s Social Movement of October 18, 2019. Astudillo aims to archive history as well as motivate audiences to feel community with popular movements around the world. Golpes revisits the coup d'état of September 11, 1973 by the Chilean army on the Government Palace (La Moneda) through images that document fifty-year-old bullet holes on the walls of nearby buildings, drawing a parallel between the army of 1973 and the police force that continues to oppress Mapuche communities and the Chilean people at large. Brief visions of the Atacama Desert appear as a vast landscape that once served as the repository for thousands of “disappeared” persons, victims of the State. The non-sync sound and contrasting images reflect the way the film was shot (HI-CON film) as growing discontent and anger exploded into the social movement of October 2019.

Esperanza Mayobre creates fictive laboratory spaces rooted in the traditions of Latin American literature, music, and visual art influenced by contemporary politics and evolving culture. Since arriving in New York in 2004, Mayobre has immersed herself in the city’s culturally saturated landscape to create environments and images that reveal how cultures and ideologies merge and overlap. Mayobre’s recent gold grid drawings are meditations on the ongoing crisis in Venezuela as the cash-strapped government continues to deforest the Amazon, causing irreversible ecological and financial harm to the local communities. Formally, the works are based on indigenous weaving practices and her childhood memories of weavers of the Orinoco River region.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel presents Visioning the Brown Mother (19:37, 2022), video documentation of Nicolás’s solo pilgrimage to La Virgen de La Altagracia, Tatica, the protectress of the Dominican Republic. Nicolás travels from the South Bronx to Washington Heights, the two principal New York City Dominican enclaves. Until recently, Washington Heights—“Little Quisqueya”—had been the epicenter of Dominican cultures, but the burgeoning of Dominican and Dominican York communities arose in the Bronx as a result of the gentrification of “The Heights.” Tatica, the nickname for Altagracia, the guardian saint of the country, has evolved to become one of the loas, ‘spirits’, of the Vodun pantheon. Nicolás dedicates the pilgrimage to the late Juana Camacho (Mami), a long-time resident of Washington Heights. Holding an image of La Virgen de La Altagracia, the artist interacts with pedestrians while walking the route.

Andrés Senra presents four ink drawings, a video-performance from his series Post-Trauma, and a photograph from his series Based on True Events. Both series compile images disseminated by the media depicting LGBTQIA+ individuals who have been victims of state violence and oppression. Senra starts with archival images to construct a new archive that reflects the structural violence experienced by LGBTQI+ individuals, leading to social ostracism, trauma, or death. The photograph recreates a beating suffered by a young gay man in Brazil, transforming the image it into what could be a fashion advertisement. His drawings include Evelyn “Jackie” Bross and Catherine Barscz at the Racine Avenue Police Station in Chicago in 1943, found in the Museum of Chicago archive—individuals who were arrested for violating a city ordinance prohibiting cross-dressing—and Scissors, a reference to genital surgery on intersex newborns that prevents them choosing their sex as teens or adults, and Lashes on Gay Prisoners, depicting the physical and emotional torture inflicted on homosexuals in many countries around the world.

Artist Biographies

Anto Astudillo (they/them) is a filmmaker, performance artist. and curator. Born in Santiago, Chile (Wallmapu) and based in Brooklyn, (Lenapehoking). Astudillo works in 16 mm film, video, and performance to create emotionally moving portraits of personal and political issues. Their work navigates the dynamic interconnections among embodied action, psychophysical practice, and experimental cinema, employing reflective internal dialogues and anthropological observations. Astudillo is the Program Director of Millennium Film Workshop in New York, which promotes personal cinema and other independent art practices. Currently, they serve as festival programmer at NEWFEST and as lead programmer for TRANSlations: Seattle Trans Film Festival.

Esperanza Mayobre, born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, is based in Brooklyn. Mayobre has exhibited at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Cornell University, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museo Eduardo Sivori Buenos Aires, the Queens Museum, SUNY Westchester Community College, La Caja Centro Cultural Chacao Caracas, the Bronx Museum, Hallwalls, MIT Cavs, BRIC, The Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., the Contemporary Museum of El Salvador, and the Incheon Biennial Korea. She is a recipient of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Residency, the Jerome Foundation Travel Grant, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, Smack Mellon Studio Program, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Mayobre studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2003) and El Instituto Artesanal de la Colonia Tovar (IACT), Caracas (1999).

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel grew up in a culturally and spiritually diverse home on the Caribbean island of Quisqeya. Nicolás has exhibited and performed at Madrid Abierto/ARCO, the IX Havana Biennial, PERFORMA 05/07/20, IDENSITAT, Prague Quadrennial, Pontevedra Biennial, Queens Museum, MoMA, Printed Matter, P.S. 122, Hemispheric Institute of Performance Art and Politics, Princeton University, Anthology Film Archives, El Museo del Barrio, Center for Book Arts, Longwood Art Gallery/BCA, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Franklin Furnace, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Nicolás’ residencies include P.S. 1/MoMA, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Nicolás holds an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and an MA from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Born in Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic, in 2011 he was baptized as a Bronxite—a citizen of the Bronx.

Andrés Senra, born in Brazil and raised in Spain, is a New York based Spanish artist, curator, and teacher of Fine Arts at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Senra’s work revolves around the political, economic, and social situations affecting communities under-represented in the history of art. He has developed a series of collaborative and socially engaged artistic practices that attend to disadvantaged communities. His art works have been shown in solo and group shows at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain; Centro Cultural Recoleta, Argentina; Hosek Contemporary, Berlin; Art Center Nabi, Seoul; Contemporary Art Center Matadero Madrid, Culture Lab LIC, and BAAD, Bronx. Senra received an Art Creation Grant of Madrid Region (2018-2022) and a Multiverso Videoart Grant, BBVA Foundation (2015). Born in Brazil, Senra studied Philosophy and Biology for his undergraduate degree, and holds a PhD in Philosophy, Esthetics, and Arts from University of Salamanca, Spain.

The ART LAB and SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute

For more information, contact Dr. Hyewon Yi, Director of Art Lab and Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at yih@oldwestbury.edu.

ART LAB Hours: Mondays: 1–5 pm, Tuesdays: 2–5 pm, Thursdays: 2–6 pm, and by appointment.

SUNY Old Westbury Social and Environmental Justice Institute

Resilience: Two Ukrainian Women Artists

**Zinaida and Iryna Maksymova**

ART LAB of Amelie A. Wallace Gallery

Social & Environmental Justice Institute

SUNY Old Westbury

April 17 – June 19, 2023

Public Reception: Thursday, May 4, 1:00 – 2:30 pm

ART LAB of Amelie A. Wallace Gallery and the Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI) at SUNY Old Westbury is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition, Resilience: Two Ukrainian Women Artists. Co-sponsored by WGSS (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), the show features selected works by two Ukrainian women, video artist, Zinaida (b. 1975, Kyiv, Ukraine) and painter, Iryna Maksymova (b. 1991, Lviv, Ukraine) who are presently living amid air raids and frequent disruptions of electrical power, heat, and water supply. Focused on images of women, the works portray female protagonists as defiant figures of strength, independence, and resilience. Expressed in various media, Zinaida and Maksymova explore traditional Ukrainian motifs as vehicles of preserving and representing national identity, power, and endurance in the face of physical danger and the threat of losing their motherland.

Zinaida focuses on the peculiarities of femininity and traditional culture, the diversity of authenticity and modernity, transformation of the ancient into the modern and, the integration of sacred and mystical themes. For this exhibition, she presents two video works and two photographs. The main video, Mute (2015), offers silent portraits of female Ukrainian Maidan Protest volunteers during Euromaidan, the civil struggle of the winter of 2013/2014. The most significant historical event prior to the Russian invasion of 2022, it made a lasting impact on the formation of Ukraine’s contemporary national identity. Zooming in on the faces of female volunteers, such as a nurse, a rescue worker, and a journalist, Zinaida reveals in subtle detail the otherwise silent, stoic protesters’ emotional expressions against the tumultuous background. The women’s defiant and resilient expressions make the work timeless. In Transformation (2012), Zinaida explores the rich layers of lived experience inherent in Ukrainian cultural codes, asking the eternal questions of the meaning of human existence. Often juxtaposing renewal vs. death as two symbolic elements on a split screen—egg vs. dried fruit, hand vs. foot, white veil vs. black veil—the video appeals directly to our senses. Charged with symbolism, colors play an important role: white, black, and red may suggest purity, austerity, and passion.

Iryna Maksymova works primarily in figurative paintings and collaged quilting textile. Masymova is influenced by the early 20th Century Ukrainian avant-garde—Neo-Primitivism in particular—as well as by the brightly colored, whimsical, and fantastical works of Ukrainian self-taught female artists such as Mariya Prymachenko (1909–1997), who became an icon of Ukrainian national identity after a Russian attack destroyed some of her works at a museum. Maksymova’s work also references Eastern European street art, as reflected in her bold marks, graffiti tags, spray paint, and energetic scribbles and hand-drawn Gothic letters. Her vocabulary builds on the visual and literary tradition of Ukrainian folklore and “naïve” narratives of self-taught folk painters. For this exhibition, she presents several paintings from her Motherland series and one textile work. Reminiscent of Expressionism, Masymova work revolves around energetically brushed female nudes largely devoid of anatomical accuracy, proportion, or three-dimensionality. She considers these monumental women to be “symbolic of the strength and resilience of a nation.” Other frequent motifs are animals, such as dogs, horses, tigers, dolphins and firebirds. The artist sometimes presents these figures as protectors of the people and land, while at other times as saints and warriors. Unlike her figurative paintings on canvas, Maksymova’s textile work, Blue and Yellow 2 (2023), reveals abstract qualities where patches of blue and yellow fabric are harmoniously sewn together, evoking nature while also representing the colors of the Ukrainian flag, thereby reflecting the artist’s patriotic devotion.

Artists Biographies

Zinaida (Zinaida Kubar, b.1975, Kyiv) lives and works in Kyiv. She graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (BA in Art and Art History) in 2017, and earlier, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (BA in Psychology) in 2009. She is a member of the Food of War International Community. In 2015, Zinaida was a project facilitator for Marina Abramovic In-Residence (Kaldor Public Art Project, Sydney, Australia). She is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine and the Con Artist Residence (2018–2019, New York). Long an activist for the equal rights of women, Zinaida is known for her multifaceted works, videos, installations, performances, paintings, and decorative arts in which she explores folk life and creativity in the 21st century. She has created over fifty videos, three-hundred canvases, and more than one-hundred art projects in cinema, theater, modern ballet, music, fashion, and NFT.

Iryna Maksymova (b. 1991) was born and raised in Kolomyia, a small town in western Ukraine. In 2013, Maksymova graduated from the Graphic Design department of Lviv Polytechnic National University. She began her artistic journey in 2020 with her first solo exhibition in Lviv. Since then, she has participated in various group shows in her native Ukraine, Europe, Asia, and North America. Maksymova held solo exhibitions in London, Berlin, and Lviv. She also participated in group exhibitions in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Madrid, Beijing, and London. She currently lives in Lviv, Ukraine.

The ART LAB and Social & Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI)

ART LAB is collaboratively operated by Amelie A. Wallace Gallery and Visual Arts Department of SUNY Old Westbury. Founded in the context of the Social and Environmental Justice Institute (SEJI) that embodies SUNY Old Westbury’s historic and ongoing social justice mission, it is located on the lower level of Residential Hall 1. SEJI is a living-learning environment that enhances student education through civic engagement and applied learning experiences, thus sustaining initiatives for social justice locally and abroad. ART LAB focuses on exhibitions, performances, and creative activities that are interdisciplinary and draw attention to social and environmental justice while creating opportunities for professional artists, students, and faculty.

SAPAR Contemporary Gallery in New York City provided invaluable assistance with transporting the artworks and facilitating communication with the artists.

ART LAB at SEJI (Social & Environmental Justice Institute), Room 106 and 107, Woodlands Hall 1, SUNY Old Westbury, New York 11568