THE WRINKLE ROOM ‘Frieze Edition’

presents

TRANSFORMER

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Track 16 | First Floor

A special afternoon and evening of events celebrating the West Coast release of Transformer's first major publication transformer20.

4-6 PM: Coffee Talk with Marcus Kuiland-Nazario (THE WRINKLE ROOM) and Victoria Reis (Transformer). Coffee & pastries generously provided by The Golden Poppy Market.

7 PM: The Art of Collaboration Panel, a cross-coast collegial dialogue on building community and support for emerging artists. Guest moderated by Anuradha Vikram

8 PM: Reception with Surprise Performance

THE WRINKLE ROOM Frieze Edition presents Washington, DC-based visual arts organization Transformer, and Transformer Founding Director Victoria Reis, in dialogue and collaboration at Los Angeles’ prolific contemporary art gallery Track 16. Taking place during the Frieze Art Fair in LA, this special afternoon and evening of events celebrates the West Coast release of Transformer's first major publication transformer20. This 400+ page book, heralded by The Washington Post as “an artwork in and of itself,” traces Transformer’s first twenty years of innovation and impact in the visual arts field.

THE WRINKLE ROOM Director Marcus Kuiland-Nazario and Reis have collaborated extensively via Transformer, with several of Kuiland-Nazario’s Transformer exhibitions and projects documented in transformer20.

“Collaboration has been key to Transformer’s success over twenty plus years. Building equitable partnerships with artists, curators, and a diversity of global arts institutions has made it possible for Transformer to advance hundreds of emerging artists in their careers, and to engage growing audiences with new and best contemporary visual arts practices. On behalf of Transformer’s Board of Directors, staff, and our expanding artist communities, we are thrilled to collaborate with The Wrinkle Room to present the West Coast premiere of our book transformer20 at Track 16 during Frieze. I am additionally so excited for the opportunity to be in conversation with some of Transformer’s top LA based peer organizations, to discuss how we each create platforms to support and propel artists and artistic innovation, and to explore future collaborations.”

– Victoria Reis, Founder & Director, Transformer

Presented as part of Transformer’s ongoing FRAMEWORK panel series, The Art of Collaboration panel discussion will delve into pivotal contemporary art topics, fostering an exchange of insights and experiences that invigorate contemporary art practice. Launched in 2002, Transformer’s FRAMEWORK panels engage artists and communities in conversations designed to create an oral ‘field guide’ for new and best practices in the visual arts. Copies of the new 2nd edition transformer20 book will be available for purchase.

On view at Track 16 is Simone Gad: Vertigo, the first posthumous exhibition of Gad’s work since her passing in 2021. Gad was one of the primary inspirations for THE WRINKLE ROOM.

“Best known for her collage drawings, Simone’s playful, brutal, sexual, and kinetic pieces oscillate with vulnerability, trauma, and magnetism.”

– Sean Meredith, Director, Track 16

ABOUT transformer20:

Transformer’s first retrospective book, transformer20 delves into the rich history and impact of Transformer as a leading non-profit visual arts organization based in Washington, DC, with notable national and international reach. A love letter from the organization to our community of artists and collaborators, this book presents an extensive visual timeline chronicling Transformer’s first twenty years of exhibitions and programs, showcasing the incredible stories of emerging artists and key supporters.

Featuring expansive documentation and ephemera, presented alongside personal and first-hand conversations between artists and writings by leaders in the visual arts field, transformer20 invites readers to intimately explore the influential experiences, challenges, and triumphs of those who have been touched by Transformer, its space, its leadership, and it's continually growing network.

Following a sold out Collector’s First Edition of the book, the second & updated print edition of transformer20 makes its west coast debut at Track 16. To order and for additional details, visit: https://www.transformerdc.org/thebook

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:

THE WRINKLE ROOM director Marcus Kuiland-Nazario is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, producer, and Los Angeles native. He is a founding artist of 18th Street Arts Center and Highways Performance Space and co-founder of Oficina de Proyectos Culturales, a contemporary art center in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and LA Community Health Project, a harm reduction street-based needle exchange program. Kuiland-Nazario’s works are long-term research-based cross-genre projects exploring extreme states of emotion such as grief, anger, and loss influenced by the cultural and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora. He is the recent 2024 inaugural awardee of the Jacki Apple Award for Performance and Artist Projects from LACE.

Transformer Founder & Director, Victoria Reis is a curator, writer, and arts organizer. Reis has been actively supporting contemporary visual artists and arts organizations within local, national, and international contexts since 1991. In 2002, Reis co-founded Transformer, an internationally recognized non-profit visual arts organization based in Washington, DC. Reis has served as the Executive & Artistic Director of Transformer since 2006. Over the course of her tenure with Transformer, she has curated more than 200 exhibitions, many in collaboration with embassies and larger cultural institutions and museums, and has helped launch and advance the careers of several hundred artists. In 2017, Reis expanded her curatorial practice and Transformer’s programming with the launch of Siren Arts, an Asbury Park, NJ based summer residency program for emerging visual artists working within performance art disciplines.

Anuradha Vikram is a writer, curator, and educator based in Los Angeles, CA. As a curator and critic of contemporary art, Vikram works with process-based, public, and participatory art forms, with a focus on transcultural approaches to technology, social engagement, and the body. She is Faculty in the UCLA Department of Art, USC Roski School of Art and Design, and from 2016-2020 was a member of the Board of Directors of the College Art Association. As Artistic Director at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California from 2014- 19, Vikram developed exhibitions and residencies with contemporary American and international artists each year. Her book, Decolonizing Culture, is in its third printing. The collection of seventeen essays addresses questions of race and gender parity in contemporary art spaces.