RETROaction Symposium: ‘Now-ness’ and Prophetic Criticism

Celebrating the final day of the exhibition ‘RETROaction’ at Hauser & Wirth 69th street, please join us for an afternoon symposium hosted at The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College on themes of ‘Now-ness’ and Prophetic Criticism.  

2 pm 
In Conversation: Homi K. Bhabha, Charles Gaines & Ellen Tani  

4 pm 
Roundtable Discussion: Jessica Bell Brown, Torkwase Dyson, Charles Gaines, Thelma Golden & Zoe Leonard

This event is free, however, due to limited capacity, reservations are required. Click here to register. 

'RETROaction' will be on view 10 am - 7 pm and is a short walk from The Roosevelt House to 32 East 69th Street. 

'It's not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation.' —Walter Benjamin 

'Demystification is the most illuminating mode of theoretical inquiry for those who promote the new cultural politics of difference...I call demystificatory criticism 'prophetic criticism'...it begins with social structural analyses [but] it also makes explicit its moral and political aims. It is partisan, partial, engaged, and crisis-centered, yet always keeps open a skeptical eye to avoid dogmatic traps, premature closures, formulaic formulations, or rigid conclusions.' —Cornel West  

About RETROaction 
In the early 1990s a new generation of artists in the United States were using exhibitions as platforms to share their outlooks on the social and political turbulence of the time. Two of those exhibitions—which opened in the same year—were the 1993 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and ‘Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism’ curated by artist Charles Gaines at the University Arts Gallery (UAG) of the University of California, Irvine.  

Both shows—along with the artists who participated in them—have since been recognized as initiating critical debates that prevail to this day. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the two landmark exhibitions—in a social and political context that bears many similarities—RETROaction celebrates the transformative impact these artists’ works had in the 90s and their active resonances now, suggesting that our current moment is a time for retroaction rather than retrospection. 

Developed by Kate Fowle in collaboration with Homi K. Bhabha, Charles Gaines and Ellen Tani. Featuring works by Ida Applebroog, Charles Gaines, Mike Kelley, Zoe Leonard, Glenn Ligon, Cindy Sherman, Gary Simmons and Lorna Simpson, with Kevin Beasley, Torkwase Dyson, Leslie Hewitt and Rashid Johnson.