Are you an authorized hater, elbow-deep within the artwork world, and in New York Metropolis this coming weekend? For those who mentioned sure to all three, then you definitely would possibly need to pay the inaugural NADA (New Artwork Sellers Alliance) Flea market a go to this Saturday or Sunday (February 4–5) to get your arms on a restricted version “FUCK CARL ANDRE” t-shirt or baseball cap.
Designed by artist Christine Egaña Navin and bought by pop-up exhibition area Venture Artwork Distribution (PAD), the black shirts and caps learn “FUCK CARL ANDRE EST. 1985” in reference to the yr Andre was accused of murdering his spouse of eight months, Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-born American artist famend for her feminist efficiency work underlining the connection between pure landscapes and the politics of the feminine physique.
“My spouse is an artist, and I’m an artist, and we had a quarrel about the truth that I used to be extra, eh, uncovered to the general public than she was,” Andre mentioned throughout his 911 cellphone name on September 8, 1985 after Mendieta plummeted down 33 tales to her demise from the window of their Greenwich Village condo. “And he or she went to the bed room, and I went after her, and he or she went out the window.” Andre was acquitted of all charges in 1988 when a non-jury trial dominated Mendieta’s demise a suicide. This courtroom determination prompted worldwide outrage from feminists and artists who keep that Andre had pushed or thrown her from the condo window, referencing courtroom proof highlighting a verbal and bodily altercation that occurred between the pair previous to Mendieta’s fall.
Regardless of many activists’ and artists’ calls to re-examine the incident, Andre continues to have the backing of blue-chip areas corresponding to Paula Cooper, his longtime gallery which held a solo present of his work as not too long ago as final yr. In 2014, DIA:Chelsea held a Carl Andre retrospective that sparked a peaceable however highly effective protest from artist Christen Clifford and the No Wave Efficiency Process Pressure, outfitted with rooster blood, entrails, and disposable Tyvek jumpsuits with variations of “I want Ana Mendieta was nonetheless alive” scrawled on with Sharpie. “I’m not making a protest saying he’s a fucking assassin, regardless that that’s what I imagine,” Clifford mentioned, explaining the wording alternative. “I need to put optimistic issues on this planet.” In 2015, feminist poets, artists, and activists convened within the exhibition to cry and emote collectively in an motion titled “CRYING; A PROTEST.”
Final yr, a podcast ostensibly analyzing the artwork world’s “silence” round Mendieta’s demise was decried by some critics as true-crime sensationalism that targeted disproportionately on her alleged killer’s profession and affect.
Then again, whereas Navin’s and Venture Artwork Distribution’s declaration of “FUCK CARL ANDRE” is moderately confrontational, all proceeds from attire gross sales will go towards a Latina-led group known as Violence Intervention Program (VIP) that has offered culturally-specific sources, housing, and therapeutic avenues for primarily Latine survivors of home and sexual abuse in New York Metropolis since 1984.
“As a Cuban-American artist who’s a second-generation New Yorker, I’ve at all times been naturally drawn to this story,” Navin advised Hyperallergic. “Nevertheless, because the surviving sibling of a woman who was additionally murdered in her personal New York residence within the Eighties, Ana Mendieta’s story hits me a bit otherwise.”
“Carle Andre’s persistent reinsertion into the up to date artwork world is deeply disturbing to me as a reminder that my sister’s assassin at some point may be free and his crimes forgotten,” Navin continued, mentioning the artwork sphere’s broader involvement in Andre’s continued appreciation.
“The silence of artwork world contributors, implicated within the t-shirt, factors to silence, complacency, and worry to talk up,” she mentioned.
The shirts will probably be bought at sliding scale value vary between $35 to $120, and the caps at $30 to $75. You may get the attire this Saturday and Sunday between 11am and 5pm from the pop-up exhibition store, swap meet, on the 2nd flooring of 311 East Broadway within the Decrease East Aspect. And for these of you outdoors of the town, Navin has an on-line retailer that sells the wares at a hard and fast value.