Houseguest Talk

The Atlanta Art Ecosystems program is built upon the belief that our community already contains the abundance of ideas, innovative projects, and visionary leadership needed to forge a strong and sustainable future for the visual arts in Atlanta. We also acknowledge there are many challenges which, seen from within a community might appear specific and isolating, but are actually shared by other communities. We opted to invite a houseguest to visit, and to close the program by sharing a case study of an ambitious project they’ve realized—and to respond to our core questions: What models? What forms? What audiences?

This lecture style presentation featured our invited guest speakers to talk about a large scale project they’ve realized. Special guest speakers Fawz Kabra and Isak Berbic discussed co-founding and running a New York-based kunsthalle-style exhibition space and small artist-project press, Brief Histories. Their talk offers valuable insights into the process of conceptualizing and executing significant artistic and curatorial endeavors.

Brief Histories is a contemporary art gallery located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side at 115 Bowery in New York City. Co-founded in 2011 by Isak Berbic and Fawz Kabra, Brief Histories began as an independent curatorial project, adapting formats according to different spaces and production contexts. Brief Histories has been an apartment show, an action, a tea ceremony, experimental press, and gallery. Working collaboratively with artists, Brief Histories is dependent on economies of cooperation.

In the fall of 2021 Brief Histories opened its new gallery space on the Bowery with a program of exhibitions, public programs, and publications. Solo exhibitions, events, and publications organized and presented at Brief Histories on the Bowery include Edgar Serrano Rumors of My Demise 2021, Sahra Motalebi This Phenomenal Overlay 2022, Coleman Collins Body Errata 2022, Jumana Manna Late Night Strollers 2022, and Ali Eyal In the Head’s Sunrise 2022.  

Publications include Tame the Wilderness? (2020) and artist book Rumors of My Demise (2021) by Edgar Serrano, Redistribute Health by Dread Scott (2020). Publications by Brief Histories Press are distributed at Printed Matter, Inc., New York and Art Jameel Shop, Dubai.