A Gentle Man Becky Beasley June 14 – August 19. 2017
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man die at the beginning of the story and, later, whilst CODA learning” led by students (1945). In 1976, City College walking in the rain with his daughter’s boyfriend. ended its 129-year tradition of free tuition. a gentle man Using only existing light, the exhibition moves from Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 — March 18, 1986) was day-lit front rooms on Washington Square to unlit rear a Brooklyn-born American and short-story writer. Along PEN American Center (PEN), founded in 1922 and based becky beasley spaces, illuminated here by large video projections. with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the in New York City at 588 Broadway, works to advance lit- Kissing Chairs, designed as a multi-part sculpture by the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th cen- erature, defend free expression, and foster international artist, is presented in each of the rooms of the exhibition tury. He studied at Erasmus Hall High School, Flatbush literary fellowship. In addition to defending persecuted june 14 – for visitors to sit on. (1928—1932), City College (BA, 1936) and Columbia (MA, writers, PEN America sponsors public literary programs pm tuesday to saturday saturday to tuesday pm Cartographer Molly Roy’s beautiful map, Oscillat- 1942). He was president of PEN American Center from and forums on current issues, sends prominent authors 6 ing City — which charts population density in Manhattan 1979 to 1981. Although he granted occasional interviews, to inner-city schools to encourage reading and writing, — august 19. 2017 by day and by night — from Nonstop Metropolis: A New Malamud led an intensely private life. In an interview administers literary prizes, offers writing workshops York City Atlas (UC Press) by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua with Joseph Wershba in 1958, Malamud commented to hundreds of inmates across the country, promotes Jelly-Schapiro will be exhibited in the first gallery as a that he had not (as yet) made a living from writing, only international literature that might otherwise go unread in prelude. from his teaching, and that “the books have paid for car the United States, and offers grants and loans to writ- repairs, an encyclopedia set for the children, maybe a ers facing financial or medical emergencies. PEN is also 1– Conversations with Malamud, Edited by Lawrence Lasher, p12 80wse gallery presents A Gentle Man, an exhibition by washing machine.” (Not Horror but Sadness, Joseph a member of the International Freedom of Expression Becky Beasley inspired by a short story by Bernard Mal- Wershba (1958) in Conversations with Malamud, Ed. Exchange (IFEX), a global network of nongovernmental amud. The great problem of the short story, as Bernard Becky Beasley lives and works in St. Leonards-on-Sea Lawrence Lasher, University Press of Mississippi, 1991, organizations that monitors free-expression violations Malamud puts it, is “to say everything that must be said in the United Kingdom. She has had solo exhibitions at p7.) worldwide and defends journalists, writers, human- and to say it quickly, fleetingly, as though two people Towner Gallery (2017), Tate Britain (2012), Spike Island rights activists, and internet users who are persecuted had met for a moment in a restaurant, or a railroad sta- (2012), Leeds City Gallery (2013), Stanley Picker Gallery Erasmus Hall High School located in the Flatbush neigh- for exercising their right to freedom of expression. tion, and one had time only to tell the other they are both (2011), and produced solo live projects at Serpentine borhood of Brooklyn, was one of the oldest (founded human, and, here, this story proves it.”1 Pavilion (2010) and South London Gallery (2014). She 1786), largest (5,000 students) and most Jewish public Broadway is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broad- In a time where ceaseless brevity of encounter and was shortlisted for the Max Mara Prize in 2009 and high schools in America. It has many famous alumni. way runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi communication is a way of life, the short story feels more the Contemporary Art Society Annual Museum Award Founded as Erasmus Hall Academy, the private institu- (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 vital than ever and the short form is at the heart of this in 2014. Her work has been included in major group tion of higher learning was named after scholar Desid- km) through the Bronx, exiting north from the city to run exhibition. A Gentle Man is a video installation with a exhibitions including Flatland: Narrative Abstractions, erius Erasmus, a Dutch Renaissance humanist. During an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the municipalities of linoleum floor and decor that transforms the length of France and Luxembourg (2016—1 7); A Change of Heart, the 20th century, Brooklyn experienced a rapid growth in Yonkers, Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, the gallery’s five rooms into a journey, from day to night. Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Over You, population, causing the originally small school to enlarge. and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow This newly commissioned four-part video portrait of You: 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts, Slovenia (2015); Think The City of New York designated the school as a land- in Westchester County. It is the oldest north-south main an imaginary man from birth to the present (1940—2017) Twice, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2012); The Imagi- mark in 1966, describing the school as one of the oldest thoroughfare in New York City, dating to the first New explores gentleness through its four discreet chapters: nary Museum, Kunstverein Munich, Germany (2012); secondary schools in the country. Due to poor academic Amsterdam settlement, although most of it did not bear The First Story; Me for You; In the Rain/MAMA; A Man La Carte D’Après Nature, curated by Thomas Demand, scores, the city closed the school in 1994, turning the its current name until the late 19th century. The name Walking Up Broadway. The work presents four short films NMNM, Monaco (2010). She graduated with an MFA building into Erasmus Hall Educational Campus and Broadway is the English language literal translation of of brief encounters, offering them as minor transgres- from the Royal College of Art in 2002. She is represented using it as the location for five separate small schools. the Dutch name, Brede weg. Broadway is known widely sions (of engagement, responsibility, cliché, profound by Laura Bartlett Gallery, London and Francesca Minini, (See also ‘The Lost World of Jewish Flatbush’ by Joel as the heart of the American theater industry. love), and proposes their transformative potential as Milan. A Gentle Man is Beasley’s first institutional exhibi- Dinerstein in Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, choices. Each chapter’s location, along a floor design tion in the United States. Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, University of Linoleum was invented in 1855 by Englishman Freder- that traces Broadway through Manhattan, represents, California Press, 2016, p74-75.) ick Walton. Walton coined the name linoleum from the symbolically, a different time of day — morning, af- 80wse Gallery in Washington Square is part of the NYU’s Latin words linum, which means flax, and oleum, which ternoon, evening and night — and, emotionally, in an Steinhardt School. The art gallery is a space for dialogue, The City College of the City University of New York (more means oil. Walton lost a lawsuit in defense of the use of unspecified interior or exterior. In the exterior scenes it is experimental and cross-disciplinary projects by noted commonly referred to as City College, CCNY, or City) the name linoleum, which he had not trademarked, with always raining. The floor design sparely maps the space artists and curators, often produced in collaboration is a public senior college of the City University of New the court opining that even if the name had been regis- of Bernard Malamud’s early writing, and the short story, with the faculty and students from the department of York (CUNY) in New York City. Located on a hill overlook- tered as a trademark, it was by now so widely used that ‘Spring Rain’ (1942), which is set around Morningside arts and arts professions. ing Harlem in Manhattan, City College is affectionately it had become generic, only 14 years after its invention. It Heights. Malamud’s free education — from Flatbush to known as the “Harvard of the proletariat” and has is considered to be the first product name to become a Harlem — is also mapped. British actor Russell Tovey graduated more Nobel Prize winners than any other generic term. In 1873 the American Linoleum Manufac- (Looking, HBO; Quantico, ABC; Angels in America, Royal public university in the United States. Founded in 1847, turing Company opened the first U.S. linoleum factory National Theatre, London) narrates. City College was the first free public institution of higher in a town on Staten Island. The town was named Lino- ‘Spring Rain’ — written by the Brooklyn-born education in the United States. It is the oldest of CUNY’s leumville. After the factory closed in 1928, the name was Malamud when he was 28 — was not published until 24 institutions of higher learning, and is considered its unanimously changed to Travis in 1930. 1989, three years after his death, and has received little flagship college. Other primacies at City College that Linoleum, also called lino, is made by oxidizing attention. Malamud’s biographer Philip Davis has con- helped shape the culture of American higher education linseed oil to form a thick mixture called linoleum ce- firmed this. Beasley has been fascinated by the story for include the first student government in the nation( Aca- ment.