All exhibitions organized by Cabinet unless otherwise noted.
Exhibition / “One for the Ages: The World of Matt Freedman”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
26 October–23 November 2024
Cabinet is pleased to present “One for the Ages: The World of Matt Freedman,” an exhibition on Freedman (1957–2020) and his inspirationally diverse career as a sculptor, graphic artist, performer, writer, and curator. An accompanying book of the same name features essays by fifty contributors, as well as extensive documentation of Freedman’s four-decade-long practice, which was marked by his exuberant creative energy, intellectual generosity, enthusiastic dedication to collaboration, and excellent good humor.
Exhibition / “And Warren Niesłuchowski Was There”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
11 October–6 November 2022
Curated by Joanna Warsza and Sina Najafi
Cabinet is pleased to present the fourth iteration of “And Warren Niesłuchowski Was There,” a traveling exhibition on Niesluchowski (1946–2019) as a practitioner of an ethical, ontological homelessness—one made possible by the postwar order even as it rejected many of its principal tenets. An accompanying book has been co-published with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
Exhibition / “Tuning Baghdad Tea Salon”
Cabinet, Ebersstraße 3, Berlin
18 May–8 June 2019
Curated by Regine Basha
Cabinet is pleased to present “Tuning Baghdad Tea Salon,” a three-week engagement with materials from Regine Basha’s family archive that provide a point of entry into the musical and cultural life of Iraq’s diasporic, 150,000-strong Jewish community that left in the late 1940s and early 1950s and is now spread throughout the world.
Exhibition / “From Russia with Doubt”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
18–29 November 2013
Curated by Adam Lerner
Cabinet is pleased to announce the opening of “From Russia with Doubt,” an exhibition of unauthenticated Soviet-era artworks. Co-organized with MCA Denver.
Exhibition / “Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing”
Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
24 May–15 September 2013
Curated by Brian Dillon
Cabinet is pleased to announce the opening of “Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing,” a Hayward Touring exhibition curated by Cabinet’s UK editor and organized in association with the magazine.
Exhibition / “School of Death”
Family Business, 520 West 21st Street, New York
7–18 May 2013
Curated by Simon Critchley and Sina Najafi
Cabinet is pleased to present, in collaboration with philosopher Simon Critchley, the first incarnation of the School of Death, an educational institution dedicated to exploring the relationship between death and the examined life. As the institution’s motto declares, “If the examined life is not worth living, then is death not worth examining?”
Exhibition / “Living in the Ruins of the Twentieth Century”
UTS Gallery, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
16 April–17 May 2013
Curated by Adam Jasper and Holly Williams
Presenting a vision of the twentieth century as a history of false starts, obsolete technologies, and unrealised utopias, “Living in the Ruins” is an archaeological dig into the material culture that shapes our present. In association with Cabinet, curators Jasper and Williams draw together objects from art, science, and ethnography in an investigation of the ruins, remnants, and ill-fated prototypes that defined a century already far enough in the past to be foreign to us, but close enough that we still have no fitting monuments for it.
Exhibition / “Harry Smith: String Figures”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
19 September–3 November 2012
Curated by Terry Winters
Cabinet is pleased to present “Harry Smith: String Figures,” an exhibition drawn from the collection of John Cohen. Organized by painter Terry Winters, the show features twenty-two string figures created by Smith (1923–1991), the legendary artist, filmmaker, and ethnomusicologist.
Exhibition / “An Exchange with Sol LeWitt”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
21 January–5 March 2011
Curated by Regine Basha
Sol LeWitt was renowned for his exchanges of artworks with various artists throughout his lifetime. For LeWitt, the act of exchange seemed to be not only a personal gesture, but also an integral part of his conceptual practice. In the spirit of continuing the artist’s lifelong philosophy of open exchange, and in conjunction with the “LeWitt Wall Drawing Retrospective” on view at MASS MoCA, MASS MoCA and Cabinet presented “An Exchange with Sol LeWitt.”
Exhibition / “The Slice: Cutting to See”
AA Gallery, Architectural Association School of Architecture, 36 Bedford Square, London
20 November–15 December 2010
Moving across historical moments and disparate fields, the exhibition examined the peculiar traditions that link visibility to the swift saw. From the cutaway view to the geometry of projection, from the microtome to the CAT-Scan, from the surgeon’s scalpel to the sadist’s guillotine, the slice can reveal a secret order, spill lurid innards, and open new views.
Exhibition / “Your Plaice or Mine,” by Tim Davis & Dziga Lovechild
Dodge Gallery, 15 Rivington St, New York
13 November–23 December 2010
Artist Tim Davis joined forces with Dziga Lovechild to produce “Your Plaice or Mine,” an audio-visual version of Davis’s proposal for a screenplay printed in the Plaice portfolio of Cabinet issue 32.
Exhibition / “Alternative Histories”
Exit Art, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York
24 September–24 November 2010
Cabinet was included in the exhibition “Alternative Histories,” at Exit Art in New York. The exhibition documents the history of New York’s alternative art spaces and projects since the 1960s. Organized by Exit Art.
Exhibition / “An Ordinall of Alchimy”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
27 March–17 April 2010
This exhibition was assembled under the constraint that everything installed in the gallery must have been acquired on Ebay for a total of less than $999. Mark Dion, Robert Williams, and their students at Mildred’s Lane used the constraint as an opportunity to explore the theme of alchemical transformation. Organized by Dion and Williams.
Exhibition / Jaime Davidovich, “The Live! Show,” by Jaime Davidovich
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
22 January–13 February 2010
“The Live! Show,” an exhibition by New York–based artist Jaime Davidovich, featured episodes from the artist’s cable TV show of the same name, alongside archival material, printed matter, and original photographs documenting the TV program’s run between 1979 and 1984.
Exhibition / “Darcy Lange: Work Studies in Schools,” by Darcy Lange
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
4 December 2009–16 January 2010
Curated by Mercedes Vicente
This exhibition drew from a series of videos by New Zealand artist Darcy Lange (1946–2005) which examine the processes of teaching and learning. In 1976, Lange videotaped a number of classrooms at three schools in the English city of Birmingham, carefully choosing institutions that would represent different social classes.
Exhibition / “The Bubble”
Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920 rue Baile, Montréal
26 November 2009–17 January 2010
This exhibition considered the bubble, a wonder of surface tension. In its architectural interpretation, the bubble can be understood as a feat of engineering or as a metaphor for an enclosed hermetic environment. As such, the bubble emerges as either a powerful symbol of the future or becomes synonymous with the condition of isolation.
Exhibition / “Zeno Reminder,” by Uqbar Foundation (Mariana Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman)
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
13–22 November 2009
Co-presented by Performa and Cabinet
Curated by Defne Ayas
As part of Performa 09, Uqbar’s sculpture-structures, inspired by Futurist artist Fortunato Depero, served as a setting for an array of objects—including sculptures, drawings, and paintings—that posed the question: “What would the style of a creative automaton be?”
Exhibition / “Hopeful,” by David Levine
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
3–24 October 2009
The exhibition explored headshots—photographs of actors looking for work rather than publicity portraits of stars—both as genre and as material artifact.
Exhibition / “Fabrication of Blindness,” by Julia Mandle
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
19–27 September 2009
A stirring memorial to, and protest of, America’s use of torture in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and beyond, the exhibition “Fabrication of Blindness” took the form of a large dark cloud made out of the black military sandbags that are used to hood prisoners. The exhibition was organized by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and presented as part of its “Crossing the Line” festival.
Exhibition / “At the Eleventh Hour,” by Victor Houteff
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
21 August–16 September 2009
An exhibition of paintings by the founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist group later taken over by David Koresh in Waco, Texas. The exhibition drew on the collection of Los Angeles-based artist Jim Shaw.
Exhibition / “Recent Addition to the Permanent Collection,” by Nadia Wagner
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
18 July–8 August 2009
Nadia Wagner’s exhibit offered an invisible modification of the Cabinet event space that invoked change, decay, and prestige via the scent of Evernyl.
Exhibition / “Pre-Retroscope VI—Gowanus Journey,” by Conrad Shawcross
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
20 June–10 July 2009
Documenting an expedition undertaken this spring along the length of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal using a specially adapted rowboat, the exhibition—a fusion of urban performance, exploration, and the processes of scientific discovery—included video taken on Shawcross’s voyage, as well as drawings, photos, and the vessel itself.
Exhibition / “A Series of Coincidences”
Cabinet, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
21 February–13 March 2009
Curated by Regine Basha
An art exhibition at Cabinet featuring Serkan Ozkaya, Daniel Bozhkov, John Menick, and Dario Robleto.
Exhibition / “Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates”
Queens Museum of Art and White Columns, New York
September 2005–January 2006
An exhibition at the Queens Museum of Art and White Columns developing the Gordon Matta-Clark project initially presented in Cabinet issue 10.
Exhibition / “Philosophical Toys”
Apexart, New York
29 June–6 August 2005
An exhibition on pedagogical “toys” featuring Friedrich Fröbel, Jeannine Mosely, and Shea Zellweger. Organized by Sina Najafi.
Exhibition / “eBay: Buy or Sell or Buy”
Pace Digital Gallery (online)
6 May–6 September 2004
Cabinet’s New Mexico land shenanigans from issue 10 included in a show on eBay. Organized by Pace Digital Gallery.
Exhibition / “Get Rid of Yourself”
Weimar, Leipzig, and Munich, Germany
26 July 2003–15 February 2004
Cabinet included in a traveling show organized by Frank Motz.
Exhibition / “The Paper Sculpture Show”
Various locations
2003–2007
Curated by Mary Ceruti, Matt Freedman, and Sina Najafi
A traveling group exhibition featuring DIY paper sculptures by 29 artists.