Peggy Ahwesh

Born 1954, Pittsburgh, PA
Lives and works in New York

Education

B.F.A., Antioch College, OH

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Peggy Ahwesh: Visions Machines, Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway, 2022
Peggy Ahwesh: Visions Machines, Spike Island, Bristol, England, UK 2021
Peggy Ahwesh: Heart_Land, Joan Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 2020
Peggy Ahwesh: Unsettled States, New Media ArtSpace, Baruch College, New York, NY 2019
CLEAVE, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2019
Verily! the Blackest Sea, The Falling Sky, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival (BFMAF), Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, UK, 2018
Warm Objects, Salon 94 (video wall), New York, NY, 2017
Black Box Installation by Peggy Ahwesh: Kissing point (Revisited), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 2017
Peggy Ahwesh: Warm Objects, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ, 2015
City Thermogram, Midnight Moment, Times Square Arts, NY, 2015
Kissing Point, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2014/15
Inside Circle, Microscope Gallery, New York, 2012
The Ape of Nature, Gladstone Hotel, Images Festival, Toronto, Canada, 2011
Ape of Nature, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2011
The Ape of Nature, curated by Linda Norden, The James Gallery, New York, NY, 2009

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022
No Master Territories: Feminist Worldmaking and the Moving Image, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin Germany
Worldbuilding: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Germany
INDÉSIRABLES, San Telmo Museoa, Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain
Model Home (Part One: After Wisconsin Death, The Poor Farm, Manawa, WI

2021
Density Betrays Us, The Hole, New York, NY
A Fire In My Belly, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Germany
Anne Turyn’s Top Stories, Kunstverein, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Downtown 2021, La Mama Galleria, New York, NY

2020
Taipei Biennial 2020, Taiwan
Private Lives Public Spaces, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY

2019
Private Lives Public Spaces, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
We Refugees, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC), Santiago de Compostela, Spain
A World of Statues, Foxy Production, New York, NY
Take My Money / Take My Body, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles, CA

2018
Omnipresence, The Kitchen, New York, NY
The Color of Love, My Friend, Paris, TX

2017
Contemportentary: The Archive is a Port in the Squall, curated by Hannah Piper Burns, Bentson Mediatheque, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

2016
Coming to Power: 25 Years of Sexually X-Plicit Art by Women, Maccarone, New York, NY
A Kingdom of Hours, Gasworks, London, England
Technologies of violence, Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona, Spain

2015
A Man of Average Means, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA
Two Serious Ladies: Peggy Ahwesh and Jennifer Montgomery, Murray Guy, New York, NY
Plagiarist of My Unconscious Mind!, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles, CA
Still/Life, Basilica Hudson, Hudson, NY

2013
Inside Circle, V2, CR10 exhibitions, Germantown, NY
One Minute Film Festival: 10 Years, Mass MOCA, North Adams, MA
Soundworks, online exhibition, ICA, London, England
SOUNDWORKS: BRRRRR BRRR BRRRR and MMMMMMMMMMMM, ICA, London, England
Beirut Outtakes, Fleckenstein Video Gallery, The Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan

2011
Pittsburgh Biennial, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2010
The Image in Question: War-Media-Art, Carpenter Center at Harvard, Boston, MA
Nachleben (afterlife and survival), Goethe House, New York, NY

1990 – 2009
Cultural Power: Peggy Ahwesh and Eileen Myles, The James Gallery, New York, NY, 2009
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, MoMA P.S.1, Queens, NY, 2008
Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, performance with Jennifer Montgomery, Whitney Biennial, Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY, 2008
Cinema Cavern, MoMA P.S.1, Queens, NY, 2007
IAMNOWHERE, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale, NY, 2006
Copilandia: una Isla Libre de Propiedad Intellectual, Seville, Spain, 2006
Pompidou Center, Paris, France, 2005
Brides of Frankenstein, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, 2005
Lookalike: Barbie Lolita Lara Croft, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2005
Videos by Peggy Ahwesh, “Terrorvision”, Exit Art, New York, NY, 2004
Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 2002
The Secret Charts, with Amy Sillman, Junctions Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 1998
Big As Life: A History of American 8mm Films, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1998
Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1995
Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1991

Selected One & Two Person Screenings and Solo Retrospectives

Collection Playlist: ‘Virtually Asian’ & ‘Beirut Outtakes’, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 2022
Ruby in Paradise/Strange Weather, “American Neorealism, Part Two: 1984-2020,” Hammer UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 2021
Screening: Peggy Ahwesh, presented by Erika Balsom, Gasworks, UK 2021
Love and Theft: Peggy Ahwesh and Sondra Perry Play Video Games, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY, NY 2021
The Machine that Kills Bad People: Nude on the Moon and Martina’s Playhouse, ICA, London, England, UK, 2019
Bad Girls Go to Hell + The Color of Love, CineMarfa, Marfa, TX, 2019
Film Screening: Peggy Ahwesh, e-flux, New York, NY, 2018
Soft Fiction and From Romance to Ritual: Chick Strand and Peggy Ahwesh, Metrograph, New York, NY, 2017
IFI & AEMI Projections: Films By Peggy Ahwesh and Julie Murray, Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland, 2017
True Places Never Are: New Videos by Peggy Ahwesh, CalArts Theater, Los Angeles, CA, 2017
Dreamland: An Evening with Peggy Ahwesh and Julie Murray, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2016
Peggy Ahwesh films and videos, Austin Film Society, Austin, TX, 2016
The Art of Pixelvision: A Lecture and Screening by Peggy Ahwesh, New Museum, New York, NY, 2013
Ghosts on the Screen: The Deadman & The Color of Love, New Museum, NY, 2012
Peggy Ahwesh & Joe Gibbons, New York Film Festival, NY, 2012
Ghosts on the Screen: The Deadman & The Color of Love, New Museum, NY, 2012
Return to the Garden, ArtSchool Palestine, Ramallah, West Bank, 2012
An Evening with Peggy Ahwesh, Boston University, Boston, MA, 2012
Audio & Vision Machines, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2012
An Evening with Peggy Ahwesh, Cinematheque, Boston University, Boston, MA, 2010
Great Issues Forum, with Eileen Myles, Center for the Humanities, CUNY, NY

Selected Group Screenings & Festivals

2022
Rear Windows: Short Films by Peggy Ahwesh, Lara Liden and Chantal Akerman, Institute for Social Research, University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
Crossroads Festival, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

2021
Persists, Resists, Exists, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacifica Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA
Shred, Scratch, Sync, Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, Austria
Simulations and (Hyper)reality, e-flux film and video, e-flux (online)
Implicit Movies, programmed by Genevieve Yue, Metrograph, New York, NY
AFA 50th Anniversary Video Project, compilation programs, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY

2020
Shoreline Movements, curated by Erika Balsom and Grégory Castéra,Taipei Biennial 2020, Taipei, Taiwan

2019
Shorts Program, 57th New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, New York, NY
It’s about SHE SHE Now!, Whiteframe, Basel, Switzerland
Hillary: The Hillary Clinton Emails (screenings), Despar Teatro Italia, Venice, Italy
Spring Film Program, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2019
Shorts Program 1: News From Home, New York Film Festival (NYFF), Lincoln Center, NY
Super 8 Films by Women, organized by Lumia & M. Pierson, Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
NYWIFT Presents: Program 2: Reflections, Dreams, and Experiments, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY
To Save and Project: 16th MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2018
Feminism(s), presented in collaboration with ICP at Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY
Flat is Beautiful: The Strange Case of Pixelvision, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY
New Beginnings: Works by Peggy Ahwesh, Sadie Benning, Nina Fonoroff, San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco, CA
To Save and Project: 15th MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Technologies of Violence, Institut fuer Video Kunst, Arsenal Berlin, Berlin, Germany
The Women’s Film Preservation Fund: Four Experimental Films, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Vibrant Matter, Arsenal Cinema, Berlin, Germany
Not Sorry, Northwest Film Center, Portland, OR
An Oceanic Feeling, curated by Erika Balsom, Whakatāne Museum, Whakatāne, New Zealand

2017
Pittsburgh’s Avant Garde II: Imagining the Flesh: Queer & Feminist, Pioneers in Handcrafted Film, Filmmakers Cinema, Pittsburgh, PA
The Thirteenth Brakhage Center Symposium 2017, The Stan Brakhage Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

2016
Processed: To Each Their Own Image, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Making Video as Film, Skowhegan NY Program Space, New York, NY
Night Transmission: Electronic Intimacy, programmed by Kling & Bang for broadcast RUV, Reykjavik, Iceland
PXL this 25, Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA

2015
Art of the Real, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York
Films in Competition and Traveling Program, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI

2014
Performance/Anxiety, MOCA Los Angeles, LA
Hybrid Forms of Documentary, Union Docs, Brooklyn, NY

2013
the third body, British Film Institute, London, England

2012
Cinematheque Series: An Evening With Peggy Ahwesh, Boston University, Boston, MA
GQC at Cinecity (3): Mix NYC, Queen Classic and New Film & Video, Cinecity, Brighton, England, UK

2011
Return to the Garden, Virginia Museum of Art & James River Festival, Richmond, VA

2010
The Private Glance, Tate Modern, London, England
A Map of New Lands, Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio

2009
Laugh My Darling, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

2007
Pistolary! Films and Videos by Peggy Ahwesh, Gene Siskel Film Center, School of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2006
Peggy Ahwesh, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Certain Women (theatrical run), Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY

1990-2005
Peggy’s Playhouse, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 2004
Peggy Ahwesh, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 1999
Retrospectief Peggy Ahwesh, Filmmuseum, Brussels, Belgium, 1998
Girls Beware!, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1997
Low Tech, Museu d’Art Contemporani Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 1997
Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center for the Arts, Cambridge, MA, 1994
American Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, NY, 1994
Video Premiers, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (w/ Margie Strosser), 1993
Cineprobe, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1990

Selected Awards & Residencies

Filmmaker in Residence, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK 2021
National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture Award (NAMAC), 2014
Alpert Award in the Arts, 2000
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (NYFA), 2000
Creative Capital, 2000
Jerome Foundation, 1990 & 1998
New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA), Film Production Grant, 1995, 1998
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fellowship, 1996
New York State Council for the Arts (NYSC), Video Production Grant, 1993

Catalogs

“Worldbuilding: gaming and art in the digital age,” 15 Years Julia Stoschek Collection, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Germany 2022
“Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival Catalogue,” September 2017
Bell, Eugenia. “The Metropolis Between Your Ears Catalogue,” James Gallery, 2009
Bard, Perry. “Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Catalogue,” March 2006
Iles, Chrissie. “Biennial Exhibition Catalogue,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002
“New American Film and Video Series#, Whitney Museum of American Art, Summer 1997
Gruninger Perkins, Pamela. “1995 Biennale Exhibition Catalogue,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995