16th A.I.R. BIENNIAL: Find the Body

Curated by Patricia Margarita Hernández

EXHIBITION DATES: January 11 - February 9, 2025

DEADLINE: October 6, 2024 at 11:59 PM EDT

SLIDING SCALE APPLICATION FEE: $10, $20, $30

IT WAS LIKE GETTING LOST IN A FILM LOOP
A LOCK GROOVE, AN OLD LATE NIGHT, BLACK AND
WHITE
FILM NOIR LIKE NIGHTMARE ALLEY, THE NAKED CITY,
GUN CRAZY, DOUBLE INDEMNITY – THE FUGITIVE
KIND

–excerpt from the poem “FIND THE BODY” by Lydia Lunch

The 2025 A.I.R. Biennial, Find the Body, invites artists to engage with the nebulous boundary between performance and daily life, a line increasingly destabilized by the confusion inherent in our hallucinatory media landscape. Contemporary life can be disorienting. We often find ourselves caught between the push-and-pull of digital engagement and analogue experience. We kiss our partners good morning, or slide into a stranger’s Instagram DMs. We pull out our phones to share memes during laughter-filled coffee catch-ups, then shed tears on the subway after grappling with unexpected news.  

 New media have given artists the tools to articulate a self, as when Lynn Hershman Leeson positions herself in front of the steady gaze of a video camera to tell her life story in The Electronic Diaries. But media can also destabilize our assumptions about authentic self-presentation, as in the proliferation of AI-generated “deep fake” portraits. In the poem from which the exhibition draws its name, Lydia Lunch likens daily life to being lost in a “film loop.” Yet, paradoxically, artifice becomes an anchor, as stylized film noirs allow her to make sense of the situation which she finds herself. Find the Body is an opportunity to reflect on the contradictory confluence of reality and artifice in our contemporary experience—and how we present our most vulnerable selves on and offline.

Patricia Margarita Hernández  is a curator and researcher with a background in care work. Her practice, which is often grounded in collaboration, focuses on the intersections of ecology, climate change, and feminist decolonial theory. Currently, she is the Associate Curator at Amant, Brooklyn, NY. She has held positions as Assistant Curator at Dia Art Foundation, New York, NY and Associate Director at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, the first artist-run collective in the United States dedicated to feminist practices. Collaborative projects include Alliance of the Southern Triangle (A.S.T.), a platform for artists and architects focused on speculative urbanism and climate change. She has organized exhibitions, public programs, and projects at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Dia Art Foundation, Beacon, New York; the Pérez Art Museum Miami; P!, New York, NY; and the Sharjah Biennial 13, UAE; among others; and online as part of Strelka Magazine and Institute, Moscow, RUS; SFMOMA's Open Space, San Francisco, CA; Art Papers, Atlanta, GA; and The Miami Rail. Hernández holds a master’s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES  

• Works must be pre-existing and ready for exhibition. Proposals for new works are not accepted.
• Images must be JPG files only.
• Each image may not exceed 1MB and 1000 pixels in any direction.
• Images MUST be oriented properly (ex: top of the image is up).
• Videos must be .MOV or MP4 format only and must not exceed 3 minutes in length.
• Videos and credits must not contain the artist name.
• Text submissions must be in PDF format.
• Sound submissions must be in MP3 format.

THIS IS AN ANONYMOUS REVIEW. Absolutely none of the submitted materials may include the artist’s name; the artist's name may not appear in the file name or body of images, or any other submitted files. If a submitted file contains or is titled with the artist's name, the submission will be disqualified. 

PLEASE NOTE  

• You must fill in all fields and submit three works for consideration in order for your application to be complete.
• Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
• Applications will be reviewed in OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2024. Due to the large volume of submissions, the gallery is unable to respond to individual inquiries regarding application status.  

EXHIBITION PROPOSAL FORM

Your application must include the following:

• A 500 word proposal describing your plans and ideas for the exhibition
• Resume (one page)
• Artist or curatorial statement (one page)
• Please list one (1) reference with contact information
• Images or Video
• Ten (10) images related to proposed exhibition in 1000px high (variable width), 72dpi, JPG, RGB     
  • Three (3) videos, each of which can be a maximum of three (3) minutes long. Accepted file types include Mp4, AVI, MOV, MPG. Only moving images, i.e. time-based media, video, kinetic art or documentation of performance art, should be submitted as video files. Videos of still artwork or documentation of artistic process will not be viewed.

   

• Completed image or video list

We have three different exhibition spaces, please consider this in your proposal. 

Gallery I - $4,000 (August ONLY)

Gallery II - $3,900 ($3,600 for A.I.R. NY, Adjunct, and National Members, or August Dates)

Gallery III - $3,900 ($3,600 for A.I.R. NY, Adjunct, and National Members, or August Dates)

2025–2026 A.I.R. GALLERY FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION
 

A 12-month professional development and solo exhibition opportunity for emerging and underrepresented women and non-binary artists.

ELIGIBILITY:

     In order to be eligible for the A.I.R. Fellowship program you must:
 

• Be a woman or non-binary artist.
• Be 18 years of age or older.
• Be a resident of New York City, adjoining counties, or the Hudson Valley (Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties). (September 2025–August 2026)
• Not have had a solo exhibition at a permanent venue in NYC in the last 5 years.
• Not be a student or enrolled in any degree-seeking program at the time of the program. (September 2025–August 2026)
• Not be participating in a comparable development, fellowship, or residency program during the Fellowship. (September 2025–August 2026)
• Not be a current member, employee, or board member of A.I.R. Gallery and must never have had a solo show at A.I.R. Gallery.
• Not be a Fellowship alum. 

 
     Not sure if you qualify? Check our frequently asked questions page for more info.

A Fellowship Program Info Session will be held on Thursday, August 29 at 6 PM ET via Zoom. 

To register, click here.

Artists awarded the A.I.R. Fellowship will receive a solo exhibition at the gallery, development workshops led by professionals in the field, a one-on-one studio visit with one of the review panelists, an artist-mentor at A.I.R. Gallery to work with throughout the program, and much more. Fellowship artists are expected to commit to participation in the program and the A.I.R. community by attending events and workshops.


WORK SAMPLES

To apply, please submit five unique work samples. Two of these samples must be images. The other three can be images, videos, or audio files. All work samples must have been completed within the past three years (from 2021 onward).


IMAGE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES  

• 72ppi, JPG, RGB files only.
• Images must not exceed 5 MB in size.
• Images MUST be oriented properly (ex: top of the image is up).
• All file names must be labeled with Title, Year, Medium, Dimensions (H x W x D), i.e. Untitled 2, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 14x14 inches.jpg. Please DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME IN THE FILE NAME.
• You must fill in all fields and upload all 5 images in order for your application to be complete.

 
VIDEO SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 

• Video samples must not exceed 1 minute in length and 100 MB in size.
• Video submissions must be original, time-based artworks (i.e. a clip from a video or film, or performance documentation). Please NO "behind the scenes" or "personal statement" videos.
• Video must be submitted as .MOV or MP4 format.
• Video credits must not contain the artist's name.
• All file names must be labeled with Title, Year, Medium, Duration, i.e. Untitled 2, 2022, digital video, 15 minutes.mp4.

 
ADDITIONAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 

• All questions should be answered to the best of your ability.
• Please submit CVs and artist statements in PDF format ONLY.
• THIS IS AN ANONYMOUS REVIEW. Absolutely none of the submitted materials may include the artist's name or other identifying information (i.e. email address, phone number, or mailing address); the artist's name may not appear in the file name or body of images, statements, CVs, or any other submitted files. If a submitted file contains or is titled with the artist's name, the submission will be disqualified and the artist will not be permitted to re-apply until the next Fellowship cycle. 
• Any application that does not adhere to our guidelines will be automatically disqualified.
• No hyperlinks (i.e. to a personal website, Dropbox folder, etc.) allowed. Work samples must be uploaded directly to Submittable.

 

SELECTION PROCESS

  Each year, a rigorous selection review is conducted by a panel of three outside curators, critics, and established artists. Through a multi-round process, artists are selected based on the quality of and commitment to their work. A final interview and selection is made by A.I.R. New York Artists. A mandatory in-person interview is held prior to being accepted to the program. The A.I.R. Fellowship Program is open to artists working in all media and is intended to support those who could most benefit from the opportunities that the program offers.  Six artists will be awarded a Fellowship. This year's panelists are critic Media Farzin, artist Gavilán Rayna Russom, and curator Lanka Tattersall.

A.I.R. Gallery reserves the right to omit any applications that do not meet our specifications.

     If for any reason you do not get an email confirmation from Submittable after applying, please email info@airgallery.org. All applicants will be notified by APRIL 2025. Because of the large volume of applications we receive, we are unable to respond to individual inquiries regarding the status of applications.