Drop Out

In January 2024, UTA Artist Space LA censored statements about the ongoing genocide in Palestine from the CalArts MFA postgraduate show, "Infrastructures". After dropping out from the exhibition, we came together to document the events. The collective effort to recount this confusing process became an opportunity to recover from anger and self-doubt by addressing the backlash against us. This naturally led to publication. We hope that through sharing our trials and errors, readers who find themselves in similar situations to ours will be better equipped, as if they had a useful toolbox. We want to be their advisors and supporters. The ultimate purpose of this publication is to show solidarity with the Palestinians who are suffering from a genocide that shows no sign of stopping. We condemn the state of Israel for its war crimes against civilians and its attempts to suppress the voices that criticize it and destroy solidarity.

In the first chapter, we document a timeline of what was happening at the time of the censorship. The colored footnotes in this chapter serve as an alternative timeline and describe better courses of action, or, what we wish we could see at the time. We add to this a retrospective discussion of the choices that worked to spark broad solidarity without exhausting ourselves in the backlash that sought to silence our protest. The second chapter includes statements that were censored by the UTA, as well as contributions from others from a variety of perspectives on the issue. The third chapter is a dialogical reflection on the word ‘performativity’, which was used to deflect legitimate criticism in the immediate aftermath of the incident. The fourth chapter is a collection of excerpts taken from exhibition materials and dialogue with the show's curator to show how art institutions and galleries that ostensibly support institutional critique actually operate in the face of real critique and refusal. This book is a work in progress. More people will be contributing to it in the future. Most importantly, we hope to include contributions from Palestinians in this book to centralize their voices.

November 30th | AK sends an email to the cohort about the curatorial statement for the exhibition and raises a concern about UTA’s past instances of censorship with regards to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.¹ ² 

January 7th | Laura emails the cohort, pointing out the lack of discussion since AK’s email and suggests a potential action to collectively re-title all of the works in the exhibition to something along the lines of "free palestine", or "from the river to the sea”. ³

January 7th to 11th | The following conversation takes place over email between the cohort:  

Several objections are raised, including that the title change of a saleable artwork to 'Free Palestine' might be perceived as an attempt to monetize suffering. A unified title could silence the disparate voices of the individual works already selected. Susan Sarandon made an unintelligent statement and doesn’t need us to protest for her. Changing the title of the artworks could lead to miscontextualization and misunderstandings, particularly because some pieces are not politically motivated. For International artists struggling to get a visa, there are concerns about losing the opportunity to enrich our profile. Some are concerned about the original intention of work being replaced by politics. Another notes that UTA has given the cohort a significant opportunity, including being able to keep a large portion of the sales, and points out that the people who work for the gallery are not making decisions about the censorship. Since there is no unanimous agreement amongst the cohort and no representative body to bring it about, some members do not wish to participate in a collective action. 

In the midst of this conversation, a time and place is coordinated for a group meeting to brainstorm what language to use to convey solidarity and what other actions might be possible. A zoom invitation is sent. 

Steven E. Lam (Dean, School of Art) sends the entire cohort an email clarifying that UTA artist space is one with the talent agency itself and cautions us about the potential impacts on exhibiting artists, international student alumni, etc after the meeting with UTA team. ⁴ 

Jan 11th | First meeting. 12 members of the cohort attend on Zoom. Steven E. Lam (Dean, School of Art) and Michael Ned Holte (Associate Dean, School of Art) also attend. ⁵

Main points shared by Steven and Michael: they care about our careers and they fear making any statement would jeopardize our chances of success. They explain that the newly built relationship between CalArts and UTA is important and explain that our protest will result in damaged ties and lost resources for future students. They mention the Canary Mission List and their concern that we may be targeted. They tell us that CalArts is open to institutional critique but commercial galleries like UTA aren't, so our actions will not be effective and will only put the show in jeopardy. They offer us the Reef building as an  alternative exhibition space to speak about this issue. ⁶ We ask Steven and Michael to leave the meeting so the artists can speak among themselves. 

8 out of the 12 people at this initial meeting decide to draft a collective statement. Anticipating UTA’s refusal to include the collective statement in their press materials, we ultimately decide to make amendments to our individual artist statements. We make an additional plan for the opening on Jan 20th, in which we will disrupt the event with a collective action followed by reading our individual statements & the collective statement out loud. ⁸ 

Jan 14th, noon | Second group meeting. Bethlehem, Asa, Jungsub, Gi, Laura, Rosa, Kenix attend on Zoom

We reach out to a member of the community for an outside perspective. Together, we discuss what options we might have to resist besides retitling the work such as attaching the Palestinian flag to the artwork or incorporate the colors of the flag in the exhibition space. We also refine our collective statement. The keyword "life" was used to ensure that the statement is not just about censorship, but focused on the war that is happening right now. The community member leaves and we plan a collective performance in the gallery space on opening day. The first idea is to hold hands and occupy the center of the gallery space in a silent protest. We decide to ask other members of our cohort to participate in the performance and contact them personally after the meeting. ⁹

Jan 16th |  Meghan informs us through email that our statements will accompany our artworks on the UTA Artist Space website, accessible via the QR code adjacent to our artworks in the gallery, they will not be printed on placards. ¹⁰

Jan 17th | Jungsub, Gi, and Laura inform Meghan Gordon, Curator, that they will be making changes to their original statements and/or artworks to show solidarity with Palestine. 

In similar emails to each of us, Meghan responds that she would not be able to protect us from potential countermeasures enacted by UTA. She says that some of these countermeasures could be invisible or untraceable, alluding to potential blacklisting. In this email, she also suggests dropping out of the show as the more impactful and graceful form of protest. ¹¹

Meghan calls Jungsub on the phone and asks him why he hasn't finalized the installation of the work. He tells her that he could not complete the installation in a space that was inseparable from a company that censored speech about Palestine. She says she respects Jungsub’s choice and that withdrawing from the show is a graceful protest. He explains that he can't just withdraw the work, because that would also be silencing its message. He tells her that he will print out his statement about the situation and attach it to the artwork. She advises him that withdrawing the artwork was a valid enough protest, as found in examples in art history. She says that his choice will cause him to lose the resources he could get from the gallery. For example, collectors connected to the gallery could see Jungsub’s work in the gallery's database. On the other hand, there is also the possibility that they are sharing a blacklist of artists. She tells him that if he is penalized in any way, she would not be able to protect him because she’s not part of the gallery. She says that this is not a threat and that as a curator who has helped numerous artists become financially independent, she knows it is wiser to speak out on certain issues after they have gained visibility and financial independence. Jungsub reiterates that there is no change in his plans and the call ends. 

Jan 18th |  Meghan sends a group email to the cohort, asking for final revisions to our work titles, statements, and prices. No deadline given.

Jun 18th, 6pm-12am | Third group meeting. Jungsub, Gi, Bethlehem, Asa and Laura gather in person. Kenix and Julie join the meeting via zoom. 

We begin by discussing ways to improve the performance action. We decide that the silence in the initial concept could be a repetition of the silence surrounding the genocide, so we choose instead to hold hands and continuously jump together to create an energetic disruption. We decide that if there are large crowds on opening day, we will find each other, hold hands, gather in the center, form a circle, and jump until everyone stops talking and gives us their attention, and then read our collective statement, followed by our individual statements. We rehearse the performance and finalize it. We ask each other for advice on our individual statements. Some of us decide to print the statements and attach it to our artwork to circumvent UTA’s attempt to mask them with QR codes. We resolve to do all of this as a surprise. Since the curator and gallery responded negatively to our actions and because the members of the cohort we asked to participate declined, we decide to show our actions directly in the exhibition space without asking for approval. ¹² 

Jan 19th, 2-4 pm | Those of us that submitted changes to our statements receive individual phone calls from Katie Fleming (Gallery Operations Manager at UTA Artist Space) and Arthur Lewis (Director of UTA Artist Space). Katie speaks and Arthur remains silent. They inform each of us separately that they cannot show the work with the amended artist statements (that include mention of Palestine). They ask us to make a choice between showing the work without the statements, or not exhibiting at all. ¹³

Through text messages and phone calls we collectively decide to remain in the show with plans to carry forward with the action the next day at the opening. Laura reach out to Meghan to request that their work be changed to Not For Sale.  

Jan 19th, 7 pm | Steven and Meghan calls the artists individually after having spoken to Arthur Lewis and Katie Fleming. They communicate on behalf of UTA that any mention or action related to Palestine or Gaza, including changing the work to Not For Sale, will result in the cancellation of the entire exhibition. They state that any form of protest in the gallery space will lead them to call security and permanently shut down the exhibition. 

Jan 19th, 9 pm | Jungsub tells Steve that he will have to fully explain the group's intentions to the rest of the cohorts before he will be willing to respect the cohort's decision regarding whether or not the show would move forward. 

Jan 19th, 10 pm | Steven calls for an emergency zoom meeting scheduled the next morning with the entire cohort to discuss UTA’s ultimatum and decide how to move forward as a group. 

Jan 19th, 11 pm | Fourth group meeting (Asa, Jungsub, Laura, and Gi on zoom) 

We discuss how to respond to the ultimatum. We decide that we must respect the other cohort's opportunity to exhibit and withdraw, but conclude that we must first fully convey our intentions and ask their opinion. We decide to wait until the next day's meeting to share our censored statements with the cohort, explain why we wanted to show solidarity with Palestine in the exhibition, answer their questions about UTA’s actions, and see what they think. 

Jan 20th, 9:30 am | Laura and another member call Steven to express their preference to facilitate the start of the meeting, which Steven agrees to.

Jan 20th, 10:30 am (T-minus 1.5 hrs to opening) | Emergency Zoom meeting with the entire Cohort. 

The group reads our collective and individual statements to the cohort, and explains the events of the past two weeks. A few members of the cohort express disappointment over our actions, some express surprise and discomfort with UTA’s interference with our individual statements, most are silent. One artist suggests that our actions were disrespectful and put the jobs of the gallery staff at risk. Meghan corrects this statement, clarifying that Arthur Lewis had expressed fears about the future of the gallery, in that UTA Artist Space is owned by UTA Talent Agency, and that UTA Talent Agency is ultimately responsible for the fate of the gallery, which is a new project. One member of the cohort states that the action was performative, that UTA did not commit censorship but rather had insufficient time to respond to our requests, as evidenced by Zoe Moon’s statement which was accepted months prior with its discussion of genocide and Palestine. Meghan then relays to Zoe that there has been an oversight with her statement and she also has the choice to either remove this portion of her statement or withdraw her work from the show. Steven and Meghan explain the situation from their perspective. Our group informs the cohort that we will be dropping out of the show.

*1 hour break*

Zoom meeting continues. Zoe informs the group that she has spoken to a lawyer and is withdrawing her work from the show, and that her work can no longer be used for promotional materials. She communicates the same through email. Lauren also drops out of the show in support of those who were censored. Another artist states that this was not censorship but an issue of unprofessionalism. One person says we need to accept this censorship to protect our platforms and ability to produce political work, “to lose one battle in order to win a war”. Another asks what it means to remain in the show and expresses concerns about the outside perception of those artists whose work is not political. Those remaining in the exhibition discuss how to move forward, and ultimately decide to go through with the show as planned. ¹⁴ 

Jan 20th, 12 pm | Opening at UTA Artist Space.

The names and work of the artists that withdrew were immediately removed from the gallery. Artists that withdrew did not attend the opening. ¹⁵

Alternative Timeline by Laura, Jungsub 

¹ Plan to meet with cohort to discuss AK’s email (+)

² Drop out of show and terminate contract with UTA 

³ Realize that attempting to accommodate and represent the collective opinion of the entire cohort was an impossible goal. We needed to clarify our stance and then convince them with a detailed plan. (+)

⁴ Drop out of show and terminate contract with UTA 

⁵ Record all phone calls and zoom meetings with CalArts representatives and UTA staff (+)

⁶ As soon as censorship begins, find trusted press contacts and be prepared to go public, do what is possible to control the narrative. 

⁷ Expect zero tolerance/cooperation from UTA. (+)

⁸ Anticipate push-back & shut-down from UTA and reach out to trusted friends + comrades + organizations to plan a large-scale disruption/protest of the space/opening

⁹ Recruit non-cohort community members to support our action/protect us from security/join us in numbers. (+)

¹⁰ Guerilla plaster stickers/titles/text over the QR codes. Alternatively/additionally replace QR codes to link to fundraisers/relief/latest news/etc 

¹¹ Drop out of show and terminate contract with UTA. Carry out public action/disruption - RECRUIT NUMBERS TO SHOW UP TO PROTEST THE OPENING. 

¹² Operate by this modality from the get-go. Expect resistance, manipulation, and no tolerance at every step. Seek no approval from UTA, Meghan, Steven or Cohort. Be less agreeable.(+) 

¹³ Drop out of show. Carry out the public action/disruption at the opening the next day.

¹⁴ Be more direct in how we articulate the decision facing the cohort at this meeting. Say they have the option of collectively withdrawing now that they know the extent of UTA’s censorship and coercion, even if they disagree with our political stance or our methods. Say this moment could build a solidarity that binds and lasts.

¹⁵ Show up with comrades anyway. Disrupt. Make a fuss. (+)

Every time I go to MacArthur Park in LA, I think about memory and oblivion. In my hometown of Incheon, Korea, MacArthur commanded a major landing operation and there is a park there commemorating it. He had a significant impact on the Korean War, especially on individuals from my hometown, such as my grandparents and parents. However, the memories of countless individuals who experienced the war were replaced by the body of one general. Memory is monopolized by a few who can create monuments or movies or decide who gets to speak. Memories are selected and erased. What is erased is inherited in the form of trauma that causes fear and anxiety.

Originally, this tank was filled with water. The water is milk-white due to the mixture of flour, sugar, and powdered milk. A circulation pump runs inside the tank. A can with writing on it floats on the surface of the water, and a model of MacArthur moves around on the bottom of the water. MacArthur's face appears and disappears in the opaque water. I wanted to create a work that would allow us to face the oblivion I felt in the park. In several exhibitions where this piece was presented, it worked like this.

However, as time passed after I decided to show this work in the exhibition, I began to worry about the meaning of the work in the context of the censorship of violence occurring in Gaza. For this piece to exist in the UTA gallery, it would mean using a forgotten past to offer a critique and counter narrative without naming parallels to the present. It is a reproduction of domination and silence. I considered withdrawing the work or showing a different work. But MacArthur Park is about erased voices therefore it was difficult to stay silent, vague or to drop out allowing this (our) history be further erased. So the work is here, without water, inoperable and with my choosing unfinished.

Over the past few very confusing days, I have felt a complex mix of isolation, sadness, shame, fear and friendship. There was no time to fully think and discuss. But it wouldn't have been clearer if I had had more time. The rough choices I made that resulted from this chaos were unavoidable.

 01.20.2024

Jungsub Eom

Quilts: 

Baby blankets  are containers. They contain care, love, labour, and hope. I am interested in channeling the emotional charge that baby blankets carry in order to tap into various moments in time and encounter different versions of self. The baby blankets are manifestations for futures of 

Through painting, fiber art, ceramics and installation, my practice explores generational trauma and healing. I am interested in using the knowledge of craft passed down through our personal histories to articulate resistance to dominant familial and societal structures. These ways of crafting and knowing that are passed down to us through our personal histories grant us access to time in a way that allows us to construct portals to the past and imagine alternative narratives for the future. Utilizing traditional art and craft-forms, inherited materials, connections to ancestors, and time travel, I aim to build new worlds at the intersections of these pasts and futures - not just for myself, but for my community - in the hopes that these worlds can be loving realms of healing, resistance, and justice. 

My recent gouache paintings are glimpses into these portals through time. Influenced by the single-point perspective and architecture of Mughal miniature paintings, as well as a reconstruction of the Zenana, I build and rebuild moments, both those experienced, and those yet to come. My quilts, or baby blankets, are containers. They contain love, labour, and hope - made for someone who does not yet exist. I am interested in channeling the emotional charge that baby blankets carry in order to tap into various moments in time. The baby blankets allow me to encounter different versions of self and the world. They function as manifestations for futures of self-love and community. 

In light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, I wish to use the platform provided by this artist statement to express solidarity with the people of Palestine, and call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to US military funding to Israel. Though this work was created before October 7th 2023, I believe that this is a critical moment for building global solidarity against the violence of settler colonialism. It is my responsibility as an artist to demand an end to institutional silence and help shape a world that protects the freedom of art, expression and life. Through painting, I have always been able to envision what I want for the future, like a vision board or a map. If my quilts are indeed capable of manifesting future worlds that enable us to heal and come together to take care of eachother, then manifestations of a free Palestine must be included in them. As Nelson Mandela asserted, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”. There is no liberation without Palestinian liberation, and there is no healing without Palestinian healing. If my aim through my work is to map out a future world liberated from the structures of capitalism and colonization, then how can I do so without mapping out a free Palestine? 

Laura Ohio

Revised 03.24

The diorama I withdrew from the UTA exhibition belongs to a body of work that considers the logic of borders, control, surveillance and the experience of attempting to grasp the edges of a system that determines the protections we are owed or the violence we endure. However, as a standalone sculpture lacking conceptual support from the other artworks, as it would have been shown at UTA, the work deals primarily with regret, shame, and visibility. I take these themes as the basis for my reflection on “dropping out” and the last revision of my statement, in order to examine the internal and external pressures that influenced our decisions, what we really needed at the time, and what values we should pursue knowing what we know now. 

After news had spread about the censorship, a cloud of doubt crept over me regarding the speed of our actions. Earlier, the curator had asked us if we had put the same thought into our protest as we are accustomed to putting into our artwork, and advised us to make careful choices and not interrupt the integrity of our practice with political statements on issues where we do not have well honed expertise. When I am working with images and putting together a film, I work deliberately and fast. I am testing for emotional resonance, pull, and resistance, in search of echoes of things I know well but find difficult to articulate. If I am very sure of what it is I have made by the end of this process, it probably isn’t very good. I have come to trust my instincts about what is worth putting forward, and prefer to operate this way over waiting to act with complete certainty. This self-trust is the basis of my artistic integrity and is the same instinct that drove my decision to organize with the other dropouts.  

Still, I had to consider the possibility that we were wrong, after all the critique was coming from our own community. Some members of the cohort said our action was too late, too unconsidered, yielding a performative, symbolic, unsubstantial gesture. Others said we are not political, we are afraid for our careers, we want a platform so that we can be heard and stand up for things we believe in once we have established a name and a place for ourselves. Cauleen Smith, who had been supportive of my work at CalArts, was now criticizing me on social media to an audience of 16,000 people. The core of the criticism was that we were leveraging a political crisis for the benefit of our public appearances and were not sincerely dedicated to the collective struggle we allied ourselves with. The irony is that we far underestimated the attention our action would generate. We felt we were doing the absolute bare minimum and were shocked by the hostility, fear, paranoia, and intensity of the backlash.  

"We need to learn, or re-learn, how to build comradeship and solidarity instead of doing capital’s work for it by condemning and abusing each other. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we must always agree – on the contrary, we must create conditions where disagreement can take place without fear of exclusion and excommunication." –Mark Fisher

At the emergency meeting just hours before the opening a member of the cohort, unsettled by the way UTA had threatened and coerced us, asked, "can we cancel this show and have another one somewhere else?" I could have let them sit and struggle with that question. Instead, hating their silence, I moved quickly forward and said the curator will not give you a re-do and that would not solve the problem of the people who are angry with us because they have sales in the balance. What if I had said instead, "Right. Is this worth it to you? Even if you do not agree with our methods or our political opinions, do you still wish to stand with us?" 

Space for contention does not apply to negotiations with powerful, connected, profit-motivated art galleries. My one tactical regret is the way I expected some level of cooperation from UTA, anticipating that they would want to avoid committing outright censorship, or simply grant us autonomy over our statements without having to endorse them. The collective statement was written in such a way that criticizes censorship generally but does not explicitly call out UTA's past behavior because we knew it would not be printed otherwise. It didn't and never would have, and we should have acted with our strongest tactics first instead of trying to work within the confines set by our host. In the end, we worked from two angles simultaneously: both within the terms set by the gallery, leveraging the opportunity to write our own artist statement, and from without, planning a performance action that would not go through an approval process. 

Perhaps it is easier to drown out the noise of insecurity and careerism when the reality of death is close to home. In October, two months before all this, I had been in Canada in a hospital beside my dying father. For four weeks straight we listened to the radio which had always been his primary access point to the world, and which was transmitting the last human atrocity he would ever comprehend. The crisis in Gaza was the only thing that pierced my consciousness outside of my father's condition and the brutal, systematically inadequate care he was receiving. Israel was bombing the hospitals now and soon only 11 of the 36 in Gaza would remain, struggling to function with limited medical supplies and unprecedented demand. I spent days making dozens of phone calls to advocate for my father to get him out of the room he shared with a traumatized man who screamed profanities from morning till night, to explain that my father needed a place where he could rest. I saw images of Israeli soldiers guarding the entrances to hospitals in Gaza where the electricity had been cut off, and imagined what this would be like without hospital telephones, health monitors, computers, or the beds like the one my father was in that raised him into a sitting position so that he could swallow without choking.

Making art is how I reckon with the external systems that work themselves into my sight, my vision of the world, and my position in it. Contemporary art often pretends to be outside of the cause and effects of everyday life and its constitutive horrors. Even in Los Angeles, a city who credits its local economy to the production of art and entertainment, people are quick to defend the need for the separation of art and life, except in tongue and cheek critiques of capitalism at dinner parties. But no such separation or “outside” is possible and art, like play, is a part of our shared, complex reality. The ability to play freely with meaning in art and, say, transform a garbage can into a hat by simply indulging in the rules of play is related to the artist's ability to speak out against complicity, hate, greed. An unserious and therefore fearless relationship with culture at large is historically expected of artists, it is the very territory of art. If we prioritize our careers over this essential aspect of being an artist our integrity trembles and gives way to an apparition of success. 

When art or speech is censored by supporters of colonial terror, the sources of that power must be held accountable. I don't have to be an expert to know that remaining silent now is to be complicit with genocide. Ultimately, art does nothing for the people whose homes are being turned to ash, who are being starved and brutally slaughtered, in this and every other ongoing genocide. The stakes here, now, at home are that there are consequences for speaking of the genocide in Palestine, so that is where I focus my attention as I try to understand the narratives that enact the false separation between our settler colonization + their settler colonization, us + them, art + life. The institutions that fear the voices of dissent are those I am prepared to abandon. 

GIAHN

Censorship is easy. One word, No, flattened and simplified everything.

Everything used for that is active and sometimes covert. It is mechanical and has no hesitation because the goal is clear. Mechanism without hesitation was enough to embarrass us all, leading us to censor ourselves for our careers, communities, future opportunities, or our current jobs, etc.

That's why it was more fatal for artists.

It was the moment for me when two years or more fell apart, so I had no choice but to remove it from the exhibition.

Collective Statement

Some members of the 2023 CalArts MFA graduating class wish to express solidarity with Palestine and acknowledge the genocide occurring at the same time as this exhibition. We feel it is important to express alignment with the Palestinian liberation movement, and call attention to our responsibility, as artists, to demand an end to institutional silence and to help shape a world that protects freedom of art, expression, and life. We bear witness to the atrocity in Palestine and understand it as a critical moment for building global solidarity against the violence of settler colonialism. We call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US military funding to Israel.

01.14.2024

dear dropouts, 

where do i begin with performativity... when the word was first thrown at us as a critique of the action we had intended, i was confused and hurt, as i imagine we all were. what did it mean to be performative? superficial? fake? disingenuous? self-serving? what other meanings might this word carry? in what ways can performativity be useful in our movements? 

there was a time when i really identified with the word performative. i was about 22 and truly having the time of my life. lake michigan era, as i refer to it in my head, was a time of exploration for me; of exploring queerness, sexuality, social spheres, art, and friendship. more than anything, i was exploring my understanding of self. this was an era of house parties and first dates, both of which were opportunities to try new ways of being seen in the world. i really yearned to be seen. i guess not much has changed since then. 

thinking back to when i was growing up, i realize that i didn't stick to a single friend group throughout my school years. i made a new best friend every year, and they always came with a complete personality shift. i've always been sort of a social chameleon. i tend to observe and absorb the traits of the people i'm around. chalk it up to the gemini in me, if you believe in that kind of thing. i also think about code-switching. growing up between two cultures, i have a different personality for each, an accent for each, a way of speaking for each, a way of presenting for each. when i graduated from college in michigan, my parents flew in from bangalore for the ceremony. it was stressful to have my friends, family, professors, classmates all in the same space; i didn't know which of my various personalities i would use - which way i would perform myself. 

as a queer person, as an immigrant, as a femme-presenting person, i alter the way i present myself, whether i realize it or not, in order to be legible to others. is performativity, then, more about how we can relate to each other, and how we can be related to? can we think of performativity as a means for being understood? 

there's obviously so much more to get into with dissecting this critique of performativity, but let's start here. what do y'all make of this word, performativty?  

looking forward to hearing your thoughts, 

Hi all,

First and foremost, I want to start with the fact that there is so little space for Palestinian voices. Their voices are erased. They were absent even when we were planning the action to resist the UTA's censorship. I can't help but imagine what it would have been like if we had asked for their opinions or invited them to the event. At the time, I took the issues we encountered as infringements on artists' freedom of expression. Events from South Korea made me take seriously the spread of invisible fears that cause people to self-censor. But I hadn't given enough thought to something more important than the issue I was preoccupied with: the fact that there were people whose freedom of expression was not only violated, but who had lost the opportunity to express themselves. On that level, I am not free from the negative connotations of performativity that have been raised for us, the superficial and indirect implications. Without this in mind, any action or statement is bound to be superficial. 

I remember the unfamiliarity of the word 'performativity' when I first heard it. We were organizing a performance for the opening day and when I asked my cohorts if they wanted to participate, I received this rejection: "I'm going to a protest tomorrow for Palestine. ... I'm trying to practice liberation with more direct rather than symbolic or performative action." The word seemed to imply a negative connotation, disparaging the subject as not being authentic enough. But what separates what is performative from what is not? Is it the location, the street vs. the gallery? To me, much of the word was ambiguous, and the only thing that was clear was that it had a negative color. 

I'm interested in diversifying the monochromatic hue of the word. I appreciated their approach to performativity in their email, an approach that illuminates the different connotations of performativity. As she says, we are performing every day. If performativity is integral to how we relate to and understand each other, then we can't assume something essential beyond performativity, and then dismiss performativity as superficial based on that assumption.

I'm happy to talk about this topic. For me, performativity is not clearly anchored in any one meaning, and that's why I feel that informal back-and-forth conversations are better suited to this topic. I hope that these conversations will resonate with each other and spark performativity.

I also like that these conversations are back and forth between intimate people. The fast and loud chatter about artwork withdrawals on Instagram made me uneasy, and in that respect I was glad I didn't have a social network account so I couldn't see any of it. Social networks can be a platform for solidarity. But at the same time, misconceptions based on insufficient information can easily spread and become the whole story. As quickly as it spreads, it also fades just as quickly, and it's hard to predict or meaningfully shape its direction. 

We can also agree on the deep relationship between media and performativity. The anger and compassion we feel when we encounter images through media makes it too easy to feel like we're on the right side. It easily separates us from the events. But the conditions that make our daily lives work are inseparable from this violence. We partly enable the violence. This situation can be a reason to criticize performativity. We swipe through images and post them. It can be an easy way to prove to ourselves and others that we are righteous. But isn't performativity what's really lacking here? Isn't the problem that these are just symbolic acts, but that they're not symbolic enough? 

It's worth pondering what the UTA performed when it ousted Susan Sarandon. It was successfully symbolic, a symbol that shows a determination to not care how influential the artist is or how unjust the expulsion is. This determination is enough to make people censor themselves for the sake of their jobs, careers, economic stability, relationships, and health. Their performativity was present at every moment around everyone involved in the process leading up to the opening of the exhibition. 

As they noted, performativity is about how we relate to others, and by extension, it constitutes our relationship with life, moment by moment. It has a profound impact on community and reality. If UTAs have shaped the reality we face, isn't it also our performativity that allows us to resist them?

If so, shouldn't our behavior be more sufficiently performative rather than being criticized for being overly performative?"

The next step for me, then, is to recognize how performativity is manifesting in my relationships, in my friends and family, on social media, in the gallery, in each moment, and to practice it. Even if my performativity is small compared to that of an institution or a powerful individual, I don't allow it to make me feel helpless, and instead of building my own architecture of performativity, I allow myself to make small cracks in what has already been built.

Best

Jungsub

Hi All,

As Jungsub mentioned in the previous two emails, we perform every day, and I also understand that performativity is about the way we relate to and understand each other, and furthermore, that it constitutes the relationships we have with people at every moment. I agree. If we accept performativity as an essential component of relating to and understanding one another, I would like to revisit our first meeting through performativity.

 First, 12 of the 39 classmates participated, and two school officials attended. Many conversations took place, but school officials first explained the situation we were in and how geopolitical, historical, and long-lasting events in the Middle East are. And it raised questions about what critique means for commercial galleries and why we want to do it. They also mentioned the Canary Mission List and, as former educators, were worried about us being listed there. They said they could not stop us, but they suggested that we not take our first action (changing the work title to Free Palestine), and suggested the Reef space as an alternative, saying that we could do institutional critique here.

  After the meeting, many people who attended the meeting were confused and raised questions, including me, and some welcomed the suggestion of the Reef space. First, I would like to think about what the Reef space presented by school officials performed in the meeting. Reef is used as a residency space belonging to the school and is a space where graduates who have just graduated from the school go. Reef is located downtown, and there is little floating population there, and it is located on the 12th floor, making accessibility difficult. In other words, it is a place that only people related to CalArts go to.

The action began for us at UTA Artist Space where the censorship. Reef's suggestion was to make our actions soft, lose spreadability, and avoid the target. The mention of Canary mission list came across as a risk that we had to take by taking action. Some people had a lot of concerns about this. I think it sounds threatening to say who gets on which list. The mention of risk made us self-censor once again. Mentions of commercial galleries and geopolitical factors surrounding Gaza equally acted as self-censorship.

It seems that school officials wanted to get over this issue as quietly as possible. The performativity of the school officials at the meeting was enough to cause self-censorship, with only the words being different from the determination of UTA that Jungsub mentioned.

 Confusion also can be found in our two years of school life. I talked a lot about capitalism, colonialism, violence, etc. with many of my cohorts. We talked about what alternative methods can be found, how to respond and resist them, and how our actions can have vitality. This was a big part of my school life, including the parts I didn't mention. The performativity of the school I felt in school life and the performativity of the school during the meeting were contradictory. Two years and two weeks of time did not resonate with each other, causing confusion. Confusion has existed throughout the preparation period for the exhibition, and our cohorts have been divided.

  Again, If we accept performativity as an essential component of relating to and understanding one another, the school's performativity functioned closed. School officials represent the school, but they cannot mean the whole school. If a school is a community composed of students, professors, and school workers, etc, the performativity shown by the representatives was fatal to the community.

I wonder what your confusion was and your thoughts on performativity.

Best,

Gi

Dear dropouts, 

I want to dwell with Jungsub’s question regarding the merit of symbolic action, so first, I should talk about the environment in which our symbols operate and become impoverished and questionable. 

I’ve been thinking about our generation’s contradictory relationship with visibility: we are both addicted to being seen and deeply fearful of the consequences of being seen. The insecurity and hypervigilance around our self-image has had devastating effects on our ability to organize collectively. The activism I observe in my circles is ultra-perfectionistic and gate keeping, resulting in the replication of oppressive structures within the microcosms of our own communities. People are eager to police who is correct, who belongs, and whose identity is authentic. In such rigid, punitive environments people cannot help but fixate on being right instead of being willing; willing to be flexible, receptive, unserious, and to make mistakes. Embracing mistakes is integral to the process of learning new ways to move forward, yet it becomes increasingly difficult when we are so ready to alienate our peers.

In this way, a culture of narcissism replaces a culture of friendship and collectivity. When I post on social media and shout my political position into the void in order to demonstrate my outrage or seek recognition as a _______ kind of person, I have made no commitments other than to the upkeep of my own image. The experience of dropping out with you all has been both grounding and revelatory because we have managed to leave the echo chamber of recognition and self-advancement. I find a greater sense of purpose, direction, and ability to make sustained commitments within the community we have formed. We have agreed on a way that we want to exist and operate in the world, both towards each other and within the larger sphere of art. Because you (Gi, Jungsub, Ása) know me in this way, I show up for you in this way, and you support me and come to expect consistency from me in this way, and I, in turn, get pleasure and a sense of purpose from this alliance. Like this, we maintain a space for problem solving and testing ideas that safely holds our individual fears and imperfectness. The thrill and fear of performing for everyone-but-no-one-in-particular subsides in the effort of the collective project, turning our attention away from self image and towards the symbols we strive to animate and give meaning to.

Symbols become meaningful when they remain steady in the face of powerful institutions making swift and ruthless decisions; when they endure the pressure of threats, fear mongering, and subtler pragmatic arguments about building a career. They provide something we can alloy ourselves with when we feel afraid or hopeless, knowing that at least we are not alone. As Gi pointed out, the CalArts community was shattered when the school’s actions became inconsistent with its professed symbols of criticality and unfettered expression. Only when our symbols become so empty and meaningless do we begin to wonder what the purpose of art is amongst all this atrocity. 

Something I admire about Palestinian culture is their strong commitment to poetry. Not only as a literary form but also in the way they speak: vividly, fluently, and unselfconsciously poetic. Even amid so much violence and systemic silencing, their symbolically and aesthetically rich language demonstrates a formidable resilience against the genocidal attempts to reduce them to a state of bare survival. The gruesome images of death that are circulating have done nothing for the people in Gaza nor for American complicity, but the unwavering voice of the people affirms the enduring presence behind the phrase that pulses through the world like a collective heartbeat, from the river to the sea / Palestine will be free.  

It has been several weeks now since we have all been together, I am missing you and look forward to seeing you tomorrow. 

Laura

Hi Loves, 

Here are my two cents. 

What highlights everything for me, is the system of which we operate in. A system inherently silencing and controlling. And like Laura mentioned, narcissistic. In this system, hyperfocus is laid on individual characteristic details, and it’s always on the details, not the bigger picture. This is just another description for perfectionism. Perfectionism alone is an effective tool for distraction from bigger things, more uncomfortable things, more enormous things and we have been made to believe we can't handle the enormous. The enormous I refer to here is the whole settler colonial world we live in. What is needed are raw feelings and deeper listening, to open us up for the enormous. Allowing for personal mistakes and multi-layered, chaotic emotions is vital in times like these. And has probably always been vital to fight against all of this.

Although it is crucial for everybody to think about the consequences of their actions, I think this hyper/microscoping focus on who's doing it wrong and who's doing it right continues to serve capitalism/colonialism and is internally individualistic. It's a matter of balancing that criticality: we should always be moving forward and if our criticality freezes us, I see a problem.

I want to end this with the most important part, and that is what I do think is a crucial following step for us is to center Palestinian voices in the discussion. I, as a person not directly affected by this, can have all the opinions in the world and write a long text, but directly experiencing oppression like this can not be fully described by me.

All the best,

Ása

dear dropouts, again

i’m thinking about what you wrote, laura, about the insecurity around self-image and the obsession around controlling how we are seen. we witnessed this fear of saying the wrong thing, of doing solidarity wrong,  of being performative in the weeks leading up to the post-grad show. we saw how it kept some of our peers stuck intellectualizing, preventing them from acting with us at all. i’m glad we did solidarity wrong. it was important. and i’ve learnt a lot and my solidarity grows stronger every day. 

that being said, i do regret a lot about what we did not do. i write to you at a moment when students across the country and the world are protesting genocide and holding their powerful institutions accountable. these students are putting their degrees, housing, and bodies on the line to fight for the accountability of their institutions. they fight for the lives and freedom of Palestinians, and all of us. our statements of solidarity and artwork about genocide were performative at UTA. this isn’t to say they weren’t important, of course, there were and continue to be things that need to be said in these institutional spaces. but i do question how we could have further disrupted and challenged UTA. we have witnessed the lengths these institutions will go to ensure the erasure of Palestinians and Palestine, and anyone who raises their voice to speak in support of them. we have experienced the false sense of safety that these institutions manipulate us into and the failure of our school to support our efforts in speaking out against genocide. we were offered the chance to show at the reef, notably, but what would have been the point? we were to show there instead of making a fuss at UTA. why wasn't the reef offered to any of us after we dropped out of the post-grad show? if calarts was truly serious about us having the opportunity to have a show where we could speak freely about Palestine, wouldn’t we have been given that opportunity regardless of whether or not we dropped out? months later, we still wait for adequate statements against genocide from calarts administration. time and time again we've been shown that institutions like ours cannot be trusted. i was reminded of this most recently when i saw calarts' response to SJP’s divestment demands. the promise of a work group is not a promise of divestment. it is yet another institutional strategy deployed to avoid making any solid commitments or taking any real accountability for their complicity in violent colonial systems. we cannot take them at their word. i will never again underestimate what institutions are capable of, regardless of whether i respect the individual people that deliver its message. 

in the last 8 months of this genocide, there have been many moments of hopelessness and despair. i've noticed that, for me, these moments often coincide with the weeks where I don't spend time with the people that care about me and the world. i have learnt again something i already knew; we cannot win this fight without community. you all have become part of that community for me. it feels meaningful to reclaim the email thread as a medium for conversations about Palestine and solidarity after the ill-fated thread with the entire cohort back in january. i am glad to have experienced this with you, and grateful for your insights. thank you for emailing with me. talk soon. 

warmly, 

Email from curator, sent individually on January 18, 2024

We feel it is important to share this email as a direct example of language used by gallery and institutional representatives to pressure artists to cease causing disruption regarding the ongoing genocide in Palestine. It demonstrates the contradictions in how these spaces ostensibly support institutional critique and how such claims fail in the face of real critique and refusal. 

Excerpt from the "Infastructures" Exhibition Press Release published on UTA's website:

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dropoutforpalestine@gmail.com