Dinner with Red Flower Collective: Eight New Sculptures
In conjunction with This Fire That Warms You by Tsohil Bhatia
Menu design by Rujuta Rao; drinks by Rupee Beer Company

Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Time: 6:30–9:30 pm

In conjunction with Tsohil Bhatia’s solo exhibition, This Fire That Warms You, Red Flower Collective will host its sixteenth dinner at CUE’s gallery space, adding eight new sculptures to the show. These sculptures are ephemeral and will remain on view solely for the duration of the dinner. The event will include activations by exhibiting artist Tsohil Bhatia alongside their Red Flower Collective co-founder Erin Montanez, as well as an eight-course dinner prepared on site, drinks, a limited edition menu by artist Rujuta Rao, and the launch of the exhibition catalogue designed by Anamika Singh and with texts by the artist, exhibition mentor Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), and catalogue essayist Swagato Chakravorty (mentored by Alpesh Kantilal Patel as part of CUE’s Art Critic Mentorship Program).

Each new sculpture presented as part of the event expands upon the phenomenology of the kitchen. They elaborate on that which is already present: pressure cookers in the moment before eruption; a chandelier of pots and pans that hangs quietly until it is shaken; stacked glassware embedded with gravitational tension; fruits and vegetables situated in a prolonged moment before disintegration. Together, the dinner and its related interventions open up new conceptual ground, introducing food as a material and centering the processes of the kitchen and its latent energies.

Red Flower Collective, founded in 2021, is an iterative artist’s project based in New York City. The collective treats the kitchen as an open studio and a lab, studying both alchemical processes of cooking and the aesthetics of cultural production. Their work plays with form, going beyond a food-based practice to also incorporate installation, performance, and printed matter.

The collective aims to uplift and acknowledge often devalued reproductive labors of the kitchen. Participants exhibit familial histories and domestic inheritances through the sensory and the archival. With an emphasis on care and communal eating, they challenge notions of fetishization, transaction, and consumption as related to ecosystems of food service and its associated practices.

Red Flower Collective is decentralized from a singular, physical space. The collective has often prepared and hosted meals in apartment homes, opening up domestic spaces typically defined by their privacy and instead inviting in a public and community use. Their recent collaborations with institutions and residencies include: Chautauqua School of Art (2021), Asia Art Archive in America (2022), Flux Factory (2022), Hurford Center of the Arts and Humanities at Haverford College (2022), CUE Art Foundation (2023), Letra Muerta (2023), Mildred’s Lane (2023, 2024), Fire Island Residency (2024), and the New Art Dealers Alliance (2024).

Related Exhibition
To learn more about This Fire That Warms You, a solo exhibition by Tsohil Bhatia mentored by Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), see here.

Support
This event is supported by a donation from Rupee Beer Company.

Food Activation by Tsohil Bhatia x Red Flower Collective
at NADA House on Governors Island

Saturday, September 21, 2024 from 2–4 pm
Nolan Park House 17, Governors Island
Accessible by ferry from Manhattan and Brooklyn
See directions to Nolan Park here, and ferry info here.

Please join us for a special food-based activation by Tsohil Bhatia for Red Flower Collective, a communal eating and research collective of which they are a co-founder. The event is hosted by the New Art Dealers Alliance as part of the programming for NADA House, where CUE presents a new sculptural work by Bhatia, Untitled (Rano).

The menu for the event will consist of aloo kachori, dahi bhalla papdi chaat, and masala peanut chaat. Come try it all! Food will be available until it runs out.

Red Flower Collective collaborates with artists, chefs, and curiosities-in-residence, and affirms queer and diasporic identities as they manifest themselves through food. The collective explores the kitchen as a forum in which to receive generational knowledge, and prioritizes the recipes derived from this research.

The event is free and all are welcome (donations are appreciated and support the work of Red Flower Collective). Bhatia’s sculpture, Untitled (Rano), will be on view at NADA House through October 27th, with public hours Friday–Sunday, 11 am–5 pm. No registration is required to attend either the event or public hours.

Register for updates via Luma here. (Please note that registration does not guarantee food—come early to ensure it’s still available!)

Read more about the work at NADA House here. To learn more about the artist’s solo exhibition at CUE, mentored by Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), see here.

Opening Reception: Remnants of an Advanced Technology by Alisha B Wormsley
Mentor: Joeonna Belladoro-Samuels
RSVP

Please join us for the opening reception for Remnants of an Advanced Technology, a solo exhibition by Pittsburgh-based artist Alisha B Wormsley, with curatorial mentorship from Joeonna Belladoro-Samuels. The exhibition, presented at CUE’s gallery space (137 W. 25th Street) is the first solo show by the artist in New York City. During the opening reception, Li Harris, Jasmine Hearn, and Jamila Raegan—artists and longtime collaborators of Wormsley’s—will each host a ritual offering to bless the Children of NAN archive.

The show will remain on view until October 22nd, 2022. Attendance during gallery hours (Wed-Sat, 12-6 pm) is free; no reservations are required.

Read more about the exhibition here, and RSVP below.

About the Offerings

Li Harris, Jasmine Hearn, and Jamila Raegan, artists and longtime collaborators of Wormsley’s, are all part of the Children of NAN archive. They have inspired Wormsley immensely through their craft, practice and love. At the opening reception, each of the artists will host a ritual offering to bless the Children of NAN archive. 

Lisa E. Harris (Li) is an independent and interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, creative soprano, performer, composer, improvisor, writer, singer/songwriter, researcher and educator who makes time and space to dream. 

Jasmine Hearn is an interdisciplinary artist, director, choreographer, organizer, and teaching artist who develops and shares solo and ensemble dance theater performances rooted in the facilitation of creative spaces for remembering, feeling, and imagining.

Jamila Raegan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses inequity and violence–a marker of her personal and cultural experiences–and creates works that provide a space for mourning and collective healing.

About the Artist
Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work contributes to imagining the future of arts, science, and technology through the black womxn lens. She challenges contemporary views of American life through whichever medium she feels is the best form of expression: creating an object, a sculpture, a billboard, performance, or film. She thrives in collaboration. 

Wormley’s work has been exhibited widely, most recently at the Oakland Museum, VCUArts Qatar, Speed Museum, Artpace, Times Square Arts, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Over the past few years, she has created several park designs and public art initiatives in downtown Pittsburgh. She also created a public program called There Are Black People In the Future, which gives mini-grants to open up discourse around displacement and gentrification. In 2020, she launched an art residency for Black creative mothers, Sibyls Shrine, which received support from the Heinz Endowments. 

Wormsley’s newest project, D.R.E.A.M. A Way to Afram, created with longtime collaborator Li Harris, was awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship. She has also received fellowships from Monument Lab and the Goethe Institute, the Sundance Interdisciplinary Grant, and the Carol Brown Achievement Award, among others. Wormsley has an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College and is currently a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

About the Mentor
Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels is a Director at the Jack Shainman Gallery where she manages artists within the gallery roster including Hank Willis Thomas, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nina Chanel Abney and Meleko Mokgosi, among others. Belladoro-Samuels is also the founder of We Buy Gold, a roving gallery that presents exhibitions, commissioned projects, and public events. The project seeks to encourage the dissection and deconstruction of structures of power by artists working in a cross-section of media. 

She is on the curatorial team of The Racial Imaginary Institute, which seeks to change the way we imagine race in the U.S. and internationally by lifting up and connecting the work of artists, writers, knowledge-producers, and activists with audiences seeking thoughtful, innovative conversations and experiences. She is also a member of the National Advisory Council of the Center for Art and Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art.

Previously, Belladoro-Samuels was a Founding Director of For Freedoms in 2016. For Freedoms is the first artist-run Super PAC in the United States, and uses art to inspire deeper political engagement for citizens who want to have a greater impact on the American political landscape. It accomplishes this mission through civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States.

Access Notes
This event is free of charge. Water and other beverages will be served. CUE Art Foundation is wheelchair accessible. There is an all-gender, ADA compliant, single-stall bathroom in the gallery. The closest wheelchair-accessible MTA subway stations are Penn Station and Herald Square. If you have additional access questions or needs, please contact info@cueartfoundation.org.

Money Has No Smell
CLOSING RECEPTION AND FILM SCREENING:
Wednesday, August 31st, 2022
6:00 – 8:00 pm (screening to begin at 6:15 pm)
137 W. 25th St, NYC [map]

RSVP here.

CUE and ACOMPI present a screening of La Desaparición (The Disappearance), a film by artist Liv Schulman, followed by a closing reception to celebrate the artists and curators. In the film, Schulman (Argentinian, b. 1985) travels to the triple frontier—a tri-border area along the junction of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay—where she exchanges Argentine pesos for Brazilian reales for Paraguayan guaraníes until the money disappears due to the cumulative effect of commissions from currency exchange.

Drawing upon the themes present within the exhibition, the film highlights the fickle fungibility of value, offering a space for further reflection on the social construct of money on a global scale.

After the screening, drinks will be served. We encourage guests to join us at any time throughout the evening. Attendance is free and open to all; RSVPs are requested.

Read more about the exhibition here.

About the Participants 

ACOMPI is a New York City-based, globally focused curatorial practice founded by Jack Radley and Constanza Valenzuela. The name ACOMPI derives from the Spanish word acompañado, meaning “in company.” ACOMPI highlights interdisciplinary practice and collaboration, and serves as a youth-oriented, community-ingrained platform to expand the intersection of independent curatorial practice and site-responsive public engagement. ACOMPI celebrates narratives of immigrants, youth, and artists working in interdisciplinary means not satiated or supported by the current market.

Recent projects by ACOMPI include: Ocultismo y barro, Miriam Gallery (Brooklyn, New York); Mariana Parisca: Corriente, Más Allá (Bogotá, Colombia); Crispy Tostones: Oro, Pari Passu Gallery in collaboration with Sabroso Projects (Queens, New York); Transient Grounds in collaboration with NARS Foundation on Governors Island; Diana Sofia Lozano: Suspended in the Iris, Home Gallery (NYC); Shanzhai Lyric: Canal Street Research Association in collaboration with Wallplay; and “What Can NYC Art Museums Do For Immigrants?” a colloquium at NYU Steinhardt. ACOMPI’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, New York Magazine, artnet, The Brooklyn Rail, Elephant, and Hyperallergic, among other publications. They can be found at @acompi.nyc.

Opening Reception: Money Has No Smell
Ignacio Gatica, Mariana Parisca, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer
Curated by ACOMPI
Mentor: Rosario Güiraldes

Please join us for the opening reception for Money Has No Smell, a group exhibition that presents the work of three artists: Ignacio Gatica, Mariana Parisca, and Gabriella Torres-Ferrer. Curated by ACOMPI (Jack Radley and Constanza Valenzuela) and mentored by Rosario Güiraldes, the exhibition brings together recent works that trace flows of currency to and from the artists’ places of origin, in the process addressing the complexity of globalized and interdependent financial systems. 

Read more about the exhibition here, and RSVP below.

Access Notes
This event is free of charge. COVID-19 vaccination is required to attend, and guests are asked to bring a mask. Water and other beverages will be served. Art Foundation is wheelchair accessible. There is an all-gender, ADA compliant, single-stall bathroom in the gallery. The closest wheelchair-accessible MTA subway stations are Penn Station and Herald Square. If you have additional access questions or needs, please contact info@cueartfoundation.org.

Artist Talk + Closing Reception:
In the Shadows by Fereidoun Ghaffari
Saturday, July 9th, 5:00 - 7:00 pm
RSVP HERE

Join us for a closing reception and talk with artist Fereidoun Ghaffari marking the conclusion of his debut solo exhibition, In the Shadows, at CUE Art Foundation. The artist will be joined by exhibition mentor and Publisher/Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Rail Phong Bui as well as visual artist and filmmaker Shoja Azari.

Years in the making, this exhibition represents the first time Ghaffari has invited a public audience to witness the outcomes of his private and solitary practice. This conversation will locate the artist’s work within a broader history of self-portraiture, and address the meaning of his longstanding process of painting himself based on sight alone, stripped bare of any markers that might suggest a particular culture, space, history, or ethics.

After the conversation, guests are invited to join us for a closing reception with light refreshments to celebrate the artist and the exhibition. Attendance is free and open to all; RSVPs are requested.

Read more about the exhibition here.

About the Participants 

Fereidoun Ghaffari was born in Tehran, Iran. He studied painting at the University of Art in Tehran, earning a BFA in 1998 and an MFA in 2002. In 2003, he attended a special studies program at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden. He returned to Tehran in 2004 and taught in universities there until 2006, when he moved to New York and enrolled in the New York Academy of Art, attaining his second MFA in painting in 2008. In 2013, Ghaffari had a solo show of self-portraits at the Tarahan-Azad Gallery in Tehran. His group exhibitions include EDGE (Emkan Gallery, Tehran – 2018); In Between, Contemporary Iranian Art (MANA Contemporary, Jersey City – 2017); VISAGE: Image of Self (O Gallery, Tehran – 2016); and SELF: Portraits of Artists in Their Absence (National Museum Academy of Fine Arts, New York – 2015). Ghaffari lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Phong H. Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and Co-Founder and Publisher/Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail, Rail Editions, River Rail, and Rail Curatorial Projects. He has organized more than sixty exhibitions since 2000, and has been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture” by Brooklyn Magazine. Bui has been a Curatorial Advisor at MoMA PS1, as well as a senior critic in the MFA programs at Yale, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania. He has taught graduate seminars in the MFA programs for Writing and Criticism and Photography, Video, and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts. He has received numerous awards and has served as a board member of many organizations. Bui lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Shoja Azari was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1958. As a teenager, Azari experimented with short films, and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution involved himself in underground culture – literature, theater, and politics. After moving to New York in 1983, he received a Master’s degree in Psychology from New York University. In his work, Azari confronts broad themes of gender, politics, and piety, drawing inspiration from and re-interpreting religious icons. Azari’s work has been exhibited globally, with solo shows throughout Europe and North America. He has participated in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, at museums such as Germany’s Haus der Kulturen and the MUSAC in Spain, and at art fairs including Art Basel, Switzerland, ARCO, Spain, and Art Dubai. His works are in the permanent collections of various museums and foundations, including the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in the United States, and the Farjam Collection in the UAE. He lives and works in New York.