Christine Kuan holds up the May 2022 issue of The Brooklyn Rail featuring a cover by Louis Osmosis.

Discover the views of today’s emerging, experimental Creative Capital artists and friends on abortion rights, environmental justice, innovation in music, artistic collaboration, travel, poetry, and more! Christine Kuan, President & Executive Director of Creative Capital, is this month’s Guest Critic for the section “Wildness In Art” in The Brooklyn Rail, the leading avant-garde cultural journal.

Still from Viva Ruiz’s Thank God for Abortion, the Vatican, 2019.

Freedom, Abortion, and Art
Viva Ruiz (Creative Capital Grantee 2022) and Aliza Shvarts (Creative Capital Director of Artist Initiatives) are both artists who have made work about abortion—a form of healthcare increasingly criminalized and rendered inaccessible in the US, and a social justice issue underrepresented in the art world. Read more

Jordan Weber, 4MX Greenhouse.

Malcolm X, Harvard, and Environmental Justice
Regenerative land sculptor and activist Jordan Weber (Creative Capital Grantee 2021) talks to Christine Kuan about how his project 4MX Greenhouse creates community around environmental and food justice. Read more

Vijay Iyer. Photo: Lena Adasheva/Courtesy of the artist.

Rewildings
Composer-pianist Vijay Iyer (Creative Capital Grantee 2002) interrogates the word “wild” and its implications in jazz compositions. Read more

Kristina Wong in Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord. Photo: Joan Marcus.

I WANT TO BE AN UGLY AMERICAN*
*Before you hit the cancel button, know there’s satire ahead
Solo performer, writer, and cultural commentator Kristina Wong (Creative Capital Grantee 2006) embraces the luxuries and shamelessness of “traditional tourism” in this satirical essay. Read more

Image by Kameelah Janan Rasheed.

Interspecies Efforts at Close Reading
Artist and learner Kameelah Janan Rasheed (Creative Capital Grantee 2022) shares how a close encounter with an insect in her printer created a new composition. Read more

Bayeté Ross Smith Got The Power Boomboxes: Harlem, by Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem NY. @BayeteKenan

Art as Public Service
Bayeté Ross Smith (Creative Capital Grantee 2021), an interdisciplinary artist, journalist, and education worker, imagines a new model whereby art becomes a public service. Read more

Carmelita & Ela artist headshot photo, 2021. Photo: Carlos David.

Wildness and Freedom in Artistic Collaboration
Sisters and longtime collaborators Carmelita Tropicana (Creative Capital Grantee 2016) and Ela Troyano reminisce about their wild days creating art in downtown New York City. Read more

Laurie Sheck.

Three
Three new poems by writer Laurie Sheck reflect on wildness. Read more

Nancy Rubins, Frito’s Reliable Moon (2019). Aluminum, brass, bronze, stainless steel armature and stainless steel wire cable. 87 x 114 x 137 in. (221 x 289.6 x 348 cm) © Nancy Rubins.

Cultivating Wildness: Supporting the Creativity of Artists
Interdisciplinary artist advocate Yayoi Shionoiri writes about the many supporting roles that assist in the creation of art. Read more

Find the May issue of The Brooklyn Rail in print across New York City, and online.