The Artist's Institute is a project with Hunter College and is located at 163 Eldridge Street, New York City. The Institute is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM. The director is Anthony Huberman.

This is The Artist's Institute. Welcome. Here, we divide each year into two seasons, dedicate each one to thinking about a single artist, and look at the broader context of contemporary art through the lens of that artist's work.

A small selection of artworks by our anchor artist remains on view and provides a steady reference point you will encounter again and again. Considering the work in today's context, we juxtapose this artist with a rotating series of loosely associated exhibitions and events by other relevant artists, writers, performers, filmmakers, or thinkers from all over the world. Some of these projects last a few hours, while others last a few weeks, and each one ensures that our interpretations remain fluid, active, and constantly renewed.

Under the umbrella of Hunter College, we're translating the learning- and research-based nature of an educational institution into an associative and open curatorial model where existing knowledge is tested, complicated, and propelled elsewhere. Rooted in ongoing discussions in a graduate seminar at Hunter College but based in a storefront space on the Lower East Side, The Artist's Institute involves both the rigor of sustained and thorough inquiry, and the dynamic and nimble spirit of exhibition-making.

Please stop by regularly, or whenever you're in the neighborhood.

You can also visit us online at: http://theartistsinstitute.org

PAST SCHEDULE

Season 1: Robert Filliou.  

A French artist usually associated with the Fluxus movement, Filliou embraces a spirit of play, humor, conviviality and intuition. Trained as an economist, he was especially drawn to the work of Charles Fourier, a utopian thinker who believed in the socio-economic value of passion and empathy, and sought to establish communal living spaces. In a moment when contemporary art—and contemporary society in general—seems to only reward cunning and calculating strategy, Filliou’s spirit of intuitive play—the “genius” he thought everyone already has—seems one that is important to remember, embrace, and revive. His own store-front space in the south of France, La Cédille Qui Sourit, is an inspiration for The Artist’s Institute.

September: Robert Filliou

October 3: Robert Filliou & Lutz Bacher
An under-recognized artist in her 60s, based in San Francisco, Bacher silkscreens an appropriated joke onto canvas—about a Frenchman, a cow, and a bottle of Budweiser—setting the tone for the season.

October 10 – 23: Robert Filliou & Gerry Bibby
Sculptural interventions mixed with readings of cut-up texts form the basis of this Australian poet/artist’s emerging practice.

October 24: Robert Filliou, Andy Kaufman and Michael Krebber
A video by Andy Kaufman, a painting by Michael Krebber and a performance by Filliou, featuring former Hunter BFA student Eleanore Pienta and poet Jeremy Sigler.

October 29 – November 13: Robert Filliou & Provence
Edited by a young Swiss artist, a German artist, and a German curator, this magazine is devoted to the hobbies of artists, and brings together a web of inter-connected artist communities.

November 14: Robert Filliou & Paul Chan
The internationally renowned artist Paul Chan gives a specially commissioned lecture on the 19th Century utopian socialist philosopher Charles Fourier.

November 18 – December 4: Robert Filliou & Oscar Tuazon
Fascinated by survivalist groups and “living off the grid,” Paris-based sculptor Tuazon turns recovered industrial materials into makeshift structures.

December 10 – 12: Robert Filliou & Francis Alys, Joseph Grigely, and Michael E. Smith
Hunter MA and MFA students curate an exhibition of works by three artists who use everyday materials to poetic effect.

December 16: Ping-Pong
Hunter MA and MFA students remove all artworks from the gallery and replace it with a ping-pong table, to prioritize play over art.

December 17 – 19: Robert Filliou & Bas Jan Ader, Guy Ben-Ner, Ryan McNamara, and Gertrude Stein
Hunter MA and MFA students curate an exhibition of works that explore notions of travel for the sake of travel.

January 6 - 9: Robert Filliou & No More Presence
Gresham’s Ghost, a nomadic exhibition series run by a young artist and writer in New York, started No More Presence as a series of gift exchanges between artists who are friends, including works by Liam Gillick, Uri Aran, Anika Yi, Josh Tonsfeldt, and Jacob Kassay, among others.

January 17: Robert Filliou & Julia Robinson
A screening of films by Robert Filliou is followed by a lecture about his work by NYU art historian and curator Julia Robinson, an expert on Fluxus.

Season 2: Jo Baer

A leading member of the New York art world in the 1960s and 70s, she became known for her minimal abstract paintings of colored bands on the edges of the frame. On the heels of her retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1975, she not only left New York for Europe, but also abandoned abstraction in favor of what she calls “radical figuration,” rooted in metaphoric imagery and historical references. Having lived through the many so-called deaths of painting, Baer has remained committed to—and outspoken about—the painted canvas as an urgent and contemporary art form, constantly searching for new ways to ignite an aesthetic, political, and phenomenological experience with color, light, and shape.

January 30 - February 20: Jo Baer

February 27 - March 20: Jo Baer & Silke Otto-Knapp
A painter of human bodies, dancers, and decorative interiors, Otto-Kapp has made traditional iconographies new again.

March 13: Jan Verwoert
This Berlin-based art critic presents a screening of his lecture “Why Are Conceptual Artists Painting Again? Because They Think It’s a Good Idea.” 

March 27 - April 16: Jo Baer & Ei Arakawa and Nikolas Gambaroff
Pushing the act of painting towards the act of performance, these two artists collaborate to create an installation of flag paintings and spoken word.

April 17: Orchids
A “pop-up” flower shop takes over the space with a display of orchids.

April 22 - May 22: Jo Baer & Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven
After a beginning in the Belgian punk scene of the 1970s, Kerckhoven turned to collage, drawing, and painting, bringing a fearless irreverence to a feminist approach.

May 20: Lynne Cooke, Katy Siegel, and David Reed
As curator of Baer's 2002 exhibition at the Dia Art Foundation, Lynne Cooke is joined by Hunter art history professor Katy Siegel and painter David Reed in a public conversation.

June 5: Jo Baer & Morgan Fisher & Richard Serra
In Serra's “Color Aid” (1971), a hand pushes sheets of monochrome color out of the frame. In Fisher's "( )" (2003), short fragments of film-inserts follow each other in a constellation without narrative.

July 18 - 19: Anthony McCall
A re-staging of McCall's 24-hour installation "Long Film for Ambient Light" (1975), in collaboration with Light Industry and the Dia Art Foundation.