Forever in Transition: Reconsidering Art and Politics of the 1980s

In his memoir Close to the Knives, David Wojnarowicz writes: “Transition is always a relief. Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.” Inspired by Wojnarowicz's approach to histories both personal and public, this roundtable discussion brings together artists of a younger generation to look back on Wojnarowicz’s moment and milieu and to reflect on the aesthetics and politics of that period in relationship to the present. 

Speakers include A.K. Burns, Em Rooney, Ken Okiishi, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden. The exhibition’s co-curator David Breslin, De Martini Family Director of the Collection, moderates. 

A.K. Burns is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work explores the body as a contentious domain wherein socio-political conditions are negotiated. Using video, installation, sculpture, drawing and collaboration, Burns queries systems of value as it is embodied at the nexus of language and materiality. 

Em Rooney lives and works in New York City. Her work encompasses photography, sculpture, video, and writing—often using sculptural forms and materials to encase or frame photographs. Its subject varies from documentation of her community (especially through dedication), her environment, and the passage of time as seen on bodies and film. 

Ken Okiishi is an artist based in New York. His works hover over and within the relationships between matter and memory, perception and action, image-networks and media systems. 

Tiona Nekkia McClodden is an interdisciplinary artist and curator whose work explores and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and social commentary. McClodden’s approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations to explore themes of re-memory and narrative biomythography.