After I arrived in Chelsea final night time, November 5, it was 5:30pm — hours earlier than the polls in New York Metropolis and throughout the US had closed, earlier than the votes had been counted and one other Donald Trump presidential victory had been known as. On what was in any other case a vacant avenue stood a free conglomeration of individuals in mild jackets smoking cigarettes, consuming free Modelos, and consuming hen and lamb paella-style dishes out of cardboard bowls that have been being served from a makeshift kitchen out of Gladstone Gallery on West twenty first Avenue.
Contained in the gallery, throughout the blue-curtained partitions of Carrie Mae Weems’s cyclorama set up The Form of Issues (2021), poet Terrance Hayes learn his 2019 poem “American Sonnet for the New Year” and some works from his 2018 assortment impressed by Trump’s first presidential time period, American Sonnets for My Previous and Future Murderer.
“Things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly/ things got ugly embarrassingly quickly/ actually things got ugly unbelievably quickly,” Hayes spoke right into a microphone set in entrance of a crowd seated in folding chairs and splayed throughout the ground.
Poet Eileen Myles learn their poem “Them (Palestinians)” through Zoom.
He was certainly one of dozens of readers and performers featured within the gallery’s Bear in mind to Dream: Election Day Studying, a free public occasion consisting of dwell readings and music performances from 3pm to midnight on the night time that voters throughout the nation determined the subsequent president. It was organized by Nigerian-American poet Treasured Okoyomon, poet Vincent Katz, and multidisciplinary artist Brian Degraw, in collaboration with Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and the queer meals venture Spiral Concept Check Kitchen.
Whereas the nation would finally swing purple, opting to reelect a convicted felon and serial sexual assaulter to the White Home, for about 9 hours, Weems’s cylindrical set up functioned as a haven of kinds, void of polling cubicles, poll packing containers, and binary politics.
In a cellphone name, poet and sound artist LaTasha Nevada Diggs, who learn three poems from her second assortment Village (2023), added how “pleasantly surprised at how easy and comfortable” the gathering felt, and the way she envisions such arts areas extending into extra sustainable types of mutual help like soup kitchens and meals pantries.
“We have to learn how to live. We have to learn how to be fearless,” Diggs mentioned. “We have to learn to be artists that are not stressed out by the modes of production.”
A crowd gathered inside Carrie Mae Weems’s cyclorama set up The Form of Issues at Gladstone Gallery’s West twenty first Avenue location in Chelsea.
In entrance of black and white multi-channel projections of racial injustices and colourful clips of a laughing Weems on a botanical swing, Brooklyn-based poet and artist Funto Omojola learn verses from their forthcoming poetry assortment If I Collect Right here and Shout, which attracts from Yoruba cultural practices and grapples with Western medical violence towards Black populations. From a Zoom display, poet and humanities journalist Eileen Myles learn “Them (Palestinian)” — a piece contending with the US-backed Israeli violence in Gaza and the Occupied West Financial institution which human rights officers have known as a genocide. Myles later informed me it’s a poem they “can’t stop reading because it states the exact feeling” they’ve had all 12 months as they’ve witnessed the escalating Israeli navy assaults from their cellphone. Poet and organizer Erica Hunt learn chosen poems whereas avant-garde jazz musician Marty Erlich performed saxophone.
LaTasha Nevada Diggs learn from her ebook, Village (2023), which grapples with grief, ageing, and the twin expertise of being an artist and caretaker.
“I love being in a space with people who are activated to appreciate art, especially at a time when a lot of people have a lot of tension in our minds and bodies about where this country is going,” mentioned one attendee, novelist Farai Chideya. Her pal April Chapman, who accompanied her that night along with her partner Felipe, additional described it as a sort of “catharsis” throughout a night of uncertainty.
“It’s so important for people to gather and convene, especially when there are important events affecting our various communities,” Chapman added.
Whereas Election Day could also be over, Weems’s exhibition stays on view by November 9, concluding with one other free night occasion that may middle on a dialogue between video artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa and author and scholar Saidiya Hartman.
Poet Terrance Hayes learn items from his 2018 assortment impressed by Trump’s first time period, American Sonnets for My Previous and Future Murderer.
Guests ate freshly-served paella dishes outdoors the gallery at neighborhood tables and on the sidewalk. 
Poet and organizer Erica Hunt learn chosen poems whereas avant-garde jazz musician Marty Erlich performed saxophone.
The Election Day readings occasion at Gladstone Gallery lasted from 3pm till midnight.
