Night School: A project by Anton Vidokle

Night School is an artist commission in the form of a temporary school. The yearlong program uses the Museum as a site to engage the public. Seminars, workshops, screenings, and lectures explore thematic components addressed from the perspective of ongoing research and production, and constitute the core structure of the School. Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program, including Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Liam Gillick, Walid Raad and Jalal Toufic, Okwui Enwezor, Hu Fang and Zhang Wei, Paul Chan, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Maria Lind, and Raqs Media Collective. Lectures, screenings, and conversations take place in the New Museum's theater and fifth-floor Museum as Hub space, as well as informal locations throughout the neighborhood.

Night School seminars are Thursday through Sunday and start on the last Thursday of each month, beginning in January of 2008. Most events are open to the public. Twenty-five applicants were selected to form a core group that participates in smaller, private conversations, developing a rapport with each other and the seminar leaders over the year.

The program is organized by artist Anton Vidokle and is the second in a series of art projects he has realized as temporary schools, the first of which was Unitednationsplaza in Berlin (2006-07). Vidokle's commission is part of the Museum as Hub initiative, a new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration established by the New Museum to enhance our understanding of contemporary art around the world.

All events are free with Museum admission. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum one week before the seminar's start; a limited number of tickets will be available one hour before each event's start. Tickets are limited, distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis, and must be collected prior to the event's start time. Unclaimed tickets will be released promptly at the event's start time. Please check individual events below for tickets and more information.

TEXTS

Anton Vidokle, "Night School Opening Remarks," January 2008

Liam Gillick, "The Winter School," 2006

Anton Vidokle and Tirdad Zolghadr eds., "I Can't Work Like This," Printed Project Issue 6, February 2007

Banner image:
Benji Okuda instructing a life drawing class, an adult night school group at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming.
Courtesy of the National Archives, Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1941-1947