A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Free Expression and the Inexpressible, the eighth edition of CURRENTS, a biennial open call exhibition series in which artists respond to current topics. Curated by artist and theorist Aliza Shvarts, the 2024 iteration of the series addresses how artists navigate the paradoxes and promises implied by the idea of “freedom of expression.”

“Freedom of expression” is a principle and right that is meant to protect the voices of the disempowered. Crucially, it promises to safeguard our capacity to speak truth, critique systems of power, and demand a better world. Yet free expression has never been a right without exception, or even a right enforced and distributed equally. At times, the freedom of expression of some comes at the silencing of others—particularly women, queer people, people of color, indigenous people, and people with disabilities. In these instances, “freedom” can be an alibi for reinforcing domination: a term invoked to defend hate speech and otherwise disavow language’s violent effects.

We are living through a dramatic repolarization of the cultural debates over the meaning of free expression. Between the alarming rise in book bans, attacks on academic freedom, and legislation such as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, there has been an unprecedented escalation in censorship and dismantling of First Amendment protections. At the same time, cancel culture, misinformation, and deep fakes have prompted us to reconsider the social responsibility that comes with freedom, while the advent of AI-generated text and images adds further dimension to the age-old question of what it means to “express.” How in this moment do we navigate the paradox and promise of freedom of expression as an alternately liberatory, retaliatory, and mutable idea?

More information can be found here.