What is my work about?
My work is a process based query into the politics on both side of the lens. My themes and ideas stem from personal experience living as a Black person in the U.S.A. and from the community that I live in. My projects have often taken the form of video or performance, but the work is first conceptually driven. Most important in my practice is to be able to create work that prioritizes process over product and the freedom to fluidly move between mediums.
Artist Statement
My work is an exploration of my personal life, local community and the systems of oppression inherent. With the viewer, I seek to create a disruption of thought, an interruption of our comfortable pattern of comprehension. It is exactly this shift that I am most interested in. The intersection of themes such as race, class, religion and popular culture, are explored, deconstructed and twisted. Often the idea dictates the medium. Lately I my practice has focused on photography, objects, and video. As a starting point in my work, I often appropriate recognizable systems and tropes, which are then reshaped and disturbed, providing a conceptual foundation for framing the work. I use my politicized physical body, in live performance and video, as a major component in the work, as seen in the 16 mm film Forget me not, as my tether is clipped, where my hair is taken away by helium balloons. Site and context becomes a crucial factor—whether it is a specific country, or a local community—the work is contingent upon this environment. An example of this is my series of work created in Brazil as seen in the video Mim andar Avenida Canadá (I Walk Avenue Canada). Similarly, many images and actions are dislocated and recontextualized for greater critical impact in my photographic series Aureola, which depicts Black presents in film and television. Works occasionally result in semi-autobiographical themes, which offer better understanding of myself, but also seek to create a broader discourse. Many themes arise from my local community, in which ideas are culled from everyday experiences and activities. Ultimately, my intention is to foster wider discourse on issues, which are often overlooked and discarded.
CV
EDUCATION
2007
Master of Fine Arts Hunter College, CUNY, New York, NY Combine-Media
2006
Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany Photography / Video
2000
Bachelor of Fine Arts New World School of the Arts / University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Graphic Design
AWARDS
2013 Vermont Studio Center Diversity Initiative Fellowship by the Educational Foundation of America
2012 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, NY, New York
2011 Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, Brooklyn, New York
2006 Graf Travel Grant, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, NY
RESIDENCIES
2013
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
New York Foundation for the Arts Studio Residency Program, New York, NY
Winter Workspace, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
2011
Swing Space at Governors Island, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
2010
Jardim Canadá Art and Technology Center, Belo Horizonté, Brazil
HomeBase V, Home Base Project, Berlin, Germany
2009
Workspace, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2014
Video is Dead, The Bindery Projects, Saint Paul, MN
Zachary Fabri: Forget me not, Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL
2013
50.0833° A, 14.4167° V 40.6700° Z, 73.9400° F, Czech Center New York, Bohemian National Hall, New York, NY
2012
Marrow in the Morrows, Third Streaming, New York, NY
Arrival; Departure, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
2010
Not Cool: Out of Balance, Galerie Open, Berlin, Germany
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2014
Crossing Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (forthcoming)
Radical Presence: Black Performance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Strangloscope Experimental Video and Audio, 1A Edition: Performative, Florianópolis, Brazil
In Light of It, Museum of Contemporary Art Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Confluence: Shifting Perspectives of the Caribbean, Third Space Art Projects, Toronto, Canada
The Wayland Rudd Collection, First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe
Incen•diario II: Live Art & Video-Performance, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Brooklyn, NY
Between You & Me, Vanity Projects, New York, NY
Big Window Little Field, Heliopolis, Brooklyn, NY
flashBlack: The African Diasporic Impulse in American Photography, The Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, The University of Memphis Department of Art, Memphis, TN
Joanna Kotze: Trio B, Movement Research at Judson Church, New York, NY
The Wayland Rudd Collection, Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
2013
Shiny Shoes, Performa13, New York, NY
Radical Presence: Black Performance, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Crown Heights Film Festival, Five Miles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Hair, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey
tête-a-tête, curated by Mickalene Thomas, QF Gallery, East Hampton, NY
The People’s Laundromat Theater, The Laundromat Project, Brooklyn, NY
I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours, ABC No Rio, New York, NY
Lumen International Video & Performance Festival, Joseph H. Lyons Pool, Staten Island, NY
The Cipher Crit Salon, The IMC Lab + Gallery, New York, NY
And I Feel Fine, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA
2012
Radical Presence: Black Performance, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
Voices and Visions: Re-Imagining America, Imagining America National Conference, New York University, New York, NY
Fore, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Bigger Than Shadows, Dodge Gallery, New York, NY Chosen, Art Gate Gallery, New York, NY
Art In Odd Places, New York, NY
Artist Respond: Mark di Suvero, River to River Festival, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Governors Island, New York, NY
Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Performance: Not Otherwise Specified, Space on White, New York, NY
Pardon Our Analysis: Gathering for Gil Scott-Heron, Symphony Space, New York, NY
Travel, Hotel villa Kastania, Berlin, Germany 2011
Curate NYC, Brooklyn, New York Others
In Me – Me In Others, La Biennale de Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico
A Movement in Time, Harlem Biennale/Taller Boricua, New York, NY
Anomalistic Urge, Vaudeville Park, Brooklyn, NY
Greener on the Other Side, Berlin/Chongqing Video Art Festival, Organhaus, Chongqing, China 2010
Planet of Slums, Third Streaming, New York, NY
The Big Screen Project, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
Planet of Slums, Mason Gross Galleries, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ
Show VI, MMX Open Art Venue, Berlin, Germany
HomeBase V, HomeBase Project Berlin, Germany
Entre Pontos, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Civil Disobedience, White Box, New York, NY
PULSE Play >, Pulse New York, New York, NY
Hair Tactics, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks, The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Ves• sel, Brennan Gallery, Jersey City, NJ Into Halloween, Galerie Open, Berlin, Germany
2009
Rockstone and Bootheel, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
Eternal Telethon X, Dome Colony X in the San Gabriels, X-Initiative, New York, NY
101: Performances, Brooklyn, NY
2008
It’s Not Easy, SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) – Exit Art, New York, NY
Freeze Frame, Rush Arts Gallery, Miami, FL
Black Gold, Flawless Sabrina’s Salon, New York, NY
Metro Poles: Art in Action, Bronx River Art Center, Bronx, NY
Subpoena, Talman + Monroe Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2007
The Red Carpet Treatment, Rush Arts Gallery, Miami, FL
NABLAB Volume 1: Video, NAB Gallery, Chicago, IL
Neo Neo Dada, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY
Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition, Times Square Gallery, New York, NY
Dark Matter, Galerie Open, Berlin, Germany
2006
Mastered: A Showcase of Recent MFA Video Art, The Pioneer Theater, New York, NY
Sequences: Real Time Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland
Nordic Biennale, Momentum 2006, Moss, Norway
Domestic Affairs, Projekt 0047, Berlin, Germany
2005
Pichanga, Brooklyn, New York
MA’s Select MFA’s, Times Square Gallery, New York, NY
Free Space, Daniel Reich Gallery Temporary Space at the Hotel Chelsea, New York, NY
2004
Yolk of the Hoke, Hunter College MFA Building, New York, NY
ARTIST TALKS / PANELS
2013
Artist Panel, Pope.L and Zachary Fabri, The Drawing Center Artist Talk, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Artist talk, Today and Tomorrow, Riverdale Country School, Bronx, NY
Artist talk, And I Feel Fine, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Athens, GA
2012
Artist talk/panel, Artists in Conversation, with Elia Alba and Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Artist talk, Zachary Fabri: Marrow in the Morrows, In conversation with Adrienne Edwards, Third Streaming, New York, NY
Panel, Unknown Boricuas Streaming: A Nuyorican State of Mind, Hunter College School of Social Work, New York, NY
2011
Artist talk with Pefro Motta and Francisca Caporali, Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, NY 2010 Artist talk, Guignard University of Art of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2013
“Harlem: Artists must shape the future”. Art Collector Magazine. Summer 2013. No13. p.120.
LLoyd Wise. “Fore”. Artforum. May. p. 332
Holland Cotter. “Museum and Gallery Listings”. The New York Times. March 7. p. C19
Rusty Wallace. “And I Feel Fine’ at ATHICA Ushers In Renewed Energy”, Burnaway. March 7. Online.
“Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Art Makers Under 40 You Should Know”. The Hufington Post. February 26. Online.
Brooke Kamin Rapaport. “Hidden Nature”. The International Sculpture Center. February 20. Online.
Jessica Smith. “Water Music” at the GMOA and ‘And I Feel Fine’ at ATHICA”. Flagpole. February 20. Online.
Dominic Hackley. “Fore: Made in 2012”. Studio. The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine. Fall/Winter. p.49-50.
Sarah Anne Perry. “And I Feel Fine’ rebels against end of world”. The Red and Black. January 28. Online.
2012
Nijah Cunningham. “dis-figure-ment (v.)”. Fore. The Studio Musuem in Harlem. Exhibition catalogue.
Melissa Smith. “The Studio Museum in Harlem’s ‘Fore’ takes a look at emerging black artists.” Capital New York. November 15. Online.
Wayne Hodge. “Future Anterior: An index to contemporary arts imminent history”. Art Papers. November. p. 58.
Elizabeth Axtman. “Zachary Fabri”. Can’t Break This Bronco. October 12. Online.
Whitney Kimball. “This Week’s Must-See Art Events and Openings”. The L Magazine. October. Online.
Holly Bynoe. “Marrow in the Morrows the new solo exhibition by Zachary Fabri”. ARC Magazine. September 13. Online.
“Fore”. Studio. The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine. Summer/Fall. p.23.
“Zachary Fabri “Marrow in the Morrows”. Musée. September 13. Online.
Curtis Carman. “A Conversation With Zachary Fabri”. Art in Odd Places. August 4. Online.
2011
Liz McGrath. Howard, Jack. “10 of the best galleries in Berlin”. The Guardian. August 17. Online.
Veken Gueyikian. “This Weekend’s Maximum Perception Performance Festival”. Hyperallergic. January 13. Online. 2010
Katy Diamond Hamer. “One Night/Two Openings”. eyes-towards-the-dove. December 19. Online.
Kristina Newman-Scott, Yona Backer. Rockstone & Bootheel. Real Art Ways. Exhibition catalogue.
Barbara Behrendt. “Das Unbehagen unter der Coolness”. Taz. November 26. p. 28
Gustavo Mendicino. “Vibra BH”. Hoje em Dia. September 2.
Douglas Resende. “JA.CA recebe artistas estrangeiros.” O Tempo. July 6. “Jardim Canadá: garantia de cultura e lazer para os visitantes.” Jornal Belvedere Cultura. July 25.
2009
Hrag Vartanian. “Reflecting on ‘Maximum Perception’”. Hyperallergic. December 13. Online.
Hrag Vartanian. “Liveblogging “Maximum Perception” at English Kills”. Hyperallergic. December 12. Online.
2007
Jason Foumberg. “Eye Exam: Gazing, Glancing, Watching”. Newcity. November 29. Online.
Nuit Banaim. “Neo, Neo-Dada”. Time Out New York. October 25.
R.C Baker. “Ryan McGinness, God’s Phallus, and Chris Ofili: Recommendations by R.C. Baker”. The Village Voice. October 16.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
TEACHING
2013-2011 Adjunct Lecturer, The City College of New York, CUNY Part-time Faculty, Art Institute of New York City
2012, 16 mm film transferred to video, 14:50 min.)
Mim andar Avenida Canadá (I Walk Avenue Canada), 2010, Single channel video, 4:15 min.
The Big Payback, 2009, Single channel video, 1:58 min