Fri
Dec
12
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
ET
Einstein Auditorium
34 Stuyvesant Street, New York, NY 10003
Driven by Desire: From Demonic Possession to Collective Action
Doors at 5:30pm, Conversation at 6:00pm
Mwa presents “Driven by Desire,” a conversation between artists Avram Finkelstein and Thomas Tomczak on the subjects of desire, demons, and agency. What's the role of magic in collective action? Why look to the guise of a demon during heartbreak? Starting from Finkelstein’s book of spells and their connection to his AIDs activism and Tomczak’s explorations of Catholic possession and shame, the conversation will trace the ancient and contemporary uses of functional images and objects, including their applications in queer art and activism.
Bios
Avram Finkelstein is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Finkelstein is a founding member of the Silence=Death and Gran Fury collectives as well as the author of After Silence: A History of AIDS Through its Images (University of California Press, 2017). Finkelstein’s work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum, the New Museum, the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the New York Public Library. Most recently, Finkelstein received the 2024 Creative Capital and 2023 Pollock-Krasner grants.
Thomas Tomczak is a first-generation Polish American artist, born and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Tomczak received his M.F.A. in painting from New York University in 2019. Select exhibitions include Team Gallery, Nicole Beauchene Gallery, Zepster Gallery, and the Leslie Lohman Museum. This Isn’t Heaven is Tomczak’s first book.
Moderated by Phil Falino. Falino is a painter and printmaker currently based in New Haven, Connecticut; he is also a graduate of the Tisch School of Arts at New York University.
Presented by Mwa, a flexible entity for the publication and presentation of art. Mwa designed, edited, and published This Isn’t Heaven, an 182-page book by painter Thomas Tomczak, featuring conversations with Sarah Graff, Harry Tafoya, Micki Pellerano, and Jamieson Webster.
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