UPCOMING EVENTS
PLACE IS THE SPACE
Thursday, June 26, 2025
7–9 pm
Francis Kite Club, 40 Loisaida Ave, New York, NY
Open bar! Click here to RSVP (it's free!)
4Columns warmly invites you to join us for Place Is the Space, an evening of time-and-space travel marking the publication of Jennifer Kabat’s new book, Nightshining.
Published as a diptych with The Eighth Moon (Milkweed Editions, 2024), Nightshining and its predecessor both ask how place holds history:
Does a land rebellion that occurred in the nineteenth century still last on that very land into the present, permanently etched there—through memory, through memorial, through blood in the soil?
Does a childhood home still contain the ache of imagined possibility, long after the child has grown up and left—can place hold a feeling, forever?
If the answer to those question is yes, then maybe place makes time become three-dimensional, past and present and future collapsing into a physical point, all at once. And crucially, for Kabat, trying to write these functions of place can break writing (its conventions, its teleologies, its neat plots) altogether, creating space for new forms and ways of writing, reading, thinking, being.
Place Is the Space is a “call and response” mini-symposium asking artists and writers to consider one place that has held and still holds them, even if they are (or it is) no longer there.
Our illustrious respondents include:
Paul Chan
Sowon Kwon
Sukhdev Sandhu
Lynne Tillman
And a special video missive from Chris Kraus
Each respondent will present these places and the spaces they have created within, for, and outside themselves, followed by a conversation with Kabat and a book signing.
We look forward to seeing you there!
• • •
Past Events
MANIFESTO!
Twelve Theses Toward the Reformation of Criticism
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
7–9 pm
KGB, 1st Floor
85 East Fourth Street, New York City
Open bar! RSVP NOT required—first come, first served!
These parasites had it coming . . . I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done.
—Luigi Mangione
Manifesto. Read my Manifesto. I’ve written a Manifesto. It’s all in the Manifesto!
—Ted Kaczynski
I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestoes, as I am also against principles.
—Tristan Tzara
If criticism is dead, why are we all still here? Down with academic panels on critical crises! Let’s look instead to a bold new future! WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.
4Columns warmly invites you to MANIFESTO!, an event in three acts featuring six of this generation’s most exciting voices in arts criticism, dreaming together of what is to be done.
ACT ONE: The Manifestos. Each reader will present, in turn, a brief manifesto declaring their vision for the future of criticism and a grand total of twelve theses toward its reformation.
ACT TWO: Rebuttals and Debate. Each reader will have the opportunity to rebut, refute, consider, and/or exalt their fellows’ statements.
~brief drink intermission~
ACT THREE: Are tired words ready for retirement? Members of the audience are invited to propose words, phrases, and expressions that they would like to see retired from arts criticism. After a trial by committee, we will collectively vote on whether these terms should be sent to pasture.
The readers:
Brian Dillon
Johanna Fateman
Ciarán Finlayson
Harmony Holiday
Alex Kitnick
Emily LaBarge
Master of Ceremonies:
4Columns Senior Editor Ania Szremski
• • •
Love Letters & Break-Up Notes:
An Evening of Impassioned Criticism
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
7–9 pm (open bar!)
KGB Bar
85 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003
4Columns warmly invites you to an evening of impassioned criticism, with all drinks on us from 7–9 pm!
On Wednesday, September 18, at the iconic KGB Bar in downtown Manhattan, join us to judge Team Love Letter and Team Break-Up Note, each consisting of 4 critics who have either written amorous reviews or scathing smack-downs for the magazine, which they shall read aloud for the drinking public.
At the end of the evening, the audience will vote through applause for the team that won their hearts.
Featuring:
Melissa Anderson
Andrew Chan
Aruna D’Souza
Sasha Frere-Jones
Jennifer Krasinski
Sukhdev Sandhu
Helen Shaw
Pamela Sneed
Master of Ceremonies:
4Columns Senior Editor Ania Szremski