Contents for December 15th, 2025
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1. Coco Fusco, FF Alumn, at El Museo del Barrio, Manhattan, thru March 1, 2026
2. Coco Fusco, FF Alumn, selected for Best Art of 2025 lists, NYTimes and Hyperallergic.com
3. James Hannaham, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
4. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Book Club Bar, Manhattan, Dec. 18, and more
5. Video Data Bank, FF sister organization, online at Filmmakermagazine.com and more
6. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, now online at Untitled Space Gallery, Manhattan
7. Jim Costanzo, FF Alumn, at Property is Theft, Brooklyn, thru Jan. 24, 2026
8. Nadja Verena Marcin, FF Alumn, at Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn, thru Jan. 25, 2026
9. Bob Holman, FF Alumn, at Giorno Poetry Systems, Manhattan, Dec. 18
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1. Coco Fusco, FF Alumn, at El Museo del Barrio, Manhattan, thru March 1, 2026
Great news! Due to overwhelming critical acclaim, we are extending ‘Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island’ through March 1, 2026!
The exhibition has captivated audiences and critics with its timely exploration of politics and power through the visionary work of Cuban-American artist and writer Coco Fusco
Fusco’s first U.S. survey spans 30+ years of groundbreaking practice and features 20+ works across video, performance, installation, photography, and writing—including ‘Everyone Here is a New Yorker,’ a new photographic series debuting at El Museo!
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2. Coco Fusco, FF Alumn, selected for Best Art of 2025 lists, NYTimes and Hyperallergic.com
Please visit these Links
and
https://hyperallergic.com/the-best-new-york-city-exhibitions-of-2025
Thank you.
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3. James Hannaham, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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4. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Book Club Bar, Manhattan, Dec. 18, and more
Galinsky’s Poetry in New York, FF Alumn, at Book Club Bar, Free, Thursday, Dec 18, 2025
Galinsky presents POETRY IN NEW YORK now in it’s fourth year at the acclaimed NYC venue BOOK CLUB BAR (197 East 3rd St, Alphabet City. 10 poets, 5 mins each, FREE EVENT – Full bar and light snacks are available throughout the night, come early, stay late! Book Club Bar 197 East 3rd Street, NYC. This is NOT an open mic, all artists are curated and booked ahead of time. Thursday DECEMBER 18TH! A terrific line up of NY poets! 1st artist hits the mic at 8pm! This month includes: Juliette Zakrzewska, Beyoncé Knowles, Bubba, Serena Renee, Sofia Silveira, Kelsey DeMarco, Oliver Baer, Jared Knowles, and John Brown – hosted by Galinsky. The show is PAY WHAT YOU CAN / FREE – Full bar and light snacks are available throughout the night, come early, stay late! Book Club Bar 197 East 3rd Street, NYC.
and
Galinsky’s Poetry in New York: BROOKLYN EDITION, FF Alumn, at “Warehouse BK 234 Glenmore Ave Bklyn”, Free, Sunday, Dec 21, 2025
Brooklyn! Galinsky brings POETRY IN NEW YORK to Brooklyn – venue “Warehouse BK” (234 Glenmore Ave., BK). Join us for 10 poets, 5 mins each, and a group of interesting vendors! FREE EVENT – This is NOT an open mic, all artists are curated and booked ahead of time. Sunday DECEMBER 21st! A terrific line up of NY poets! 1st artist hits the mic at 8pm! Featuring: LuxLun, DBlack, Natou, Beyoncé Armstrong and Bubba, Daemond Arrindell Hosted by Galinsky at “Warehouse BK” (234 Glenmore Ave., BK).
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5. Video Data Bank, FF sister organization, online at Filmmakermagazine.com and more
https://filmmakermagazine.com/132507-an-open-letter-to-saic-regarding-video-data-bank/
Please go to this link and sign the letter asking that the School of the Chicago Art Institute (SAIC) Reinstate Video Data Bank staff.
The letter in the link describes in detail the current situation – which essentially is the dismantling of this great organization by the Chicago Art Institute.
VDB is the non-profit video art and film distribution venue that has existed for 50 years. This is where I have distributed my work for decades. And it is the “go to” venue for museums and universities nationally and internationally to rent and/or purchase video art, experimental films and docs for teaching and/or exhibitions.
VDB represents 600 artists and has 6,000 titles. It is also a site of research for scholars and students. There were only five staff members and now only two. And one of those three that they eliminated is the director. I don’t even know how they did all the work they did with only five people.
Please go to the link and sign the letter written by SAIC alumni. Thank you so much.
Susan Mogul
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6. Robin Tewes, FF Alumn, now online at Untitled Space Gallery, Manhattan
The Untitled Space is thrilled to share the latest catalog from The Untitled Space gallery, offering a curated selection of artworks from our represented artists as well as other talented creators we’ve had the pleasure of showcasing. This new release brings together a dynamic range of pieces across photography, painting, sculpture, and mixed media.
The presentation provides a thoughtful overview of both new and notable works, highlighting the bold perspectives, innovative techniques, and unique artistic voices that define our program. It’s a chance to explore the diversity of contemporary practice, from intimate portraiture to large-scale conceptual works, and from experimental mixed media to striking photographic series.
Among the artists featured are Peter Beard, Helena Calmfors, Indira Cesarine, Fahren Feingold, Elena Chestnykh, Katie Commodore, Annika Connor, Kristy Gordon, Grace Graupe-Pillard, Alison Jackson, Jemima Kirke, Sarah Maple, Rose McGowan, Kat Toronto (aka Miss Meatface), Nick Rhodes, Michael Rose, Leah Schrager, Robin Tewes, Tabitha Whitley, Martha Zmpounou, Katya Zvereva, and more.
For more information please visit https://untitled-space.com/portfolio/robin-tewes/ and contact Untitled Space: info@untitled-space.com
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7. Jim Costanzo, FF Alumn, at Property is Theft, Brooklyn, thru Jan. 24, 2026
Jim Costanzo
of the
Aaron Burr Society
opening December 6th – 6:30 to 9
closing Saturday January 24, 2026
PROPERTY IS THEFT
411 S. 5th St. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
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8. Nadja Verena Marcin, FF Alumn, at Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn, thru Jan. 25, 2026
A REPRIEVE
December 14 to January 25, 2026
Curated by Jesse Bandler Firestone
Artists: Cena Pohl Crane, Grace Larkin, Nadja Verena Marcin, Daniel McKleinfeld, Yvonne Roeb, Taney Roniger
“The quieter you become the more you can hear” ― Ram Dass
In an age of overstimulation, rising costs, and relentless pressure, people long for: A Reprieve. This aptly named, thematic exhibition offers radical simplicity: a return to sensual color, familiar shapes, soothing rhythm and deeper calm. This exhibition gathers seven international artists –all alumni from KUNSTRAUM’s exhibition program, an ongoing curatorial platform since 2015– whose works double as salves, pauses, and portals.
Breathwork, intimacy, and vulnerability unfold through their use color, form, and gesture, calling us back to the most fundamental aspects of life and beauty within.
Marking Kunstraum’s ten-year anniversary, A Reprieve reflects the space’s founding ethos: a grassroots community for artists to come together, build together, and breathe together within the bustle of New York City. Amid the noise of contemporary life, these artists find both clarity and power in creating intentional space for stillness, allowing for rest, contemplation, and new action to come forth. Responding uniquely to the theme – abstraction, material attention, and re-connecting to nature are just some of the strategies employed by these artists. These aspects further reveal to the viewer nuanced approaches including the reclamation of public space as sites for peaceful, private encounters or abstract video art as a tool to quiet the mind through meditation. The resulting works don’t retreat from reality; they invite us to reencounter it gently and deliberately, with renewed presence and a restored sense of possibility, one breath at a time.
Together, the works in A Reprieve invites a collective inhale and exhale. In their varied languages—abstraction, sculpture, myth, and entanglement —they point toward a common need to slow down, to return, to feel. At a moment when time itself feels scarce, this exhibition reminds us that acts of care, connection, creativity and pause are both integral to a healthy life and form the basis of resistance to the oppression of consumer society and its artificial needs. Within KUNSTRAUM, this new exhibition invites each viewer to seek reprieve not as withdrawal, but as source for hope and for renewal.
Opening Reception: Sunday, December 14th, 4-6PM
Curator’s Tour: Sunday, January 25th, 4PM
Closing Reception and Open Studios: Sunday, January 25th, 2-6pm
Address: KUNSTRAUM, 20 Grand Street, Loft 509, Brooklyn, NY
Visiting Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12–6 PM, by appointment.
Please email: Jesse Bandler Firestone at jesse@kunstraumll.com to schedule your visit.
For press inquiries, images, or interview requests, please contact: Jesse Bandler Firestone, Curator and Community Affiliate – jesse@kunstraumllc.com
Link to exhibition: https://www.kunstraumllc.com/gallery
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9. Bob Holman, FF Alumn, at Giorno Poetry Systems, Manhattan, Dec. 18
Thursday,
December 18, 2025
222 Bowery, NYC
7pm (Doors at 6:30pm)
Free
RSVP required
Support us by becoming a member
Limited capacity
The Italian artist Lina Pallotta spent much of the 1990s in New York. She spent most nights in the city’s underground poetry clubs, witnessing the emergence of new forms of performance of spoken word—“slam” poetry. She went to Nuyorican Poets Café, St. Mark’s Church, Fez Café, the Bowery Poetry Club, and others.
On Wednesday and Friday nights, the Nuyorican provided a stage for artists traditionally under-represented in mainstream media and culture and was the cradle of the weekly Poetry Slams Competitions. The poet Bob Holman, the Nuyorican slam-master and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, once called these events “the democratization of verse.”
Faced with the poetic language that was performed, embodied, and intertwined with music, Lina began to take photographs. These timeless images are brought together in her recent book titled Tongue in Flames (1992—2011), published by Nero Editions.
For this event, Lina hosts a conversation between Bob Holman, Janice Erlbaum, and Edwin Torres, who share their reflections on what it was like back then, and what it’s like now.
The project is supported by Strategia Fotografia 2024, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Lina Pallotta lives and works in Rome as a photographer and a teacher. She graduated in “Photojournalism and Documentary” at the International Center of Photography (ICP), NYC. Over the years she received several grants her works are part of private and
public collections.
Bob Holman first read at the Nuyorican Poets Café in 1978 when it was on 6th St. In 1980, while working for the St. Marks Poetry Project, he created a cross-cultural reading series between the Church and the Café, curated with Miguel Algarín and Lois Griffith. He became a director of the Café when it reopened in 1989, importing the Poetry Slam from Chicago. The Nuyorican Poetry Slam opened the ears of the world to spoken word and the knowledge that Rap is Poetry. We’re talking the Oral Tradition here—it’s not written down, which is why you can’t Google it.
Janice Erlbaum is the author of five books, including GIRLBOMB: A Halfway Homeless Memoir. Her poetry has been featured in places including MTV, McSweeney’s, The Best Erotic American Poetry, and Aloud, the Nuyorican Poetry Club’s anthology.
Edwin Torres is a NYC native, whose books of poetry include Quanundrum: i will be your many angled thing (Roof Books, American Book Award winner), Xoeteox: the infinite word object (Wave Books), Ameriscopia (University of Arizona Press), and editor of The Body In Language: An Anthology (Counterpath Press). His latest release is an album with sound artist Stephen Vitiello entitled Sublingual Infinities (Room 40 Music).
Giorno Poetry Systems is generously supported by Teiger Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Westridge Foundation, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation, Jan Michalski Foundation, Keith Haring Foundation, Every Page Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Aurora Music Foundation, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Galerie Almine Rech, kurimanzutto, the GPS Advisory Council, and Club 222 members.
Giorno Poetry Systems
222 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
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Goings On for Artists is compiled weekly by Rohan Subramaniam, Archive Intern, 2024/2025
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