Energies

Artists: Ash Arder, Liu Chuang, Gina Folly, Louisa Gagliardi, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Becky Howland, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Saba Khan, Agnieszka Kurant, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Vibeke Mascini, Gordon Matta-Clark, Haroon Mirza, Joar Nango, Ruth Nazario, New Affiliates, Otobong Nkanga, Nick Raffel, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer

Swiss Institute (SI) presents Energies, an international group exhibition that unfolds throughout the entire building at 38 St Marks Pl and expands into numerous partner locations in the surrounding East Village community. The exhibition includes influential historic artworks alongside contemporary positions and new commissions that address ecological affordances and effects, social formations, and political arrangements attached to energy past and present.

A largely forgotten yet influential piece of neighborhood history forms the starting point for the show. During the oil crisis in 1973, inhabitants of one of the first sweat equity co-ops, located at 519 E 11th Street, installed a landmark two-kilowatt wind turbine on the roof of their torched building. This machine generated electricity and supplied the community with light during the many power cuts in the city at the time, even supplying the residents with light during the great outage of 1977. Paired with solar panels and insulation efforts, it was one of the first in the nation to feed electricity back into the grid, much to the consternation of the largest and near-monopoly utility provider, Con Edison, who retaliated with a major lawsuit. Receiving unexpected support from a former Attorney General, the co-op improbably won the case, which changed US energy regulations forever by mandating that utilities providers accept decentrally generated energy. This little-known, community-driven history thus helped usher in subsequent revolutionary, albeit flawed, advances toward cogeneration, conservation, and green and renewable energy production.

In our current moment of ecological crisis marked by record-high rates of carbon emissions, habitat destruction through fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure disruptions due to extreme weather, competing geopolitical interests, energy poverty, and contentions around green colonialism, Energies explores global issues related to energy through a specific lens rooted in local history. Through artistic perspectives, the exhibition expands outward from the 1970s East Village wind and solar array, looking at this small-scale historical model that collectively led to major change, to imagine cautiously optimistic, community-driven energy futures.

The exhibition sprawls from SI into the East Village, sending metaphoric electric impulses through the neighborhood. Departing from SI, in the yard of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Gordon Matta Clark’s Rosebush (1972) has been replanted at its original site, on the occasion of the exhibition. Nearby, in the yard of the co-op at 519 E 11th Street, whose wind turbine and solar panels inspired the exhibition, a new mural by Otobong Nkanga has been installed in close collaboration with the community. Titled Social Consequences I: Segregation—Encroaching Barricade—Entangled—Endangered Species—Rationed Measures—Intertwined, the painting weaves together social and ecological relations as well as concerns regarding production, housing, and access, and will remain on long-term view. Mirror shields built in a community workshop by Cannupa Hanska Luger, akin to those the artist made for use by the water protectors at Standing Rock in 2016, are on view at SI as well as in the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s garden on E 7th Street. Energies also incorporates two independent exhibitions, at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, documenting grassroots environmental and housing activism, and at Loisaida, Inc., showcasing the organization’s Ecolibrium multidisciplinary climate science literacy and environmental justice project.

Throughout the exhibition, a public program comprising community and education workshops, lectures, and panels, a symposium, a film program in partnership with Anthology Film Archives, a poetry and dance focused event with the Poetry Project and Danspace Project, and various other neighborhood activations, will complement the exhibition.

The exhibition is being prepared with conscious steps toward reducing the institution’s negative climate impact. More details can be found in SI’s recently published 8×8 plan.

Energies is curated by Stefanie Hessler, Director of SI, with Alison Coplan, Chief Curator, KJ Abudu, Assistant Curator, and Clara Prat-Gay, Curatorial Assistant.

Energies is made possible through support from the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Teiger Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General, Christine and Balz Halter, the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and the Mondriaan Fund. The Energies Symposium is made possible in part through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.