Public Works: Act I

PUBLIC WORKS is a new series of off-site commissions that respond to the erosion and reinvention of civic infrastructures in New York City.

Presenting new works by artists David L. Johnson, Rose Salane, and Alex Strada over the course of the next year, these projects examine how the vulnerability of public institutions and non-governmental organizations that have traditionally served as mediators in civic life can open a space for artists to engage with and address systemic shortcomings.

On Saturday, June 21 at 4 pm, PUBLIC WORKS: Act 1 will be led by theatre artist Aaron Landsman at the site of a former Chinatown bank, where Strada, Johnson, and Salane will each share their forthcoming projects with a cast of public figures in the arts who will act as council members. As public institutions continue to transform due to  growing distrust and political fragmentation, this event is a stage for conversations about art and community, inviting questions about how power moves.

We will be in dialogue with anthropologist and keynote speaker Shannon Mattern, Tom Finkelpearl (Curator, former Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for New York City), Diya Vij (Curator, Creative Time), Jody Graf (Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1), Kendal Henry (Assistant Commissioner of Public Art at New York City Department of Cultural Affairs), and Tei Carpenter (Founder and Director, Agency—Agency).

David L. Johnson is an artist based in New York City. He makes work attuned to the streets of the city, pinpointing moments of slippage between public and private property. His practice utilizes photography, video, found and stolen objects, and installation to consider the politics, histories, aesthetics and forms of use that define contemporary urban space. He is an alumnus of the Whitney Independent Study Program and is a part-time lecturer at Cooper Union and Parsons MFA. Johnson’s work is held in the public collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Aaron Landsman is a theater artist, teacher and organizer based in New York City. His awards include a Creative Capital Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an ASU Gammage Residency, and a Princeton Arts Fellowship. His current and recent theater works include: Night Keeper, which premiered at The Chocolate Factory Theater, and was just released as an album on the Hallow Ground label this March; the libretto for Follow, commissioned and premiered by Gaudeamus in The Netherlands, performed by Ensemble Klang; and All The Time in the World, that turns social media into a card game, which is prototyping at Worlds in Play, Catch and the Mercury Store this summer and fall. Aaron is the instigator of Perfect City, a 20-year working group at the intersection of art and civic action.

Rose Salane is an artist based in New York City. Using collections of quotidian objects as her entry point, she excavates the systems of evaluation, exchange, and organization that shape urban life. Salane’s investigations demonstrate the ways in which larger bureaucratic forces order human activity and the perseverance of humanity in the face of those automated and alienating structures. Extensively researching, analyzing, and categorizing objects and information, Salane’s work connects the personal with the institutional and the mundane with the globally impactful.

Alex Strada is a multimedia artist and educator based in New York City whose work spans installation, film/video, sound and orality, printed media, participatory workshops, and public practice. Through a research-based approach rooted in transdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement, her projects interrogate social structures to elicit political imagination, collectivity, and civic agency. Since 2022, she has served as the Public Artist in Residence with the NYC Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Cultural Affairs.