Institutional Memory at The New School. An exhibition, discussions, lectures, and seances with psychics examine a legacy of progressive institutional and pedagogical policy at a time when the university is celebrating its past, yet also contending with a highly publicized period of internal criticism and activism. A series of free events are hosted in Parts & Labor's mobile gallery, an open truck parked outside.
As The New School celebrates its 90th anniversary, this collaboration between Parts & Labor and the Vera List Center features a series of free events hosted in Parts & Labor’s mobile gallery–an open truck parked outside Tishman auditorium. Discussions, lectures, and workshops presented inside the truck and in adjacent rooms in The New School’s "signature building" (designed by Joseph Urban in 1930) bring together a cast of contributors, members of the university community, and the public to examine the founding principles of The New School and to address the question of how these principles have fared over time. These participatory events investigate the institutional and pedagogical history of the university as they have grown alongside a community and its urban site. Through a variety of interactive strategies participants initiate reflections on recent calls for change at The New School by projecting them against the backdrop of the university’s unique history of critical engagement with the concepts of newness and change.
Parts & Labor’s stop at The New School is one in a series of encounters unfolding during a traveling exhibition that will subsequently tour the country and explore other site- and community-specific experiences of the transformation of the American landscape. In its New York manifestation, called "By Any Name," the project takes the concept of a university archive and re-imagines it as a representational installation with the power to evoke–and possibly, to jog–institutional memory, serving as an aesthetic, systemic response to the diverse missions, traditions, and images now associated with The New School.
Composed of recycled texts and computer equipment, materials drawn from The New School library, and a new text penned by members of The New School community, this week-long on-campus environment involves a range of major and lesser-known events, figures, ideas, opinions, and reminiscences which inform the legacy of the university. "By Any Name" invites both The New School community and the general public to consider: How does The New School remember its past, and how can its approach to the past change its approach to the future? "By Any Name" insists that the university’s legacy be subject to further documentation.
These events are presented as part of the Vera List Center’s 2009/2010 program cycle "Speculating on Change."
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Unless noted below, all events take place in Parts & Labor Gallery at The New School, parked outside of Tishman Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street, and are free and open to the public.
Consultation/Séance
The Future
Monday, October 19 through Friday, October 23, 2009
Open daily, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Featuring psychics Sherene Schostak and Kiki T
Sound Installation
WHERE ARE WE GOING? AND WHAT ARE WE DOING?
Monday, October 19 through Saturday, October 24, 2009, Open daily
A project by Vera List Center Fellows Lin + Lam and Robert Sember
Drawing Workshop
Thomas Bosket
Monday, October 19, 2009 - 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Discussion Group
Ali Krasners on the history of The New School
Monday, October 19, 2009 - 4:00 to 4:50 p.m.
Discussion Group
Tess Harrison on the history of The New School
Monday, October 19, 2009 - 5:00 to 5:50 p.m.
Lecture
Peter M. Rutkoff
The New School at 90: What Would Dewey Do?
Monday, October 19, 2009 - 6:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
Reception to follow in Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street)
Workshop
Andy Bichlbaum’s Class, sans Andy
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 3:00 to 5:40 p.m.
Featuring psychic Sherene Schostak
Class Session
Steve Lambert
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Open Discussion
John Zinsser
The New York Art World and The New School: History and Possibility
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 1:00 to 2:45 p.m.
Parsons The New School for Design, Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street
Roundtable
The Librarians’ Circle
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
The New School, Orozco Room
66 West 12th Street, 7th floor
Class Session
Joseph Heathcott: The City as Archive
Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 12:00 to 1:40 p.m.
Conversation and Art Walk
Art in the Institution/Art as the Institution:
The New School Art Collection and its Institutional Life
Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Vera List Courtyard, 66 West 12th Street, ground floor
Participants:
Participants include John Aubry, Thomas Bosket, Tess Harrison, Joseph Heathcott, Kiki T, Ali Krasners, Steve Lambert, Lin+Lam, Shannon Mattern, Parts & Labor Gallery (Brooke Chroman, Meghan Roe and Bryan Mesenbourg), Silvia Rocciolo, Peter M. Rutkoff, Ed Scarcelle, Wendy Scheir, Sherene Schostak, Robert Sember, John Wanzel, John Zinsser and others to be announced.
Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School
Alvin Johnson-J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street, Room 918,
New York, New York 10011
Admission Free
Open daily, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.