May events

Join us this May for programs exploring acts of self-recording under authoritarian rule; how operativism can be rethought today; how U.S. immigration enforcement has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry shaped by private profit and political power; forms of remembrance that exceed linear time; the importance of maintaining and preserving the Black archive in the face of institutional neglect; and ekphrastic communion that considers writing about art as a form of survival and thought.

Featuring Ion Grigorescu, Roxana Marcoci, Amy Bryzgel, and Andreiana Mihail; Matteo Pasquinelli, Elena Vogman, Olexii Kuchanskyi, Peter Sit, and Carles Guerra; Brad Samuels, Gauri Bahuguna, Eileen Grench, Elora Mukherjee, Jon Nealon, and Tyler McBrien; Sky Hopinka; Henrike Naumann; CZ Wang; Clarence Delgado, Samba Gadjigo, and Mahen Bonetti; Emily LaBarge, Catherine Quan Damman, Johanna Fateman, Dan Fox, and Lynne Tillman.

Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Ion Grigorescu: Body, Camera, Resistance
RSVP
Working under Romanian state socialism and often in relative isolation, Ion Grigorescu developed a singular practice across video and film, performance, photography, and painting in which the camera becomes both witness and interlocutor. Frequently staging actions in the privacy of his studio or in peripheral urban and rural spaces, he used his own body as both subject and measure, probing tension, vulnerability, doubling, and self-confrontation while encoding subtle forms of political dissent. Across these works, acts of self-recording become inquiries into perception, sexual difference, family life, mediation, and the unstable status of images and speech under authoritarian rule. The evening will open with an introductory address by Roxana Marcoci and continue with a program of films and videos by Grigorescu, followed by a conversation with Marcoci, Amy Bryzgel, and Andreiana Mihail, moderated by Lukas Brasiskis. Read more here.

Tuesday, May 5, 2026, Venice
Venice launch of e-flux journal issue #162: “Operativism: Labor, Automation, Agitation”
Join us in Venice at Aula Mario Baratto, Ca’ Foscari University for the launch of e-flux journal issue #162, followed by a reception. Responding to the intensification of contemporary “military operations,” from Ukraine to Gaza to Iran, this special issue of e-flux journal returns to a materialist genealogy of operativism. Spanning the twentieth century (from Soviet avant-gardes and scientific management to cybernetics to the multiple interpretations of Harun Farocki’s “operational images”) the concept of “operations” has often been framed primarily in technological terms, as a question of systems, control, and power. The program will feature Matteo Pasquinelli, Elena Vogman, Olexii Kuchanskyi, Peter Sit, Carles Guerra. Read more here. 

Thursday, May 7, 2026
Deportation Inc.: Investigating the Business of Migrant Detention
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Deportation Inc. is an ongoing investigative video series by SITU and Lawfare that examines how U.S. immigration enforcement has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry shaped by private profit and political power—where contracts, capital flows, and institutional incentives increasingly govern detention, deportation, and surveillance. While walls, checkpoints, and patrols remain the dominant visual shorthand, migrants are caught within increasingly complex and opaque systems of enforcement run and managed by private contractors tasked with everything from guaranteed bed quotas to speculative real estate strategies. Focusing on recent transformations in the immigration enforcement industry, this video series presents a high-yield, profit-generating business model that may be too big to fail. Join us for a screening of Deportation Inc., co-presented with The Architectural League of New York, SITU Research, and Lawfare. The screening will be introduced by Brad Samuels and followed by a conversation with Gauri Bahuguna, Eileen Grench, Elora Mukherjee, Jon Nealon, moderated by Tyler McBrien. Read more here.

Saturday, May 9, 2026
Sky Hopinka: screening and discussion
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Join us for a screening and discussion with Sky Hopinka. Hopinka’s work has been shaped by the artist's relation to Indigenous landscape and language. Having studied and taught Chinuk Wawa, a language Indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin, Hopinka has described language as foundational to how he approaches video and storytelling. His films are often characterized as poetic non-fiction resisting the expectation that Indigenous stories must be made fully legible to an outside viewer. This program extends the artist's concerns through a group of works focusing on ancestral land, kinship, ecological attention, and forms of remembrance that exceed linear time. Alongside a selection of his films, the afternoon brings together works by Fox Maxy, Tyson Houseman, darylina powderface, and Svetlana Romanova, selected by Hopinka as points of affinity and dialogue. Read more here. 

Thursday, May 14, 2026
Henrike Naumann
To be announced

Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Bar Laika presents Playback 0032 with CZ Wang
Join us for the thirty-second edition of Playback with CZ Wang. CZ Wang is a DJ, producer, and engineer, as well as a founding member of Vancouver’s influential Mood Hut collective. Over the past decade, he’s shaped left-of-center music scenes as both a selector and a steady hand behind the boards, lending his ear to projects with Huerco S, Okay Kaya, Jack J, Daniela Lalita, Nick León, DāM-FunK, and Natural Wonder Beauty Concept (Ana Roxanne and DJ Python). His track “Just Off Wave” has quietly amassed millions of streams on Spotify. Read more here. 

Thursday, May 21, 2026
Clarence Delgado's Niiwam, with Samba Gadjigo and Mahen Bonetti
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Niiwam (1988) recounts the travails of a young couple’s attempts to save the life of their infant son. Unable to find a cure in their village, Thierno and his wife take him to a city hospital, only to discover that the “blessings” of modern life have caused a degradation of even the most basic human relationships. Join us for a screening hosted by the African Film Institute followed by a conversation between Samba Gadjigo and Mahen Bonetti. Read more here. 

Thursday, May 28, 2026
EKPHRASIS IS THOUGHT, EKPHRASIS IS SURVIVAL
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In 2009, Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage at gunpoint while on vacation. A crocheted blanket was placed over her head while Mrs. Doubtfire and “Agnus Dei” played on repeat. Her new book, Dog Days, unfolds in the long shadow of that freak violence—where language stammers, time loops, and the body remembers what the mind can’t. To mark the US publication of the book, 4Columns and e-flux invite you to an evening of ekphrastic communion that considers writing about art as a form of survival and thought, that considers what criticism is for, far beyond an evaluative process. Invited respondents Catherine Quan Damman, Johanna Fateman, Dan Fox, and Lynne Tillman will open the evening by each evoking a single artwork of particular importance to them—sight unseen—followed by an invigorating conversation with LaBarge. Read more here. 

Stay tuned to upcoming programs on our website, or subscribe to our Events mailing list here.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.