https://themenialcollection.org The Menial Collection Sun, 10 Nov 2019 22:48:31 +0000 https://themenialcollection.org en https://themenialcollection.org/Publications Thu, 14 Feb 2019 01:26:05 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Publications Counterweight: CatalogAs, Not For: Activated https://themenialcollection.org/Counterweight-Catalog Fri, 27 Sep 2019 03:02:28 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Counterweight-Catalog Counterweight: CatalogueThe history of civilization is not concrete. Those with power retroactively construct it as they erect structures in their own names. The perfection of concrete as a building material by the Romans allowed physical manifestations of imperial power to proliferate rapidly across the Mediterranean Empire. This legacy of heroic architecture, phallic warrior monuments, and patriarchal power flows from the ancients and into the governments that followed and drew influence from them, down into our contemporary existence. Echoes can be heard in conversations around Confederate war monuments built in the name of their “Lost Cause”— a retroactive attempt to both mythologize and concretize a false narrative of history and to silence dissenting voices. In Counterweight, Sera Boeno, Cevahir Özdoğan, and Noa Heyne explore the historical power invested in concrete and draw connections to the architectural and sociological conditions of their birthplaces, Turkey and Israel. Understanding the material as inherently gendered, the artists construct works that question the relationship between history, monumentality, power, and the feminine experience. If concrete has often functioned as a vehicle through which power itself is cemented, how can its power be appropriated by the feminine? Featuring essays from the curators, Sera, Cevahir, and Noa, as well as an extended bibliography and installation photographs.  PDF https://themenialcollection.org/As-Not-For-Activated-1 Fri, 27 Sep 2019 03:02:30 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/As-Not-For-Activated-1 As, Not For: ActivatedParticipants explored connections between provided texts and exhibited work creating a zine which pairs curated source materials to reveal new layers of meaning. Guided by the in-gallery readings, participants used the collected materials and texts to collage and reconfigure the work, resulting in a published dialog between the participants of the workshop and the rich history of African American Graphic Design. As, Not For is an incomplete historical survey of work created by African-American graphic designers over the last century. The selected designers utilize modernist and Bauhausian methods or more intuitive techniques to create work that ranges from commercially accessible design to avant-garde graphic experimentation. These practitioners are absent in too many classroom lectures, and their methods go mostly invisible or uncredited in the field. This exhibition aims to promote the inclusion of neglected Black practitioners and their developed methodologies and to challenge the ubiquity of White and anti-Black aesthetics in our designed world. This exhibition takes cues from two sources. The first is an obscure multidisciplinary exhibition titled Ritual: Baptismal in Black, The Ritual of The Black Aesthetic, held in Ann Arbor Michigan at the Academy of Creative Thought in 1977. Ritual confronted patrons with the questions, “Can your faculty/staff/students each name five nationally or internationally active Black artists?” and “Do your major art books include the work of major Black artists?” The second source is The New Negro by Alain Locke, which argued that the responsibility of African-American artists was to speak from their point of view in order to reveal personal truths; to speak as Black individuals and not for Black people. Locke envisions a new Black artistic consciousness, one that does not seek to represent or translate their race for the masses, but instead strives for a deeper expression of unique Black subjectivities, in which race “is but an idiom of experience.” Inspired by these two perspectives on Black artistic production, As, Not For interrogates the institutional exclusion and historical omission of Black graphic design and the implications of that excluded status on Black expressive practice in graphic design and on graphic design and the industry as a whole. The exhibited works are to-scale reproductions of printed ephemera, all of which are authentic representations of Black culture in the time that they were created. Curated in collaboration with The Menial Collection and assistant curator Joshua Gamma, As, Not For: Indexed assumes a condensed, archival shape, which activates the material through interaction and research. The exhibition seeks to question, inspire, activate, and challenge the design community and beyond with the objective of promoting the deep history, design theory and aesthetics of African-Americans.Jerome Harris is an independent graphic designer and teaching fellow at Maryland Institute College of Art. He holds and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, and a BA from Temple University. His practice focuses on work in arts and culture, with an emphasis on socially responsible and impactful organizations, institutions, businesses, and artists.As, Not For is Harris’ debut as a curator. A frustration enduced by the lack of visibility of people of color in graphic design history, as well as a lack of representation in the industry lead him on this journey. The research is ongoing, thus the show is evergrowing, as more designers active between 1865 and 1999 are discovered. PDF https://themenialcollection.org/Programs Thu, 14 Feb 2019 01:26:03 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Programs [not yet] and [no longer] Circulation Desk   Insert as Insight  Ruby Waldo, ME Duno 05/05/2019Mining our Libraries Ada Pinkston 04/27/2019 The Art of Information Brwn Art Ink 04/20/2019 Combinatory Lectures Pablo Helguera 04/12/2019 As, Not For: Indexed As, Not For: ActivatedJerome Harris 02/22/2019 Counterweight Scent & Sahtein   Celia Shaheen 09/09/2018Turkish Teatime & Discussion   Sera Boeno, Cevahir Özdoğan 08/19/2018 Focus: Cary Fagan Demian DinéYazhi’ : An Infected SunsetWorksheet Workshop Prelude: Moonfeeling The Focus Group  https://themenialcollection.org/Collective-Catalogings Mon, 24 Jun 2019 04:37:42 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Collective-Catalogings Collective Cataloging04/21/2018 -  Our most regular activity, Collective Cataloging, invites old and new friends to participate in the purging of our previous “subject headers” to be replaced with new ones, but  generated by each other. Through conversation and a celebration of the bibliosphere, we collectively implement whatever knowledges we walked in the door with. Anyone with the time and the energy is free to dismantle old groupings, whether from a past cataloging or inherited from their own experiences in libraries, and reassemble them in their own image. Check out our digital stacks here, on are.na!  https://themenialcollection.org/not-yet-and-no-longer Sun, 10 Nov 2019 22:48:31 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/not-yet-and-no-longer [not yet] and [no longer] Can Yağız 08/25/2019 “[not yet] and [no longer]” is a new participatory cataloguing workshop facilitated by Can Yağız. During “[not yet] and [no longer]” the items within The Collection will be “uploaded” and digitally organized in a newly formed online “cataloging system”, hosted on are.na, a platform that participants and visitors to the library can use from now on to simplify their own cataloging. Prompted by a series of excerpts and citations around the work of Hanne Darboven, and compiled by Yağız, the session will be enriched by thoughts on transcription and archivization as methods of memorizing and forgetting, and the contrast between physical and digital agency. “[not yet] and [no longer]” will result in a fully autonomous online resource to be accessible from our new website. It will also mark our last workshop held at 243 W. Read St., and an opportunity to bid our first home goodbye together. Check out our digital stacks here, on are.na!                https://themenialcollection.org/Circulation-Desk Fri, 21 Jun 2019 21:51:47 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Circulation-Desk Circulation Desk04/14/2019 — 7/30/2019Circulation Desk transforms the library into a site of curation, collaboration, and play. On four dates, artists Pablo Helguera, Brown Art Ink, Ada Pinkston and Ruby Waldo’s workshops consider how the tools of artistic practice may contribute to the library as public space. Celebrating libraries as community resources, overturning traditional academic mechanisms which limit access and exclude, these workshops strive to reinsert the notion of care into the curatorial and collectivity into cultural production. Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. Helguera’s work incorporates pedagogy, sociology and theater and literary strategies. His project “The School of Panamerican Unrest,” a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between and covering almost 20,000 miles, is considered one of the most extensive public art projects on record as well as a pioneering work of socially engaged art. Helguera has exhibited or performed at venues such as the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; 8th Havana Biennale; PERFORMA 05 Brooklyn Museum; amongst many others. In 2012 he presented a solo exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and currently is receiving a mid-career retrospective at La Colección Jumex titled Dramatis Personae. He is represented by Kent Fine Art in New York and Enrique Guerrero Gallery in Mexico City. Ravon Ruffin is the community manager and co-founder of Brown Art Ink, a community incubator. She uses digital media as a placeholder for communities of color to make art and culture accessible IRL. She believes in museums as spaces for the future of community advocacy, education and urban sustainability. Ravon works at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture as a Social Engagement Producer.Amanda Figueroa is the managing editor and co-founder of Brown Art Ink, a community incubator. She works with artists to bring the messages of their work to local Latinx communities and communities of color. Her work develops the practices of democracy and civic participation through relationships between community members and public art. Amanda is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Harvard University. Ada Pinkston is a multimedia artist, educator and cultural organizer living and working in Baltimore, Maryland. Her art explores the intersection of imagined histories and sociopolitical realities on our bodies using monoprint, performance, experimental video and collage techniques. Inter-subjective exchanges are the primary substrate of her work. Over the years, her work has been featured at a variety of spaces including The Baltimore Museum of Art, P.S.1, and Light City Baltimore. She is a Baker Artist award semifinalist (2016), a recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant in Visual Arts. Her most recent collaborative project includes founding the LabBodies Performance Art Laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland. Ruby Waldo is from Baltimore, MD. She’s interested architecture and empathy; supportive structures that are both gentle and didactic. Her sculptural practice consists of gathering people and materials together through making prints, casting concrete, and hosting workshops. Ruby works as an educator at The Walters Art Museum and as a France-Merrick Fellow at Whitelock Community Farm.Circulation Desk is curated by Maria Emilia Duno, a graduate of the MFA in Curatorial Practice program at Maryland Institute College of Art. The exhibition has been generously supported by MICA’s MFA in Curatorial Practice, The Walter’s Art Museum and The Enoch Pratt Free Library. For more information and press inquiries, please contact Maria Emilia Duno at eduno@mica.edu.Programming for Circulation Desk: Insert as InsightRuby Waldo, ME Duno 05/05/2019Mining our Libraries Ada Pinkston 04/27/2019 The Art of Information Brwn Art Ink 04/20/2019 Combinatory Lectures Pablo Helguera 04/12/2019 Publication(s): Combinatory Lectures Pablo Helguera                https://themenialcollection.org/As-Not-For-Indexed Sun, 23 Jun 2019 18:09:25 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/As-Not-For-Indexed As, Not For: Indexed12/14/2018 - 02/30/2019 As, Not For is an incomplete historical survey of work created by African-American graphic designers over the last century. The selected designers utilize modernist and Bauhausian methods or more intuitive techniques to create work that ranges from commercially accessible design to avant-garde graphic experimentation. These practitioners are absent in too many classroom lectures, and their methods go mostly invisible or uncredited in the field. This exhibition aims to promote the inclusion of neglected Black practitioners and their developed methodologies and to challenge the ubiquity of White and anti-Black aesthetics in our designed world. This exhibition takes cues from two sources. The first is an obscure multidisciplinary exhibition titled Ritual: Baptismal in Black, The Ritual of The Black Aesthetic, held in Ann Arbor Michigan at the Academy of Creative Thought in 1977. Ritual confronted patrons with the questions, “Can your faculty/staff/students each name five nationally or internationally active Black artists?” and “Do your major art books include the work of major Black artists?” The second source is The New Negro by Alain Locke, which argued that the responsibility of African-American artists was to speak from their point of view in order to reveal personal truths; to speak as Black individuals and not for Black people. Locke envisions a new Black artistic consciousness, one that does not seek to represent or translate their race for the masses, but instead strives for a deeper expression of unique Black subjectivities, in which race “is but an idiom of experience.” Inspired by these two perspectives on Black artistic production, As, Not For interrogates the institutional exclusion and historical omission of Black graphic design and the implications of that excluded status on Black expressive practice in graphic design and on graphic design and the industry as a whole. The exhibited works are to-scale reproductions of printed ephemera, all of which are authentic representations of Black culture in the time that they were created. Curated in collaboration with The Menial Collection and assistant curator Joshua Gamma, As, Not For: Indexed assumes a condensed, archival shape, which activates the material through interaction and research. The exhibition seeks to question, inspire, activate, and challenge the design community and beyond with the objective of promoting the deep history, design theory and aesthetics of African-Americans.Jerome Harris is an independent graphic designer and teaching fellow at Maryland Institute College of Art. He holds and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, and a BA from Temple University. His practice focuses on work in arts and culture, with an emphasis on socially responsible and impactful organizations, institutions, businesses, and artists.As, Not For is Harris’ debut as a curator. A frustration enduced by the lack of visibility of people of color in graphic design history, as well as a lack of representation in the industry lead him on this journey. The research is ongoing, thus the show is evergrowing, as more designers active between 1865 and 1999 are discovered. Programming for As, Not For: Indexed: As, Not For: Activated Jerome Harris 02/22/2019 Publication(s):As, Not For: Activated https://themenialcollection.org/Insert-as-Insight Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:14:44 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Insert-as-Insight Insight as Insert Ruby Waldo & ME Duno 6/5/19Drawing from from past workshops held with Baltimore City youth at Enoch Pratt library branches, Insert as Insight questions how the book insert can act as a radical imposition of that which has not been written. On view in the gallery were the books and the inserts made by children in the past workshops. While reading series of guiding questions posed to the children, such as “what do you think happened before this story began? Or “What would you want your younger sibling to know as they read this?” participants created their own inserts for books in The Menial Collection library. ↜   ↝ https://themenialcollection.org/Mining-Our-Libraries Mon, 24 Jun 2019 01:17:36 +0000 The Menial Collection https://themenialcollection.org/Mining-Our-Libraries Mining Our Libraries Ada Pinkston 4/27/19In Mining Our Libraries, participants explored the contents of the Enoch Pratt Digital Collection to collaboratively produce a new archive pairing the visual history of the city of Baltimore with personal materials and histories. Participants were asked to consider what they knew about Baltimore history, what were important sites of memory, and what they wanted to know more about as they re-organized the images from the archive and added that which they felt was missing.↜   ↝