­Current and Forthcoming­­

(Click here for directions to Cabinet­’s event s­paces in Brooklyn and Berlin. All events organized by Cabinet unless otherwise noted.)

­Select Past Events

Online Discussion / “War After War,” with Simon Leung and Barry Schwabsky
Saturday, 5 December 2020, 12:30–2 pm Eastern Standard Time, 6:30–8 pm Central European Time
Since 1992, artist Simon Leung has made a number of works about, or in collaboration with, Warren Niesłuchowski. Like many of these works, the film War After War from 2011 attends to the rhythms, conditions, and trajectories of Niesłuchowski’s itinerant life. In the same year, writer and art critic Barry Schwabsky’s “The Perpetual Guest”—a portrait of Niesłuchowski framed around questions of radical hospitality—appeared in The Nation. This event will use several short clips from Leung’s film as a point of departure for a discussion of what it means to live a life of “homelessness” by birth and by choice in the postwar era. Q&A to follow for those attending on Zoom.

Cold Calling / “Hello, I am a friend of …,” with Sina Najafi
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Saturday, 14 November 2020, 12–6 pm Central European Time

Since at least 2005, Niesłuchowski’s email signature typically included a list of all the cities he had recently visited, as well as phone numbers—usually his hosts’—for each location. This signature formed a timeline of his life, a record of his arrivals and departures, which were often undertaken for no reason other than to accompany a friend for some project, attend an exhibition opening, or simply because a host apartment had become available. On the final day of the exhibition, Sina Najafi will call the phone numbers of all these unnamed hosts in an attempt to recover fragments of Niesłuchowski’s vast network of friends and acquaintances.

Online Discussion / “The Philosophical Trope of ‘Homelessness’ and the Question of Ethics,” with Cecilia Sjöholm and Sven-Olov Wallenstein
Tuesday, 3 November 2020, 12:30–1:30 pm Eastern Standard Time / 6:30–7:30 pm Central European Time

In one of his fragments, Novalis wrote, “Philosophy is really homesickness, an urge to be at home everywhere.” Some 150 years later, Theodor Adorno would instead propose that “ethics today means not being at home in one’s house.” Examining a number of philosophers’ perspectives on the fundamental estrangement of the modern subject, Sjöholm and Wallenstein will discuss the post-Enlightenment trajectory of an idea that continues to be of crucial importance for how Western societies today imagine citizenship and belonging. Q&A to follow for those attending on Zoom.

Online Book Launch and Discussion / “The Idols of ISIS,” with Aaron Tugendhaft, Michael Rakowitz, Rijin Sahakian, and Wendy M. K. Shaw
Sunday, 1 November 2020, 12–2 pm Eastern Standard Time / 6–8 pm Central European Time
Please join us for a book launch and discussion of Aaron Tugendhaft’s new book The Idols of ISIS (University of Chicago Press). Tugendhaft’s book addresses fundamental questions about the role of images in politics. Drawing connections across millennia, from ancient Assyrian art through medieval Islamic philosophy to first-person shooter video games, The Idols of ISIS provides a richly layered reflection on the politics of iconoclasm. With relevance well beyond the particularity of the Islamic State’s caliphate, The Idols of ISIS reveals why false images are necessary for establishing pluralistic politics and thereby forces us to reconsider the deep-seated impulse to rid the world of idols. This event is co-presented with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

Discussion and Book Launch / “Red Love: A Reader on Alexandra Kollontai,” with Bini Adamczak, Maria Lind, Michele Masucci, Aaron Schuster, Sophia Tabatadze, Oxana Timofeeva, Mohammad Salemy, and Joanna Warsza
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Thursday, 12 March 2020, 7 pm (POSTPONED)

On the occasion of the release of Red Love: A Reader on Alexandra Kollontai (Sternberg Press), please join us for an evening dedicated to exploring the legacy of the Soviet writer and revolutionary. Appointed the People’s Commissar of Social Welfare after the October Revolution, Kollontai worked to introduce a number introduction of crucial reforms for women’s liberation, including abortion rights, secularized marriage, and paid maternity leave. For her, “comradely love” was a fully political force.

Panel and Practicum / “The Virtual Sentence,” with Brian Dillon, Jeff Dolven, Jan Mieszkowski, Sally O’Reilly, and Elena Vogman
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Friday, 17 January 2020, 6 pm

Please join us for a panel and a practicum which will test the assumption that the choices we make at the level of sentence construction are a model, and a school, for the capacity to think flexibly and counterfactually; that syntax defines both limits and possibilities for the ethical and political imagination. The evening’s speakers will present a suite of exercises toward a rescue of the form from dogmas of efficiency and completeness, five takes on the philosophy of the sentence by way of five practical experiments.

Book Launch / “Dust & Data: Traces of the Bauhaus across 100 Years,” with Ines Weizman
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Wednesday, 4 December 2019, 7 pm

Please join us for a book launch and presentation of Ines Weizman’s new anthology Dust & Data: Traces of the Bauhaus across 100 Years (Spector Books).Weizman’s edited volume addresses the hundred-year history of the Bauhaus by framing it using two material concepts: dust and data. While “dust” foregrounds new approaches to the material analysis of objects and ruins, “data” designates new approaches to managing the enormous amount of information accumulated about the subject over the past century. The book gathers a group of leading international scholars, architects, theorists, artists, and novelists to unearth new details about the history of the school and to reveal the perspectives of marginalized, dislocated, silenced, and dispersed voices that have previously gone unheard. These include the voices of queer architects, of the (too) few women practitioners, and of those in the global South who studied at the Bauhaus or were influenced by its ideas. The book also examines how the school was perceived beyond the Iron Curtain of the Cold War.

Reading Group / “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” with Freya Field-Donovan, Alexandra Symons Sutcliffe, Carolina Ongaro, and Kat Black
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Thursday, 11 July 2019, 7–9 pm

Cabinet is hosting a collective reading and discussion group focused on James Agee and Walker Evans’s 1941 photo book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Evans’s photographs of 1930s tenant farmers in Hale County, Alabama, are some of the most iconic American portraits of the twentieth century, and have molded both the practice of photojournalism and the discourse on the representation of poverty. The photographs, however, were never intended as stand-alone representations; they were part of a book project comprising thirty-one uncaptioned images by Evans and some five hundred pages of prose by Agee. This evening of reading and looking takes the book as its object of inquiry and poses questions about access and understanding, performativity within graphic representation, and how past contexts can be brought to bear on our present political climate.

Conversation / “Taking Refuge: Weaving Memory and History in Comics,” with Zeina Abirached, Rasha Chatta, and Aaron Tugendhaft
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Thursday, 7 March 2019, 7 pm

Please join us for a conversation between Lebanese comics artist and illustrator Zeina Abirached and scholar Rasha Chatta. Weaving family stories and childhood memories from Beirut with archival material, Abirached has achieved a unique visual aesthetic, one that experiments both with various modes of documentation in graphic form and with different ways to represent spaces of conflict and the experiences of loss. The conversation will center on the sources of inspiration behind Abirached’s work and address both earlier books, such as Le piano oriental, Je me souviens: Beyrouth, and Mourir, partir, revenir: Le jeu des hirondelles, and more recent publications. The event will be introduced by Aaron Tugendhaft.

Lecture and Participatory Experiment / “From Brains to Bots … and Back!,” with Justin E. H. Smith
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Thursday, 29 November 2018, 7:30–9 pm

Please join us for a two-part event. The first will be a short talk by Justin E. H. Smith addressing the history of philosophical reflection on the possibility of “free machines”—that is, of artificial systems that are capable of truly making decisions undetermined by prior sequences in their programs. In the second part, we will attempt to test this possibility experimentally, by turning ourselves into a collective algorithm using the Cloots Series 3 Collective Brain, a complex system of chatbots designed to generate human-like speech by successive addition of algorithmically determined words.

Cabinet issue 65 (“Knowledge”) launch
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 14 November 2018, 6:30–9 pm

Please join us for a gathering to celebrate the launch of Cabinet issue 65, with a theme section dedicated to ”Knowledge.”

Cabinet issue 65 (“Knowledge”) launch
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Wednesday, 24 October 2018, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a gathering to celebrate the launch of Cabinet issue 65, with a theme section dedicated to ”Knowledge.”

Discussion and Book Launch / “Conversations about Sculpture: Hal Foster and Richard Serra,” with Hal Foster and Colin Lang
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Tuesday, 23 October 2018, 7 pm

Please join us for a book launch and discussion of Hal Foster and Richard Serra’s new book Conversations about Sculpture (Yale University Press, 2018), with Foster and art historian Colin Lang. Drawn from talks between Serra and Foster held over a fifteen-year period, the book offers revelations into Serra’s prolific six-decade career and the ideas that have informed his working practice.

Panel and Discussion / “Style: The Present Situation,” with Jeff Dolven, Paul Fleming, Eva Geulen, and Daniel Tiffany
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Friday, 13 July 2018, 6 pm

Please join us for a book launch and panel discussion of Jeff Dolven’s Senses of Style (University of Chicago Press, 2018), with Paul Fleming, Eva Geulen, Daniel Tiffany, and the author. Dolven’s study of poetic style—an eccentric juxtaposition of poets Thomas Wyatt and Frank O’Hara—will serve as a starting point for a general conversation about this protean and self-divided concept. The panelists will be seated at their ease, or unease, in a stylistically provocative repertory of chairs assembled by Cabinet (specialists, after all, in furniture) for the occasion. Ideas will be accommodated and unseated accordingly.

Screening and Discussion / “Meine Keine Familie,” with Jamieson Webster
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin
Friday, 8 July 2018, 8 pm

Please join us for a screening of Paul-Julien Robert’s documentary Meine Keine Familie, followed by open discussion led by Jamieson Webster.

Presentation / “24/6,” with Jeff Dolven, Sally O’Reilly, Amy Jean Porter, David Scher, and friends
The Center for Experimental Humanities, New York University, 14 University Place, New York
Thursday, 30 November 2017, 6:30–8pm

Please join us for “24/6”, an evening of word, image, and music organized on the occasion of the publication of Fabian Kastner’s Archive of the Average Swede, the latest volume in our “24-Hour Book” series.

Performance and Book Launch / “Take Care and The Ambivalents,” with Jeff Dolven and Sally O’Reilly
The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London
Monday, 17 July 2017, 7–9 pm

Please join Jeff Dolven and Sally O’Reilly for an evening celebrating the publication of their new books: Take Care and The Ambivalents, the fifth and sixth volumes of our “24-Hour Book” series. The two books were entirely created and designed during the exact same twenty-four-hour period, with Dolven installed at Cabinet’s gallery space in New York and O’Reilly working in a room at the Inner Temple in London.

“Talk Show XIII,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 7 June 2017, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the new installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. Other variations on the form include: no actual broadcast, questions from the audience, and a sideman [sic] who mixes cocktails.

Talk and Discussion / “Double Take 21,” with Wo Chan, Alex Mar, Idra Novey, Zohra Saed, Leonard Schwartz, and Nicole Shanté White
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 19 April 2017, 7–9 pm
Organized by ApexArt

Please join us for a special edition of Apexart’s unique reading series featuring Wo Chan, Alex Mar, Idra Novey, Zohra Saed, Leonard Schwartz, and Nicole Shanté White.

Talk and Demonstration / “Dream-Parliament,” with Matthew Spellberg, Cat Powell, and David Leo Rice
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 16 March 2017, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening, organized by Matthew Spellberg, about the long history and possible future of dream sharing, with some case studies and experimental exercises.

Discussion / “Lacan on Laughter—The new LOL,” with Simon Critchley, Patricia Gherovici, Dany Nobus, Manya Steinkoler, and Jamieson Webster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 3 March 2017, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the recent publication of Lacan, Psychoanalysis, and Comedy (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the second collaboration between Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler. The evening will feature buffoonery by the editors, one-liners and witticisms by contributors Simon Critchley, Dany Nobus, and Jamieson Webster, and a surprise appearance by Dr. Jacques Lacan.

Discussion / “The Desert and the Law,” with Branka Arsić, Allison Powers, Oren Yiftachel, and Eyal Weizman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 18 February 2017, 4–6 pm

Please join us for a panel discussion on deserts, extraterritoriality, and environmental conditions, featuring Branka Arsić, Allison Powers, Oren Yiftachel, and Eyal Weizman.

Debate and Workshop / “Operating Manual for Living in the Worst-Case Scenario,” with Afield Studio, Emily Candela, Francesca Laura Cavallo, Maya Rae Oppenheimer, and School of Apocalypse
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 16 February 2017, 5:30–8 pm
Organized by Emily Candela, Francesca Laura Cavallo, and Maya Oppenheimer

Please join us for a program that explores how we conceive “solutions” and “preparedness” for living in worst-case scenarios.

Conversation / “Waves Passing in the Night,” with Walter Murch, Lawrence Weschler, and Robert Krulwich
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Monday, 6 February 2017, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a conversation between Walter Murch, Lawrence Weschler, and Robert Krulwich on the occasion of the publication of Weschler’s book Waves Passing in the Night: Walter Murch in the Land of the Astrophysicists (Bloomsbury Books).

Conversation / “Logistics, Flow, and Contemporary Urbanism,” with Keller Easterling, Jesse LeCavalier, and Clare Lyster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 15 November 2016, 7–9 pm
Please join us for a conversation dedicated to logistics in conjunction with the publication of Jesse LeCavalier’s The Rule of Logistics and Clare Lyster’s Learning from Logistics.

Film Screening and Conversation / “Singular Plural,” with Candice Breitz and Toby Lee
Anthology Film Archives, 332 Second Ave, New York
Monday, 31 October 2016, 7–9 pm
Please join us for a program featuring Candice Breitz’s 2009 video Factum Trembaly and Kollektiv’s 1985 film Somos +. The artist will be present for the screening and will be joined by cinema studies professor Toby Lee for a postscreening discussion.

Book Launch and Conversation / “Vocal Codes,” with Angel Nevarez, Valerie Tevere, Kate Kraczon, and Everything Studio
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 26 October 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the launch of Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere’s catalogue published in conjunction with their recent survey exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. The artists will be joined in conversation by ICA curator Kate Kraczon and designers Everything Studio.

Book Launch and Panel / “Explode Every Day,” with Steven Holmes, Denise Markonish, and Lawrence Weschler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 23 October 2016, 3:30–5:30 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder (DelMonico Books/Prestel and MASS MoCA, 2016), which accompanies the MASS MoCA exhibition of the same name.

Book Launch and Panel / “New Tendencies,” with Armin Medosch, Michael Connor, Eva Díaz, and Rachel Wetzler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 19 October 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join Cabinet and Rhizome for a panel organized in conjunction with the recent publication by MIT Press of Armin Medosch’s New Tendencies: Art at the Threshold of the Information Revolution (1961–1978).

Book Launch / “48 Minutes,” with Matthea Harvey, Amy Jean Porter, and David Scher
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 1 October 2016, 4–6 pm

Please join us for an afternoon of music, drawing, and readings to celebrate the recent publication of David Scher’s Hail, Cretin! and Matthea Harvey and Amy Jean Porter’s When Up and Down Left Town, volumes two and three of our “24-Hour Book” series.

“Talk Show XII,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 26 May 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the new installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. Other variations on the form include: no actual broadcast, questions from the audience, and a sideman [sic] who mixes cocktails.

Book Launch and Practicum / “Caption Action,” with Wayne Koestenbaum, Matt Freedman, Joel Smith, and Mónica de la Torre
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 25 May 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening spent making and thinking about captions in conjunction with the launch of poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum’s new book Notes on Glaze. Koestenbaum, artist Matt Freedman, photography curator Joel Smith, and poet Mónica de la Torre will be our guides for the evening’s activities.

Panel / “The Poetics of Caption,” with Wayne Koestenbaum, Jeff Dolven, Robert Slifkin, and Catherine Taylor
The Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York
Saturday, 21 May 2016, 1:30–3 pm

Please join us for a panel discussion in conjunction with the launch of poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum’s new book Notes on Glaze. This panel will provide a taste of the book itself (in the form of a reading by Koestenbaum), as well as responses by three scholars of the relationship between text and image—Jeff Dolven, Robert Slifkin, and Catherine Taylor.

Open House / “A 6-Hour Window on a 24-Hour Book,” with David Scher and friends
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 14 May 2016, noon to 6 pm

Please join us as artist David Scher composes an entire book from scratch in twenty-four hours. The book, the second in Cabinet’s “24-Hour Book” series, will be available for purchase a few days later.

Book Launch / “The Captioning Séance,” with Wayne Koestenbaum
Frieze New York Art Fair, Randall’s Island, New York
Saturday, 7 May 2016, 12:30–1 pm

Please join us at Frieze New York for a launch event with poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum on the occasion of the release of his new book Notes on Glaze (Cabinet Books, 2016).

Discussion and Book Launch / “Ellen Harvey: Museum of Failure,” with Ellen Harvey and Henriette Huldisch
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 5 May 2016, 7–9 pm

Ellen Harvey, Henriette Huldisch, and Gregory Miller invite you to a launch event to celebrate the publication of Ellen Harvey: Museum of Failure, published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. The evening, co-hosted by Cabinet, also features a brief conversation between Ellen Harvey and Henriette Huldisch at 7:30 pm.

Book Launch and Kvetchfest / “The Trouble with Pleasure,” with Aaron Schuster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 20 April 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Aaron Schuster’s new book The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis (MIT Press, 2016). The evening will feature a half-hour presentation by Schuster on the book’s opening chapter—“Critique of Pure Complaint.” This theoretical investigation will be immediately followed by practical exercises in kvetching.

Film Screening and Discussion / “Life/Death and Afterlife,” with Kasper Akhøj, Deirdre Boyle, and Kim Miller
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave, New York
Tuesday, 29 March 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us for “Life/Death and Afterlife,” an evening of films organized by the Flaherty and co-presented with Cabinet at Anthology Film Archives. The program, the last of six screenings in the annual Flaherty NYC series, comprises three films that explore the notion of ghosts as border-crossers and the extent to which their transmissions break down the distinctions between, and the inviolability of, physical and metaphysical bodies.

“Talk Show XI,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 24 March 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the next installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. Other variations on the form include: no actual broadcast, questions from the audience, and a sideman [sic] who mixes cocktails.

Book Launch, Talk, and Performance / “The Ancient Phonograph,” with Shane Butler and Joseph Keckler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 21 January 2016, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Shane Butler’s The Ancient Phonograph (Zone Books, 2015), with a talk by the author and a performance by singer Joseph Keckler.

Art and Alcohol / “Sports Bar”
Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles
Thursday, 3 December 2015 through Sunday, 6 December 2015, 7 pm–1 am

We are pleased to present the new installment of “Quarterly,” a series produced by Los Angeles’s Machine Project in conjunction with Cabinet. On the heels of the magazine’s recent “Sports” issue, the two organizations are co-hosting “Sports Bar,” which will see Machine’s fabled basement Mystery Theater transformed into a sports bar, albeit one that only plays contemporary art videos about sports.

Panel and Book Launch / “Mess,” with Barry Yourgrau, Nuar Alsadir, and Jamieson Webster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 29 October 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Barry Yourgrau’s Mess: One Man’s Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act (W.W. Norton, 2015) with a panel discussion featuring the author and psychoanalysts Nuar Alsadir and Jamieson Webster.

Presentation and One-Day Exhibition / “Cuban Finotype and Its Materiality,” with María A. Cabrera Arús, Jacqueline Loss, and Jairo Alfonso
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 21 October 2015, 7–9 pm; exhibition on view from 2 pm

Please join us for an evening with cultural critic Jacqueline Loss and sociologist María A. Cabrera Arús for a discussion of the notion of fino that circulates both in Cuba and its diaspora. Accompanied by a one-day exhibition of work by Jairo Alfonso and others that engage with Cuban material culture and the notion of fino.

Book Launch and Talk / “Lee Friedlander: The Little Screens,” with Saul Anton
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 23 September 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Saul Anton’s book Lee Friedlander: The Little Screens (Afterall Books, 2015). The evening will feature a talk by Anton at 7:30 pm, followed by Q&A and drinks.

Roundtable / “I Am a Ball,” with D. Graham Burnett, Simon Critchley, Matt Freedman, Dominic Pettman, and Carlin Wing
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 18 September 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a roundtable that will re-center a number of theoretical debates on the culture and history of sports by examining the field from a perspective that is almost always overlooked—that of the ball itself. To that end, the guests at this special event—moderated by D. Graham Burnett—include a football (aka soccer ball), an American football, a cricket ball, and a tennis ball.

Discussion / “Terrible Beauty,” with Laylah Ali, Emmet Gowin, Peter Rostovsky, and Lisa Sanditz
The Morgan Library, 225 Madison Avenue, New York
Thursday, 10 September 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening with visual artists Laylah Ali, Emmet Gowin, Peter Rostovsky, and Lisa Sanditz to explore the relationship between beauty and catastrophe, whether historic or prophesied, global or personal. Co-organized by Cabinet and the Morgan Library in conjunction with “Hidden Likeness: Photographer Emmet Gowin at the Morgan,” on view at the Morgan through 20 September.

Panel Series / “The Magazine as Medium,” with Lori Cole, Kim Conaty, Hal Foster, Dan Fox, Ruth Graham, Silvia Kolbowski, Carey Snyder, Lorin Stein, and Betsy Sussler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 9 April, Monday, 11 May, and Thursday, 18 June 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a series of panels examining the role that three minor genres—the interview, the questionnaire, and the letter to the editor—have played, and continue to play, in articulating the sensibility of the magazines in which they appear.

Presentation and Discussion / “Our History || Notre histoire,” with Michael Blum and Glenn D. Lowry
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 3 June 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening of Canadian and Quebecois stories as Michael Blum presents his exhibition and book Our History || Notre histoire, a project on Canadian and Quebecois politics realized in Montreal last fall. After his presentation, Blum will be joined by Glenn Lowry for a discussion.

Book Launch and Discussion / “Crochet Coral Reef: Art, Science, and Handicraft in the Age of the Anthropocene,” with Margaret Wertheim and McKenzie Wark
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 30 April 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a book launch for a project uniting the fiber arts, environmentalism, and mathematics.

Presentation and Discussion / “The City as Phantasm,” with Carla Nappi, Dominic Pettman, and Merritt Symes
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 29 April 2015, 7–9 pm

The authors of two books inspired by Calvino’s Invisible Cities talk about their respective practices.

Screening and Discussion / “Moments of Silence,” with Mats Bigert and George Prochnik
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 23 April 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening examining the ritual of a moment of silence to commemorate a collective catastrophe.

Presentation and Discussion / “Hijacking an Island: How America Stole a Nation,” with Louis Olivier Bancoult, Paula Naughton, and David Vine
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Monday, 20 April 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening dedicated to examining the history of the Chagos island.

Screening and Discussion / “The Art of the Deal,” with Ben Thorp Brown and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 16 April 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening examining one of the strangest features of modern transnational capitalism: the “deal toy.”

Book Launch, Performance, and Panel / “The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College,” with Eva Díaz, Nick Hallett, Judith Rodenbeck, and Jeremy Sigler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 12 February 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Eva Díaz’s new book The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College (University of Chicago Press).

Performance and Panel / “The Ontology of the Rape Joke,” with Vanessa Place, Jeff Dolven, Gayle Salamon, and Jamieson Webster
Showroom, 460 Union Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 22 January 2015, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening dedicated to examining the ontology of the rape joke.

Panel / “The Falls,” with Emily Apter, Jeff Dolven, Alexander Nagel, and Jamieson Webster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 29 October 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening dedicated to considering the notion of falls and falling.

Screening and Discussion / “The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins,” introduced by D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the US premiere of The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins, a BBC documentary directed by Christopher Riley that explores one of the most extraordinary and audacious episodes in the history of science.

Book Launch and Panel / “The Imaginary App,” with Paul D. Miller, Svitlana Matviyenko, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Robbie Cormier, Simon Critchley, and Lev Manovich
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join Paul D. Miller and Svitlana Matviyenko, the editors of The Imaginary App (MIT Press, 2014), for a celebration of the publication of their new book, as well a discussion on apps, performativity and interactivity, big data, machinic intelligence, our image of technology, and the meanings of being mobile.

Bunk Bed Conversations / “The Gamble House Edition”
Downstairs Guest Bedroom, The Gamble House, 4 Westmoreland Pl, Pasadena, CA
Saturday, 27 September 2014, 6–8 pm

We are pleased to present the new installment of “Quarterly,” a series organized by Machine Project in conjunction with Cabinet. This installment of the series will take place at the Gamble House in Pasadena as part of Machine’s two-week “Field Guide to the Gamble House” residency. Cabinet’s contribution revives our Bunk Bed Conversations—a form of intellectual theater that explores the public potential of this most private, archaic, and companionable of American scenes—except without the bunks!

Talk, Workshop, and Exercise / “Hitting Walls: A Day of Handball”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn and Thomas Greene Playground, corner of Nevins St and Degraw St, Brooklyn
Sunday, 27 July 2014, 2–8 pm

Calling all ballers! It’s summer in the city, and everyone is flocking to the public parks. We are following their lead. On 27 July, artist Carlin Wing is organizing a day of handball and related activities in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Debate / “World Cup 2014: The Half-Time Show,” with Simon Critchley, Hal Foster, Thatcher Foster, Stefano Gulizia, Sandy Tait, Mark Wigley, and special subs
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 27 June 2014, 7–9 pm

As the group stages of the 2014 World Cup come to an end, please join us for an evening of analysis, debate, and banter with hardcore football fans Simon Critchley (England and Liverpool), Hal Foster (USA and Seattle Sounders), Thatcher Foster (USA and Fulham), Stefano Gulizia (Italy and Juventus), Sandy Tait (England and Everton), and Mark Wigley (Chile and Barcelona).

Poetry Lab / “William Blake: Songs of Exocence and Inperience”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 7–9 pm

Poetry Lab, an irregular series of events dedicated to reviving dead poets by unorthodox means, returns for an evening with poet, printer, and dissenter William Blake. Organized by D. Graham Burnett and Jeff Dolven.

Presentation and Book Launch / “Happy Failure,” with George Pendle
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 11 June 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening with author George Pendle guaranteed to set a new standard in book lunches.

Screening / “This Might Not Be for Now”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 8 May 2014, 7:30–9:30 pm
Curated by the Skowhegam Alliance

Please join us as we host an evening of video programs featuring artists who have have had residencies at Skowhegan.

Multimedia Presentation / “Hold Your Applause: Four Takes on Clapping,” with Casey Anderson, Carol Merrill-Mirsky, Nick Tamburro, and Kate Wolf
Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvardo, Los Angeles
Friday, 2 May 2014, 8:00–9:30 pm

We are pleased to present the new installment of “Quarterly,” a series organized by Sasha Archibald and Machine Project in conjunction with Cabinet. The third event in the series, organized on the occasion of Cabinet’s new issue with a theme section “Celebration,” examines the history and practice of clapping.

Presentation / “Accumulated Wisdom: The Collector as Inventor,” with Melissa Catanese, Rutherford Chang, Carrie Cooperider, Tim Davis, Louise Harpman, Maira Kalman, Nina Katchadourian, Thomas Y. Levin, Harvey Tulcensky, and Penelope Umbrico
The Morgan Library, 225 Madison Avenue, New York
Saturday, 15 April 2014, 6:30–8:30 pm

In an evening of short performances and talks, artists and scholars will consider the relationship between collecting and creating through case studies of their own collections.

Panel / “Life between Borders,” with Melissa Chiu, Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria, Niels van Tomme, Steven Rand, and Heather Felty
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 12 April 2014, 4–6 pm

Please join us for a panel organized by Apexart to celebrate the publication of its latest book Life between Borders: The Nomadic Life of Curators and Artists.

Presentation / “A Counterfeit Utopia,” with Robert Antoni
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 4 April 2014, 7–9 pm

Robert Antoni’s historical novel As Flies to Whatless Boys (Akashic Books, 2013) documents his family’s journey from London to Trinidad in 1845 as part of the Tropical Emigration Society, a utopian experiment led by the German inventor John Adolphus Etzler.

Talk / “Jack Goldstein: All Day Night Sky,” with Alexander Dumbadze
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 29 March 2014, 5:30–7 pm

Cabinet and the Art & Law Program invite you to join us for a talk by Alexander Dumbadze drawing on his forthcoming book on Goldstein’s work.

Games Day / “Triathlon,” with Oliver Clegg
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 2 March 2014, 12:30–6 pm

Please join us for “Triathlon,” a knockout competition hosted by Oliver Clegg, in which you can test your skills in backgammon, chess, and foosball against some of the best in our fair county.

Talk and Book Launch / “Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour,” with Carol Mavor
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 14 February 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the recent publication of Carol Mavor’s new book Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour (Reaktion Books, 2013).

Screening and Book Launch / “Yto Barrada”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 24 January 2014, 7–9 pm

Please join us for an evening of film to celebrate the publication of the new book Yto Barrada (JRP|Ringier), which includes essays by Jean-François Chevrier, Juan Goytisolo, Marie Muracciole, and an interview with the artist.

Talk / “Forensic Topology,” with Geoff Manaugh
Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles
Friday, 10 January 2014, 8 pm

We are pleased to present the new installment of “Quarterly,” a series organized by Los Angeles’s Machine Project in conjunction with Cabinet. For the second event in the series, writer Geoff Manaugh will elaborate on the article he wrote for Cabinet no. 49 on the relationship between burglary, architecture, and urban planning.

Presentation and Book Launch / “Recent Writings” by Walter Benjamin
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 3 December 2013, 7–9 pm

On the occasion of the release of its new collection of recent writings by the philosopher Walter Benjamin, New Documents is pleased to present a narrated slideshow on the Museum of American Art, a Berlin institution with which Walter Benjamin has increasingly associated himself in the last few years.

Book Launch and Performance / “The Transmitter Show—Words At a Distance,” with Anne Szefer Karlsen, Aaron Schuster, Espen Sommer Eide, and Kristin Tårnesvik
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 15 November 2013, 7–9 pm

“The Transmitter Show—Words At a Distance,” a project for Performa 13 in collaboration with Hordaland Art Centre (Bergen, Norway), consists of a book of scripts for radio plays commissioned from artists and writers, and the transmission of these plays on the radio.

Conversation / “Lives in the Margins,” with Anthony Grafton and William Sherman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 5 November 2013, 7–9 pm

The study of marginalia once seemed trivial, if not perverse, but it is now playing a central role in the interdisciplinary history of reading. Readers’ marks have an uncanny ability to unsettle assumptions, pose questions, and provide new perspectives on the history of people, practices, and technologies. In this illustrated conversation, historian Anthony Grafton and literary scholar William Sherman—who have, together, spent some sixty years looking sideways at old books—will compare notes both on the past lives preserved in the margins and on the place of marginalia in their own work.

Panel / “Dreaming the Encyclopedic Palace,” with Massimiliano Gioni, Lynne Cooke, Hal Foster, and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 27 September 2013, 6:30–8:30 pm

Please join us for a panel discussion on “The Encyclopedic Palace,” Massimiliano Gioni’s exhibition for the 55th Venice Biennale. On the occasion of the release of the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue, which features twenty-four essays commissioned and edited by Cabinet, the panel will examine the complex aesthetic, historical, and epistemological issues raised by Gioni’s unconventional exhibition.

Talk / “Max Factor’s Hollywood and the Wonderful Invention of Pan-Cake Make-Up,” with Sasha Archibald
Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles
Friday, 30 August 2013, 8 pm

We are pleased to be formally pairing up with our good friends at Machine Project to present “Quarterly,” an occasional series of events organized by Machine in conjunction with Cabinet. The first event in the series will be an illustrated talk by Sasha Archibald on make-up in early cinema (1910–1940) and cosmetics pioneer Maksymilian Faktorowicz; a version of this talk will be appearing in Cabinet no. 51.

“Talk Show VII,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 30 May 2013, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the next installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored. “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work.

Screening / “Liars, Actors, and Believers”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 7:30–9:30 pm

Please join us as we host an evening of video programs curated by the Skowhegan Alliance.

Book Launch / “Cosmic Apprentice,” with Dorion Sagan
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 18 May 2013, 6–8 pm

Please join us to celebrate the launch of Dorion Sagan’s new book Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science (University of Minnesota Press).

Panel / “Arboreal Habits,” with Laura Auricchio, Giulia Pacini, Joel Smith, and Paula Stuttman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 15 May 2013, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a panel examining the history of our complex and contradictory relationship with trees—venerated in myth and poetry, crucial to the earth’s ecological balance, but also exploited as the raw material of a global economy that unceremoniously transforms them into a mere commodity.

Book Launch and Panel / “Look at the Bunny,” with Dominic Pettman and Hugh Raffles
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 8 May 2013, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the launch of Dominic Pettman’s new book Look at the Bunny: Totem, Taboo, Technology (Zero Books).

Workshop and Presentation / “Creative Destruction Consultancy”
New Museum StreetFest, corner of park at Houston St and Forsythe St, New York
Saturday, 4 May 2013, 11 am – 6 pm

For its project for the New Museum’s 2013 IDEAS CITY, Cabinet magazine has offered its booth to representatives from the Institute for Creative Destruction.

Panel / “In Defense of Forgetting,” with Simon Critchley, Barbara Frischmuth, and George Prochnik
Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York
Friday, 3 May 2013, 7–9 pm

Cabinet is pleased to present “In Defense of Forgetting,” a panel organized for the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature.

“Talk Show VI,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 18 April 2013, 7–9pm

Please join us for the next installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored. “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work.

“Talk Show V,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 21 March 2013, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the next installment of “Talk Show” hosted by David Levine. Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored. “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work.

Talk / “Eating the Book,” with Simon Morris
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 5 February 2013, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a talk by English artist Simon Morris on “experimental literature.” One of the leading proponents of conceptual writing, which fuses art and literature, Morris will present a number of his experimental bookworks, including The Royal Road to the Unconscious, Getting Inside Jack Kerouac’s Head, and his latest book, Pigeon Reader.

Public Hearing / “Cabinet on Trial: A Magazine of No Qualities?”
South Court Auditorium, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, New York Public Library, 5th Ave and 42nd St, New York
Wednesday, 30 January 2013, 6–8 pm

Harking back to the avant-garde tradition of intellectual contestation in the guise of judicial proceedings, “Cabinet on Trial: A Magazine of No Qualities?” is a public hearing—replete with justices and attorneys—that will address the question of how to judge the responsibilities of a periodical today.

“An Afternoon of Fauna: From Ants to Whales”
New Museum, 235 Bowery, Manhattan
Saturday, 12 January 2013, 2–6 pm

Cabinet invites visitors to take a trip through the animal world inspired by J. B. S. Haldane’s seminal 1920s essay “On Being the Right Size.” Making its way from smallest to largest, the program will investigate the scientific, literary, and cultural significance of various animals through a series of brief presentations, films, sound recordings, readings, and more.

Book Launch and Readings / “Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time,” with Alexander Nagel and friends
Above Fanelli’s Cafe, 94 Prince Street, Manhattan
Friday, 14 December 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Alexander Nagel’s Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time (Thames & Hudson). The evening will be punctuated by guests reading excerpts from a number of primary texts, both medieval and modern.

Discussion and Book Launch / “Gyula Kosice,” with Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, Eva Díaz, and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 6 December 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a discussion to celebrate the launch of Gyula Kosice in conversation with/en conversación con Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, the sixth book in the Fundación Cisneros’s Conversations series.

Discussion / “Stranger Magic,” with Marina Warner and George Prochnik
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 27 October 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a discussion between Marina Warner and George Prochnik about Warner’s recent book Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights (Harvard University Press).

Discussion / “Knots and Unknots,” with Philip Ording and Terry Winters
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 25 October 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a presentation by mathematician Philip Ording on string figures and pictorial topology followed by a discussion between Ording and painter Terry Winters.

Scavenger Hunt
Start at Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn; End at Apexart, 291 Church Street, Manhattan
Saturday, 20 October 2012, 1–6 pm

Sharpen those decoding skills and get out the map! Cabinet and Apexart have designed a scavenger hunt for the city explorers among us.

Live Music and Film Screening / “Patchworks and String Bands,” with John Cohen and the Downhill Strugglers
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 11 October 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a program devised to accompany our current exhibition “Harry Smith: String Figures,” featuring live music and film.

Talk and Book Launch / The Moiré Effect, with Lytle Shaw
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Lytle Shaw’s book The Moiré Effect (Cabinet Books and Bookhorse).

Panel and Book Launch / “Plot,” with Tirdad Zolghadr, Richard Sieburth, and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 20 September 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Tirdad Zolghadr’s book Plot (Sternberg Press).

“Fair for Knowledge: American Fauna”
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Saturday, 28 July 2012, 1–5 pm

The fourth installment of Cabinet’s “Fair for Knowledge” series, “American Fauna” invites visitors to engage in brief, informal one-on-one conversations with leading experts about one particular animal found in the United States.

Poetry Lab / “Everyone and I and Frank O’Hara”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 26 July 2012, 7–9 pm

What do you get when you combine martinis and manual typewriters in a medium of free sociability? Cabinet’s Poetry Lab returns with a rigorous exploration of the chemistry of Frank O’Hara’s poetic process. Organized by Jeff Dolven and D. Graham Burnett.

Talk and Book Launch / I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, with Mark Dery
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Mark Dery’s book I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-By Essays on American Dread, American Dreams (University of Minnesota Press).

“Show-and-Tell III,” with Paul Lukas
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 7:30–9 pm

“Show-and-Tell,” Paul Lukas’s monthly open-mic night, is exactly what it sounds like: Anyone can bring an object of personal significance and talk about it for up to three minutes. There is no theme or agenda—interesting objects and the stories behind them are their own reward.

Talk and Book Launch / Hide and Seek: Camouflage, Photography, and the Media of Reconnaissance, with Hanna Rose Shell
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 11 May 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us to celebrate the publication of Hanna Rose Shell’s Hide and Seek: Camouflage, Photography, and the Media of Reconnaissance (Zone Books), an event featuring a reading as well as film and camouflage paraphernalia.

Screening / “The Double”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 8–9:30 pm
Organized by the Skowhegan Alliance

The Skowhegan Alliance, Cabinet, and LAXART are pleased to present “The Double,” a bicoastal screening of video works by Skowhegan alumni spanning nearly fifteen years shown simultaneously at Cabinet in New York and at LAXART in Los Angeles.

Performance / “Ventriloqua,” with Aura Satz and Dorit Chrysler
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 2 May 2012, 7–8 pm

Please join us for “Ventriloqua,” a duet in which Aura Satz, playing the electromagnetic waves of a pregnant body, is joined by Dorit Chrysler on the theremin.

“Show-and-Tell II,” with Paul Lukas
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 7:30–9 pm

“Show-and-Tell,” Paul Lukas’s monthly open-mic night, is exactly what it sounds like: Anyone can bring an object of personal significance and talk about it for up to three minutes. There is no theme or agenda—interesting objects and the stories behind them are their own reward.

“On Photography and Humor,” with Blind Spot, Tim Davis, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 18 March 2012, 3–6 pm
Organized by Blind Spot and Tim Davis

Join Tim Davis and guests for a series of stories on the relationship between photography and humor to celebrate the new issue of Blind Spot.

Screening and Discussion / “Asylum,” with Richard W. Adams, Daniel Burston, and Roberta Russell
Arnold Hall, Theresa Lang Center, 55 W 13th St, New York
Friday, 16 March 2012, 6–9:30 pm
Co-organized with the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis & the New School

A special screening of Asylum on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Peter Robinson’s documentary on R. D. Laing. The panel features the film’s cinematographer Richard W. Adams and authors Daniel Burston and Roberta Russell.

“Show-and-Tell,” with Paul Lukas
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 15 March 2012, 7:30–9 pm

“Show-and-Tell,” Paul Lukas’s monthly open-mic night, is exactly what it sounds like: Anyone can bring an object of personal significance and talk about it for up to three minutes. There is no theme or agenda—interesting objects and the stories behind them are their own reward.

Talk and Book Launch / “The Tyranny of Choice,” with Renata Salecl
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 7–9 pm

Please join us (or not) for the launch of Renata Salecl’s new book The Tyranny of Choice(Profile Books), featuring a presentation by Salecl and responses by Patricia Gherovichi, Peter Goodrich, and Ben Kafka.

Readings and Magazine Launch / “The Case of Nicolas Chauvin,” with The White Review and guests Ned Beauman, Joshua Cohen, Jeremy M. Davies, and Diego Trelles Paz
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 10 February 2012, 6:30–8:30 pm

Please join the London-based White Review for an evening of Chauvin, chauvinism, and their many inheritances, featuring Ned Beauman, Joshua Cohen, Jeremy M. Davies, and Diego Trelles Paz. Organized by the White Review.

Talk and Book Launch / “The Sounding of the Whale,” by D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 28 January 2012, 5–7 pm

Please join us for the launch of Cabinet editor D. Graham Burnett’s book The Sounding of the Whale (University of Chicago Press), an event featuring whale images, whale talk, whale songs, and whale appetizers (mock whale, that is—culinary conjurings by cuisine genius Kiel Borrman).

“Talk Show IV: A Belated Christmas Special,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 26 January 2012, 7–9 pm

Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. This is the fourth installment of the series.

Panel and Book Launch / “The Sea-Image,” with Keller Easterling, Vyjayanthi Rao, Alex Villar, Guven Incirlioglu, and Hakan Topal
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 25 January 2012, 7–9 pm

The Sea-Image: Visual Manifestations of Port Cities and Global Waters (Newgray) addresses the sea as defined by various manifestations of the global economy and the flow of goods and bodies across national and international territories. It proposes and develops visual and narrative strategies to tackle the particularities and potentialities that the sea presents.

Meditation and Wake / “A Funeral for Psychoanalysis,” undertaken by Jamieson Webster, and featuring eulogies and music by Simon Critchley, Brian Dewan, Ezra Feinberg, Patricia Gherovici, Ben Kafka, Hari Kunzru, David Lichtenstein, George Prochnik, and Lissa Weinstein
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 13 January 2012, 7:30–9:30 pm

In commemoration of the recent publication of The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis by Jamieson Webster, you are invited to a funeral for “the talking cure,” conceived by Freud in 1895.

Panel and Screening / “Bulbs, Tubes, Beams, and Cobraheads,” with Sarah Demeuse, Amy Granat, Gregor Jansen and Linnaea Tillett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 7 December 2011, 7–9 pm
Organized by the Goethe-Institut New York.

Please join us for an evening about (and with) artificial light that pitches hard against soft fascination and agitated against slow perception. A screening of 16 mm short films by artist Amy Granat, which self-reflexively engage the filmstrip and the light of the projector, will be combined with presentations by Gregor Jansen and Linnaea Tillett. Sarah Demeuse will moderate.

Conference / “Forensic Aesthetics,” with Eric Stover, The Monument Group, Thomas Keenan, Eyal Weizman, and others
Cabinet and the the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School
Friday, 4 November, and Saturday, 5 November 2011

While legal and cultural scholars have labeled the third part of the twentieth century—with its particular attention to testimony—as the “era of the witness,” the emergence of forensics in legal forums and popular entertainment signifies a new attention to the communicative capacity, agency, and power of things. This material approach is evident in the ubiquitous role that science and technologies now play in shaping contemporary ways of seeing, knowing, and communicating. Four lectures and roundtable discussions by artists, scholars, and curators investigate these issues in a series of “forums” organized around a number of disputed objects.

Walking Tour and Screening / “Gowanderlust!,” with Nathan Kensinger
Gowanus Canal, various locations, Brooklyn
Saturday, 8 October 2011, 7–9 pm

Cabinet hosts one leg of “Gowanderlust!,” in which location scout and photographer Nathan Kensinger leads a tour-screening of the Gowanus Canal. Featuring pop-up screenings of short, experimental works by local filmmakers about Brooklyn’s most fascinating industrial waterway, the evening ends with a reception at Cabinet. Organized by Cinebeasts.

Screening / “Oscar Micheaux’s The Exile,” with Martine Syms
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 4 October 2011, 7–9 pm
Organized by Light Industry

Artist Martine Syms will present The Exile, Oscar Micheaux’s first sound picture, a sensationalist melodrama of illicit desire that shifts from a Windy City whorehouse to the South Dakota homestead and back again. In addition to constituting a vital chapter in the history of independent film distribution and Black entrepreneurship, Micheaux’s movies have also long been admired by some of cinema’s most adventurous practitioners for their invigorating, sui generis narrative logic.

Reading and Book Launch / “Ugly Feelings,” with Jack Halberstam, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Maggie Nelson
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 2 October 2011, 7–9 pm

In this celebration of their new books, the formidable cultural critics Jack Halberstam, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Maggie Nelson—authors of The Queer Art of Failure, Humiliation, and The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, respectively—turn their attention toward the darker realms of human emotion. Their readings will invite us, in word and image, to examine, name, and even revel in three “ugly feelings” that fuel the culture of our days. But fear not: it’s also a book party!

Screening and Panel / “Revisiting Extinct Sounds,” with Sari Carel, Jonathan Sterne, and Leah Abir
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 30 September 2011, 7–9 pm
Organized by Artis
Please join artist Sari Carel and media scholar Jonathan Sterne for an evening of conversation addressing early experiments in sound reproduction and their link to contemporary sound culture. Moderated by Leah Abir, the evening will examine the relationship between sound and image, art and science, and imagination and technique through the mid-nineteenth-century device known as the phonoautograph.

Screening, Discussion, and Book Launch / “The Beach Beneath the Street,” with McKenzie Wark, Ali Dur, and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the launch of McKenzie Wark’s new book The Beach Beneath the Street (Verso), which offers a fresh history of the Situationist International. Wark’s book delves into the Situationists’ unacknowledged diversity, revealing a world as rich in practice as it is in theory.

Screening / “Tangos: The Exile of Gardel,” with Reinaldo Laddaga
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 7–9 pm

Having left Argentina in 1976 after the military coup that ousted Isabel Martínez de Perón from the presidency, Argentine filmmaker Fernando Solanas took up residence in Paris, which is the setting for his musical Tangos: The Exile of Gardel, described as a neo-Godardian “exile’s lament.”

“Talk Show III,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 7–9 pm

Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. This is the third installment of the series.

Performance and Conversation / “Reading History: The Hanging at Mankato,” with Claire Barliant, Alan Gilbert, and David Levine
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 30 June 2011, 7–9 pm
Organized by Triple Canopy

The evening presents a performative reading and conversation examining the history and contemporary resonance of the 1862 hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians in Mankato, Minnesota—the largest mass execution in US history.

Screening and Artists’ Talks / “Video Replay,” with Shana Moulton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Tommy Hartung
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 7–9 pm
Organized by Art21
The evening presents works by Shana Moulton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Tommy Hartung, artists featured in Art21’s new documentary series, “New York Close Up.”

Screening, Reading, and Book Launch / “Adventures in the Orgasmatron,” with Christopher Turner
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 28 June 2011, 7–9 pm

Please join us for the launch of Cabinet editor Christopher Turner’s book Adventures in the Orgasmatron (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which tells the story of pre-1960s sexual revolution in the US, one led by expatriated European thinkers who saw a vast country ripe for liberation.

“Talk Show II,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 21 June 2011, 7–9 pm

Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, straight man, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. This is the second installment of the series.

Lecture, Screening, and Discussion / “Aesthetic Justice,” with Carlos Motta and Niels Van Tomme
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 14 June 2011, 7–9 pm

Please join us for a lecture and screening by artist Carlos Motta, followed by a discussion with curator Niels Van Tomme. In his lecture “Amnesia and Repression: A Series of Attempts to Establish a Memory Project of Political Conflict from an Aesthetic Practice,” Motta will discuss his recent video and performance projects. This event is organized within the framework of Provisions Learning Project’s “Aesthetic Justice” exhibition on view at the Lambent Foundation in New York.

Reading and Book Launch / “Of Lamb,” with Matthea Harvey and Amy Jean Porter
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 2 June 2011, 7–9 pm

Please join poet Matthea Harvey and artist Amy Jean Porter for an illustrated reading from their new book Of Lamb. Harvey offers a story told in short packets of verse, and Porter brings each stanza vividly to life with 106 illustrations in gouache and ink. The text comes from an erasure of a forgotten biography of poet Charles Lamb (who happened to have a sister named Mary).

Screening and Performance / “Nelson Manobar,” with Jimbo Blachly and Lytle Shaw, editors of the Chadwick Family Papers
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 19 May 2011, 7–9 pm

Please join Jimbo Blachly and Lytle Shaw, editors of the Chadwick Family Papers, for the land launch of the Nelson Manobar. The Chadwicks’ recently restored occupiable model of Admiral Nelson’s HMS Victory has never before been exhibited publicly in the United States.

“Talk Show,” with David Levine, Eben Klemm, and guests
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 11 May 2011, 7–9 pm

Dedicated to exploring professions whose intricacies are often wondered at but rarely explored, “Talk Show” uses the typical broadcast format—interviewer, monologue, straight man, special guests—to explore the atypical topic of the world of work. This is the first installment of the series.

“Fair for Knowledge: University-on-the-Bowery”
The New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York
Saturday, 7 May 2011, 11 am–7 pm

“University-on-the-Bowery,” Cabinet’s contribution to the New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas for the New City,” invites fair-goers to engage in brief, informal one-on-one conversations with leading scholars and writers about their particular fields of expertise.

Spring 2011 Benefit Cocktail Party
The Green Building, 450 Union Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 29 April 2011, 8 pm–12 am

Featuring: performance by the amazing Jonathan Ames; accordion songs by the delightful Brian Dewan; pickpocketing and close-up magic by the astonishing Artifice Group; open bar featuring Eben Klemm’s “Cabinet” cocktail; a selection of New York’s finest street fare; and more.

Screening / “Double Take,” with Johan Grimonprez, Tom McCarthy, and Jamieson Webster
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 22 April 2011, 7–9 pm

Johan Grimonprez’s film Double Take, whose central monologue was written by Tom McCarthy, combines documentary and fiction to explore the rise of television and the commodification of fear. Focusing on Alfred Hitchcock, the film considers the era’s political and social events through Hitchcock’s fondness for characters meeting their doubles.

“Fair for Knowledge: Clouds”
Jo’s restaurant, 264 Elizabeth Street, New York
Saturday, 16 April 2011, 11 am–4 pm

Cabinet’s “fairs for knowledge” take learning out of the classroom and into unexpected venues. Following the first installment devoted to the theme of “Hair” at the Brooklyn Flea, this season’s fair for knowledge on “Clouds” will take place at a restaurant, where diners can also order some food for thought to be served at their table along with their meal. An event organized by Cabinet and co-presented as part of Villa Gillet’s “Walls and Bridges” series.

Screening and Talk / “The Handspring Puppet Company,” with Jane Taylor
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 7–9 pm

Over the past three decades, South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company has developed an aesthetic based on a complex entanglement of human bodies and handmade puppets. Jane Taylor will discuss the making of the celebrated horse puppets for War Horse and explore Handspring’s oeuvre through the evolution of the company’s performance idioms, considering productions from the 1980s to the present.

Symposium / “Curiosity and Method”
Betts Auditorium, Architecture Building, Princeton University
Saturday, 9 April 2011, 10 am–6:30 pm

With its fortieth issue, released in January of this year, Cabinet celebrated ten years of publication. We are using the occasion as a way of thinking retroactively and prospectively about some keywords that have been important to us in framing our project. These themes include amateurism, curiosity, pranks, the ordinary, deception, attention, the ethics of listening, and more. This all-day symposium gathers a diverse group of extraordinary writers and thinkers to help us sift through these keywords and to allow us to ask questions about Cabinet’s successes and failures.

Panel and Launch Event / “Clipping, Copying, and Thinking,” with Ann Blair and Kenneth Goldsmith
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 18 March 2011, 7–9 pm

Cabinet will celebrate the recent republication of A Little Common Place Book (a late eighteenth-century handbook on how to keep and index reading notes), with a panel discussion on creativity, cognition, and the technologies of information management.

Poetry Lab / “William Carlos Williams: Anatomy of a Poem”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 11 March 2011, 7–9 pm

Join us for the latest installment in Cabinet’s Poetry Lab series—and bring your scrubs, since the evening will consist of a set of poetic “dissections” and experimental operations. Think of it as your chance to play doctor with William Carlos Williams. Organized by D. Graham Burnett and Jeff Dolven.

Bunk Bed Conversation / “The Dream of Reason,” with D. Graham Burnett & Jeff Dolven
Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco
Thursday, 3 March 2011, 7:30–8:30 pm

A regular series initiated by Cabinet, the bunk bed conversations are a form of intellectual theater that explores the public potential of this most private, archaic, and companionable of American scenes. For this installment, pyjama-clad writers D. Graham Burnett and Jeff Dolven will be perched on the top and bottom bunks, respectively, to consider the relationship between sleep, knowledge, and art.

Panel Discussion / “Gifting,” with Paul Ramirez Jonas, Sal Randolph, and Veronica Roberts
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 2 March 2011, 6:30–8 pm

Please join us for a panel discussion featuring Paul Ramirez Jonas, Sal Randolph, and Veronica Roberts. The panel, moderated by curator Regine Basha, is presented in conjunction with Basha’s two-part exhibition “An Exchange with Sol LeWitt” currently on view at Cabinet and MASS MoCA.

Lunch / “Pea Soup and Brownies”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 24 February 2011, 12:30–2 pm

Please join us for pea soup and brownies, two of Sol LeWitt’s favorite foods, which will be served at lunch to visitors to the exhibition “An Exchange with Sol LeWitt.” The meal will be cooked by artists Stephanie Diamond and Adia Millett as part of their collaboration entitled You Are Here.

“Fair for Knowledge: Hair”
Brooklyn Flea, 1 Hanson Place, Brooklyn
Sunday, 30 January 2011, 2–6 pm

Designed to encourage an informal, social, and open mode of learning, Cabinet’s series of “fairs for knowledge” aims to create bridges between specialists and the general public by providing unusual venues for short one-on-one discussions between an expert and a member of the general public. In this first installment, six writers will be seated at kissing-booth-style structures placed between the regular stalls of the Brooklyn Flea and be ready to engage the public in conversation on a topic that occupies our minds a great deal but is considered too lowly to be worthy of serious reflection—hair. An event organized by Cabinet and co-presented as part of Villa Gillet’s “Walls and Bridges” series.

Screening and Discussion / “The Century of the Self,” with George Prochnik
The New School Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 2nd Floor, 55 W 13th St, New York
Friday, 10 December 2010, 8 pm

The National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, in collaboration with Cabinet and the New School, presents The Century of the Self, a BBC documentary on the intertwined histories of Sigmund Freud, modern consumerism, and representative democracy.

Bookmaking / “The Crumpled Press at Five Years: Traditional Techniques, Modern Media”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 4 December 2010, 5:30–9:30 pm

Five years ago, editors Alexander Bick, Nicholas Jahr, and Jordan McIntyre started making books by hand. The Crumpled Press has since introduced scores of people to the art of bookmaking at monthly “binding parties,” coupling the latest printing technology with the pleasures of an archaic mode of production. To celebrate the occasion of its fifth anniversary, Crumpled Press is gathering at Cabinet’s event space to make books, drink wine, and reflect on the relevance of traditional techniques to a digital age.

Lecture / “The Holy of Holies: A Re-enactment of Lacan’s Lost Lecture”
The S1 Institute, via F. Crispi 80, 80121 Naples
Monday, 11 October 2010, 10–11:30 am

In December 1967 in Naples, Jacques Lacan famously chose not to present the formal lecture he had prepared on the topic of “The Mistaking of the Subject Supposed to Know,” delivering instead a ranging improvisation on this crucial theme in his teaching. Recently discovered archival material has once again made it possible for the lecture-not-given to be delivered.

Screening and Discussion / “Powers of Ten,” with Beatriz Colomina, D. Graham Burnett, and Eames Demetrios
Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York
Wednesday, 6 October 2010, 7–9 pm

To celebrate 10/10/10 (a few days early), Cabinet and the Science & the Arts program at CUNY co-present a tribute to the classic short film Powers of Ten by designers Charles and Ray Eames.

Trial / “A Hearing on the Activities of the International Necronautical Society,” with Tom McCarthy and Simon Critchley
Triple Canopy, 177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 7–9 pm

On the eve of the publication of Tom McCarthy’s novel C, Cabinet and Triple Canopy convene a panel of experts to probe the corpus of the International Necronautical Society, which McCarthy founded in 1999, and its putative effort to “map, enter, colonise and, eventually, inhabit” the space of death. McCarthy will be joined by the society’s Chief Philosopher, Simon Critchley.

Cabinet Book Sale!
corner of Union and Nevins streets, Brooklyn
Sunday, 18 July 2010, 12–3 pm

Books from the collections of Cabinet, as well as our neighbors Proteus Gowanus, the Morbid Anatomy Library, and the Reanimation Library, will be sold at a discount. It’ll be a hot day and a hot sale!

Performance and Book Launch / “Centenary of the Light Club of Batavia,” with Josiah McElheny
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 1 July 2010, 7–10 pm

To celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of the Light Club of Batavia, the subject of Josiah McElheny’s new book recently published by University of Chicago Press, McElheny and Cabinet are hosting a party. The point of departure for McElheny’s book is The Light Club of Batavia, Paul Scheerbart’s 1912 story about the formation of a club dedicated to building a spa for bathing—not in water, but in light—at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft.

Book Talk and Release Party / “Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life,” with Brandon LaBelle
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 11 June 2010, 7–9 pm

From underground environments to the home, Brandon LaBelle’s new book Acoustic Territories (Continuum Books) traces the cultural and social movements of auditory life. The book continues the author’s interest in sonic culture and extends his earlier work, Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, elaborating on the dynamics of sonic materiality and experience. In celebration of its release, the author will present a performative reading aiming for the dynamics of sound culture and acts of listening.

Screening and Discussion / “The Battle of Chile,” with Dr. Oscar Soto
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 9 June 2010, 7–9 pm

On 11 September 1973, the socialist government of Chilean president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup. The young filmmaker Patricio Guzmán had already shot footage for a documentary on the Allende years, right up to the day of the coup. He smuggled the material out of the country to produce his epic three-part documentary The Battle of Chile. This event focuses on the documentary’s second part, “The Coup d’État,” which culminates in the assault on the presidential palace on September 11. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Allende’s physician, Oscar Soto, who was inside the palace on that day.

Intern Initiative / “postTV : LIVE”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 6:30–11 pm

postTV is a new platform for exhibiting and producing experimental video and performance. Both a website and live-event series, postTV provides artists with the opportunity and resources to participate and share their innovations. The inaugural postTV : LIVE event, hosted at Cabinet, will debut new live performances that have come to fruition through collaboration with the postTV production crew.

Sports / “Cabinet Soccer Club vs Beşiktaş Football Club”
Red Hook Ball Fields, Field #3, corner of Bay St. and Columbia St., Brooklyn
Saturday, 22 May 2010, 5–7 pm

Please join us for a soccer match (of sorts) between clubs from two sister cities united in friendship: Brooklyn’s own Cabinet Soccer Club vs. Beşiktaş Football Club, league champions of Turkey.

Bunk Bed Conversation / “On Friendship, Intimacy, Tact, and Turtles,” with Svetlana Boym & Leland de la Durantaye
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 21 May 2010, 7–9 pm

From the top and bottom bunks, respectively, Leland de la Durantaye and Svetlana Boym will consider different modes of friendship and intimacy. Jars of anchovy paste may be shared. This is the third installment in a series of bunk bed conversations at Cabinet, exploring the public potential of this most private, archaic, and companionable of American scenes.

Screening / “The Future of Food,” with Daniel J. Kevles
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 20 May 2010, 7–9 pm

According to the Center for Food Safety, by the middle of the last decade some 85% of the soy grown in the US is genetically engineered. The Monsanto Corporation alone holds more than 600 plant biotech patent and has brought more than 150 suits against farmers in an attempt to protect them. The legal, environmental, and consumer issues that result from the genetic modification and patenting of food is the subject of Deborah Koons Garcia’s documentary The Future of Food. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Yale University historian of science Daniel J. Kevles, whose recent work has explored the history of the engineering and ownership of living matter.

Screening and Discussion / “Military Dreams and the Deep Sea Mind,” with D. Graham Burnett and Laurel Braitman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 15 May 2010, 6–8 pm

The United States Navy has for half a century trained dolphins for military uses, and it continues to maintain a considerable number of marine mammals for various underwater roles. What relationship did this work have to the emerging counter-cultural preoccupation with these same animals as avatars of peace, love, and rainbows? Join Burnett and Braitman for a screening of some vintage Navy propaganda films from the early 1960s and a discussion of this strange story of human-animal relations.

Multimedia Extravaganza / “Insectomedia, with Hugh Raffles and friends
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 7 May 2010, 7–9 pm

So many insects! So different from each other and from us. So prosaic and so exotic. So tiny and so huge. So social and so solitary. So expressive and so enigmatic. So generative and so opaque. So seductive yet so unsettling. An evening of insects, with film, readings, sound, images, projections, and cocktails.

Fundraiser Spring 2010 Benefit Cocktail Party
The Italian Academy, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue, New York
Saturday, 1 May 2010, 8–11 pm

Featuring Master of Ceremonies Jonathan Ames; bingo with artworks by Spencer Finch and Terry Winters as prizes; a performance by Dorit Chrysler on her splendid theremin; open bar featuring the “Cabinet” cocktail; and more.

Intern Initiative / “Materia”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
21–24 April 2010

“Materia” is an exhibition of ten projects created by collaborative pairs of artists and health professionals. Created specifically for this exhibition, each collaborative piece is an investigation into materiality, drawing on the unique combination of each pair’s professional and creative practices. There will be a reception on Friday, April 23, 6–8 pm, and a special performance on Saturday, April 24, 3 pm.

Bunk Bed Conversation / “Memory Is Your Own Museum,” with Albert Mobilio & Geoffrey O’Brien
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 16 April 2010, 7–9 pm

From the top and bottom bunks, Geoffrey O’Brien and Albert Mobilio will reflect on the intricate relations between memory, nostalgia, and our need for a usable past. This is the second installment in a series of bunk bed conversations at Cabinet, exploring the public potential of this most private, archaic, and companionable of American scenes.

Book Talk and Release Party / Cartographies of Time, with Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 15 April 2010, 7–9 pm

What does history look like? How do you draw time? Cartographies of Time (Princeton Architectural Press) explores the history of the question since the beginning of the print era, tracing the surprising course of invention and critique that produced the now-ubiquitous format of the timeline. Join the authors for an illustrated stroll through graphic history and celebrate this month’s release of Cartographies of Time with very old food and drink.

Screening / “Vsevolod Pudovkin’s Mechanics of the Brain,” with Michael Hagner
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 11 April 2010, 7–9 pm

Vsevolod Pudovkin started his career in 1926 with The Mechanics of the Brain, a popular film on Pavlov’s reflexology. Pudovkin’s film practice drew on the technical possibilities of his apparatus, the artistic methods of the originally literary concept of factography, and the psycho-physiological knowledge he was supposed to document. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Michael Hagner, historian of science at the ETH Zürich.

Book Launch / “Silent Mixer”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 10 April 2010, 8–11 pm

Be quiet and come to “Silent Mixer,” a two-part event that provides a chance to engage in voluble party conversation without speaking, and to be silenced by sonic wonders. An experiment in vibrant silence, “Silent Mixer” will celebrate the publication of George Prochnik’s new book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise, and artist Wendy Jacob’s performative sculpture, Waves and Signs, a vibrating platform for the experience of tactile sound.

Bunk Bed Conversation / “The Poetics of Sleep,” with Jeff Dolven & Wayne Koestenbaum
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 25 March 2010, 7–9 pm

From the top and bottom bunks, respectively, Jeff Dolven and Wayne Koestenbaum will consider the ancient friendship between sleep and poetry, touching on such topics as embowerment, somnambulism, styles of sleeping, crepuscular consciousness, no-doz, and drowsy syrups. The first in a series of bunk bed conversations at Cabinet, exploring the public potential of this most private, archaic, and companionable of American scenes.

Intern Initiative / “Postcards from Gowanus”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
17–19 March 2010

This exhibition and performance explores a multitude of approaches to mapping the immediate vicinity surrounding Cabinet’s gallery space in Gowanus. These approaches include audio recordings, performances, literary experiments, collages, photographic series, and experimental video documentaries. Live performances and a closing reception will take place on Friday, March 19, from 6–9 pm.

Workshop / “Not Knots,” featuring Sabrina Gschwandtner, Philip Ording, and Inoli Murphy
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 6 March 2010, 2–4 pm

This mini-fair is a hands-on exploration of knots, knitting, and string figures. Visitors can view short math films that explore the geometry surrounding knots (including the well-known short Not Knot), engage in an informal discussion of knot theory, receive consultation on stalled handcraft projects, and see a demonstration of the ancient art of string figures.

Talk / “Being Led by the Nose: William Kentridge’s Metropolitan Opera Project,” with Jane Taylor
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 4 March 2010, 7–9 pm

Jane Taylor, William Kentridge’s long-time collaborator, will examine the past four years of the artist’s preparations for his current production of Shostakovich’s 1930 opera The Nose and will suggest that the distinctive combination of folly and intention in the opera is sympathetic to Kentridge’s own purposes as an artist working in South Africa during an era of momentous upheaval and transformation.

Screening / “Shahr-e Gheseh”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 26 February 2010, 7–9 pm
Co-organized with Bidoun magazine

Bidoun and Cabinet co-present a screening of the film version of Bijan Mofid’s lauded 1967 avant-garde play Shahr-e Gheseh (City of Tales), an allegorical fable in which the fate of a visiting elephant strangely echoes the fate of Iran under the modernity espoused by its rulers in the twentieth century. The program (both the film and following discussion) will be in Farsi; the film has no subtitles.

Performance and Talk / “Taking to Our Beds: On Hypochondria,” with Simon Critchley, Brian Dillon, and Peter Dunn
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 10 February 2010, 7–9 pm

This performance/talk will feature Brian Dillon in conversation about culture and hypochondria while sharing a sickbed and hot-water bottle with philosopher Simon Critchley. The invalids will be attended by psychoanalyst Peter Dunn.

Panel / “The Art of Hypochondria,” with D. Graham Burnett, Brian Dillon, and Marina van Zuylen­
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th Street, New York
Tuesday, 9 February 2010, 7–9 pm

In his new book The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives, Brian Dillon explores the lives of nine eminent malingerers and the fear of illness that drove them to withdraw from the world. Historian of science D. Graham Burnett and literary historian Marina van Zuylen will join Dillon in a discussion of this most elusive of conditions.

Performance / “Rope-a-dope,” with A. K. Burns and Kenya (Robinson)
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 29 January 2010, 7–9 pm
Organized by
Sohrab Mohebbi and Gabi Ngcobo
“Rope-a-dope: To Win a Losing War” is a knockout performance that revisits the events around the infamous “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match, which paired the charismatic Muhammad Ali and the reigning world champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1974. Featuring grueling and intense performances by Brooklyn-based artists A. K. Burns and Kenya (Robinson).

Talk / “Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project,” with Hasan Elahi
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

As part of ArteEast’s “Across Histories: Segregated Spaces” lecture series, artist Elahi will present on “Tracking Transience,” a public self-tracking system he created in response to having been intensively investigated in 2002 by the FBI based on an erroneous tip.

Panel / “Art Education: A Study,” with Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Colin Lang, Robert Linsley, Mira Schor, and Howard Singerman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 10 January 2010, 7–9 pm
Organized by Ad Hoc Vox

The panelists will examine the history of art education and its institutions in light of current debates about the MFA and the professionalization of the arts, as well as by considering alternatives offered to us by non-traditional methods of education, the history of the academy, and models for the future of art school.

Panel / “The Art of Teaching,” with Kelly Baum, Simon Critchley, and Jeff Dolven
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 7 January 2010, 7–9 pm

In conjunction with Cabinet’s current exhibition “Darcy Lange: Work Studies in Schools,” Kelly Baum, Simon Critchley, and Jeff Dolven will discuss the relationship between pedagogy and art by showing segments of Lange’s videos.

Talk / “Ordinary Lives,” with Rania Matar
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 16 December 2009, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

As part of ArteEast’s “Across Histories: Segregated Spaces” lecture series, photographer Matar will present on her first book Ordinary Lives, which contains work pertaining to war, the spread of the veil, Palestinian refugee camps, and Christian life in the Middle East.

Reading / “Summer Maneuvers,” with Reinaldo Laddaga
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 20 November 2009, 7–9 pm

As part of Uqbar Foundation’s exhibition “Zeno Reminder,” Reinaldo Laddaga, associate professor of romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania, will read from “Summer Maneuvers,” his libretto for a forthcoming musical theater piece made in collaboration with the composer Claudio Baroni and the artist Fabian Marcaccio.

Panel / “Picturing Objectivity,” with Peter Galison, Sabine Kastner, Terry Winters, and D. Graham Burnett
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th Street, New York
Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 7 pm

Galison, Kastner, and Winters will offer presentations on the historical and analytical place of obje­ctivity and subjectivity in the making of images. More specifically, the discussion will focus on the history and current practices of pictorial representation in the sciences, addressing ways in which such representational changes have influenced and been influenced by surrounding artistic practices. The Q&A will be moderated by D. Graham Burnett.

Talk / “Segregated Space: On Progress,” with Murtaza Vali
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

Vali will discuss Mumbai-based CAMP’s “Wharfage” (2009), a public art project presented at the recent ninth Sharjah Biennial that examined c­urrent trade—conducted exclusively by wooden dhows—between Sharjah’s old port and contemporary Somalia.­

Reading and Exercise / “Speed Reading (New York)”
Definitions Gym, 19 Union Square West at 15th Street, New York
Sunday, 14 November 2009, 6–8 pm

A 90-minute relay race of sorts, this sweat-filled event features 20–25 writers and artists who will take turns reading texts on the notion of speed while jogging/running/ambling on three treadmills positioned side-by-side.

Talk / “Animal Madness,” with Laurel Braitman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 4 November 2009, 7–9 pm

Historian and anthropologist of science Braitman will speak about her efforts to understand mental illness in gorillas, dolphins, d­ogs, cats, parrots, and elephants, a­nd what this means about being human.

Screening and Reading / “Looking,” with Rebecca Baron & Douglas Goodwin, CA Conrad, Wayne Koestenbaum, Eileen Myles, ­and Maggie Nelson­­
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Sunday, 1 November 2009, 7 pm

This evening brings together four writers and two filmmakers whose work investigates the nature of perception and articulation.­

Talk / “My Mobile Weighs a Ton,” with Naeem Mohaiemen
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 7 pm
Organized by ArteEast

Mohaiemen will be discussing his project “My Mobile Weighs a Ton,” a series of mobile phone photos images taken in aftermath of the August 2008 anti-army riots that exploded on university campuses in Bangladesh.

Reading and Exercise / “Speed Reading (Montreal)”
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
Sunday, 20 September 2009

­A 90-minute relay race of sorts, this sweat-filled event features 20–25 writers and artists who will take turns reading texts on the notion of speed while jogging/running/ambling on three treadmills positioned side-by-side.

Poetry Lab / “Sappho in Fragments,” with Anne Carson, Jeff Dolven, and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Monday, 24 August 2009, 7–9 pm

Cabinet’s Poetry Lab plays host to the ancient Greek poet Sappho and her gifted modern-day translator Anne Carson. Readings, performance, special guests, and the chance to put a scattered oeuvre back together for yourself. Roll up your sleeves and join us.

Performance / “Ice Music,” with Emily Lacy
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 15 August 2009, 4–8 pm, and Sunday, 16 August 2009, 2–6 pm

Working with time, music, color, and, temperature, “Ice Music” allows for fantasies of intimate visceral mischief with folk and electronic sound patterns. Performances made for 1-2 people will be available by Emily Lacy inside a small, freshly cooled homemade music environment, similar to an igloo or personal camping tent.

Talk / “Nanotechnology and the American Supersoldier,” with Laurel Braitman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 7–8:30 pm

Laurel Braitman, a doctoral student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an affiliate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, is a historian and anthropologist of science and has been researching the story of the so-called “supersuit” for the last three years. She will present a talk on nanotechnology, the development of the synthetic dog nose, and our ongoing national efforts to create superheroes to save us from ourselves.

Screening / “Taxidermy: Stuff the World,” with Robert Marbury
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 9 July 2009, 7–9 pm

Taxidermy: Stuff the World, Morgan Matthews, is a BAFTA-nominated documentary that follows the fate of four competitors as they prepare for the 2005 World Taxidermy Championships in Illinois. The screening will be followed by discussion with Robert Marbury, co-director of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists.

Cabinet issue (“Deception”) launch, featuring “Specials” by Paul Ramirez Jonas & Lisa Sigal
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 8 July 2009, 7–10 pm

The launch event for Cabinet issue 33 features “Specials,” a moving taco stand and gallery that is the result of a collaboration between artists Lisa Sigal and Paul Ramirez Jonas.

Talk and Performance / “Presentations of the Curious,” with Eden Falk, Cecily Hardy, Charlie Garber, and SymbioticA
267-271 Cleveland St, Level 3, Redfern, Sydney, Australia
Saturday, 4 July 2009, 7–11 pm

Cabinet’s inaugural Australian event features SymbioticA and rats’ brains, Eden Falk recounting how Werner Herzog ate his shoe, Cecily Hardy rubbing out a family member, and Charlie Garber investigating what it’s like to have a hole in the head.

Poetry Lab / “The Idea of Order on the Gowanus Canal: Wallace Stevens and Geography­,” with Jeff Dolven and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 7–9 pm

Cabinet Poetry Lab takes up the hermetic sage of Hartford, Wallace Stevens, whose peculiar tincture of icy Platonism and earth-smudged world-w­orship looms over American Modernism. Our line of approach on this metaphysical opus? Cartography.

Talk and Performance / “Reading in the Dark,” with Brian Dillon, Jeremy Millar, and Sally O’Reilly
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London
Thursday, 18 June 2009, 7 pm

A selection of talks and performances that will take place entirely in the dark. There will also be time for dark thoughts, obscure utterances, and black looks.

Screening / “Football as Never Before,” with Simon Critchley
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 2 June 2009, 7–9 pm

Eschewing all forms of editing associated with television sports coverage, Football as Never Before offers the spectator a unique record of a player’s progress through a match and his attempts to “read the game.”

Poetry Lab / “A Séance with James Merrill,” with Jeff Dolven and D. Graham Burnett
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 28 May 2009, 7–9 pm

The second installment of Cabinet Poetry Lab will investigate “The Changing Light at Sandover,” James Merrill’s encyclopedic epic of the ouija board.

Presentation / “xurban_collective,” with Hakan Topal
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 26 May 2009, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

In this roundtable discussion, artist Hakan Topal will present the work of the artist collective xurban, including their current research on the idea of neighborhood and local community in relation to post-industrial cities in various part of Europe.

Workshop / “Build a Synthesizer,” with Machine Project
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 16 May 2009, 1–4 pm

Learn to solder by building a primitive synthesizer in this three-hour workshop presented by Machine Project.

Reading and Discussion / “Walking to Guantánamo,” with Virginia Beahan and Richard Fleming
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 8 May 2009, 7–9 pm

Photographer Virginia Beahan and author Richard Fleming present their recent works on Cuba.

Conversation / “1968: Memorial to a Rising Continent,” with Basim Magdy and Regine Basha
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 6 May 2009, 7–9 pm

In this event presented by Arte East, Magdy and independent curator Regine Basha will discuss his current show “1968: Memorial to a Rising Continent” at Newman Popiashvili Gallery.

Performance / “Sexual Advances,” with Joanna Frueh
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 2 May 2009, 7–9 pm

“Sexual Advances,” which is debuted here, is a two-hour performance centered on an expansive, mantra-like poem that interweaves the everyday, such as images of Frueh’s lover cooking, with the romantic and sexual, including descriptions of his body and touch, and with the divine, the latter through language that speaks of deities and cosmic energies.

Poetry Lab / “Walt Whitman: a Democratic Experiment,” with Wayne Koestenbaum, Susan Wheeler, and C. K. Williams
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 30 April 2009, 7–9 pm

This is the first in a series of poetry events at Cabinet dedicated to reviving dead poets by unorthodox means. The inaugural event will feature readings of Leaves of Grass by Wayne Koestenbaum, Susan Wheeler, and C. K. Williams, alongside a series of smaller-scale improvisatory encounters with Whitman’s poems: antiphonal recitation, spontaneous translation, freehand sketching, flag-waving, and so on.

Conversation / “Alternative Architecture and Outlaw Design,” with Eva Díaz and Nils Norman
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 24 April 2009, 7–9 pm

Eva Díaz and Nils Norman will discuss sculptural structures as temporary interventions in urban sites, of kiosk production and shelter-information display hybrids, with special reference to Norman’s previous work and his upcoming collaboration at SculptureCenter, “The University of Trash.”

Talk / “Paranoid Machines,” with Jason Brown
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 4 April 2009, 7–9 pm

Jason Brown’s talk will examine contemporary gnostic mythologies of technology and paranoia, focusing on Vannevar Bush as a self-embodied allegorical­ emblem of information perversity. Presented with Machine Project, Los Angeles.

Performance / “MakeShift,” with Lucinda Segar and Tatyana Tenenbaum
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 27 March 2009, 8–9:30 pm

“MakeShift” is a forty-minute collaborative performance piece that uses modern dance, video footage from a 2008 site-specific improvisation on the docks of a Vermont lake, and improvised live sound.

Talk / “Leeza Ahmady”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Monday, 16 March 2009, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

As part of its “Across Histories” series, Arte ­East presents a talk by independent curator Leeza Ahmady, who will discuss the process and development of her research and advocacy of work produced by artists from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries of Central Asia.

Talk / “Semi-Living Tissue,” with Oron Catts
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 25 February 2009, 7–9 pm

Oron Catts, director of SymbioticA and founder of the Tissue Culture & Art Project, will present his research into the use of tissue technologies for the purpose of creating semi-living entities located on the fuzzy border between the living and the non-living, and the born and the manufactured.

Cabinet issue 32 (“Fire”) launch
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 7–11 pm

The launch for Cabinet’s new issue, with its themed section on “Fire,” will feature a special live fuse drawing performance by Mats Bigert, one half of Stockholm-based artist duo Bigert & Bergström.

Talk / “Leaving the 21st Century,” with McKenzie Wark
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 7 February 2009, 7–9 pm

McKenzie Wark’s lavishly illustrated talk will examine the prospects for getting out of this century, which seems at first glance no better than the last one.

Talk / “The Palestinian Paradox: Post-Modern Globalized Cultural Practices Under Colonialism,” with Adila Laidi-Hanieh
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 6 February 2009, 7–9 pm
Organized by ArteEast

As part of its “Across Histories” series, ArteEast presents a talk by cultural critic Adila Laidi-Hanieh, who will draw from her recent book Palestine, rien ne nous manque ici (Palestine: We Lack for Nothing Here) to discuss the paradoxical vitality of Palestinian culture—literature, visual arts, film, music—its “normalization,” and unprecedented access to the international art circuit despite its predominantly political content.

Conference / “Untitled New York: Speculations on the Expanded Field of Writing”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 31 January 2009, 1:30–10 pm
Organized by Matias Viegener and Christine Wertheim
“Untitled New York“ is a day-long conversation about writing which in some manner exceeds the printed page. It assembles a notable group of experimental writers to discuss the currently expanded and  still-expanding field of writing that challenges assumptions about the nature of writing and the potentials of text.

Screening / “Macunaíma,” with Steven Villereal and Audrey Young
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 30 January 2009, 8–10:30 pm

A DVD of the newly restored film will be screened, with a contextual presentation beforehand by Steven Villereal and Audrey Young, fierce lusophiles and graduate students at New York University’s Moving Image Archiving & Preservation department.

Presentation / “The Forewords,” with Paul Lukas and Liz Clayton
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 16 January 2009, 8–10 pm

Paul Lukas and Liz Clayton are the Forewords, a musicless band that u­ses short lectures and slideshows to present unusual and entertaining revelations lurking within the everyday.

Screening / “Winter Film Follies”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Thursday, 18 December 2008, 7–9 pm

This evening of films brings together a collection of remarkable short films to warm the viscera on a cold December evening.

Presentation / “Make a Difference in Two Days”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Monday, 17 November 2008, 7–8 pm

A presentation of projects, all selected, conceived and built in two days, demonstrate the potential of ­the desig­n activism movement to transform urban experience through small, elegant interventions.

Reading and Book Launch / “The Idler’s Glossary,” with Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Satuday, 8 November 2008, 7–11 pm

Reading and party to celebrate the release of Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell’s The Idler’s Glossary, a vademecum for the contemporary idler.

Cabinet issue 31 (“Shame”) Launch Event
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 7 November 2008, 7–10 pm

Party to celebrate the belated fall 2008 issue of Cabinet magazine.

Screening and Discussion / “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Saturday, 1 November 2008, 6–8 pm

A screening of the world’s first animated feature-length film is followed by discussion with John Isaacs and Marina Warner.

Sermon / “The Heights of Ecstasy”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 31 October 2008, 8–10 pm

Cabinet and Slought Foundation celebrate Slought’s new DVD series by asking philosopher Simon Critchley to climb a very tall chair and deliver a sermon on elevation and thinking.

Presentations and Magazine Launch / “An Evening with the Happy Hypocrite”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
Friday, 24 October 2008, 7–10 pm

Cabinet hosts an event for the Happy Hypocrite, a new London-based journal for and about experimental art writing.

Presentation / “An Evening of Dust”
London
Friday, 17 October 2008, 7 pm

Cabinet, in partnership with the Hayward Gallery, presented a multi-media evening an evening dedicated to the kingdom of dust. Speakers included Carolyn Steedman, Steven Connor, and Helen Lloyd.

Conference / “In Defense of Sloth”
The Cooper Union and Zone, New York
7–8 December 2007

The Slought Foundation and Cabinet joined forces to put on a two-pronged event on sloth and its myriad philosophical attractions.

Cabinet issue 27 (“Mountains”) launch
The Nicholas Roerich Museum, 319 W 10th St, New York
Friday, 19 October 2007

Presentation / “A Culture of Curiosity”
The Photographer’s Gallery, London
Friday, 12 October 2007, 7 pm

Cabinet is presenting an evening at the Photographer’s Gallery titled “Toward a Culture of Curiosity.”

Cabinet at Frieze 2007
10–14 October 2007
Booth M3 will be a little Cabinet fort/embassy/B&B. Please come visit.

Reading / “Writers on/in/with Art”
Storefront for Art and Architecture, 97 Kenmare St, New York
Wednesday, 3 October 2007, 7 pm

Cabinet is co-sponsoring an evening at Storefront for Art and Architecture as part of their Z-A festival. This evening features writers who either write about or even (gulp!) make art.

Reenactment and Discussion / “Sivan vs. Finkielkraut,” with Eyal Sivan, Eyal Weizman, and David Levine
Documenta, Kassel, Germany
Saturday, 8 September 2007

As part of Documenta, Cabinet presented an enactment of the 2006 Sivan vs. Finkielkraut trial which took place in Paris. The re-enactment was followed by a discussion with Eyal Sivan, the filmmaker whose film Route 181 was the subject of the trial; Eyal Weizman, and David Levine, who directed the re-enactment.

Talk / “Why Things Don’t Fall Down,” with Robert Connelly and Margaret Wertheim
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th St, New York
Monday, 20 November 2006, 7 pm

The Kitchen presents a talk organized by the Institute For Figuring and Cabinet. In this event, Dr. Robert Connelly, a mathematician at Cornell University, will discuss with IF­F director Margaret Wertheim the history and science of tensegrity.

Discussion / “Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip,” with Erika Wolf, Natasha and Valera Cherkashin, and Sina Najafi
Housing Works Bookstore. 126 Crosby Street, New York
Tuesday, 21 November 2006, 7 pm

An evening organized in conjunction with the recent release of Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip, a new book co-published by Cabinet and Princeton Architectural Press. The book is the first-ever English translation of a 1930s Russian book documenting the journey of two Soviet writers through Depression-era United States.

Performance / “Iron Artist”
PS1, Long Island City, New York
Saturday, 10 June 2006, 3–5:30 pm

Cabinet’s contribution to PS1’s “Fine Print” series of public programs co-organized with independent publications was “Iron Artist” a series of competitive real-time artmaking duels between contemporary artists.

Cabinet issue 21 (“Electricity”) launch
White Box Gallery, 525 W 26th St, New York
Saturday, 6 May 2006

Symposium / “Ruination: A Symposium on Decay, Debris, and Destruction,” with Jeff Byles, Brian Dillon, and Svetlana Boym
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th St, New York
Monday, 17 April 2006, 7 pm

Cabinet and the Kitchen co-presented a panel on Ruins, the theme of Cabinet’s Winter 2005/2006 issue. Participants included Brian Dillon, Cabinet’s UK editor and the editor of the “Ruins” section of the issue; Jeffrey Byles, author of Rubble; and Svetlana Boym, professor at Harvard University and author of The Future of Nostalgia.

Screening and Discussion / “The Last Supper,” with Mats Bigert, Terri Gordon, and Brian Price
The New School, New York
Monday, 3 April 2006, 6:30 pm

Cabinet and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School co-presented “The Last Supper,” a screening of a new documentary by Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström on the historical practice of allowing prisoners who are about to be executed to have a final meal of their choosing. The one-hour documentary, broadcast on Swedish television and screened in competition at the 2005 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, was followed by a panel. Mats Bigert was present, as was Brian Price, a former prisoner who has cooked 218 last suppers in US prisons, and New School professor Terri Gordon, who presented a paper.

Talk / “Where the Wild Things Are,” with Ken Millett
The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St, New York
Thursday, 2 March 2006, 7 pm

Co-organized with the Institute for Figuring and the Drawing Center, this talk by mathematician Ken Millett addressed knot theory.

Talk and Presentation / “More Chromophilia: An Exploration of a Few Corners of the Visible Spectrum,” with Christopher Turner
The Barbican, London
Friday, 29 July 2005

Cabinet presented an evening in conjunction with the Barbican’s exhibition “Colour after Klein.” In addition to a talk by Cabinet editor Christopher Turner on the Spectrochrome and chromotherapy, Cabinet presented audio-visual presentations on Superblack, the history of color gardening, the Chat Noir monochromes, and the first synthetic dye.

Symposium / “The Summit,” with Jonathan Bach, George Pendle, Raymond Loretan, Eames Demetrios, and Gregory Green
The New School, 55 W 13th St, New York
Thursday, 23 June 2005, 6 pm–midnight

A symposium organized to celebrate the recent launch of Cabinet no. 18, with its theme section on “Fictional States.” Presentations by Jonathan Bach, George Pendle, Ambassador Raymond Loretan, Eames Demetrios, and Gregory Green will be followed by a screening and a party full of dignitaries from various micronations in the world.

Screening and Presentations / “Laughing Matters,” with Simon Critchley and Luke Murphy
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th St, New York
Wednesday, 8 June 2005, 7–8:30 pm

A multimedia evening exploring why we laugh, featuring philosopher Simon Critchley, artist Luke Murphy, and a screening of Samuel Beckett’s Film.

Mobile Sales Platform / “The Truckazine”
Streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn
4–5 June 2005

Bringing you magazines you need, in addition to readings and music.

Symposium / “The Perfect Little Magazine.”
Chancellor Green, Princeton University
Wednesday, 11 May 2005, 4:30–9 pm

Cabinet at a symposium organized by the Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. Participants include Gabe Hudson, Adam Kirsch, Wendy Lesser, Sina Najafi, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Judith Shulevitz, and Lawrence Weschler.

Conference / “Once Upon a Time: Modernity and Its Nostalgias”
Tamayo Museum, Mexico City
29–30 April 2005
A two-day conference, organized by Cabinet and curator Pip Day, addressing all the ways in which nostalgia has functioned in the modern world.

Cabinet issue 17 (“Laughter”) launch
White Columns, 320 W 13th St, New York
Saturday, 9 April 2005, 7–10 pm

Talk / “Crocheting the Hyperbolic Plane,” with David Henderson and Daina Taimina
The Kitchen, 512 W 19th St, New York
Saturday, 5 February 2005, 5 pm

A talk co-organized with the Institute for Figuring and the Kitchen.This talk, organized in conjunction with the Institute for Figuring’s interview of Cornell mathematicians David Henderson and Daina Taimina in issue 16, featured Henderson and Taimina talking about their discovery of crocheted models of hyperbolic space, a geometric form that is found in the crenellation of lettuce leaves, the anatomy of sea slugs, and the shape of the physical cosmos.

Cabinet issue 16 (“Sea”) launch
White Columns, 320 W 13th St, New York
Saturday, 22 January 2005

This event was cancelled because of of a snowstorm that we were told might kill all 18 of our subscribers if they decided to show up.

Conference / “Put About”
Tate Modern, London
Saturday, 27 November 2004

Cabinet is participating in a London symposium on independent publishing and publishing by artists organized by BookWorks and Tate Modern. Contributors include Michael Bracewell, Jeremy Deller, Matthew Higgs, Christoph Keller, Stéphanie Moisdon, Sina Najafi, Polly Staple, Lionel Bovier, Cornelia Lauf, and Ingrid Swenson.

Exhibition / “Flipside”
Artists Space, New York
11 November–18 December 2004

Cabinet’s no. 14 on “Doubles” included in a show organized by Katherine Carl and ArtsLink.

Cabinet issue 15 (“The Average”) launch
Cohan and Leslie Gallery, 139 10th Ave, New York
Saturday, 30 October 2004

Readings and Presentations / “Chromophilia: An Exploration of a Few Corners of the Visible Spectrum”
PS1/MoMA, Long Island City, New York
Saturday, 23 October 2004, 2–4 pm

An event organized by Cabinet based on the magazine’s “Colors” column. The program featured audio-visual material and readings by Jonathan Ames, Andrea Codrington, Tim Griffin, Albert Mobilio, and Frances Richard.

Cabinet issue 14 (“Doubles”) launch
Pierogi Gallery, 177 N 9th St, Brooklyn
Thursday, 5 August 2004

Panel / “Artists in the Marketplace”
The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Sunday, 20 June 2004

A panel on art publications organized by the Bronx Museum of Arts. Panelists include Raphael Rubinstein, Art in America; Cay-Sophie Rabinowitz, Parkett; Dan Graham, artist; and Sina Najafi, Cabinet.

Cabinet issue 13 (“Futures”) launch
White Box Gallery, 525 W 26th St, New York
Friday, 4 June 2004

Conference / “Fine Print: Publishing in the Shadow of the Big Media”
University of California, Irvine
19–21 May 2004

Cabinet participates in a conference organized by the Humanities Center at UC Irvine.

Panel / “On the Uses of Nostalgia”
Barnard College, Julius S. Held Lecture Hall, New York
Thursday, 22 April 2004, 7 pm

Whitney Museum panel discussion organized by the Whitney in conjunction with its Biennial; panel moderated by Sina Najafi, Cabinet.

Conference / “Magazine Summit”
Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
19–22 March 2004
This three-day conference gathered a number of international art and culture magazines—Cabinet, Site, Texte zur Kunst, Springerin, Kunst.EE, Øjeblikket, and The Journal for Northeastern Issues—for a discussion of the relationship between contemporary art and publishing.

Roundtable / “2004 Whitney Biennial”
The Whitney Museum, New York
March 2004

Sina Najafi from Cabinet participates in an advisory panel for the forthcoming Whitney Biennial.

Reading / “Paper, Paper, Scissors,” with Jonathan Ames, Shelley Jackson, and Frances Richard
Housing Works, 126 Crosby St, New York
Thursday, 13 November 2003, 7 pm
Please join us for an evening organized in conjunction with the exhibition“The Paper Sculpture Show” and dedicated to all things paper.

Screening / “Celluloid Cabinet: Flying”
White Box Gallery, 525 W 26th St, New York
Saturday, 15 November 2003, 7 pm

Cabinet issue 11 (“Flight”) launch
Pierogi Gallery, 177 North 9th Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, 26 July 2003

Panel / “Off the Wall: On Alternative Venues for Art”
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York
Saturday, 17 May 2003, 2–4 pm

Discussion / “A Conversation with Eyal Weizman”
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York
Tuesday, 6 May 2003, 6:30–8 pm

Cabinet issue 9 (“Childhood”) launch
Bard High School Early College
Sunday, 19 January 2003, 3–7 pm

Screening / “Celluloid Cabinet: An Evening of Unusual Nature Films”
28 Wooster Street, New York
Sunday, 27 October 2002

The films, selected by Matthew Buckingham and Sina Najafi, were accompanied by music by Brian Dewan.

Performance and Discussion / “Massless Medium,” with Francisco Lopez, Christoph Cox, and others
Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, New York
Wednesday, 20 June 2001, 8 pm

Fundraiser / “Art Bingo”
The Ohio Theater, New York
Sunday, 10 June 2000

Panel / “A Heap of Language: Robert Smithson and Poetry”
The Whitney Museum, New York
Thursday, 18 November 1999

Radio Broadcast / “WAR!”
New York and Belgrade
Sunday, 14 November 1999