JEAN-MARC SUPERVILLE SOVAK
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UP & COMING:

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A Life in Bondage or Among Believers?
by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak in the Watervliet Shaker Journal

The story of Black Shakers may come as a surprise (it was for me) but the story of Betty and Phebe Lane is exemplary of the life of many Black citizens of early 19th-century New York for whom "Gradual Emancipation" meant a transition to a different form of servitude.
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design - Josh McKible @MCKBILLO.COM
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One City, Two Schools:
Racial Politics of School Districting in Poughkeepsie

 - A PODCAST -

An Arts-Mid Hudson Individual Artist Commission awarded to a new investigative podcast series dedicated to two overlapping historical narratives: 1) A late 19th century Black community’s many decade-attempt to desegregate public schools in Poughkeepsie, NY and 2) a mid-20th century suburban community’s successful attempt at openly defying the New York State Education Department to create a separate, functionally segregated school district in a mostly white sub-urban section within the township of Poughkeepsie known as Spackenkill.

generously hosted by:
BEACONITES!

with production support from:
Beacon AV Lab

This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts-Mid Hudson.

FIRST EPISODES COMING SOON!
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Listening to Land, curated by Alison McNulty

Ann Street Gallery
104 Ann Street, Newburgh NY 12550

July 13 - August 27 
Reception July 15, 4:00-7:00pm 

Gallery Hours:
Thursday 4-7pm; Saturdays 1-5pm; Sundays 1-5pm
Extended hours July 22 - July 23 of  11-5 for Upstate Art Weekend
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To Be-Named, curated  by Krista Caballero

OPALKA Gallery
Russell Sage College
140 New Scotland Ave., Albany, NY 12208


September 1 through October 14, 2023
Opening reception September 8, 6- 9pm

The origins of To Be—Named lie in a partnership between the European Union funded CoLing project—a multi-national multi-institutional program focused on minority languages, the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network which links university hubs around the world, and the Recovering Voices program at the Smithsonian Institution, which supports community efforts in language revitalization.
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a-Historical Landscapes @ Loeb

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College has recently acquired two "a-Historical Landscapes"; "Am I Not a Man?" and "Between Hell and Hell on Earth", currently on view in the museum's Hudson River School Collection, the collection of works acquired by Matthew Vassar in dating back to the museum's founding in 1864.

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"Blauvelt Blues: Afro-Dutch Voices of Rockland County"

Rockland County Art in Public Places contract awarded for permanent outdoor public sculpture installation at Cropsey Community Farm in New City, NY
Opening Spring 2023
Thomas Pomplin Memorial

Public Sculpture commissioned by Piermont Fire Co. #13, Piermont, NY

Thomas Pomplin (1826-1854), a Black man born one year before the conditional abolition of slavery in New York State was also the Piermont Fire Company's first Line of Duty Death (LODD) and was posthumously recognized for his sacrifice 168 years after the fire that ultimately consumed his life. I was commissioned by Chief Dan Goswick to create the sculpture of Thomas Pomplin, which is based on the only known photograph of Pomplin, pictured without a uniform. His recognition as a firefighter, a citizen and a hero is now recorded in Rockland County's Legislature and the monument to him stands proudly at Flywheel Park in Piermont for all to see.
Olana and the Color of Freedom

A discussion with Dr. Myra B. Young Armstead, Professor of Historical Studies at Bard College and author of Freedom's Gardener, considering how the timeline of Church’s site-specific masterpiece, Olana, runs concurrent to the experiences of men and women born into slavery in the Hudson Valley.

Press

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"Always Present, Never Seen"
by Editor Chip Rowe


"a-Historical Landscapes" featured in Highlands Current article on Black history in the Hudson Highlands "Always Present, Never Seen" by Editor Chip Rowe.

"The exclusion is reflected in recent artwork by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, who has a studio in Beacon. In a series of prints, a-Historical Landscape, he took idyllic 19th-century landscape engravings typical of the Hudson River School and inserted images from anti-slavery almanacs and abolitionist tracts of the same period. “What makes these works so American, I think, is not what is depicted but also what’s missing,” he says."


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"7 Emerging Hudson Valley Artists to Watch"
by Carl Van Brunt

"Black Artists in the Hudson Valley"
A selection by Chronogram staff
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Scenic Hudson's Hudson Valley Viewfinder
Scenic Hudson recently acquired the site of the former Empire brickyard,  located in Stockport, NY and the source for many of my "Empire Brickwork." It is now the Charles Flood Wildlife Management Area at the Empire Brickyard.
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Who Owns the Earth?
by Louis Bury's
Review of Owning Earth at Unison Arts Center, New Paltz

Interviews

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Beaconites.com podcast interview (40 minutes)
with Zach Rodgers, Beaconites podcast creator & host

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Radio Catskill interview (14 minutes)
with Jason Dole, Program Director, WJFF Radio Catskill

sculpture

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prints

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video

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drawing

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  • home
  • about
  • art
    • 1City:2Schools
    • Public Art >
      • Blauvelt Blues
      • Burial for White Supremacy
      • Can A Sculpture Feel Pain?
      • Freeborn Trails
      • Six of the First
      • Thomas Pomplin Memorial
    • a-Historical Landscapes
    • EMPIRE brickwork
    • I Draw & You Talk
    • Strange Fruit; Split Seed
    • Tiny House of Steel
    • video
    • We Wear the Mask
    • The Price of Half-Freedom
  • teaching
    • Museum Learning
    • Visiting Artist Lectures
    • Reparative Work
    • Workshops
  • Press
  • Publications