Virtual book launch: November 30, 2020, 6pm
The virtual book launch will include a conversation between Constance DeJong and Rachel Valinsky, as well as guest appearances by Paul Ramírez Jonas, Natalie Wedeking, and Jim Fletcher.
Constance DeJong is an artist-designed publication that was produced on the occasion of the Constance DeJong exhibition* and includes texts on DeJong’s work by distinguished writers, artists, and editors, as well as a previously unpublished text by the artist.
*Exhibition postponed, tentatively rescheduled for September 2021
Contributions by: Christine Danford, Ellie Ga, James Hoff, Lucy Ives, Karen Kelly, Jennifer Krasinski, Tony Oursler, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Pierre Sondeijker, Mike Thomas, Matvei Yankelevich; Essays by: Sarah Watson, Chief Curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries, and Jocelyn Spaar, Assistant Curator of Constance DeJong exhibition; Interview by: Andrea Merkx, artist and Hunter alumna; Publication Design: Natalie Wedeking; Copyediting: Jenn Bratovich
The publication can be purchased here
RSVP for the virtual launch
Constance DeJong is made possible by a gift from the Legere Family Foundation in honor of daughter Elizabeth Legere (Hunter College MA 2017), and in appreciation of Hunter College distinguished lecturer Constance DeJong and Joachim Pissarro, Bershad Professor of Art History.
Constance DeJong is a New York-based artist and writer who has exhibited and performed locally and internationally. Her first book, Modern Love, originally published by Standard Editions with Dorothea Tanning in 1977, was re-issued in March 2017 by Primary Information/Ugly Duckling Presse. She has permanent audio-text installations in Beacon, NY, London and Seattle. DeJong has twice collaborated with Tony Oursler on live performances; was a collaborator on Super Vision, A Builders Association production (2005); librettist for the opera, Satyagraha, composer Philip Glass. She produced and exhibited a series of re-engineered radios programmed with spoken word-foley tracks, written, performed, recorded and mixed by DeJong, 2016–18. NightWriters, a digital text-image project, was published on-line by Triple Canopy, March 2018; and, Bureau gallery exhibited NightWriters drawings, audio works and a performance, April-May 2018. The Renaissance Society, Chicago, exhibited her audio work and a performance November 2018. She is an editor of the book, Tony Conrad Writings, 2019, Primary Information. DeJong is represented by Bureau, NY.
Rachel Valinsky is a writer, editor, and curator based in New York. Her writing has appeared in Art in America, Art-Agenda, Artforum, Frieze, BOMB Magazine, Millennium Film Journal, and elsewhere. Translations have been published by Semiotext(e) and Éditions Lutanie, where she is a contributing editor. She was an art writer in residence at the Banff Centre in 2015 and an art critic in residence at CUE Art Foundation and Art21 Magazine in 2016. Rachel has curated exhibitions, performances, and public programs at The Kitchen, The Queens Museum, BAM, Judson Memorial Church, Emily Harvey Foundation, and Knockdown Center. She was 2018-2019 Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Queens Museum, 2017-2018 Curatorial Fellow at The Kitchen, 2017-2019 Friday Night Series Co-Curator at the Poetry Project with Mirene Arsanios, and 2016 Curator for the Segue Reading Series. She is also co-founder and Artistic Director of Wendy’s Subway, a library, writing space, and independent publisher in Brooklyn, New York. Rachel holds a BA in Art History and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and is a doctoral student in Art History at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where her research centers on 1970s and ’80s performance in the Americas. She teaches Art History at Hunter College.
