On the Ground: Open Sessions
During the last week of each month Storefront will open the gallery for On the Ground: Open Sessions, inviting a different guest to curate and host the evening. These informal gatherings will open a space for collective learning where critical issues surrounding the transformation of New York’s ground floor are shared and discussed.
See below for details on each of the open sessions.
___________________________________________________________________________
Open Session #1: Hosted by David L. Johnson
Wednesday March 29, 2023, 7 – 9 pm
Note: This program has limited capacity and RSVP is required. Attendees are highly encouraged to wear masks.
Top: From the Street, I Can See the Moon by David L. Johnson, 2014
Bottom: C’est Vrai (One Hour) by Robert Frank, 1990
About Open Session 1
For the first in our Open Session series, artist David L. Johnson is convening an evening of conversation and collective learning around his own video work and C’est Vrai! (One Hour), a single-take film photographer Robert Frank made in 1990 on the streets of SoHo and the Lower East Side. Johnson will convene writers Nicholas Dawidoff, Geelia Ronkina, and special guests to converse around street performance, pedestrian perspectives, and how we choose to document New York as it continues to change.
About the Artists
David L. Johnson (b. 1993, New York, NY) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Johnson uses photography, video, found and stolen objects, and installation to engage the margins between public and private space. Focusing on loitering and property law, his recent work has been interested in the complex relationship urban development engenders between the built environment and its living and non-living subjects. Johnson received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2015 and an MFA from The University of Pennsylvania in 2020. He is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program and a part-time lecturer at The New School. Recent exhibitions include: Life Between Buildings, MoMA PS1, New York, NY; Everything is Common, Artists Space, New York, NY; Revocable Consents, Theta, New York, NY; A Place to Live, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, PA; Wants & Needs, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY. Johnson’s work is in the public collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of six books including the just-published The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, And The American City. It’s a New Yorker book of the year and is a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award for excellence in journalism. His biographical memoir of his grandfather, The Fly Swatter: Portrait of an Exceptional Character, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir, The Crowd Sounds Happy, won the Kenneth Johnson Book Award for outstanding literary writing about mental illness. He has been a Henry Luce Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Civitella Ranieri Fellow, a Berlin Prize fellow of the American Academy, an Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, and an Art For Justice Fellow. His articles appear in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine including several pieces on the life and work of Robert Frank. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Wesleyan (University) Center for Prison Education and a member of the Honorary Council of the Board of Directors of the MacDowell artist’s residency program.
Geelia Ronkina is a writer.
___________________________________________________________________________
On the Ground
On the Ground is a yearlong research project and exhibition series about New York City’s ground floor. Through a close look at the urban typology of the storefront, this expansive endeavor presents newly commissioned artistic explorations and dialogues about the heterogeneous threshold between public and private space throughout 2023. The project will unfold through three exhibitions, a radio show, an open call, a public program, and a thematic reader.
Credits
On the Ground is conceived and organized by the Storefront Team
Graphic design by Estudio Herrera
Photography by PJ Rountree
Support
Storefront’s On the Ground program is made possible through the support of the Graham Foundation, the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the Storefront Circle and Storefront’s Board of Directors, members, and individual donors.