The Vera List Center occasionally co-organizes exhibitions. They often include participatory elements that engage students, New School faculty and the public in workshops and other programs that utilize the university setting and its resources while reflecting critically on this unique context and its institutional history. Some of the VLC's exhibition projects relate to current events—for instance, the 2008 U.S. presidential elections—or actively explore the exhibition’s role as a site of exchange by incorporating elements that develop and change over time.

By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School

October 19 – 24, 2009
Parts & Labor Gallery at The New School, 66 West 12th Street
More on the exhibition

Organized in response to the 90th anniversary of The New School, this collaboration between Parts & Labor and the Vera List Center features a series of free events hosted in Parts & Labor’s mobile gallery, parked outside Tishman auditorium. Consisting of an exhibition and sound installation as well as a series of live events including discussions, lectures, workshops and psychic readings staged inside the truck and in The New School’s "signature building" at 66 West 12th Street, "By Any Name" examines the institutional and pedagogical histories of the university. The events are accompanied by a new text penned by members of The New School community:

By Any Name: A Tiny Archive of Critical Viewpoints on The New School

OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding

October 16, 2008 – February 1, 2009
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center 
Exhibition website 

On view at Parsons The New School for Design, the exhibition "OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding" ushers in the Vera List Center’s 2008-2009 program cycle, Branding Democracy. Hosted and organized by Parsons The New School for Design and curated by the Vera List Center’s director, the exhibition is timed to coincide with the final stages of the American presidential elections. It presents a range of works by emerging and established international artists that reflect some of the desires generated and satisfied by democracy--such as choice, participation, freedom of expression, a sense of belonging, and the promise of individual success--and asks whether these values have become associated with the idea of democracy in the way a consumer brand acquires value.

The exhibition is complemented by a range of lectures, talks, performances, workshops, and participatory events, many of which take place in the gallery, within a “democratic” structure designed for this purpose by British artist Liam Gillick.

I Beg Your Pardon

October 15 - 16, 2005
The New School, 66 West 12th Street, 4th floor

In a political environment saturated by aggression and segregation along various power lines, processes of reconciliation and forgiveness have been strategically used as tactics for political and social manipulations. For this two-day exhibition installed in New School classrooms, artists are asked to contribute a statement, video, image, or text to address possibilities for the "Reestablishing of Cordial Relations" or "Forgiveness" in the context of their work and the political environment.

The exhibition is organized by artist Andrea Geyer, and includes contributions by Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Nancy Brooks Brody, Matthew Buckingham, Discoteca Flaming Star (Cristina Gomez Barrio and Wolfgang Mayer), Ulrike Feser, Benj Gerdes, Jennifer Hayashida, Sharon Hayes, Maryam Jafri, Jesal Kapadia, Lin + Lam, Cristóbal Lehyt, Tara Mateik, Ulrike Mueller, Taisha Paggett and Ashley Hunt, Katrin Pesch, Yvonne Rainer, The Speculative Archive (Julia Meltzer/David Thorne), Emily Roydson, Valerie Tevere, James Tsang, and US Urban Subjects (Sabine Bitter/Jeff Derksen/Helmut Weber). 

Identify! or Studies on the Political Subject

October 23, 2004
The New School, 66 West 12th Street, 4th floor

Curated by artist Andrea Geyer, “Identify! or Studies on the Political Subject,” is a one-day exhibition of projected images and sound including slides, videos, 16mm film, and FM radio, that investigates the relationship between individuals and the state. In a political environment with systems of inclusion and exclusion (on the level of community and government as well as history) that have been polemically simplified and emotionally charged, these works aim to engage the political subject in its complex and multilayered existences, as discourse, as experience, as claim, as trace, as action, and non-action.

Participants include Yael Bartana, Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber, Matthew Buckingham, Sharon Hayes, Ashley Hunt, Lana Lin, neuroTransmitter, Jesal Kapadia, Katya Sander, Klaus Weber and Florian Wüst.

The Vera List Center occasionally organizes exhibitions. They often include participatory elements such as workshops and seminars that engage students, New School faculty and the public and both utilize and reflect critically on the unique university context and its institutional history. Some of the VLC's exhibition projects relate to current events--for instance, the 2008 U.S. presidential elections--others explore an exhibition’s function as a site of exchange, for instance by incorporating elements that develop and change over time.