Artists Space presents the first New York survey exhibition of the work of Berlin-based artist Hito Steyerl, encompassing video, installation, and writing produced over nearly two decades. Steyerl's practice constitutes a vital analysis of the late capitalist social and financial imaginary built around architecture, design, and the circulating image. Spanning filmmaking, journalism, and cultural theory, the "discursive action" of her work embraces visuality and language in equal measure. She utilizes and appropriates forms of mass culture to reflect on social change in an activist manner, tracing and connecting realities stranger than fiction, and delineating an abstract space in which media technology, geospatial power, political violence, and desire intersect.

Hito Steyerl (born in Munich, 1966; lives in Berlin) works as filmmaker and author in essayist documentary film/video, media art, and video installation. Her works are located at the interface between cinema and fine arts, and between theory and practice. They center on questions of media within globalization and the migration of sounds and images. She also has authored a book about documentary in art and edited several others. Steyerl's solo exhibitions include: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (both 2014); Art Institute of Chicago and e-flux, New York (both 2012); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2010). The Wretched of the Screen, a collection of Steyerl's essays, was published by Sternberg Press in 2013. Steyerl participated in the Istanbul and Venice Biennials in 2013; the 2010 Gwangju and Taipei Biennials; the 2008 Shanghai Biennial and Manifesta 5, 2002. In 2007, her film Lovely Andrea was commissioned for documenta 12. In 2015, she will represent Germany at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Richard Birkett studied at Goldsmiths College in London before running Whitechapel Project Space for six years (2002–08), during which time he also organized projects as part of the Serpentine Gallery's public programs. Between 2007 and 2010, he was curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, where he organized Nought to Sixty, Talk Show, Calling Out Of Context, Billy Childish: Unknowable But Certain, and COSEY COMPLEX, among others. As part of Talk Show, he initiated and edited with cocurator and designer Will Holder the periodical ROLAND, which has become a regular feature of the ICA's program.

As New York's Artists Space, we are the only organization that conceives all of our programming guided by one principle: the relevance that it has to the artists living and working in New York. For over four decades Artists Space has led the debate in contemporary art by challenging the intellectual and artistic status quo in New York and beyond—lending support to emerging ideas and emerging artists alike.