Cy Gavin, Marsden Cemetery at Tucker’s Aim (2017). Image courtesy the musician.

Quickly thereafter Gavin started assisting musician and filmmaker Ellen Cantor on her behalf task Pinochet Porn (Cantor’s final film before she passed in 2013), and worked as an archivist for Vito Acconci’s studio. He had been greatly impacted by both performers, mentioning in specific Acconci’s shape-shifting character and amazing work ethic. “He was the most difficult person that is working ever known.”

Gavin ended up being accepted to Columbia University’s MFA system in 2014, where he worked closely with performers such as for instance Fia Backström and Sanford Biggers, and art curator and historian Kellie Jones, who Gavin considers his mentor.

“I wished to be addressed as an person that is autonomous in charge of my time here,” he notes, “and Columbia had been this way. You can do absolutely nothing and graduate or you might kill your self and graduate. It absolutely was as if you grow your adventure that is very own.

At Columbia, Gavin opened a gallery that is secret an abandoned building in East Harlem owned because of the University. “It had been a locker that is former and shower,” he said. “And I inquired Lia [Gangitano] to curate the show with two sculptors, Ektor Garcia and Michael Blake. We brought electricity, and ac. We painted the walls white. Continue reading →