Crit Night, presented by Pioneer Works and Ace Hotel Brooklyn

Ace Hotel Brooklyn and Pioneer Works join in creative arms to foster artistic communities.

Crit Night is a seasonal series, where Pioneer Works artists-in-residence share works in progress during an intimate evening focused around experimentation and discourse.

Visual Arts Resident Alex Mctigue will share readings from his book, Petit Mal. Petit Mal is a delirious descent into the madness of reexamining one’s own library. It is a book about the search itself. Within its pages lay a view into a psyche which may feel familiar to those who collect, who re-read, and those of us who continue to rely on art, reading and the written word for a source of contemporary meaning. With cited pages stemming from poems, literature, record sleeves, essays and artworks alike, the reader is led along one particular dizzying path out of the labyrinth.

Music Resident Becca Graham will present the Red Hook Complaint Choir, a community of folks who have worked in a collaborative, constructive, and musical environment to respond to the world around them, to speak truth to one’s experience, make space for healing, and perhaps a deeper conversation.

About the artists:

Alex Mctigue received his MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and a BFA in Photography from SVA. His practice often puts pressure on the overlap between photography and language. In 2017 he was a participant of the SOMA summer residency program in Mexico City. His recently published book, Of the night, by the city, was made in conjunction with Penumbra Foundation during the risograph print residency program in the summer of 2021.

He has taught at The Cooper Union, and currently teaches in the photography department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Becca Graham is a vocalist, musician, songwriter, and teaching artist who has been living and working in Philadelphia for nearly a decade. Under the stage moniker “Honeychile”, Graham explores their Black American identity with an interest in fusing the sonic and lyrical expressions of both a hip hop emcee and jazz diva. As an artist educator, Graham teaches a school and community-based complaint choir program and works with young people and their support teams to help them observe and process the charged world around them, artistically express a need for critical change, and create original songs and productions with an emphasis on humor, heart, and healing.

Residencies at Pioneer Works are supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.