First exhibited as part of LMCC’s World Views residency program in 1980 at the World Trade Center, Love Tapes by Wendy Clarke was on view in Café through November 10, 2024. Love Tapes was a participatory video art project that captured the ideas, beliefs, and stories about love from everyday people. For almost five decades, Clarke documented these intimate and vulnerable stories, amassing a collection of over 2,500 tapes.
The 2024 Arts Center Curatorial Fellow’s culminating exhibitions, Hope is a discipline, curated by 2024 Curatorial Fellow Meghana Karnik, and Tropical Frequencies, curated by Curatorial Fellow Kiara Cristina Ventura, Founder of Processa, were on view at The Art Center’s Upper Gallery until September 29, 2024.
A recent collaborative exhibition, Cansu Yıldıran: Haunt the Present, presented by Protocinema, delved into themes of memory and identity. SAGA’s 89th Annual Members Exhibition, presented by The Society of American Graphic Artists, showcased a diverse range of printmaking techniques, celebrating the vitality of graphic arts.
Exhibitions at The Arts Center explore a range of ideas and media with an emphasis on site-specific projects that took the Art Center's unique location into consideration.
2024 Public Season
Hope is a discipline
Upper Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island
Curated by Meghana Karnik, LMCC’s Curatorial Fellow 2024, and co-curated with Eugene Hannah Park (ISCP Curator-in-Residence, New York/Seoul), Marina Christodoulidou (de Appel Curatorial Fellow, Amsterdam/Limassol), and Billy Fowo (Curator, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin/Yaoundé).
Hope is a discipline inhabits the words of Mariame Kaba, who proposes that hope is neither just a feeling, nor a horizon but something we do together, using the resources we already have. This concept of hope inspired the curatorial collective, who envisioned the exhibition to be a traveling project that generates a translocal network of thought partners, who practice hope as communal labor.
Artists Featured: Adama Delphine Fawundu, Kyuri Jeon, Suneil Sanzgiri, Bread and Puppet Theater, Maggie Wong
Tropical Frequencies
Upper Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island
Curated by Kiara Cristina Ventura, Founder of Processa
Tropical Frequencies is an exhibition featuring paintings, sculptures, and installations by Caribbean artists who channel and engage with alternate realms in their practices. These realms are heavily influenced by Caribbean culture, the tropics, passed-down stories, and the artists’ African and Indigenous roots. The artists tap into imagined, spiritual, mythical, ancestral, and ultimately, infinite realms. The art pieces act as a medium to connect with the Metaphysical.
Artists Featured: Cheyenne Julien, Emily Manwaring, Bony Ramirez, mosie romney, Quiara Torres, Tiempo De Zafra
Love Tapes by Wendy Clarke
Cafe at The Arts Center at Governors Island
First exhibited as a part of LMCC’s World Views residency program in 1980 at the World Trade Center, Love Tapes by Wendy Clarke is one of the earliest and actively ongoing projects that LMCC has supported.
Love Tapes is a participatory video art project that has captured the ideas, beliefs, and stories about love from everyday people. For almost five decades, Clarke has documented these intimate and vulnerable stories amassing a collection of over 2500 tapes. Each tape is a reminder of our shared humanity and that love unites us all.
Cansu Yıldıran: Haunt the Present
Presented by Protocinema
Lower Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island
Protocinema, in partnership with LMCC, presents Cansu Yıldıran’s New York premiere, Haunt the Present, a photographic-sculptural installation, on view at The Arts Center at Governors Island October 5 – November 10, 2024.
Yıldıran draws on their own experience to investigate dispossession and migration. Their work captures a tender love for their homeland and the pain of being forced to leave due to racial and economic pressures.
SAGA’s 89th Annual Members Exhibition
Presented by Society of American Graphic Artists
Upper Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island
The 89th Annual Members Exhibition will run from October 22 – November 3, 2024.
The Society of American Graphic Artists, founded in 1915, is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting contemporary printmakers. Its mission is to foster an appreciation for printmaking, provide educational opportunities, and offer a collaborative, inclusive platform for print artists nationwide.
The 89th Annual Members Exhibition will run from October 22 to November 3, 2024. Starting October 26, it will be open to the public on Thursdays to Sundays from 9 am to 6 pm, and available by appointment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This juried exhibition will showcase 159 hand-pulled prints by SAGA artists from across the country, representing a wide variety of techniques and subjects. The show will be juried by Jenn Bratovich, Director of Exhibitions and Programs at Print Center New York.
The Arts Center is conveniently located on Governors Island and accessible by a short eight-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan to Governors Island, and a one-minute walk from Soissons Landing ferry pier.
Getting to Governors Island
From Manhattan
The Arts Center is accessible by ferries to Governors Island departing to and from Lower Manhattan. Ferries operated by the Trust for Governors Island run daily from the Battery Maritime Building, located at 10 South Street in Lower Manhattan. Our building is located to the right of Soissons Landing.
From Brooklyn
NYC Ferry serves Governors Island daily on the South Brooklyn route, with stops at Sunset Park, Red Hook, Yankee Pier on Governors Island, Atlantic Ave/Brooklyn Bridge Park-Pier 6, Wall Street/Pier 11, DUMBO/Fulton Ferry and Corlears Hook on the Lower East Side.
Tickets must be purchased in advance of boarding and are $2.75 each way or by free transfer from any other NYC Ferry route, plus $1.00 for a bike. Click here for the South Brooklyn Route Schedule.
For complete ferry schedules and directions to ferry terminals, visit the Governors Island website. Ferry tickets must be reserved in advance. All ferries are wheelchair-accessible.