Local
Global
Cloud

History

Browse the timeline below to learn about the development of Slought as an institution and our responsiveness to cultural and socio-political change. This subjective history highlights particular programs with artists, communities and institutions. It provides context for these projects and documents our motivations.


2019-2020

Key events

January 2020

  • WHO Announces Mysterious Coronavirus-Related Pneumonia in Wuhan, China

March 2020

  • Hungarian parliament gives Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ability to rule by decree

May 2020

  • US COVID-19 Deaths Pass the 100,000 Mark

April 2020

  • US unemployment rate reaches record 14% during first COVID-19 lockdown

June 2020

  • Largest sustained protests in US history begin, as 15-26 million people march for racial justice after George Floyd's murder

June 2020

  • Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells, a Black transgender woman, is killed in Philadelphia
Begins Oct 14, 2019

A storytelling initiative that embraces the power of listening as a form of care

Values
Begins Jul 27, 2020

A mutual aid fund for staff and collaborators in need of financial relief

Values
Begins May 9, 2019

A gathering of tribal leaders and native community activists speaking about indigenous and settler land use and the Bears Ears National Monument

Values
Jan 24, 2020 – Mar 13, 2020

An installation by Rosalind Morris about the world of informal mining in the abandoned gold mines of South Africa

Values
Begins Oct 1, 2019

A conversation with activist DeeDee Halleck on truth-telling and trust building through communal media making practices

Values
Begins Dec 13, 2019

A conversation about the representation of mass violence from David Bowie to Parkland, with survivor and activist Samantha Fuentes

Values

2018-2019

Key events

September 2018

  • IPCC report warns global warming be restricted to 1.5° over 12 years to prevent climate catastrophe

January 2019

  • Right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro takes office as President of Brazil

March 2019

  • Widespread protests in Hong Kong over mainland extradition bill

May 2019

  • Sit-in begins at Whitney Museum over board member Warren Kanders, Safariland CEO

June 2019

  • Report flags 330 Philadelphia police officers for white supremacist Facebook posts
Sep 6, 2018 – Dec 14, 2018

An exhibition and research project that reorients the stories we know about how the photographic world is made

Values
Nov 12, 2018 – Apr 12, 2019

A series of screenings presented in collaboration with Louverture Films that seeks to generate discussions about cinema as a strategy of complexity and plurality and as a resistance to constructed realities

Values
Feb 22, 2019 – Apr 30, 2019

An exhibition revisiting the photographic archive of the Activestills Collective

Values
Begins Sep 29, 2018

A documentary screening and conversation about the targeting killing of community leaders and human rights activists fighting for change in Colombia

Values
Begins Feb 1, 2019

An exhibit of work by Maurice Sorrell and Devin Allen featuring leading figures from the civil rights era and the rise of citizen activism

Values
Sep 1, 2018 – Sep 1, 2020

A cultural exchange initiative engaging a broad network of civic institutions in the former Eastern Bloc and beyond

Values

2017-2018

Key events

September 2017

  • Amazon invites cities to respond to RFP for a second headquarters

February 2018

  • 17 people killed by teenage gunman at a high school in Parkland, FL

April 2018

  • US DOJ enacts family separation policy for undocumented immigrants crossing US-Mexico border, including asylum seekers

June 2018

  • Federal judge rules Trump cannot suspend grants to Philadelphia due to its sanctuary city status

August 2018

  • Pittsburgh becomes largest US city without a daily print newspaper
Begins Oct 7, 2017

Kyle Abraham and Carrie Schneider in conversation about choreography, film, and the politics of intimacy

Values
Jun 21, 2018 – Jul 21, 2018

An exhibition of archival imagery by Maurice Sorrell (1914-1998), the first Black member of the White House Photographers Association

Values
Begins Jan 18, 2018

A film festival about contemporary scenes of social justice and environmental activism

Values
Jan 18, 2018 – Feb 14, 2018

An exhibition and study program about African intellectual histories and the task of "thinking Africa"

Values
Begins Aug 20, 2018

A national fellows program and media platform to support dialogue and action about the changing monumental landscape of the United States

Values
Feb 17, 2018 – Apr 25, 2018

An exhibition exploring activist strategies undertaken by media collectives, organized with EAI and ICA

Values

2016-2017

Key events

November 2016

  • Water protectors protest at Standing Rock to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline

January 2017

  • Trump signs executive order banning foreign nationals from Muslim countries from the US

May 2017

  • Larry Krasner wins democratic primary for Philadelphia District Attorney

May 2017

  • Philadelphia reports highest rate of opioid overdose deaths among large cities

August 2017

  • Neo-Nazis hold Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and kill Heather D. Heyer
Begins Nov 17, 2016

An exhibition featuring photographs by Bessie McLamb of "ordinary" people in South Philadelphia from the 1940s through the 1970s

Values
Begins Jun 2, 2017

A research project and installation exploring the role of the worker in urban factory life and the production of things

Values
Begins Jan 18, 2017

A lab focusing on the impact of social systems on the health of individuals and communities

Values
Begins Apr 6, 2017

A talk by writer and political analyst Peter Zilahy exploring the parallel universes of political thinking and the rise of far-right populism

Values
Begins Jul 1, 2016

An online project about environmental toxicity and the social determinants of health

Values
Begins Dec 16, 2016

An online project about the Sewol Ferry Disaster (2014) and the contestation of memory in South Korea

Values

2015-2016

Key events

January 2016

On a single night, 549,928 people experience homelessness in the United States

June 2016

  • British citizens vote on Brexit referendum, opting to leave the European Union

July 2016

  • Democratic National Convention held in Philadelphia. Bernie Sanders delegates walk out

2016

  • Russian operatives mount an information warfare campaign on social media to spread disinformation and division around the U.S. presidential election
Begins Oct 17, 2015

A series of conversations about the legacy and lost works of composer and performer Julius Eastman

Values
Begins Jan 29, 2016

A visual story by Devin Allen about Freddie Gray's Baltimore and the rise of the New Activist

Values
Begins Dec 3, 2015

An exhibition retracing Walter Benjamin's winter movements of 1926 and their contemporary spatial and political resonances

Values
Begins Mar 22, 2016

An exhibition with Fazal Sheikh tracing the dispossessions and displacements of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and their impact on Palestinians, Bedouins, and Israelis

Values
Begins Oct 23, 2015

An online exhibition provoking new thinking about media representation and the contemporary conditions of the Syrian revolution

Values
Begins Dec 10, 2015

An online exhibition about the Hong Kong Umbrella movement (2014) and the revolutionary potential of language and collective enunciation

Values

2014-2015

Key events

February 2014

  • Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula is illegally annexed by the Russian Federation

April 2015

  • Baltimore police inflict a fatal spinal cord injury on Freddie Gray, followed by widespread protests

June 2015

  • In a 5-4 vote, U.S. Supreme Court grants same-sex couples the right to marry in all 50 states

October 2015:

  • 220,000 refugees enter Europe by sea in a single month, half from Syria fleeing civil war
Begins May 18, 2015

An exhibition and conversation series about our changing relationship with the river as it was, as it is, and as it could be

Values
Begins Nov 1, 2014

An exhibition of artists who engage ideas of homeland and belonging and resist a unitary sense of time or place

Values
Begins Sep 15, 2014

A project by Judith Barry exploring the many different ways women negotiate ideological, cultural and economic conditions in Cairo

Values
Begins Feb 8, 2015

An interdisciplinary conversation about resistance and retreat in the remote winter setting of Kilpisjärvi, Finland

Values
Begins Oct 10, 2014

A film screening and publication commemorating the multiple legacies of French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida

Values
Begins Jul 17, 2015

A project with Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries exploring satire, cynicism and the figure of the jester in contemporary life

Values

2013-2014

Key events

June 2013

  • US Supreme court declares the Voting Rights Act (1965) unconstitutional

February 2014

  • The Ebola virus epidemic infects over 24,000 people and kills at least 9,000

August 2014

  • African American teenager Michael Brown is fatally shot by white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri
Begins Mar 21, 2014

A series of programs exploring the past, present and future of Pataphysics - the "science of the particular" - in Philadelphia and beyond

Values
Begins Jul 25, 2014

A new approach by David Stephens tags the city with urban braille gardens in response to the challenges of land vacancy across Philadelphia

Values
Begins Jan 30, 2014

n+1 magazine published "World Lite," a jeremiad against world literature. The literary world is still talking about it.

Values
Begins May 20, 2014

A symposium at Artsonje Center in Korea exploring silence and resistance in the work of Soun-Gui Kim

Values
Begins May 1, 2014

An interactive visual archive of the Nepal Conflict (1996-2006) and its aftermath, organized in response to a public call for photographs

Values
Begins Nov 3, 2014

We welcome individuals interested in working with us to realize the research initiative and online archive

Values

2012-2013

Slought quietly celebrates its tenth anniversary, a major milestone in the history of a volunteer organization. This presents an opportunity to reflect on how Slought has transformed over the years, how it can remain responsive and continually in formation in the years ahead. The complexity and scale of Slought's many projects and initiatives prompts the organization to develop a new organizational identity and website to enable better legibility and communication for volunteers and the public alike. Support from The Andy Warhol Foundation enables the organization to hold intensive workshops and pursue research. This support affirms Slought's commitment to rethinking its role and responsibilities as a small, progressive cultural organization. A flexible identity is produced, which systemizes the organization's values for its growing network of collaborators.

Begins Mar 13, 2013

A conversation with Agnès Varda about cinécriture and film as a political and feminist statement

Values
Begins Mar 14, 2013

A conversation with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov about the relationship between contemporary art, public imagination, and utopia

Values
Begins Mar 30, 2013

Actors, activists and artists re-perform Brecht's Days of the Commune in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement

Values
Begins Oct 16, 2013

An installation with Knut Asdam exploring architecture and cinema at the conjunction of the personal, the paranoiac, and the public

Values
Begins Jan 26, 2013

An artist project with Camille Henrot revisiting Roland Barthes' seminal lectures on coexistence

Values
Begins Jan 5, 2014

A new identity that radically transforms how Slought operates in Philadelphia, the world, and the cloud, and makes legible the organization's movements as it performs its activities

Values

2011-2012

Slought is concerned by the breakdown in social trust between publics and institutions. The organization develops a historical understanding of how small agencies in Philadelphia like the American Philosophical Society have enabled trust by building relationships and sharing practical knowledge. Slought begins to rethink its own relationship to the publics and institutions near where it is located, and how its activities can mitigate the invisible borders within the city. An uneven distribution of public resources, institutional access, and socio-economic class is evident throughout the ten blocks on which it is located. Mixplace Studio, an urban education model, is developed with youth and two nearby institutions - People's Emergency Center (PEC) and PennDesign - to address these disparities. The studio enables conversations and projects which advocate for public education, political representation, and neighborhood empowerment, to re-negotiate and re-imagine the city in powerful ways. It seeks to foster a comfortable, process-based learning environment in which youth researchers develop agency, civic imagination, and interpersonal trust, and link the knowledge of communities with the knowledge of institutions. Slought also launches Fairytale Project, an online archive undertaken in collaboration with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei shortly after his release from detainment by the Chinese government that seeks to negotiate contemporary geopolitical realities. The research initiative revisits his 2007 project "Fairytale," which featured the extraordinary event of 1001 Chinese citizens traveling outside of China, many for the first time. The project involves translating, archiving, and curating their experiences and stories concerning identity, memory, love, dreams and the possibility of cross-cultural understanding.

Begins Jan 17, 2012

A conversation with Allan Sekula on the politics of occupation and the shifting relationship between photojournalism and global capitalism

Values
Begins Apr 24, 2012

A multi-part engagement with the life and work of Carolee Schneemann, whose work has continually probed the precariousness of nature, art, and life

Values
Begins Jan 12, 2012

An exhibition of video works by artists living and working in and around Lahore, Pakistan

Values
Begins Mar 13, 2012

Programs with Huang Rui and Ko Siu Lan exploring the social construction of the citizen through signs, languages, and ideology

Values
Begins Mar 6, 2011

A research initiative and archive about the lives and experiences of 1001 Chinese participants who traveled to Kassel, Germany for Ai Weiwei's project "Fairytale" (2007)

Values
Begins Jul 7, 2011

An exhibition and conversation with Sergio Fajardo and others about the relationship between public policy, social justice, and civic imagination

Values

2010-2011

Slought recognizes that culture is overdetermined by politics and economics, and seeks to extend its activities beyond the cultural sector. The organization also becomes interested in how social movements occur, and how it can contribute to the development of activities that no one institution or individual can claim. Slought convenes a group of philosophers and diplomats, who propose a series of conversations that are intended to continue beyond their initial staging. The Perpetual Peace Project and its activities are organized around Immanuel Kant's foundational essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" (1795), and bring together a diverse group of institutions including the International Peace Institute, the Syracuse University Humanities Center, the United Nations University, and the European Union National Institutes of Culture. The project is spatialized through a symposia, exhibitions, lectures, as well as a feature film that enable conversations in Pakistan, Rwanda, and China and across the United States. This interest in thinking spatially leads Slought to diagram and notate its institutional activities as one would performances. Slought also partners with the John Cage Trust to develop a long-term installation based on John Cage's How to Get Started (1989), an experiment about thinking in public. Drawing upon Cage's realization as a script in effect, the public is similarly invited to extemporize on ten topics of interest, as a sound engineer captures and subsequently layers their monologue.

Begins Nov 13, 2010

A permanent installation that features a rarely heard performance by John Cage, and will evolve over time through participation from the public

Values
Begins Apr 19, 2011

An exhibition and workshop exploring communicating through purely visual means

Values
Begins Jan 23, 2011

A space for inter-cultural conversation and research about art and advocacy, exploring a variety of trends, shared differences, and common concerns

Values

2009-2010

Slought continues to consider questions about the relationship between dialogue and display, and the importance of cultivating critical and creative publics. The organization begins to develop a more dialogic approach, in which artists and curators continually rethink their practice and in discussion with others. Rather than commission essays or exhibitions, Slought begins to organize open-ended conversations that actively critique specialized discourse and the passive staging of existing knowledge. One example is Architecture on Display, a two-part research initiative and publication with the Architectural Association in London, which explores the forgotten history of the Venice Architecture Biennale through the directors who established its particular discourse. These findings, together with a new generation's interest in questioning architecture on display, act as the catalyst for the second phase, which features conversations with fifty practitioners - from designers and historians to editors, funders and students. The organization also begins to formally define its values as well as a series of institutional, cultural and educational principles, which have intuitively shaped its activities but have never been officially documented.

Begins Jan 23, 2010

An exhibition of works from the Richard Harris Collection that explore the iconography of death across a range of artistic practices

Values
Begins Dec 3, 2009

A photo-ethnographic collaboration with Philippe Bourgois about homelessness, addiction, and poverty in urban America

Values
Begins Sep 16, 2010

A conversation with Harun Farocki and others on the re-appropriation of images and the representation of war and weaponry

Values

2008-2009

Slought is concerned that an era of privatization has eroded the public sector and its sense of social responsibility. The organization engages architects, urban researchers and activists who are collaboratively addressing social and environmental conflicts. It explores how others are creatively engaging publics and institutions and harnessing hidden resources in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Through these conversations, Slought begins to recognize architecture is not just about physical infrastructure, but also about social relationships. Into the Open, an exhibition foregrounding this sensibility, is selected by the US State Department and the National Endowment for the Arts to represent the country at the Venice Biennale. With 60 days to prepare, Slought must temper its reflective approach and negotiate an administrative culture of compromise and complicity. Engaging a mass public for the first time, the organization's volunteer model is tested on a global scale. Slought struggles to represent both the nation-state and its marginalized institutions and enable dialogue and modesty within a culture of spectacularity. One response is a 90 foot image of the border fence between the US and Mexico, by Estudio Teddy Cruz, which becomes a metaphorical and actual passageway into the pavilion. The exhibition later travels to Parsons The New School for Design in New York and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia - all for a fraction of the typical exhibition cost of the US Pavilion.

Begins Mar 21, 2009

Early, reformulated and new installations by Gary Hill joining body, language and technology to form an "electronic linguistic"

Values
Begins Dec 10, 2008

An exhibition exploring and questioning transience, mobility, and Turkish identity

Values
Begins Jan 14, 2009

A retrospective exhibition exploring Leslie's recent films and writings as well as lesser known earlier work

Values

2007-2008

Slought begins to explore how its work can inform new curatorial and pedagogical models in the humanities, and public culture more generally. A series of courses are developed with the Department of History of Art and English Departments at the University of Pennsylvania that join practice-based learning with intensive theoretical inquiry. Students and faculty, as well as artists and philosophers, are invited to take on curatorial roles and participate in organizing cultural activities at the organization. This interest in expanding the traditional identity and role of the curator begins to inform Slought's global activities. Projects that foreground inter-cultural dialogue and polycentered conversation begin to emerge. These include Helene Cixous' Dissidanses (sur Nancy Spero), at la maison rouge - fondation antoine de galbert, and Günther Holler-Schuster, Christa Steinle's and Peter Weibel's Another Tomorrow: Young video art from the Neue Galerie in Graz. In Philadelphia, Slought opens Power Fields, a retrospective exploration about the work of Vito Acconci and Acconci Studio, which transforms Slought's galleries through a newly commissioned poetry table and other immersive media. North, an installation with Territorial Agency, further transforms Slought's understanding of cultural display by submerging the organization in a thin layer of water as a commentary on rising water levels in the Northern hemisphere.

Begins Oct 22, 2007

An exhibition documenting Werner Herzog 'documenting,' along with a series of conversations about the filmmaker's life and work

Values
Begins Dec 7, 2007

An eclectic & entertaining series of presentations about that most philosophical of vices

Values
Begins Apr 8, 2008

Programs with architects and urbanists at Territorial Agency exploring climate change and the geography of conflicts of the northern territories

Values

2006-2007

Slought approaches its fifth year - the final year in what was originally intended as a five-year experiment. A formal collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts and Sciences infuses Slought with a sense of possibility and hope for future sustainability. Instead of closing, the organization decides to continue its programs despite its precarious condition, and to further expand in the world. A variety of projects enable the organization to negotiate the relationship between these new modes of local and global activity. In Philadelphia, Slought initiates discursive and public art projects. The Casual Passer-By I Met at 3.01 pm, Philadelphia, a series of portraits by international artist Braco Dimitrijevic of casual passers-by are displayed on historic facades in West Philadelphia to create perturbations in the public's habitual engagements with the public sphere. Evasions of Power, an international conference, explores the relationship between literature, architecture, and geopolitics and takes place at Eastern State Penitentiary and other sites. In the World, Slought organizes Slought in Berlin, a traveling exhibition about its history, in the spirit of the conceptual information shows of the early 1970s.

Begins Dec 5, 2006

A conversation with Cecil Balmond and others about the relationship between architecture, science and pedagogy

Values
Begins Mar 30, 2007

Exploring overlooked urban zones, state borders and extra-territorial sites throughout the world, contributors probe contemporary perspectives on power and its evasions

Values
Begins Feb 3, 2007

A retrospective exhibition exploring the work of pioneering new media artist Fred Forest

Values

2005-2006

Slought's curatorial focus shifts to film and projected media, which it perceives as a more accessible medium in an increasingly digital era. It is also more economically viable for the organization, which continues to struggle with financial sustainability and program funding. The organization also begins to reflect on how artists are transitioning from conceptual to architectural practice, and private to public space. In response, the organization organizes projects around urbanism, architecture and spatial politics. Among these, a seminar about cities by French poet, playwright and philosopher Helene Cixous, following Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Other programs include Film as Critical Practice, an exhibit and conversation about the cinematic and architectural work of Guy Debord and the Situationist International. Slought continues to debate how culture can resist habitual ways of creating and thinking, and the function of its online presence. One outcome is more expansive textual commentary that further contextualizes the projects. Another outcome are programs about issues that are typically avoided in cultural institutions, such as Bareback Subcultures, which explored gay pornography, risk, and alternative approaches to kinship.

Begins Sep 23, 2006

Documentation of self-painting and self-mutilation in past performances by the Viennese Aktionist

Values
Begins Sep 10, 2005

An exhibit of original comic book art in a magical realist vein

Values
Begins Feb 17, 2005

A conversation with Anthony Grafton exploring the storage and retrieval of texts before modern times

Values

2004-2005

Slought's fascination with histories of cultural provocation continues, with a focus on the body as a site of experimentation, and the artist's body in relation to the social body. Performance becomes a metaphor for how the organization views its activities and the cultural landscape more generally. More and more, the organization itself begins to take the form of a provocation and performance, as it navigates a restrictive socio-political landscape. This performativity applies to the organization's alternative economy, which recognizes the value of community and social relations in developing collaborations with artists and others. Through this approach, major projects begin to take place in Philadelphia with European artists and thinkers from the 1960s and 1970s. These include CONFLICT, organized by curator Lorand Hegyi from Le Musee d'art moderne de Saint-Etienne, whose exhibition challenges prejudices about the contemporary culture of Central and Southeastern Europe. Viennese actionist Hermann Nitsch also comes to Philadelphia for the opening of Die Aktionen: 1962-2003, a video retrospective and subsequent publication.

Begins Sep 30, 2005

A performance of "algorithmic choreography," involving computer-controlled movements of the human face

Values
Begins Nov 4, 2005

An exhibition exploring the relationship between aesthetic strategies and the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the region

Values
Begins Nov 20, 2004

Francis Davis conducts a recorded interview with Sun Ra in Germantown, Philadelphia in 1990

Values

2003-2004

Slought actively considers its socio-political position in society, one that builds upon avant-garde legacies of cultural progressiveness and institutional critique. The organization commences a series of programs revisiting leading artists from the 1960s and 1970s whose work expanded cultural understanding in its time. Projects include the work of conceptual artist William Anastasi, who covers Slought's walls with thousands of pages of writing about Alfred Jarry, James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp; artists and architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins, whose Architecture Against Death manifestos explore the relation between architecture and health; and musicians Rashied Ali and Marshall Allen, whose presence symbolically reunites John Coltrane's and Sun Ra's legacy for the first time. These projects are complemented by a series of contemporary provocations, foremost among them Kovert Konflagration Kovenant, an exhibition and public art project by sculptor David Stephens. Responding to Pennsylvania's history of racial injustice and a recent Supreme court case affirming the right to cross-burning, Stephens invites the African-American community to symbolically re-appropriate the meaning of this act. The organization receives national press coverage for the first time.

Begins Jan 31, 2004

William Anastasi installs 2000 handwritten sheets documenting buried allusions in the work of James Joyce, Alfred Jarry, and Marcel Duchamp

Values
Begins Mar 13, 2004

An investigation by architects Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman on the politics of Israeli architecture

Values
Begins Nov 15, 2003

A recorded conversation with the artist from 1958 featured in an exhibition about his work and legacy

Values

2002-2003

Slought begins to undertake research initiatives that encourage conversation across disciplines and institutions, and empower individuals through critical thinking. The difficulty of organizing these conversations leads the organization to consider other ways to develop cultural programs and facilitate social trust. Emphasis is placed on programs that take place in multiple sites in the city, and that explore the relationship between Philadelphia and the world. The project Cities Without Citizens opens both at the Rosenbach Museum and Slought. Through exhibitions, public programs, and publications, publics are introduced to historical and contemporary understandings of citizenship and statelessness. This research initiative signals Slought's commitment to human rights discourse, public memory, and exploring new forms of advocacy.

Begins Feb 28, 2003

A series of readings, conversations, and exhibitions exploring "the social" in contemporary poetry

Values
Begins Mar 26, 2003

An exhibition exploring social provocation and Westernization in contemporary Russian video art

Values
Begins Oct 31, 2003

A project from 1978 by Steve Benson exploring the problems and possibilities facing someone cultivating a career in the arts

Values

2001-2002

Slought formalizes as a 501c3 non-profit organization. Space is leased in a former Art Deco/Beaux-Arts bank from 1924, located at 4017 Walnut street. The location is peripheral to the concentration of cultural institutions in Philadelphia, and on the edge of the University of Pennsylvania campus and West Philadelphia neighborhoods. This symbolizes Slought's commitment to border conditions and responsiveness to different communities. Throughout, Slought struggles with the financial and institutional resistance it meets. The inaugural exhibit, Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, playfully revisits an avant-garde 1970's film classic and invites the public to identify a missing artwork and it's collector. Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, Gerhard Richter and other artists are exhibited within the bureaucratic aesthetic of a converted office.

Begins Oct 26, 2002

A conversation with John Boskovich and others revisiting Céline's novel North (1960) and ideas of collaboration, resistance and critique

Values
Begins Oct 18, 2002

Slought's inaugural exhibition playfully revisits an avant-garde classic about a missing work of art

Values
Begins Mar 7, 2002

Recordings by Fred Wah of readings, lectures and discussions by notable New American poets

Values

2000-2001

Slought Foundation begins informally as an inter-generational collaboration and negotiation between a curator, a philosopher, and an artist - Aaron Levy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Osvaldo Romberg. It is committed to bridging artistic and cultural histories. The name of the organization derives from the word 'slough,' to suggest ecological metaphors of rejuvenation, reinvention, and openness. The use of the word 'Foundation' by an unfunded and emerging organization is intended performatively as a critique of a closed and insular institutional culture, which was pronounced in Philadelphia at the time. Slought's website, developed in-house, creates a virtual presence for sharing media. Work begins on archiving newly restored recordings of New American poets from the 1960s, which will become one of the largest media archives on the internet at the time.