Open Call for Curator: "Radical Elegance"

The Bronx Council on the Arts is seeking applications to curate its Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos Spring 2021 online exhibition, Radical Elegance (March 17 – May 26, 2021), to be featured on the BCA website.

The selected curator will be responsible for contacting and sourcing all materials from artists, writing exhibition texts, and facilitating a public program. We encourage curatorial proposals by emerging and independent curators under 30 who are unafraid of experimentation and familiar with artists from The Bronx working in the medium of fashion photography.

This call for proposals expands our mission of supporting emerging artists from underrepresented groups such as women and artists of color. Further, we continue our commitment to present exhibitions in various media, including interdisciplinary practices that connect artists in the Bronx and beyond.

Radical Elegance Description:
Radical Elegance is an online exhibition that will showcase fashion photography by Bronx-based or raised visual artists and collectives. These photographers, stylists, and image makers explore black and brown fashion visualities, expanding the concept of personal style to comment on the origins and reinterpretation of clothing and conceptions of beauty in our daily lives. Their photographs and installations span the range of a documentarian approach to current style icons, both local and international to heavily researched and staged historical revisions, in which visual tropes of whiteness and wealth are re-written and flipped to create a semi utopic and liberating vision. Collectively, the artists in the exhibition will speak to the politics of style as it relates to gender, community empowerment, and the ecosystem of collaboration between creatives of color and the fashion industry.

Suggested artists to consider: Awol Erizku, Genesis Smalls, Lelaine Foster, Demi Vera, Maroon World (Travis Gumbs and Cynthia Cervantes), Renee Cox, Yelaine Rodriguez, Francena Ottley

GUIDELINES:

1. Proposals must be conceptually rigorous and focus on artists and themes in a way that is innovative, challenging, and engaging. The majority of artists proposed must qualify as emerging or under-recognized.

2. Extra consideration will be given to proposals that clearly demonstrate a unique and creative approach to curatorial research methods and the exhibition plan, as well as an awareness of the medium within a historical context.

3. Guest Curators should not include their own work in the exhibition they are proposing to BCA’s Longwood Arts Project.

4. Include a list of artists and a proposed checklist with images, and indicate whether these artists have been confirmed.

5. Longwood Arts Project strongly encourages applications that expands our mission and contribute to our ongoing commitment to emerging artists, social justice, and advocacy for artists.

Requirements

Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos will only accept electronic submissions through Submittable. Please include the following attachments in Word or PDF format:

• An exhibition proposal with your name, address, phone number and e-mail address of up to 1000 words that includes a 300-word curatorial statement, exhibition goals and objectives, the proposed format for online display, any technical requirements, and artists names. We additionally encourage the proposal of a public program (date and time to be determined if proposal is selected).
• A full exhibition checklist with artist names and selected artwork. Please include images and photography dimensions for all works, and a list of confirmed artists with URL’s or websites. Video samples (if applicable) may be submitted as separate .mov or .mp4, with filenames formatted as such: ARTISTLASTNAME_1.mov. All video samples must be accompanied by a link to the full piece, to be included in the checklist.
• A Curator’s CV.
• Three professional reference letters describing previous work/projects and research experience.

FEE:
The selected applicant will be awarded a $1,200 honorarium.

Application Instructions

Submissions deadline is Monday February 15, 2021.

Final selection and applicant will be notified by BCA staff. Please do not submit original materials; ONLY ELECTRONIC FILES WILL BE PROCESSED. All applications will be kept on our files for future reference. For technical inquiries: longwood@bronxarts.org *No phone calls inquiring about the status of your submission, please.