Study Sessions: Ja’Tovia Gary and American Artist

Floor 3, Education Center

Study Sessions is an ongoing event series inspired by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s notion of study as “what you do with other people.” For each Study Session, an artist, writer, or cultural worker selects a work of art on view in the Whitney’s permanent collection galleries as a departure point for thinking through an urgent question in our contemporary political landscape. Participants are invited to join together in open-ended discussions, and engage with creative practice. Study Sessions may take the form of workshops, listening parties, performances, readings, or film screenings. This session is led by Ja’Tovia Gary and American Artist. They will use Some of the Greatest Hits of the New York City Police Department: A Celebration of Meritorious Achievement in Community Service by Carl Pope to discuss Afro-pessimism and the role of the artist in ending the world.

Ja’Tovia M. Gary is an artist and filmmaker currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Gary’s work seeks to liberate the distorted histories through which Black life is often viewed while fleshing out a nuanced and multivalent Black interiority. Through documentary film and experimental video art, Gary charts the ways structures of power shape our perceptions around representation, race, gender, sexuality, and violence. Her work has exhibited at festivals and institutions internationally including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, ICA Boston, the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, the Hammer Museum, and elsewhere.

American Artist uses video, installation, new media, and writing to reveal historical dynamics embedded within contemporary culture and technology. Artist attended the Whitney Independent Study Program as an artist, and is currently a resident at Eyebeam. They have exhibited at The Kitchen in New York, the Studio Museum of Harlem, MCA Chicago, and have participated in group shows internationally. Artist has published writing in The New Inquiry and New Criticals and has had work featured in ARTnews, AQNB, and Huffington Post. Artist is a co-founder of the arts and politics publication unbag.

Free with Museum admission during Pay-As-You-Wish Fridays. Registration is required.