“Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?”
– Mahmoud Darwish
“…I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
– Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World
In 1991, responding to the failures of global capitalism, the anarchist writer and poet Peter Lamborn Wilson—also known as Hakim Bey—introduced the idea of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (T.A.Z.). Conceived as a critique of hierarchical systems, the T.A.Z. proposes a radical rethinking of freedom through ephemeral spaces of liberation—brief, self-organized zones that exist outside structures of control, only to dissolve and reappear elsewhere.
Bey imagined these as pirate islands—temporary disruptions that resist the pervasive mechanisms of control and the “immense accumulation of spectacles” that distract and desensitize individuals from the world’s urgencies. These zones reclaim our attention and time, creating spaces for critical engagement and sites where people converge to participate, reflect, imagine, and conspire the possible utopias with the potential to transform life. Such momentary disruptions may take many forms: communes, encampments, festivals, improvised gatherings, potlucks, community gardens, seed banks, cooperatives, itinerant theatres, free libraries, protests, public and digital forums, online networks, readings, jam sessions, self-organized workshops, pop-up exhibitions, poster bombing, happenings, poetry—the list goes on.
After the Last Sky adopts the spirit of Hakim Bey’s Temporary Autonomous Zone, transforming the LeRoy Neiman Gallery into a living room to explore its potential as a space of convergence and critical engagement. Bringing together works by current Columbia MFA candidates, alumni, and guest artists in dialogue with works from the LeRoy Neiman Print Center’s collection, the exhibition reimagines the living room—a site traditionally associated with private leisure and comfort—as a space for gathering, dissent, discussion, and reflection. Here, familiar domestic forms are unsettled to question the commodification of culture, redirecting our attention toward the multiplicity of perspectives on the contemporary world offered by the works in the exhibition. Through this setting, the exhibition navigates tensions between consumption, desensitization, comfort, discomfort, urgency, and political agency.
Exhibiting Artists:
Polly Apfelbaum
Andrius Alvarez-Backus
Phong H. Bui
Danny Castro
Cecilia Caldiera
Nathan Ng Catlin
Mariano Cayo
Chloe Crookall
william cordova
Rafael Domenech
Miguel Gallego
Alek Green
Valeria Guillen
Jessica Hans
Alfredo Jaar
Eugene Jung
Michael Joo
Ema Ri
Calvin Kim
Sonia Rosa Kahn
Soomin Kang
Elizabeth Kaiser
William Kentridge
Michael Leach
Jonas Mekas
Jon Millan
Wenhui Quan
Grethell Rasua
Francisco J. Ramirez
Maximiliano Rosiles
Miles Scharff
Liz Schneider
Sarah Sze
Shaina Tabak
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Sarah Tortora
Marcos Valella
Tomas Vu
Joelle Yu
Liz Zito
alejandro valencia 