“NXTHVN: Reclamation” at Sean Kelly features curator tour, artist discussions, and live performance on July 19 (photo by Jason Wyche / courtesy Sean Kelly)
Who: Cornelia Stokes, Kiara Cristina Ventura, Athena Quispe, Ashanté Kindle, Donald Guevara, Edgar Serrano, Anindita Dutta
What: Curator-led walkthrough, artist discussions, live performance
Where: Sean Kelly Gallery, 475 Tenth Ave. at Thirty-Sixth St.
When: Wednesday, July 19, free, 6:00
Why: In 2016, arts incubator NXTHVN was founded by American artist Titus Kaphar, private equity entrepreneur Jason Price, and Canadian artist Jonathan Brand. Based in two former manufacturing plants in New Haven, Connecticut, the nonprofit’s mission is “to build an alternative model of art mentorship and career advising through a specially designed curriculum, and to simultaneously set into motion significant opportunities for emerging local entrepreneurs.” Sean Kelly Gallery is currently hosting the two-floor exhibition “NXTHVN: Reclamation,” continuing through August 11, featuring painting, drawing, collage, video, sculpture, installation, and performance by six artists from NXTHVN’s Cohort 04 Fellowship Program: Anindita Dutta, Donald Guevara, Ashanté Kindle, Athena Quispe, Edgar Serrano, and Capt. James Stovall V.
On July 19, as part of ADAA Chelsea Gallery Walk, the gallery will present a walkthrough of the show at 6:00, led by NXTHVN curatorial fellows Cornelia Stokes and Kiara Cristina Ventura, joined by Quispe, Kindle, Guevara, and Serrano, who will discuss their contributions. “It is in this dance that the display of contradictory bodies and settings superimposed and cut together become a new whole; the cyborg of cultural mixture in a new virtualized arena where the procession of time can be known but not yet felt,” Guevara says of his work.
At 6:30, there will a live performance by Dutta, who uses such found materials as clothing, shoes, fabric, rawhide, chairs, and horns to take on gender conflict, sexual violence, and impermanence. “When victims and perpetrators remain silent about heinous crimes, the truth remains obscured and inaccessible,” she notes in her artist statement. “I wonder who holds the truth? Who is the witness to the events that transpired? Who is the knower of all thoughts and feelings, pain and suffering, stigma, and depression?”