SCREEN MEMORIES is a group exhibition of video and sound-based work by Yara Asmar, Mona Benyamin, and Huda Takriti that considers the psychological impact of mass media in the Arab world for a generation of artists who grew up at the tail end of network television’s popularity. These three artists reference and transform news broadcasts, children’s shows, sitcoms, and music videos to examine historic and everyday moments as mediated by screen. SCREEN MEMORIES is curated by May Makki, Abrons Arts Center’s 2024-25 Curatorial AIRspace Resident, and organized in partnership by Artists Alliance Inc. and Abrons Arts Center. Presented across two venues, Abrons Arts Center and Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space: Abrons Arts Center‘s Main Gallery, 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street) New York, NY 10002. Monday through Sunday, 10a–10p Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, 88 Essex St [inside Essex Market], New York, NY 10002. Wednesday through Saturday, 12–6p Image: Mona Benyamin, Moonscape, 2020 (Still), Courtesy of the artist. Yara Asmar is a musician and video artist based in Beirut, Lebanon. Her music has been described as “Strange, adventurous, elongated and highly idiosyncratic” by Cyclic Defrost‘s Bob Baker Fish. Her video works include i like it better when we lived on see-saw hill, clocks for dinner, and Mr. Samuel’s Teatime Stories (For Good Kids & Confused Adults) and often incorporate puppetry and music. Her album Synth Waltzes and Accordian Laments was included in Pitchfork’s roundup of 30 Best Jazz and Experimental Albums of 2023. In addition to touring internationally, she is a regular resident on Radio Alhara. Mona Benyamin is a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer based in Palestine. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma, and different temporalities. Through appropriating formats from mass and popular media and tampering with their apparatuses, and utilizing dark humor, she questions notions of authenticity and veracity, and challenges concepts of agency and victimhood. Her recent works have been screened — among others — at the Museum of Modern Art, REDCAT, Sheffield DocFest, The Mosaic Rooms, and Columbia University. May Makki is a New York-based curator specializing in contemporary art and performance. Her work focuses on media, the politics of cultural memory, and emergent aesthetics. She has organized exhibitions, performances, and discursive events at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, 99 Canal, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, and Spectacle. She holds an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Huda Takriti superimposes personal and national narratives in her video works and her image-text or text-text collages, aiming to spotlight gaps in historical and national memory. She is currently pursuing a PhD in practice at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, where she is examining the notion of archival erasure relating to the (hi)stories of female freedom fighters from the Middle East in times of armed anti-colonial struggle. Questioning the construction and production of historical narratives, as well as the potential that contamination can carry as a way for surviving archival gaps. She completed her master’s studies at the TransArts department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2020. She also completed her bachelor’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria, in 2012. Her work has been awarded several scholarships and prizes, including the Vordemberge-Gildewart Award (2022), the Kunsthalle Wien Prize (2020), and the Camargo Foundation Fellowship (2023), among others. Accessibility During your visit, if desired, a folding chair can be provided should standing for short or long periods of time interfere with your viewing experience. Additionally, sound-dampening headphones and tinted glasses are available and will be provided upon request for visitors for whom the sound or lighting of the gallery space is disruptive. A quiet, off-site/off-view space can be arranged during viewing for those with the need. Baby strollers are welcome in Essex Market and Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space. Both facilities are wheelchair accessible, and service animals on a leash are permitted. If you have questions, comments, or concerns about accessing Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space or attending programs, please email gallery@artistsallianceinc.org. Our Funders Artists Alliance Inc. (AAI) is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization located on the Lower East Side of New York City. Programming support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Further exhibition programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts. We thank the New York City Economic Development Corporation, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, and individual supporters of Artists Alliance Inc for their continued support. Special thanks go to our team of dedicated volunteers and interns, without whom this program would not be possible. (fb)

Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space is pleased to present -figur, a solo exhibition of recent works by Lower East Side Studio Program alum Kemar Keanu Wynter, on view at 88 Essex St. from November 15, 2024 through February 1, 2025. -figur follows on the heels of Kemar’s previous solo exhibition, Rücken-, at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, serving as its complement and functioning to complete the term Rückenfigur, a visual motif used extensively within the lineages of both German Romanticism and Hudson River School painting, each of which has been integral to Wynter’s practice over the last year. (fb)