“ROW / SEW: 3 Sundays for Robert Seydel” is a series of gatherings of artists and writers to address, to read, to perform, to pay homage to the life and work of Robert Seydel, his alter ego Ruth Greisman, and her friends Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, et al. to complement the exhibition Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter. The series is organized by Emmy Catedral with Nathaniel Otting in conjunction with Siglio and Ugly Duckling Presse.

A picture always wants to be something else — Robert Seydel

dream sacred plaid Duchamp record in magenta moleskin — Paolo Javier

August’s program features photographs, poetry and 8mm short films inspired by Joseph Cornell who figures large in the universe of Seydel’s Ruth. Flushing-based poet and filmmaker Stephanie Gray and former Queens Poet Laureate Paolo Javier will read and perform their collaborative film narration inspired by Joseph Cornell’s short films. Preceding Gray and Javier will be Harry Roseman, who captured Cornell and the details of his house in photographs. Roseman will tell a story of Cornell’s Utopia Parkway house and working closely with the artist.

Poet-filmmaker STEPHANIE GRAY is the author of a poetry collection, Heart Stoner Bingo (Straw Gate Books, 2007), and a chapbook, I Thought You Said It Was Sound/How Does That Sound? (2012), published by Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, which also published her second full-length collection with images from her films, Shorthand and Electric Language Stars (2015). A chapbook from Argos Books, A Country Road Going Back in Your Direction, was also published in 2015. Her short super 8 experimental films, often about the city, class, queer or feminist themes, have screened internationally at fests such as Viennale, Oberhausen, Ann Arbor, and at venues including Microscope Gallery, Mono No Aware, and Millennium Film Workshop. She had a film retrospective at Anthology Film Archives in 2015.

PAOLO JAVIER is the former Queens Poet Laureate (2010-14), and author of Court of the Dragon, a book of poetry published recently by Nightboat Books. His other full length books include The Feeling Is Actual (Marsh Hawk Press), 60 lv bo(e)mbs (O Books), and the time at the end of this writing(Ahadada), which received a Small Press Traffic Book of the Year Award. He is the recipient of grants from the Queens Council on the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, and has enjoyed residencies at the Millay Colony of the Arts, The AC Institute, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace.

HARRY ROSEMAN received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1968. Early on he worked as assistant to two artists, Joseph Cornell (1969-1972) Tony Smith (1973). His first teaching job was at Queens College (1973-1975). He has had almost thirty, one person exhibitions and has done permanent and temporary site-specific works and commissions, including a 600-foot long sculpture at John F. Kennedy International Airport, International Air Terminal, Terminal 4. Roseman’s work in in many public and private collections. In 2013 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Harry Roseman is the Isabelle Hyman Professor of Art at Vassar College.

Jul 26: Art a Grammar, Grammar a House: A Gathering (or, Artist-Writers: A Weaving)
Sep 27: "Quail rise”: "R’s Queens” Reprised