September 9–October 24, 2020

Blanka Amezkua
Esperanza Cortés
Bahareh Khoshooee
Daniela Kostova
Cole Lu
Ana Mendieta
Levan Mindiashvili
Qinza Najm
Anna Parisi
daàPò réo
Yali Romagoza

Curated By: Katya Grokhovsky

VIEWING ROOM AND CATALOG

EFA Project Space is thrilled to present The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2020: Here, Together! a timely exhibition featuring multidisciplinary works by US-based artists, curated by Katya Grokhovsky. Delayed several months by the COVID crisis which has disproportionally impacted communities of color and immigrants, Here, Together! explores displacement, alienation, and the steady erosion of American Empire, viewed through the work of eleven Immigrant artists. 

Confronting a national rhetoric of exclusion, nationalism, and discrimination, the artists in the exhibition call for urgent unity, visibility, and criticality, by facilitating a necessary platform of cultural exchange. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, and culminating on the eve of a fraught election, the exhibition draws attention to the intertwined issues of immigration and the engineered neglect of othered bodies. In her curatorial statement, Grokhovsky writes: “These artists call forth the power dynamics and hierarchies of a late-stage struggling capitalist society in dire need of compassion and humanity. Their work grapples with issues of identity, the meaning of home and place, and the consistent, looming threats of erasure, removal, and cultural whitewashing.”

Through the works on exhibit and public events, talks, and performances, The Immigrant Artist Biennial expresses ongoing efforts to counter the seemingly dominant paradigms of colonialism, xenophobia, and politically-motivated bigotry to create a common ground and a global community. By uplifting and spotlighting these artists from elsewhere who have chosen to make New York their home, the exhibition is a ray of hope for a future that we can yet create—“here, together!”

*The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) 2020: Here Together! is an inaugural multi-site project presenting works by 60+ US-based immigrant artists in September–December 2020. TIAB is Fiscally sponsored by NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts). EFA Project Space is presenter of TIAB’s central exhibition, made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by LMCC (the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council). Project Space programming is made possible through the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Performance events are supported by the women & performance: a journal of feminist theory public programs fund. http://theimmigrantartistbiennial.com/

Yali Romagoza, The Mistress of Loneliness (Chapter 1: The Departure ), 2019, video still.