Curating

Hello

Jasa McKenzie is a curator and artist based in New York City.

She is currently a fellow of the MA Curatorial Practice porgram at the School of Visual Arts. She has been working in a wide variety non-profit art spaces for the past seven years and most recently held an internship as a curatorial research assistant for the 10th Berlin Biennale. She is participating in the 2017 Apexart Franchise Exhibition Program and will be presenting her exhibition in Nagoya, Japan during the summer of 2018. In her practice, she is driven by issues of identity, equality, and social justice. Her recent exhibitions include My-O-My in New York and The Map is Not the Territory in Brooklyn. Her writing and works have been featured in Artspeak, Daily Serving, Visual Opinion, and Words 86, as well as her public blog, The New Heroin(e).

Hailing from South Dakota, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and German from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she has worked and exhibited before relocating to New York in 2016. She held roles at the Augsburg Art Galleries, The Soap Facotry, Altered Esthetics, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Curatorial Projects


April 2016, The Map is Not the Territory, Brooklyn, New York

January 2017, My-O-My, CP Projects Space, New York City

February- April 2016, I Am, Altered Esthetics, Minneapolis

April- May 2016, Rodrigo Onate, Altered Esthetics, Minneapolis

January 2014, Necrophilia, Augsburg College, Minneapolis

January 2011-May 2014, 50+ Exhibitions, Augsburg Art Galleries, Minneapolis

My-O-My

My-O-My celebrates an erotic, queer magazine of the same name from the late 1960s and ‘70s. In Middletown, New Jersey during 1972, police entered a bookstore without a warrant and confiscated the publication which was viewed as profane, resulting in a legal dispute. Each piece within the exhibition represents one of the thirty-two pages of the magazine. The pages have been reproduced on fabric and turned into genderless sculptures. Walking through the space, one may experience the publication as life-size, as if paging through the magazine itself with their whole being. The subject matter calls back to a time of queer repression and seeks to bring it to light, reminding us to celebrate progress to this day. This small part of history may have been lost but is now remembered for the ways in which freedom and love have triumphed through years of repression. Especially today, freedom of identity and remembrance of the past are more important as we face another oppressive political climate.
Photos by Jade Yumang


The Map Is Not the Territory

The Map Is Not the Territory examines the construction of representation through socially and lawfully imposed, arbitrary boundaries. Drawn from Polish-American philosopher and linguist Alfred Korzybski’s publication Science and Sanity, the title addresses the distinction between an entity and its abstraction. The aim is to interrogate discrepancies between reality and belief in response to the current ubiquitous use of non-sequiturs in the public arena. Conceived at the dawn of an unprecedented, divisive presidency, the exhibition upholds the spirit of resistance against misrepresentation and the commandeering of identities in our history and contemporary culture. Curated by eight women from various countries and regions around the world, The Map Is Not the Territory applies the concept of kintsugi, a Japanese form of pottery that highlights fractures with precious metals. Selected by each curator, the artworks are singular fragments that reflect a myriad of perceptions of physical and ideological borders. Taking its cue from this repaired earthenware, the exhibition forces a cohesion of conceptual and formal differences that make them glimmer as a reconciled whole. All works question our preconceived understandings of entities, whether it is people, places or concepts, by subverting misrepresentations of reality. The resilience and resistance of these individual works are amplified in aggregate in The Map Is Not The Territory. In addition to paintings, photographs, sculptures and media art, site-specific work engages the exhibition space itself, anchoring the concept in the context of the Pfizer Building.
Photos by Birdie Piccininni








CV

Education

School Of Visual Arts
New York, NY (August 2016- Present)
MA, Curatorial Practice

Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN (September 2010- May 2014)
BA Studio Art, German Minor
Honors Program, Cum Laude

Massey University, College of Creative Arts
Wellington, New Zealand (Spring 2013)
Study abroad

Curatorial Experience

Curatorial Internship
10th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany (May - August 2017)

Curatorial Assistant
Altered Esthetics, Minneapolis, MN (January - May 2016)

Gallery Assistant and Installation Intern
The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN, (February - July 2015)

Assistant to the Art Gallery Director
Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN, (January 2011- May 2014)

Related Experience

Member Services Assistant
Whitney Museum, New York, NY (September 2016- May 2017)

Visitor and Member Services Representative & Sales Associate
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (February 2015- May 2016)

Skills

·Familiarity with museum and gallery practices including curatorial, exhibition planning, installation and art handling
·Writing press releases, didactics, wall texts, exhibition publications
·Handling loan forms, artist contracts, exhibition budgets
·Excellent oral and written communication skills
·Art history archival research, focus on modern & contemporary
·Adobe Creative Suite, Flash, Dreamweaver—HTML and CSS
·Macintosh systems, Microsoft programs, social media, Google Apps
·Salesforce, Raiser’s Edge, Siriusware databases
·Creative problem solving, detail & deadline-oriented, highly organized, fluid multi-tasking, fast learning ability
·German language skills

Publications

Words 86, The Geriatric Drag Show, I Built a Cage (November 2017)
Daily Serving, Review: The Intersectional Self (March 2017)
Daily Serving, Review: Red in View (February 2017)
ArtSpeak, Preview: Marisa Merz (January 2017)
Visual Opinion, Expression/Repression (December 2016)

Volunteer

Tribeca Art Night (Fall 2017)
Tour Guide

The Soap Factory
Installation Crew (Fall 2014- Winter 2015)
The Haunted Basement (Fall 2014, 2015)

The Walker Art Center
Visitor Services (Fall 2015)

PEASE Academy
Artist Mentor (Spring 2014)

Art

Jasa McKenzie is a visual artist, exhibiting her work regionally and nationally. She focuses on oil painting, digital photo manipulation, and collage. Her work addresses themes of morbidity and decay, the human form, and the power of the female form in the face of stereotypes.

Collage

Paintings


Digital Collage

Prints




Exhibitions

Solo Exhibition:
Spring 2014, Necrophilia, Minneapolis, MN

Group Exhibitions:

Spring 2017, Hope Art Competition - Expressing Your Unique Identity, SVA Flatiron Project Space, New York, NY
Spring 2017, Whitney Staff Art Show, Westbeth Gallery, New York, NY
Spring 2016, Emerging Artists Exhibition, ArtHaus, Decorah, IA
Summer 2015, Troubadour, Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis, MN
Spring 2015, U of M Student-Curated Exhibition, Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Spring 2015, Sappho, Sister Sludge & Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN
Fall 2014, Shadowed Visions, People’s Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Summer 2014, IluzeZivota, Club Underground, Minneapolis, MN
Summer 2014, The Pulse, The Pourhouse, Minneapolis
Summer 2014, Contained Narrative, Augsburg College
Spring 2014, Pancakes and Booze, Barfly, Minneapolis
Spring 2014, RAW: Pixels, Varsity Theater, Minneapolis
Spring 2014, UpNext, Augsburg College
Spring 2014, All­Student Juried Show, Augsburg College
Spring 2014, Skin Deep, Augsburg College
Spring 2013, Student Showcase, Wellington, NZ
Spring 2013, All­Student Juried Show, Augsburg College
Spring 2012, All­Student Juried Show, Augsburg College
Spring 2012, Junior Art Exhibition, Augsburg College
Spring 2012, WBCC, Augsburg College
Fall 2012, Ebb and Flow, Home of Augsburg College President
Fall 2012, Snatched, Augsburg College
Spring 2011, Salon De Refuse, Augsburg College
Fall 2011, The Dark Truth About Chocolate, Augsburg College *Summer 2012, Amsterdam

Awards:

Hope Art Competition Finalist







Blog


The New Heroin(e)


The New Heroine is a curatorially-slanted blog all about contemporary art and those who live it. The articles focus on a curatorial point of view. The essays cover reviews of exhibitions, interviews with artists, and general thoughts about the state of the art world today.


Continually updated, visit The New Heroin(e)

Contact

  • Jasa McKenzie
    New York, New York