Artists In/Of The City A National Convening Around the Peace Table

To accompany the current exhibition Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art, the Queens Museum presents Artists In/Of The City, a special convening that explores the current wave of new artist residency programs in city agencies taking place throughout the nation.

Beyond Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ almost four decade long artist residency within the NYC Department of Sanitation, NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs has recently initiated artist residencies inside three other city agencies and is working on more. Cities around the country, including Boston, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City, and Los Angeles, are experimenting with their own versions of residencies within municipal agencies and departments.

Artists In/Of The City convening provides an open space to share and discuss the aspirations and experiences of artists and their city agency partners involved in these kinds of residencies in NYC and across the country. We’ve also invited those in charge of organizing these residencies to share how they initiated and structured their residencies given their local contexts. We hope that these examples will illuminate the best ways moving forward to harness artists’ unique creative and critical contributions to how urban systems work.

The Artists In/Of The City convening starts with a brief examination by Ukeles of the artworks that inspired the event from the Touch Sanitation Show, 1984. Three works originally conceived for Touch Sanitation Show have been reimagined for the Queens Museum, and we will meet in front of One Year’s Worktime II, 1984/2016, a full year of work shifts in the form of clock faces has been silkscreened over a gradient of colors representing the seasons which is installed on the Museum’s Large Wall in the Main Atrium. We will then assemble around the Peace Table, originally commissioned in 1997 by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art for Ukeles’s installation Unburning Freedom Hall. Made of layers of cobalt blue stained glass and plate glass in the shape of a halo, it will be suspended from 50 feet above the central atrium of the Queens Museum.

This setting for the convening, a literal round table, has inspired a format for the convening consisting of three concentric rings of guests. The first ring will be Presenters, artists and city officials with direct experience with residences at municipal agencies whose presentations will act as conversation starters for the convening. The second ring will be Respondents, other artists who have been asked to prepare questions to bring to the table that can deepen the conversation. The third ring will be Participants, other invited artists and the general public interested in the theme that can keep the conversation going with their own questions and comments during the convening.

Moderated by Queens Museum Director Laura Raicovich.

Confirmed guests for the convening include:

• Laura Raicovich, President and Executive Director of Queens Museum
• Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Artist-in-Residence at NYC Department of Sanitation
• Norman Steisel, former Commissioner of NYC Department of Sanitation
• Brendan Sexton, former Commissioner of NYC Department of Sanitation
• Vito Turso, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information at NYC Department of Sanitation
• Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner of NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
• Shirley Levy, Chief of Staff, Office of the Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
• Diya Vij, Digital Communications Manager, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
• Marcus Young, former City Artist, City of St. Paul, Minnesota
• Ellen Greeley, Special Assistant to the Commissioner, NYC Department of Veteran’s Services
• Jules Rochielle (Social Design Collective), Artist-in-Residence at NYC Department of Veteran’s Services
• Christine Tinsley (Social Design Collective), Artist-in-Residence at NYC Department of Veteran’s Services
• Feniosky Pena-Mora, Commissioner of NYC Department of Design and Construction
• Gulgun Kayim, Chief of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
• Wendy Morris, Director of Creative Leadership at Intermedia Arts
• D.A. Bullock, Artist collaborating with Minneapolis’ Neighborhood and Community Relations Department
• Alan Nakagawa, Creative Catalyst Artist in Residence at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation
• Gladys Carrión, Commissioner of the NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Keelay Gipson (The Lost Collective), Artists-in-Residence at NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Josh Ramos (The Lost Collective), Artists-in-Residence at NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Rebeca Rad (The Lost Collective), Artists-in-Residence at NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Britton Smith (The Lost Collective), Artists-in-Residence at NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Nisha Agarwal, NYC Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
• Tania Bruguera, Artist-in-Residence at Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
• Marty Pottenger, Artist, Activist, Director, Art at Work (Portland, Maine)
• Julie Burros, Chief of Arts and Culture, Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture of the City of Boston
• Shaw Pong Liu,  Artist partnering with the Boston Police Department
• L’Merchie Fraizer, Artist partnering with the Office of Women’s Advancement and Office of Recovery Services
• Pepon Osorio, Artist
• Elizabeth Hamby, Artist, Community Urban Planner at The Center for Health Equity at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Marisa Jahn, Artist, Executive Director of REV-
• Jae Shin, Architect