Exterior of Fashion/Moda with mural by Crash, 1982. Photo by Lisa Kahane
Uptown/Downtown: When Boroughs Collide (DEI Warriors on the Culture Front)
When: Monday, April 28 @ 3:00 - 6:00 PM
Where: Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente
Roundtable Speakers: Lisa Kahane, Joe Lewis, Jane Dickson, Frank Morales, Betti-Sue Hertz, Libertad Guerra and Amy Starecheski.
Invited respondents: John Ahearn, Charlie Ahearn, John “Crash” Matos, Yasmin Ramirez
Organized by: ABC No Rio in partnership with Historias
RSVP HERE!
Join us for a roundtable discussion Uptown/Downtown: When Boroughs Collide (DEI Warriors on the Culture Front), exploring ABC No Rio's history of collaboration with experimental cultural centers and the intersectionality that arose from artists moving between boroughs throughout the eighties. Photographer Lisa Kahane will complement the discussion with a slideshow presentation on Fashion Moda, a Bronx-based art space that served as a vital second home for many ABC No Rio-affiliated artists.
This event will focus on the history of Fashion Moda, an experimental art space in the South Bronx opened by Austrian emigre artist Stefan Eins in 1978. ABC No Rio opened two years later in Loisaida, after a building occupation. Several of the artists from “the Moda” came down for the Real Estate Show, and later showed at ABC. Artists from ABC went uptown to the Moda regularly. This crosstown traffic continued throughout the 1980s. One of the okupas of the squatting movement in the Bronx had a zine library; when that squat was evicted the zine library came to ABC No Rio, the seed of the present-day collection. This artistic traffic between boroughs was crucially important in laying the foundations for the diverse multi-cultural artworld of the present-day.
Questions around intersectionality have dogged the cultural world in NYC for at least a century.* The axis of Colab, through Fashion Moda and ABC No Rio, set out to intervene in this by siting experimental cultural centers in peripheral barrios of the city in the late 1970s and through the '80s. These centers welcomed artists of color. How did that work? And did it work to build the artworld of today? The question is especially urgent given the recent federal government's all-out attacks on "DEI" funding in all sectors. The time is now urgent for this important history to be better known.
Run of Events: 3:00- 4:15 PM | *30 minute break | 4:45- 6:00 PM | Reception afterwards
PARTICIPANT BIOS:
Lisa Kahane is a politically engaged documentary photographer, author, and educator currently living and working in the Bronx. Her work looks at the interaction of aging, the city, art, and politics.She was the principal photographer for Fashion Moda, a storefront museum in the South Bronx of the ‘80s, and a Fellow at the Bronx Documentary Center in 2019.
Joe Lewis is a post-conceptual interdisciplinary American artist, musician, writer and art educator, and native New Yorker. Lewis was co-founding director of Fashion Moda in New York, where he curated and mounted numerous exhibitions and performance events. He also formed part of the artist collective Colab and ABC No Rio, and appeared in the 1983 seminal American hip hop film Wild Style.
Jane Dickson is an American painter who lives and works in New York City. Her practice explores the psychogeography of American culture and was forged in the crucible of New York’s late-seventies counterculture, where she participated in artist collectives like Fashion Moda, Collaborative Projects, ABC No Rio, and Group Material.
Frank Morales is an Episcopal priest and activist in New York City. He grew up in the LES to Puerto Rican and Peruvian parents, and has been involved in politics since the J.F.K. and M.L.K. Jr. assassinations as a member of the Assassination Information Committee. In 2003, he founded the Campaign to Demilitarize the Police in NYC and he continues to campaign on housing issues.
Betti-Sue Hertz is Director and Chief Curator at Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University in NYC. Trained as an art historian and artist, her curatorial and scholarly projects are fueled by the intersection of visual aesthetics and socially relevant ideas with a particular interest in relational structures and comparative propositions on global contemporary topics.
Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist and cultural strategist specializing in equity, place-based arts, and Latinx cultural production. As Executive Director of The Clemente she has transformed it into a hub for co-creation, coalition-building, and cultural organizing in NYC. Her curatorial practice explores social-artistic movements and the aesthetic politics of place through a coalitional, experimental lens. She also serves as Chief Curator of Historias, The Clemente’s largest initiative to date—a multi-year effort re-centering intersectional Latinx narratives and pioneering new models of collaboration.
Amy Starecheski is a cultural anthropologist and oral historian whose research focuses on the use of oral history in social movements and the politics of history, value and property in cities. She is the Director of the Oral History MA Program at Columbia University and served as 2021-22 President of the Oral History Association.
John Ahearn is an American sculptor best known for the public art and street art he made in the South Bronx in the 1980s. During this time, he started making life casts while working with Colab, a Manhattan artists’ collective, as well as doing live life casting of volunteers on the sidewalk in front of Fashion Moda in the Bronx.
Charlie Ahearn, a New York native, is a film director and creative cultural artist, known for writing and directing the hip hop classic movie Wild Style. Although predominantly involved in film and video production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, member of the Manhattan artists’ collective Colab,and radio host.
John “Crash” Matos is a NYC native graffiti artist. Crash was first discovered through his murals on subway cars and dilapidated buildings and is now regarded as a pioneer of the Graffiti art movement. His work conveys a visual link between street life and established society. In 1980, Crash curated the now iconic exhibition:"Graffiti Art Success for America" at Fashion Moda, launching the graffiti movement that has remained very active through today.
Yasmin Ramirez is a curator, writer, and cultural worker known for her extensive work in the arts, beginning with her academic memorialization of Nuyorican cultural contributions. Born in Brooklyn, Ramirez was an active member of New York City’s early 1980s creative scene, paying close attention to visual culture in the form of street art, explorations of subculture, and more. Beginning in the 90s, she curated exhibitions exploring the intersection of cultural identity, race, gender, and social justice, particularly in relation to Latinx identity and diasporic communities.
