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The Arts Intel Report

The World's UnFair

An animatronic tree and a giant beaver at The World’s UnFair.

Sept 15 – Oct 15, 2023
24-17 Jackson Ave. Long Island City, Queens

“You might be thinking, am I a settler?” asks the placard for The World’s UnFair, an exhibition from the “public secret society” known as the New Red Order, which here reimagines the World’s Fair from an Indigenous perspective. Presented by Creative Time (the nonprofit that presented Kara Walker’s huge sculptural installation, A Subtlety, at the Domino Sugar Factory, in 2014), these multimedia installations in a vacant lot in Long Island City are a call to action. Meant to “transcend the guilt and shame” of settler colonialism, they are not without a sense of humor. Attractions include a philosophical (and musical) dialogue between an animatronic tree and a giant beaver; an MTV Cribs-style spoof by the actor and “reformed Native American impersonator” Jim Fletcher; and a real(i)ty office showcasing property, such as the West Village house of the late Jean-Louis Goldwater Bourgeois, who at one point planned to leave the building to Indigenous peoples. —Micah Cash

Photo courtesy of New Red Order