ART PAPERS 42.04 - Winter 2018/2019

"Numerous artists have been making thoughtful and urgent work about disability and its politics, but quite a few confided in me that they felt the curators and art writers who framed and mediated the artists’ work were frequently unaware of, or insensitive to, what is often understood as common courtesy in the disability community. They might inadvertently describe work using ableist language or refuse to provide additional funds for ASL interpreters or accessible hotel rooms, placing these extra costs on the artist and thereby exacerbating the barriers disabled artists face. Lack of accommodation is often present in exhibition design, too, such as when videos lack closed captions, strobe warnings are absent or included as ineffective afterthoughts, or websites fail to mention whether an event or space is wheelchair accessible. This lack of consideration is not a problem unique to the art world: the disabled are regularly underrepresented even within diversity initiatives, which have privileged other prescient issues related to race, gender, class, and sexuality.

In hopes of equipping the art community with an introductory disability discourse—and thereby tools for more mindful future art, writing, exhibitions, and programs—this issue highlights a small selection of artists, architects, and writers working today who are concerned with disability and the politics of visibility."

— Guest Editor Emily Watlington, "Letter from the Editor," ART PAPERS Winter 2018/2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter from the Guest Editor
Emily Watlington

Glossary
Ann Millett-Gallant
An introduction of key terms for disability studies

Sitting Beside Yvonne Rainer’s Convalescent Dance
Risa Puleo
Contextualizing Rainer’s Convalescent Dance (1967) alongside the spectacularization of disabled bodies during the Vietnam War, and framing convalescing as a radical act

Obstacle Race
Amalia Ulman
A personal essay on the artist’s navigation of the art world while disabled

Henrik Olesen: What Is Most Deep Is the Skin
Alise Upitis
On artist Henrik Olesen’s Hysterical Men and The Walk, which concern mental illness and the historic pathologization of queerness by way of historic figures

On Evasion
J.J. Kahn
A formal and historical reading of a set of drawings probably forged by an analyst and used to make various claims about autistic people

Andrea Crespo    
Artist Project 

“Golem Girl”: An Interview with Riva Lehrer
Emily Watlington
An interview with artist Riva Lehrer about her portraiture practice in which she represents queer and/or disabled bodies 

Vacant Presence
Heather Holmes
On how and why artists Park McArthur, Jesse Darling, and Julia Phillips use bodily supports without depicting the figure

Dependency and Improvisation:
A Conversation with Park McArthur
Amalle Dublon and Constantina Zavitsanos
A conversation on access as material in art and design as negotiated in McArthur’s recent MoMA exhibition Projects 195: Park McArthur

Performing Arts' Accessibility
Gabriel Cira
On the architect’s responsibility to thoughtfully negotiate ADA Standards for Accessible Design via the case study of a theater

Rethinking Sensory Dimensions: An Interview with Wendy Jacob
Emily McDermott
An interview with artist Wendy Jacob about how her investigation of tactility brought her to work with communities of disabled people

Giving it Away: Constantina Zavitsanos on
Disability, Debt, Dependency
Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez
A conversation on disability and capitalism by way of Zavitsanos’ artistic practice 

Joseph Grigely    
Artist Project 

REVIEWS

Second Sight: The Paradox of Vision in Contemporary Art   Brunswick
Jenna Crowder

Process and Presence: Contemporary Disability Sculpture   Grand Rapids
Aimi Hamraie

Access+Ability   New York
Monica Westin

Christine Sun Kim: Too Much Future   New York
Walker P. Downey

Skyscraper    2018 film
Kristen Lopez

Antoine Catala’s Everything is Okay: Season 2   London
Lizzie Homersham

Jesse Darling: The Ballad of Saint Jerome   London
Hannah Gregory

Christine Sun Kim    
Artist Project

ON THE COVER:
Carolyn Lazard
Support System (for Park, Tina, and Bob), 2016