Dan Roche

Dan Roche is a contributor to the Brooklyn Rail.

Helmed by artistic director and chief curator Marta Kuzma, Faktura 10 is a multi-site, multimodal experiment across borders and time.

Installation view: Jannis Kounellis: Untitled, 1997/2025, the Old Academic Building of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2025. Courtesy Faktura 10.

The proximity to real imperial power makes the presence of Armin Linke’s Negotiation Tables (2025) and Margherita Moscardini’s The Stairway (2025) much more jarring, although neither work, at least in the wall text, makes explicit mention of genocide or land displacement underway in Palestine today. 

Margherita Moscardini, The Stairway [Die Treppe], 2025. © Margherita Moscardini; Gian Marco Casini, Livorno. Rear: Armin Linke, Negotiation Tables [Verhandlungstische], 2025. © Armin Linke. Installation view: 13th Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 2025. Photo: Eberle & Eisfeld.

A survey of Algernon Miller’s expansive oeuvre that stretches back to the 1970s through today is on view at Ethan Cohen Gallery—Afrofuturism and Beyond, in the downstairs gallery. That exhibition is accompanied by another show in the upstairs gallery curated by Miller and Ethan Cohen, Afrofuturism. 

Algernon Miller, Post Pythagoras Break Down, 2024. Oil and spray paint on reflective board, 60 x 48 inches. Courtesy the artist and Ethan Cohen Gallery.

The Phantom Museum is one of the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw’s (MSN Warszawa) debut pieces in their new building—a large round table on the ground floor of Poland’s new cultural flagship, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, topped with small, precious objects by Ukrainian artists.

Installation view featuring a reconstruction of Tatlin’s flying machine, Letatlin.  Courtesy: Ukrainian Museum. Photo: Kateryna Ostapenko.

Algernon Miller (b. 1945) is an artist from Harlem who is today considered one of several pioneers of Afrofuturism. Since the 1960s, Miller has created powerful public art installations all over New York, including Tree of Hope (1972). This interview with Miller explores his design for Frederick Douglass Plaza (2010), a memorial many call a “Gateway to Harlem,” on the northwest corner of Central Park.

Aerial View. Courtesy Algernon Miller.
On March 25, 1911, over five-hundred workers entered the Asch Building: a ten-story brick-and-mortar death trap on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in Greenwich Village. And the rest is history: 146 predominantly Jewish and Italian emigrés were killed that afternoon in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The wide majority of those murdered were women—123 to be exact.
Portrait of Lee Brozgol by E. Alpert, circa 1980s. Courtesy the author.

Close

Home