Image: Paul Legault and Joseph Kaplan

An Anarchy: Reading in "Pavilion for Red Emma"

Friday, October 19, 7 - 8 PM

Emma Goldman was a radical anarchist and social revolutionary leading international movements during the first half of the 20th century. For Near & Dear, artist Rachel Stern created Pavilion for Red Emma as a memorial installation to reflect on Goldman's life and ideas. Stern focuses on Goldman’s belief in beauty as an essential tool for revolution. Goldman cherished fresh flowers and opera, practiced free love, and was captivated by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Paul Legault is a poet whose work often plays with the concept of translation. He will read his translations of Walt Whitman’s poetry (some of which are included in the installation itself) alongside the original texts. Rachel Stern will read selections from Goldman’s autobiography Living My Life.

PARTICIPANT BIOS

Paul Legault is the author of The Madeleine Poems, The Other Poems, The Emily Dickinson Reader, and Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror 2. His writing has appeared in Art in America, VICE, and The New Museum’s Surround Audience anthology. Paul was born in Canada. He's here.

Rachel Stern (b. 1989, NYC) is a photographer whose work challenges conventions of beauty and promotes escapist, constructivist fantasy. Her work images a world that might be, built out of the world that is. It is a kitsch paradise, a queer-washed history, and an attempt at hope. She received her BFA in Photography and the History of Art and Visual Culture in 2011 from the Rhode Island School of Design, attended Skowhegan in 2014, and graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with an MFA in Visual Arts. Her work has been featured in BOMB, ArtFCity, Hyperallergic, and Matte Magazine.

This event takes place in conjunction with EFA Open Studios and the current exhibition, Near & Dear (September 15 - October 28, 2017).