Tales of NYC autonomous education…

The Brecht Forum in 2014, shortly before it closed

Lisa Maya Knauer recently posted this to Facebook.
It's a heartfelt memory of one of the pillars of autonomous political education in New York City past.
She writes:
One of my dearest and oldest friends (that is, a friend of long standing, not in age), Michael Lardner, died on Thursday. Michael and I met when we were both young activists in the late 1970s -- we met at the School for Marxist Education in the West Village around 1977 or 1978, and quickly became active in the collective that ran the school. We often joked, in recent years, that back then we were the babies among the members of the Marxist Education Collective, and now we had become the alte kakers (old farts, literally) of the project that emerged from the ashes of the Brecht Forum back in 2014 when the board somewhat precipitously (in my view) dissolved the organization, the Marxist Education Project. I'd been a member of the Brecht board for 20+ years but eventually we established term limits and I was required to take a few years off, so I wasn't on the board at the time that the board shut down the organization. Michael and I and a few others had recently established a working and reading group on precarity or precariousness, called Precarious Labor, Precarious Lives, and the last event held at the Brecht in April or May of 2014 before it shut down was a panel discussion that the two of us had organized on Precarious Labor with a mixture of academics and labor activists (not that those two categories are mutually exclusive -- Ed Ott was one of the panelists). I think the date was May 8, 2014, but I'd have to check some old files (of which I have plenty).
Mike was traveling abroad in 1979 when Arthur Felberbaum, the founder and guiding spirit of the School for Marxist Education, died suddenly. Arthur had been a mentor to both Michael and me -- Mike was working at that time as a typesetter, and Arthur was keenly interested in technology and labor, and changes in the labor process, and both Mike and I were part of a working group on Technology and Labor that unfortunately did not survive long after Arthur's death. Mike and I had somehow arranged to meet up in London that summer (this was in the days before cellphones and the internet), and it was my sad task to tell him of Arthur's death. We spent time knocking about London, meeting up with British leftist and anti-racist activists, went to Rock Against Racism and punk concerts, and Troops out of Ireland protests.

It's hard to summarize a friendship/comradeship that has extended for nearly 45 years (let's say 44 and change). There were 5 a.m. breakfasts at the Kiev after spending the night at a Gang of Four or Bad Brains concert. Many, many collective and committee meetings, Capital classes, protests against U.S. involvement in Central America, days spent painting walls and sanding floors as the Brecht moved to different locations, pushed by the increasingly tight real estate market in New York City.
More recently we often talked late at night when he was out on his nightly walks, about nothing and everything. I can say without any hesitation that we loved each other very deeply -- a love that wasn't erotic or romantic -- except in the sense that many revolutionaries have a romantic tinge to our political passions. It was the love of shared ideals and commitments, a strong and lasting bond that will always be there.
Mike was, of course, the driving force behind the MEP, along with others. I was very active for the first several years -- I still have files and files of notes from meetings -- but markedly less so in the last several months (not for any specific reason, just the natural ebb and flow of political and other commitments) and helped it grow into a truly global intellectual and activist community. It remains for us, his friends, comrades, and co-conspirators, to carry that work through.

Camilo Vive commented:
Sorry for your and our loss, thanks for sharing, I think it is hard for some to image how marginalized the Cold War made many activists over the years, I know that it wasn’t easy to keep the seeds of resistance alive, but I hope that by more people learning more about what it has taken to tend to and maintain a wider political spectrum that more can be inspired by people like Michael about what it takes to strive for fundamental change for the long haul.

Illustrations via thetricontinental.org

See also:

Our Legacy: 2014-today: Birth of The Marxist Education Project
https://marxedproject.org/our-legacy/

New York’s Brecht Forum to Close by Mostafa Heddaya April 14, 2014
https://hyperallergic.com/120414/new-yorks-brecht-forum-to-close/

Workshop: Legalities of Documentary Photography - Sun 7/24 2pm

Photo: Clayton Patterson, who videotaped the Tompkins Square Park police riot in 1988, being arrested by plainclothese police for... ?? Photo by Q. Sakamaki

As laws radically change, art interventions and protests flair in our polarized society, and the need for documenting history is incredibly urgent. But what are your rights as a filmmaker? And what are your responsibilities to those you film?
This practical seminar from veteran filmmaker Kevin Frech has two parts: the first covers issues from interacting with law enforcement to understanding property rights, on-camera releases as well as protecting yourself and those around you.
The second part includes tips to get the best, most impactful footage you can: better framing, better lighting, and better sound.
This workshop is ideal for citizen activists, journalists and socially-engaged artists.
Kevin R. Frech is a mixed-media artist and award-winning filmmaker. His work explores the turbulent and comedic interactions of people on their environment, and vice-versa. He has filmed on location in five continents and his works have shown in Seattle, Chicago, New York, Beijing, Venezia, Sao Paolo and Panama City, and on PBS and the Sundance Channel.

Robby Herbst and Jim Costanzo at Summer School Thurs 7-28 7pm

Couple of artists on some history and capitalism
With Robby Herbst and Jim Costanzo
Thursday July 28 at 7:00pm

Presented as part of Summer School: Art, Education & Radical Resistance
ABC No Rio in Exile at PS122 Gallery

Robby Herbst will share a history of the West Coast free-schools movement connecting Vanguarde art practices to the Bay Area Counterculture. His talk will track the little known and influential Portala Institute, founded in Menlo Park, CA in 1966, as an incubator of educational innovation. The extended Portola Network connects platforms for educational experiments to the Whole Earth Catalog, little known 1970's era counter-education publication projects, The New Games movement and the People's Computer Company. The talk will touch on the themes of anti-fascism, and new forms of labor that were emerging in the 1970s.
Jim Costanzo will discuss the most recent failure of Capitalism. The coronavirus pandemic comes 15 years after criminal activities by Wall Street crashed the international banking system which led to protests in the Mideast and Occupy Wall Street. Before coronavirus, the gap in income between billionaires and working people was the highest in U.S. history. It has grown larger during the pandemic. Economic inequities have always manifested itself in the exploitation of women, minorities, workers and the environment. Disaster Capitalism and Surveillance Capitalism are important concepts to understand our current situation but ultimately it is just Capitalism.

"Summer School" Event Schedule, regularly updated.

ANTI-UNIVERSITY 1968; 2015 – ongoing

The Antiuniversity was a London project of the late 1960s. It included figures such as C.L.R James, Stokely Carmichael, Juliet Mitchell, R.D. Laing and Stuart Hall. They sought to break the structures enforced by institutions.
The Antiuniversity wanted to allow people to meet each other without having to act out socially prescribed roles. This they believed would expose the terrible reality of modern life, in which nobody really knew anyone, and spark a revolution. Despite being short-lived and mostly shrouded in mystery, t he Antiuniversity continues to capture the imagination of anyone interested in alternative education, self- organisation, non-hierarchical structures and radicalism.
– possibly Anti-University 2015 (slight redactions)

The ANTI-U NOW project is “A collaborative autonomous education experiment. Teaching and learning as direct action.
An ongoing programme of radical education & an annual festival. Antiuniversity Now is a collaborative experiment to revisit and reimagine the 1968 Antiuniversity of London in an ongoing programme of of free and inclusive self-organised radical education events. It was set up to challenge academic and class hierarchy and the exclusivity of the expensive degree through an open invitation to teach and learn any subject, in any form, anywhere.”
– @antiuniversity

In London in the ‘60s, raising the intellectual proletariat rabble, was Alex Trocchi, novelist and Situationist. He aimed for an “invisible insurrection of a million minds” – As he wrote in sigma, “Now and in the future our centre is everywhere, our circumference nowhere. No one is in control. No one is excluded.… The conference begins now and goes on indefinitely. We are particularly anxious to have your participation soon, as soon as possible.”

LINKS

The Antiuniversity of London - an Introduction to Deinstitutionalisation
https://antihistory.org/deinsti

Monoskop links for Antiuniversity of London
https://monoskop.org/Antiuniversity_of_London

Antiuniversity Now
https://www.facebook.com/antiuniversityofeastlondon/

Reference for Trocchi: "sigma: A Tactical Blueprint" by Alexander Trocchi (1963?)
http://www.notbored.org/sigma.html

The Show Is Open -- Events in Progress

This is a screenshot of the calendar on the ABC No Rio website. It will be updated at that URL as it expands....

Installation in progress...

Opening Softly...

PS122 Gallery
July and August 2022
www.abcnorio.org/summerschool
Summer School: Art, Education & Radical Resistance focuses on the artist’s role as activist, art as a community organizing tool and teaching as the sharing of resistant knowledge. Emphasizing the processes of artists participating in public discourse, Summer School examines how support for shared values drives alternative politics and ideas through the arts.
Historically, summer school is a place for remedial education, with the focus on improving skills to prepare students for participation in required curriculum. Offering a different type of remediation, the projects included in Summer School: Art, Education & Radical Resistance are creative in nature and fill a gap left by mainstream histories, governments, educational systems, and other established institutions.
In the spirit of community spaces, PS122 Gallery’s exhibition space will be activated by events and workshops throughout the duration of the show, with installations changing in concert with these events.
Summer School includes artwork, screenings, documentation of current and past projects, workshops, skill-shares, and other public presentations. All events are free to the public, but may require RSVP. Participating Artists, Collectives, and Organizations:
Yasmeen Abdallah, Shiva Addanki, Amplifier Inc., Big Sky Workshop, Beyond Prisons Podcast, Chto Delat, Jim Costanzo/Aaron Burr Society, Agata Craftlove/THEMM! & Gregory Sholette, Priyanka Das, Shawn Escarciga, Peter Fend, Kevin Frech, Christina Freeman, Robby Herbst, Interference Archive with Willa Goettling, Mobile Print Power, North Bronx Collective, Octavia Project, Antonio Serna, Gina Peyran Tan, Workers Art Coalition.

ABC No Rio frequently explores new ways to organize and implement its projects. Summer School continues this tradition of actively involving participating artists, collectives and other entities in the planning, organization, and installation of exhibitions.
Organizers:
Yasmeen Abdallah, Vince Carducci, Barrie Cline, Priyanka Das, Steven Englander, Shawn Escarciga, Peter Fend, Christina Freeman, Robby Herbst, David King, Chris McHale, Alan Moore, Arthur Polendo, and Stephen Zacks.

ABC No Rio in Exile
In 2017 the Lower East Side arts center ABC No Rio vacated its building on Rivington Street in advance of constructing a new facility. During the construction period ABC No Rio programs and operations continue “in exile” at other venues and in collaboration with other organizations. ABC No Rio in Exile provides a renewed and focused orientation towards collaborative work that brings us back to our roots — ABC No Rio was founded as a project of the 1970s artist group Collaborative Projects — and in “exile” ABC No Rio remains a "place" where people share resources and ideas in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual support.
PS122 Gallery
PS122 Gallery is a not-for-profit alternative exhibition space in the East Village operating since 1979. It is dedicated to fostering and developing the arts by providing opportunities and support services for emerging and under-recognized artists. It is an ongoing program of Painting Space 122, the grassroots, artist-run cooperative that helped foster the vibrant cultural community at the City-owned 122 Community Center (122CC). PS122 Gallery strives to present the work of artists of all backgrounds in a diverse and equitable context. By acting as a platform, PS122 Gallery also seeks to reengage with its surrounding community, welcome new communities, and create new, audience-driven opportunities for engagement. In addition to PS122 Gallery, the Members of Painting Space 122 offer support through the Project Studio Residency program by providing one-year workspace studios at below- market rates to a diverse group of professional artists.

Summer School: Art, Education & Radical Resistance is funded in part by the New York State Council on Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.