(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)October 11, 2017

MAHWAH, N.J. — The Ramapo Curatorial Prize exhibition Standard Forms opens on Wednesday, November 1 in the Kresge Gallery of the Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts. There will be an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. with a curator’s talk at 6 p.m. During the opening reception, exhibiting artist Baseera Khan will present a performance work in the gallery. The exhibition continues through December 13.

The Ramapo Curatorial Prize is presented each year to a second-year graduate student at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies.

Standard Forms is an innovative exhibition that includes both younger artists and major, established figures.

According to curator Christian Camacho-Light:

“Standard Forms considers recent trends in contemporary art that position formal abstraction in political terms. As nations employ increasingly sophisticated tools for surveilling and containing identity – identification documents, biometric databases, facial recognition software – abstraction resurfaces as an instrument of refusal. Recognizing the heightened dangers of transparency, the artists in the exhibition invoke the body while withholding it from view. In doing so, they look to art historical lineages of abstraction and minimalism, retooling these earlier efforts toward more explicitly political ends.

At a moment when the continued efficacy of identity politics is widely debated, its detractors quick to dub it an anachronism, these artists preserve the centrality of difference while renegotiating its relationship to representation. The exhibition makes the case that formal abstraction is one way in which gendered and racialized persons claim their right to opacity.”

Artists on view in the Kresge Gallery include: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Baseera Khan, Julio César Morales, and Jessica Vaughn.

An additional video art screening on Monday, November 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the Adler Theater will feature works by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Kerry Downey, and Martha Rosler. The screening will be followed by a conversation between the curator and Kerry Downey.

Christian Camacho-Light is a curator and writer based in New York. Recent exhibitions include Let me tell you something you already know, Abrons Arts Center, New York, N.Y. (2017); Lourdes Correa-Carlo:  Intended Trajectories, Knockdown Center, Queens, N.Y. (2017); Stage 6: Lourdes Correa-Carlo: Down-Below, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, N.Y. (2016); and Standard Forms, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. (2016). They are currently the 2017-2018 AIRspace curator-in-residence at Abrons Arts Center. They hold an M.A. in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a B.A. in Art History from Vassar College.

This project at Ramapo is funded in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Kresge Gallery is located in the Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts on the Ramapo College campus. Gallery hours are Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 1 to 7 p.m.

For more information, contact Sydney Jenkins at 201-684-7147.

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About Ramapo College

Ramapo College of New Jersey is the state’s premier public liberal arts college and is committed to academic excellence through interdisciplinary and experiential learning, and international and intercultural understanding. The comprehensive college is situated among the beautiful Ramapo Mountains, is within commuting distance to New York City, was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses in America by CondeNast Traveler, and boasts the best on-campus housing in New Jersey per Niche.com. Established in 1969, Ramapo College offers bachelor’s degrees in the arts, business, data science, humanities, social sciences and the sciences, as well as in professional studies, which include business, education, nursing and social work. In addition, the College offers courses leading to teacher certification at the elementary and secondary levels, and offers graduate programs leading to master’s degrees in Accounting, Applied Mathematics, Business Administration, Contemporary Instructional Design, Computer Science, Creative Music Technology, Data Science, Educational Leadership, Nursing, Social Work and Special Education, as well as a Doctor of Nursing Practice.

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