CL: What is the Inside/Outside Envelope Project?

PK: Well, the I/O Project is something that I hope will benefit both prison inmates, and people in need outside of the prison system. It’s inspired by envelope art tradition, which prisoners have perpetuated for years—it’s a way of giving something to those on the ‘outside’ whom they care about.

After 30 amazing years, Exit Art will be closing end of May 2012. Exit Art has supported and fostered a vibrant, interdisciplinary artistic community in New York, organizing over 200 exhibitions, events, festivals and programs, featuring more than 2,500 artists. Founded in 1982 by Executive Director, Jeanette Ingberman and Artist Director, Papo Colo, Exit Art has grown from a pioneering alternative art space into an innovative cultural center that is committed to supporting artists whose work deals with the socio-political transformations of our time. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness, curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media.

"Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere" is a unique exhibition created by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with the aim of offering visitors “a sudden change of scenery,” to use an expression of mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck. The Fondation Cartier has opened its doors to the community of mathematicians and invited a number of artists to accompany them. They are the artisans and thinkers, the explorers and builders of this exhibition.

Ken Weathersby: Right now there’s something I’m calling ZTE—zombie tableau ensemble. It’s from an image that appeared in my head a couple of months ago: a group of paintings, a specific tableau. I saw this arrangement of paintings hanging on the wall and some that were freestanding. They seemed to come toward me across the room. Individually, they resembled paintings I’d already been making: structural, stacked wooden grids overlaid with bits of linen, patches of grid-patterned paint films—the parts of painting all present, but also dismantled, separated.