“Where can we live?” is a question that features in all our lives, but it is experienced unevenly. In 1972, underground performance legend Jack Smith was evicted from his home, a Soho loft he called “The Plaster Foundation.” In the years that followed, New York’s economy shifted decisively from manufacturing to finance and real estate, and a new era of “predatory inclusion” that further undermined urban Black communities got underway in cities across the US. Pointing to documented histories of racial exclusion as well as the contradictions of the enduring myth of artistic bohemia, the works in the exhibition—whether satirical, speculative, or grounded in the work of organizing—suggest ways of resisting the reach of capital into our homes, and innermost lives.

Larissa Harris is a curator at the Queens Museum, where she organized Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center with Damon Rich (2009); The Curse of Bigness (2010); Pedro Reyes’s People’s United Nations (pUN) (2013); and a thirty-year retrospective of Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) (2014). She co-organized 13 Most Wanted Men: Andy Warhol and the 1964 World’s Fair (2014) with Nicholas Chambers at the Andy Warhol Museum; and with critic Patti Phillips, the first survey of the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles (2016). Currently she’s working on an exhibition on the intersection of artists and real estate. Between 2004 and 2008 she was associate director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies; in 2002–03 associate editor at Artforum magazine, and from 1997–2002, programs associate at MoMA PS1.

Sally Tallant is the president and executive director of the Queens Museum. She was previously the director of Liverpool Biennial (2011–19). She has delivered large-scale exhibitions, commissions, and music and performance programs. From 2001–11 she was head of programs at the Serpentine Gallery where she was responsible for the development and delivery of an integrated program of exhibitions, architecture, education, and public programs. She has curated exhibitions in a wide range of contexts including the Hayward Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, as well as public art commissions. She is a regular contributor to conferences nationally and internationally. She is vice president of the International Biennial Association; a member of the London Regional Council for the Arts Council of England; a commissioner for the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice. She was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the Queen’s Birthday Honors in 2018.

Adrianne Koteen is an associate director of public programs at Queens Museum. She has worked in curatorial capacities at Queens assisting Larissa Harris on Do you want the cosmetic version or do you want the real deal?: Los Angeles Poverty Department, and cocurating the Arte Útil Lab. Her curatorial and programmatic experience includes several positions within the public programs department, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and the Contemporary Art curatorial department at Brooklyn Museum; as manager of public programs at Friends of the High Line; program director at Fotovision; and project manager with The International Museum of Women.

Lindsey Berfond is assistant curator at Queens Museum where she has collaborated closely on exhibitions and public programming with artists, thinkers, cultural producers, and communities. She earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from New York University and her master’s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. She has contributed to exhibitions and other programming at institutions such as Art in General, Queens Museum, NURTUREart, and SculptureCenter.

Sophia Marisa Lucas is assistant curator at the Queens Museum, where she has supported, co-organized, and organized over twenty exhibitions including, Queens International 2018: Volumes (with artist Baseera Khan), the eighth iteration of the museum's biannual exhibition of Queens-based artists, mounted in partnership with the Queens Public Library; Queens Museum Jerome Foundation Fellowship exhibitions by Sable Elyse Smith and Julia Weist (Fall 2017 with Hitomi Iwasaki) and American Artist (Fall 2019). Previously, she contributed to exhibitions and programming at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Art and Design, New York; The Artist’s Institute, New York; and Slought Foundation, Philadelphia.

The Queens Museum is dedicated to presenting the highest quality visual arts and educational programming for people in the New York metropolitan area, and particularly for the residents of Queens, a uniquely diverse, ethnic, cultural, and international community. The Museum fulfills its mission by designing and providing art exhibitions, public programs and educational experiences that promote the appreciation and enjoyment of art, support the creative efforts of artists, and enhance the quality of life through interpreting, collecting, and exhibiting art, architecture, and design. The Queens Museum presents artistic and educational programs and exhibitions that directly relate to the contemporary urban life of its constituents, while maintaining the highest standards of professional, intellectual, and ethical responsibility.