Book Launch
Language Arts by Justin Allen
Spread from Language Arts by Justin Allen (2024)
Location
Performance Space New York
150 First Avenue, 4th floor
New York, NY 10009
About the event
Join us in celebrating the publication of Language Arts by Justin Allen, emceed by Ashley Brockington and featuring readings by Justin Allen, Rindon Johnson, and Sur Rodney (Sur).
CART will be provided.
About the book
Justin Allen’s Language Arts takes up writing as an integral part of an interdisciplinary art practice. Across poems, essays, lyrics, screenwriting, and drawings, works touch on themes of music and subculture, African diasporic language, visual art, and more, bringing together Allen's numerous influences into one collection.
Justin Allen's Language Arts is the 2022 Open Reading Period Editors' Pick.
About the readers
Justin Allen is a writer and performer from Northern Virginia. With a background in tap dancing and creative writing, his work often combines a variety of art forms. He has been commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and The Shed and has held residencies at ISSUE Project Room and the Center for Afrofuturist Studies. He has received support from Franklin Furnace, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation, and shared his work both stateside and abroad.
Ashley Brockington is a radicalized regular black girl from the suburbs of anywhere, usa. She writes short plays (NYNF). She is a retired Circus Girl (Circus Amok). She writes and teaches Astrology & Tarot. Has loved Justin since twerking with him overseas at Very Important Arts Events. She believes at existing below the poverty line because, Artist/Hippy/Late Stage Capitalism. Currently in her 2nd full year of A Course in Miracles: Today's lesson, I will accept my part in the plan. Glad to be your host. My Next Thing: Directing Blood at the Root at Brooklyn College. Jan 2025
Rindon Johnson is an artist and poet. Johnson's solo exhibition. “Best Synthetic Answer” will be on view through April 2025 at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, China. He is the author of four books of poetry and prose. He has loved Justin’s writing since they read together in 2017, Justin makes the best space.
Sur Rodney (Sur) is a writer, curator and archivist. He’s been know to refer to Justin Allen as his son. He modeled himself a poet and a member of the Blackheart Collective, a writers collective that formed in the early 1980s and reform in the late 1980s as Other Countries. Sur abandoned poetry and began writing vignettes and short stories as experimental memoir albeit his writing on contemporary art and artists are more known.