Although American artist Christine Kozlov (b. 1945, New York City; d. 2005, London) was a leading figure of the Conceptual art movement, she (along with other female contemporaries) has often been neglected in present-day discourse. In a new solo exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, independent curator Rhea Anastas and artist Nora Schultz endeavour to posthumously reintroduce her work – free from the trappings of an art historical narrative that has minoritised female artists. That is to say that there are no expository wall labels to accompany her work. Rather than consulting critical texts while crafting the exhibition, the curators chose to organise a study group with students from their respective studio art classes: Schultz’s class in Sculpture and Installation at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts and Anastas’ Artists as Writers class at the Department of Art, University of California, Irvine. The focus of the study groups was to discuss Kozlov’s works as objects in relation to the present day, rather than with respect to an existing canon.

The films, exhibition cards, photographs, books, statements and manuscripts that make up the exhibition are therefore presented with stark immediacy – they are untethered ideas, narrated by Kozlov alone. Central to the exhibition is the work Information: No Theory, an active tape recorder installed by the windows of a gallery. Nearby, Kozlov’s original set of instructions explains the work’s concept in plain terms: that the recorder is equipped with continuous loop tape, that it will record for the duration of the exhibition and that the loop tape naturally erases and replaces what it records every two minutes. “Proof of the existence of the information does in fact not exist in actuality, but is based on probability,” the instructions conclude. No other explanation seems necessary to understand how Kozlov’s work thrives on momentary impressions. Anastas and Schultz have simulated an environment where one can witness Kozlov’s mind in action and in doing so, perhaps better grasp the energetic atmosphere of the 1960s -70s art scene when these works were new. This comes across as a more assertive choice than including wall text that simply references the obvious ways in which Kozlov was written out of a male-dominated movement, and the exhibition perhaps offers the artist’s lifelong work ample space as a subtle form of restitution.

The fresh, artist-centric spirit of this new exhibition looks to be a harbinger of what’s to come at the Academy of Arts and Letters. While the Academy has persevered as an esteemed honours society for artists across disciplines for over a century, its curatorial programme has been limited to infrequent invitational exhibitions since the 1940s. With a recent infrastructural overhaul to make its landmark buildings more hospitable for visitors, Arts and Letters opened its doors to the public year-round for the first time this past September. Jenny Jaskey, who joined as chief curator in 2022, explained how the Academy’s original ethos will continue to inform this new chapter: “Because it’s a membership society, the entire board consists of working artists, writers, composers and architects. I’ve been working with a committee of artists, including Amy Sillman, Mel Chin and Joan Jonas. We meet and talk about what these exhibitions might be, what we want these spaces to feel like and how we can give back to another generation of artists by making all these spaces available. It’s still a spirit of artists supporting artists.”

Jaskey referenced the ways in which Arts and Letters centre a more expansive approach to exhibitions—one that invites practices, artists, subjects and positions outside of most previous representations into the Academy’s body. Citing a historic emphasis on painting, she drew attention to ongoing plans for including artists working in sound, photography and performance. “We’re considering how an artist can begin to see this site, which so few people have ever seen—and how they can relate themselves to the membership of other artists,” she told STIR. In conjunction with Kozlov’s show, Arts and Letters opened Aviary, a new commission by artist and composer Raven Chacon in its North building. On visiting the space, Chacon took careful note of the building’s acoustics and Beaux Arts design by Cass Gilbert, with its imported Spanish tile and cage-like glass ceiling. By arranging extinct bird calls culled from archival samples and replicated with handmade instruments, the sound installation pays homage to the Audubon terrace—land once owned by artist and naturalist James Audubon—that the Academy’s buildings now occupy. As a part of the institution’s renewed public programming, Chacon performed in a joint concert with composer Wadada Leo Smith, an Arts and Letters member and Chacon’s former teacher, shortly after the opening.

Jaskey explained that allowing nonmember artists to visit and participate in the space is an essential part of Arts and Letters’ new structure and that her team has invited choreographers, writers and architects to participate in workshops and mentorship programmes over the past several years. “We started learning how the grandeur of our buildings and their sense of place matters. There was so much dignity to these spaces and visitors were just saying how meaningful it was, as artists, to be able to work in them for extended periods of time,” she told STIR. She highlighted the importance of allowing different generations of artists to share the space and influence one another. In the face of change, Arts and Letters now stands in Washington Heights as a hybrid of old and new—forging ahead without fully breaking from its roots. Jaskey shared that in October, Arts and Letters will premiere a durational performance by choreographer Jonathan González, while the 2025 spring season will offer exhibitions by photographer and filmmaker Elle Pérez and painter Teresa Baker. “This is just the beginning. We're excited about the different programmes we can have. There's a beautiful library here and we're planning a number of talks and different events and concerts throughout the fall, with more things to come in the spring that I hope will engage all of these disciplines that the Academy of Arts and Letters represents,” Jaskey told STIR.