The New York Times: Ford Foundation Gallery Opening Exhibition - Tiffany Chung
Peter Libbey
New York, USA | 06 February 2019
The Ford Foundation Gallery will open on March 5 with “Perilous Bodies,” an exhibition that explores the injustices of social stratification and discrimination, the foundation announced Wednesday.
The artists in the show come from all over the world, in a reflection of the foundation’s commitment to approaching social and political problems globally, the gallery’s director, Lisa Kim, said in an interview. “Problems like systemic racism and gender bias and classism are not unique to the U.S. or India or Mexico,” she said. But, she added, “As we talk about these problems that cross continents we can also talk about the shared humanity that begins to heal them.”
The artists featured in the exhibition, who include Tiffany Chung, Hannah Brontë and David Antonio Cruz, “incorporate their own cultural traditions to address oppression” in their work, the foundation said in a statement.
The new gallery is located within the Ford Foundation’s recently renovated headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Its 2,000-square-foot space was created to host interdisciplinary art exhibitions, performances and public programming consistent with the foundation’s mission of addressing inequality and other social issues.
Vanessa German, an artist, will perform a spoken-word opera she has composed for the opening reception of the exhibition, which runs through May 11.
“Perilous Bodies” is one of three exhibitions planned for the gallery’s first year in operation. All three are being organized by the curators Jaishri Abichandani and Natasha Becker around the theme of “Utopian Imagination.” The next two exhibitions will follow in June and September.