Collection Strengths: Exhibition 2014: Offense + Dissent

Offense + Dissent: Image, Conflict, Belonging, a 2014 exhibition, explored the ways in which offense has been given (and taken) and dissent expressed (and managed) through three incidents in the history of The New School: the 1951 and ’53 curtaining of the Orozco murals during the red scare years; the 1970 anti-war exhibition put up by Parsons students, in lieu of a senior show, in solidarity with the National Student Strike in response to the Kent State shootings and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia; and the 1989 Matsunaga affair. Through memoranda, letters, posters, press coverage, catalogues, illustrations, graphics and interviews, largely drawn from The New School Archives and Special Collections, as well as two original editorial illustrations produced for the exhibition, the exhibition traces the rapid-fire interchange of various perspectives and reactions in each instance. They demonstrate in real time the power of images both to inspire and to wound. Curators: Julia Foulkes, Mark Larrimore and Radhika Subramaniam. Research assistant: Laura Wing