Parade of the Old New with artist/author Zoe Beloff

A presentation and discussion of Booklyn’s important new accordion fold-out 40-panel book with painter and author Zoe Bellof

A discussion by Zoe Beloff about her new 40-panel accordion book that reproduces, Parade of the Old New, an epic panorama on cardboard panels, a 40 meter long  allegory of the American body politic. The title is taken from a 1938 poem by Bertolt Brecht that inspired the theme of this work; now more than ever, we are not finished with the past and the past is not finished with us. The project was launched with Trump’s inauguration and continued until he was defeated at the ballot box. It begins with the president’s triumphal entry into Washington DC. Beyond stretches a country where the Mexican border walls meets Japanese internment camps from the 1940s at a vanishing point. It chronicles the desecration of public lands for profit, the battle of Charlottesville, the arrest of undocumented workers across the country and the detention of asylum seekers at the border. It illustrates the toll of COVID 19, the work of the nurses, the breadlines, young people painting Black Lives Matter mapping a road ahead, the storming of the Capitol and finally the flickering light of what might be a new beginning. Zoe will also talk about her essay also included in the book “The Troublemakers: History Painting in the Real World” in which she explores how painters have explored themes of social justice. She brings the writing of both Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to bear on how we can think through the representation of history and lived experience.

ZOE BELLOF is an artist and filmmaker based in New York. She aims to make radical art that educates, entertains, and provokes discussion. Most importantly, as her work attests, she believes protest should be vibrant, humorous and colorful, a carnival of resistance to light the way in dark times. Zoe’s work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings; venues include the Whitney Museum, Site Santa Fe, the MHKA museum in Antwerp, and the Pompidou Center in Paris. However she particularly enjoys working in alternative venues that are free and open to the community for events and conversations. These have included in New York City; The Coney Island Museum, Participant, Momenta and The James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has been awarded fellowships from. The Graham Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a professor at Queens College CUNY.

BOOKLYN, INC.  is a non profit organization founded in 1999 and located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Their mission is to promote artists’ books as art and research material and to assist artists and organizations in documenting, exhibiting, and distributing their artwork and archives. They specifically assist artists and organizations committed to environmental and social justice.