Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Kledia Spiro, Kris Grey with installation by Taylor Clayton
AISHA TANDIWE BELL
Inspired by the fragmentation of our multiple identities, Bell’s practice is committed to creating myth & ritual through sculpture, performance, video, sound, drawing & installation. Bell holds a BFA, & an MS from Pratt & a MFA from Hunter College. Bell received a NYFA in Performance Art/ Multidisciplinary Work & has had artist residencies/fellowships at Skowhegan, Rush Corridor Gallery, Abron’s Art Center, LMCC’s Swing Space and Workspace, The Laundromat Project, BRIC & more. She has been a fellow with DVCAI on International Cultural Exchanges (Jamaica 2012, Surinam 2013, Antigua 2014, Guadeloupe 2015 & 17, Belize 2019). The Museo De Arte Moderno’s Triennial (Dominican Republic) 2014, The Jamaica Biennial 2014 & 17, The BRIC Biennial 2016, The Venice Biennial 2017, MoCADA, The Rosa Parks Museum, CCCADI, Columbia College, Space One Eleven, Welancora gallery & Rush Arts are a few spaces where Bell has exhibited her work. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband & two children.
www.superhueman.com
KRIS GREY [NYC]
Kris Grey is a New York City based gender-queer artist whose cultural work includes curatorial projects, performance, writing, and studio production. Grey was a Fire Island Artist Residency recipient, a resident artist for the ANTI Festival for Contemporary Art in Kupoio, Finland, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson, and a teaching artist at The International Centre for Training in the Performing Arts in Brussels, Belgium. In addition to their individual practice, Grey collaborates with Maya Ciarrocchi under the moniker Gender/Power. Gender/Power has been awarded a Baryshnikov Art Center residency, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council residency, a Franklin Furnace grant, a MAP Fund Grant, and the Moving Towards Justice cohort award at Gibney Dance. Grey’s writing has been published in print and on the web for Huffington Post and Original Plumbing. Their latest writing, Trans*feminism: fragmenting and re-reading the history of art through a trans* perspective, written in collaboration with Jennie Klein, was published in Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories. Grey earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Masters Degree in Fine Art from Ohio University. They perform, teach, and exhibit work internationally.
KLEDIA SPIRO [BOSTON, MASS]
Kledia Spiro (1987, Tirana, Albania) creates videos, performances, installations, and paintings. Kledia was born in Albania and was part of an olympic weightlifting team. She uses strength and weightlifting as a symbol of survival, empowerment and celebration. Weightlifting becomes a vehicle for discussing women’s role in society, immigration and times of war. Kledia has performed in New York at the Queens Museum, Songs for Presidents Gallery, Grace Exhibition Space, Rosekill, Panoply Performance Lab, Java Studios, Le Petit Versailles and in Boston at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Mobius, Piano Craft Gallery, Bathaus, Distler Performance Hall, and the New England Conservatory. Her work has been featured nationally, most notably at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Queens Museum, New York, SAIC Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire, Satellite Art Show, Miami Art Week and the ProArts Gallery in Oakland, California.
Spiro explores the connection between strength, weightlifting and daily life as a new celebratory ritual for understanding the relationship between the artist and the audience, as well as the present and the past. By experimenting with indeterminate methods, Spiro wants the viewer to access the otherwise inaccessible spaces. Her works are based on Freudian and Piagetian behavioral concepts: visions that reflect psycho-analysis, behavioral psychology, and a sensation of indisputability, combined with details of odd, eccentric, absurd, totemic and humoristic elements. By questioning where one is and the concept of movement, Spiro investigate the manipulation of lifting objects overhead and it's effects.
Spiro received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University. She also received the Museum Studies Certificate from Tufts University in 2015. She has a BA from the College of the Holy Cross in Studio Art and Psychology with an Asian Studies Concentration. In 2018, Spiro was the Keynote Speaker at the Centennial New England Museum Association Conference. In 2017, she was selected as a TEDx speaker and performer for “The Pursuit of Creativity.” In 2016, Spiro was the video director that received the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award for the Mayors Art Challenge. In 2015, Spiro was awarded the Graduate Student Travel Grant by Tufts University, and was also selected as one of five artists for the New England Media Symposium on the panel "Gender, Technology and Media: Hypothetical Schematics” at Emerson College. In 2014, Spiro was appointed as the MFA Graduate representative for Exhibitions at the SMFA. Spiro was a visiting artist and guest lecturer at the College of the Holy Cross in 2014.
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182 AVENUE C NEW YORK, NY 10009
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GRACE:
Grace, n. - simple elegance or refinement of movement
Grace Period - an extended period granted as a special favor
The Three Graces (Greek Mythology) - charm, grace, and beauty
Opened in 2006, Grace Exhibition Space is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid-career or established. Our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.
Grace Exhibition Space presents over 30 curated live performance art exhibitions each year, showcasing new work by more than 400 performance artists from across the United States and the world since 2006.
Grace Exhibition Space for International Performance Art Space IRS tax-exempt 501(c)3 status in 2015.
Grace Exhibition Space follows the We Have a Voice Collectives Code of Conduct to Promote Safe(r) Workplaces in the Performing Arts For more information and resources, visit: www.wehavevoice.org