Torch '72/2020 - Shane Aslan Selzer
Torch '72/2020 - Shane Aslan Selzer

Torch ’72/2020

January 20 – April 3, 2021

Torch ’72/2020, a commissioned project by artist Shane Aslan Selzer, explores the trajectory and lineage of intersectional justice efforts on the UAlbany campus, and reactivates UAlbany’s 1972 Torch yearbook, edited by then student and renowned AIDS activist, Ron Simmons.

 

  • A silk banner that reads We Demand Power Over Our Bodies

    We Demand Power Over Our Bodies, 2021, printed silk, printed chiffon, 78 x 58 inches, courtesy of the artist 

  • Projection on a wall of two channel video

    Shane Aslan Selzer with Social Action Archive Committee, TORCH ’72/2020 *feat. Fanta Ballo, 2021, 2 channel video projection, courtesy of the artist

  • Pennants with collaged images and an orange wall

    Together Our Resistance Channels Hope (TORCH) (installation view), 2021, printed nylon, 3 x 5 feet each, courtesy of the artist 

  • Shuttle limits back to earth

     Social Action Archive: University Libraries, University at Albany, SUNY, still, 2015, digital video projection, 11:19; black and white; sound, courtesy of the artist 

  • A wooden vitrine with a open book and a print out of a poster

    Left: Torch ’72 Yearbook, published April 1972, courtesy of the Yearbook Collection, 1900-2014 Right: Albany Student Press, April 28, 1972, page 12, facsimile reproduction,courtesy of Student Newspaper Collection, 1916-2019. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany, SUNY

  • Pennants with collaged images and wooden vitrines

    Together Our Resistance Channels Hope (TORCH) (installation view),2021, printed nylon, 3 x 5 feet each, courtesy of the artist 

    Torch’72/2020 *feat. Pain by Fanta Ballo

    Shane Aslan Selzer is a practicing artist and founding editor of Social Action Archive Committee (SAAC). The Social Action Archive Committee is a networked collective of individual researchers coming together as a collegiate structure for research and production into the Torch’72 archive. Selzer founded SAAC in 2014 and has been engaged in a long term research project with Visual AIDS artist archives. Selzer has exhibited at Tabakalera in San Sebastian, Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, and Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf and Berlin. Selzer Co-Edited, What We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art (SUNY Press, 2014) and was a contributing editor to Asiko: On the Future of Artistic and Curatorial Pedagogies in Africa, (CCA Lagos, 2017). Selzer teaches at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

    Support for the University Art Museum exhibitions and programs is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and The University at Albany Foundation

     

    Press:

    Albany Proper "Museum Exhibit Looks Back On A Progressive Yearbook That Shocked Albany"

     

    Additional Resources:

    Torch ’72 Yearbook

    Ron Simmons Reader

    Related Articles

    Bibliography

    UAlbany archives: M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives

    Ron Simmons at UAlbany:
    National Leader in AIDS Education, Alumnus Ron Simmons Honored with UAlbany Harvey Milk Award
    Africana Studies at UAlbany: Celebrating 40 Years of Academic Excellence, Creating Opportunities

    Us Helping Us: The History of Us Helping Us, People Into Living Inc.

    Visual Aids website:

     

    Banner image credit: Shane Aslan Selzer with Social Action Archive Committee, TORCH ’72/2020 *feat. Fanta Ballo, 2021, 2 channel video projection, courtesy of the artist