Featuring: Dr. Simon Critchley, Ryanaustin Dennis & Tyler Keen (INTERN), Dr. Orna Guralnik & Ruby Guralnik Dawes, Dr. Piper Marshall, and Charles Renfro
Petzel is pleased to present an afternoon conceived by artist Jorge Pardo in conjunction with his current solo exhibition which closes on December 20, 2025. Taking place on Saturday, December 13, 2025, from 2–6pm, Pardo invites a group of artists, writers, curators, psychoanalysts, and thinkers to offer brief presentations on any subject they wish. Featuring contributions from Simon Critchley, Ryanaustin Dennis & Tyler Keen (INTERN), Dr. Orna Guralnik & Ruby Guralnik Dawes, Piper Marshall, and Charles Renfro, the event will range from readings, performances, and lectures, which are the titles of the exhibition and the individual works on view, revealed publicly during the gathering. In doing so, Pardo inquires the space between a work’s title and the work itself, how that shapes and misshapes expectations, and in turn issues directives and ultimately names the work.
The afternoon’s presentations reflect the breadth of disciplines Pardo brings into dialogue. Dr. Simon Critchley will read from his book Mysticism, examining the peculiar and striking role of images in Medieval Christianity. Ryanaustin Dennis and Tyler Keen (INTERN) will present Solar Love Stream, a lecture-performance that integrates live sonics generated from solar flares and storms into an original score that culminates in a collective composition inspired by Cornelius Cardew. Dr. Orna Guralnik and Ruby Gurlanik Dawes will address the concept of dissociation as it operates within both psychoanalysis and art theory. Dr. Piper Marshall and Charles Renfro will each contribute short performances and readings shaped by their own areas of inquiry.
Central to Pardo’s practice is what he calls the “absurd problem of translation”: a resistance to fixed reference in favor of circulating “contingencies” that keep artworks active and indeterminate. His unconventional titling methods, most recently using videos in lieu of artwork titles for this Viewing Room presentation at Petzel in November 2024, reframe titles as contingent traces rather than explanatory labels.
This event continues Pardo’s longstanding impulse to unsettle exhibition conventions, echoing the destabilization of public and private space. By inviting others to generate the language that frames the work, Pardo transforms titling into a collective, performative act. The event becomes not an accessory to the exhibition but an integral contingency, allowing its meaning to remain in motion.
About the speakers:
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He has written over twenty books, including studies of Greek tragedy, David Bowie, football, suicide, Shakespeare, how philosophers die, and a book on mysticism. He was also the coeditor of The Stone at The New York Times.
Ryanaustin Dennis is a poet, performer, and artist who works as Programs and Engagement Assistant at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Tyler Keen is a composer, performer, and electronic/experimental musician. They are part of the sound art project named INTERN.
Dr. Orna Guralnik is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst practicing in New York. She is on faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, where she teaches courses on the trans-generational transmission of trauma, socio-politics/ideology and psychoanalysis, and dissociation. Ruby Guralnik Dawes is a curator, writer, and editor based in Brooklyn. She is currently a master's student in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and a graduate curatorial intern at the Jewish Museum.
Piper Marshall (PhD, Columbia University in the City of New York) is an art historian, curator, and writer with an extensive record of international exhibitions and publications. Her practice intertwines rigorous research with contemporary exhibition-making and addresses modern and contemporary art, performance, and media studies. She organized Growing Sideways: Performing Childhood (2024) at the Wallach Art Gallery, New York, and has served on curatorial teams for exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art.
Charles Renfro is a partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a design studio working across architecture, urban design, art, performance, and media. He serves as Board President of The New Group theater and is a leading LGBTQ+ voice in architecture, recognized twice on the Out100 list. Charles is shaping new interdisciplinary arts spaces, including the future home of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, and teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.