How Can You Think of Art at a Time Like This?

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How Can You Think of Art at a Time Like This?

How Can We Think of Art at a Time Like This?

is an online exhibition, co- curated by Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen as a platform for the exchange of ideas at this time of crisis.

05/15/2026

Across Manhattan — from Soho to Chelsea to Tribeca — works by Robert Longo and Sasha Stiles have taken over public space as part of Take One Action, presented by Art At A Time Like This.

Installed across 30 locations throughout the city, the project brings art into the rhythm of everyday life, inviting unexpected encounters between the works and the people moving through them. Through image, language, and action, both artists ask what it means to participate, respond, and remain present within this moment.

Each installation includes a QR code linking viewers to artist-led actions and prompts for collective engagement.

Spotted on West Broadway and throughout downtown Manhattan.

NYCArt SohoNYC ChelseaNYC Tribeca ArtInPublicSpace

05/12/2026

Sasha Stiles’ Let’s Hold Hands Held extends across Manhattan as part of Take One Action, presented by Art At A Time Like This. Installed in 30 locations throughout the city, the work transforms public space into a site for connection, reflection, and collective imagination.

Blending language, technology, and poetry, Stiles invites passersby into a moment of intimacy amid the pace of the city. Each installation includes a QR code linking viewers to artist-led actions and prompts for participation.

A reminder that even small gestures can become acts of solidarity.

NYCArt ArtInPublicSpace PoetryAndTechnology

05/11/2026

Robert Longo’s contribution to Take One Action, presented by Art At A Time Like This, comes to life across Manhattan, joined by works from Sasha Stiles in 30 locations throughout the city.

This timelapse captures the installation process behind Longo’s powerful public intervention, inviting viewers to pause, reflect, and engage with action in real time. Each work includes a QR code connecting audiences directly to artist-led actions and ideas for collective participation.

A citywide invitation to look closer, respond, and take part.

Manhattan NYCArt ContemporaryArt

05/08/2026

On Monday, May 11th, artist Sasha Stiles will lead the call to Take One Action. Look for her posters and poetry on the streets of NYC in Chelsea and Lower Manhattan. Take One Action is an initiative of Art at a Time Like This, pairing images with actions that can save democracy. Up until the midterm election, ATLT will continue this campaign, urging civic engagement as an antidote to resignation and hopeless.

Artwork: Let’s Hold Hand Helds, 2026

Sasha Stiles is a first-generation Kalmyk-American artist and poet of Indigenous Oirat-Mongol descent whose work uses language to explore what it means to be human in a more-than-human age. A leading voice of the generative era, she advances poetry as a vital artistic medium and enduring technology of memory and consciousness — a form of poetic intelligence that bridges emotion and algorithm, intuition and logic, flesh and code.

Stiles’ suggested action:

We’re all connected, so let’s act like it. Visit 5calls.org and use your device to activate our human network.

05/06/2026

We are excited to share work of Robert Longo as part of our Take One Action initiative

Artwork: Untitled (Ripped Flag in the Wind), 2026 by Robert Longo

Robert Longo is an American artist, filmmaker, and photographer best known for his dramatic, large-scale charcoal drawings that transform photographic imagery into highly detailed, emotionally intense works. His art often explores themes of power, media, and violence, using striking black-and-white imagery to examine the tension between individuals and broader social and political forces.

Action:

Vote! Use It or Lose It!

Visit the link in our bio to apply to the Take One Action Open Call.

05/01/2026

On May 11, Art at a Time Like This launches Take One Action—a public art campaign and exhibition that invites artists to move beyond commentary and into civic engagement.

Beginning in Lower Manhattan during Frieze Week, works by Sasha Stiles and Robert Longo will appear across 30 locations as wheatpaste posters—meeting audiences not inside institutions, but in the flow of everyday life.

Each work carries a prompt.
Each prompt carries a possibility.

Scan the QR code and you are no longer just a viewer—you are invited to take one action. A call, a vote, a gesture of participation. Small acts that, collectively, resist apathy and reimagine agency.

Take One Action is rooted in the belief that artists can offer more than reflection—they can offer direction. At a time when headlines overwhelm and paralysis sets in, action becomes an antidote to fear.

This is only the beginning. The campaign will expand through an open call and continue into the fall, building a growing archive of artist-led actions leading up to the midterm elections.

Because change doesn’t start with everything.
It starts with one thing.

Image: rendering of the upcoming installation of “Let’s Hold Hand Hold, 2026 by Sasha Stiles

CivicEngagement ArtAndAction

04/28/2026

Launching May 1, 2026, Art at the Time Like This (ATLT) presents its open call for Take On Action, a public art project and virtual exhibition inviting artists to propose one action everyday people can take to protect democracy. Responding to civic and environmental crises–including threats to civil liberties and global human rights—this project asks how art can move beyond reflection and towards participation. What does it mean to act, collectively, in a time like this?

Selected works by two artists will be wheat-pasted across the city from September–October 2026, each presenting step-by-step actions for public engagement. Others will be chosen for a virtual exhibition that will serve as an everlasting repository of hope, serving as an antidote to fear and helplessness. The open call runs through August 30, allowing enough time to address the U.S. midterm election cycle. This positions artistic practice as a space to think through political systems and imagine more equitable futures grounded in dignity, agency, and collective care.

The open call is juried by ATLT co-founders Anne Verhallen and Barbara Pollack, alongside its assistant curator Shameekia Shantel Johnson. The artists selected for the public art component will receive a $1,000 honorarium. Please refer to the application form in our bio for more information.

03/24/2026

Art at a Time Like This turned 6!

This Friday, we celebrate with TAKE ONE ACTION and a special benefit evening hosted at Cristin Tierney Gallery in Tribeca.

Join us March 27, 6–9 PM for cocktails, conversation, and a call to action.

Speakers
Janet Biggs
Mary Lucier
Shaun Leonardo
Marka27
Moderated by Pablo Helguera

Hosted by
Leonardo Bravo
Andy Cushman
Helina Metaferia
Marilyn Minter
Gina Nanni
Megan Noh
Eric Shiner
Cristin Tierney

An evening of community, connection, and a plan of action.

Minimum donation: $150 | $75 for artists

Join us in taking action.

03/18/2026

Shaun Leonardo has joined Take One Action! His searing work will be featured on posters across NYC urging citizens and artists to do one thing to save democracy. Organized by Art at a Time Like This, the public art project will launch later this year.

Leonardo’s multidisciplinary practices engages audiences in interactive performances examining societal expectations of black and brown manhood. He is also the executive director of Socrates Sculpture Park.

Come hear Leonardo, along with Mary Lucier, Janet Biggs and Marka27, moderated by Pablo Helguera on March 27th at Cristin Tierney Gallery. Learn more about Take One Action and how you can participate. This event celebrates 6 years of Art at a Time Like This and will raise funds for this upcoming campaign.

Refreshments, drinks plus a plan of action, all for the ticket price of $150/$75 artists. Link to tickets in bio.

03/17/2026

Art At A Time Like This is proud to announce TAKE ONE ACTION, a new public art exhibition and campaign designed to motivate direct action and combat resignation. The show is scheduled leading up to the midterm elections.

We are inviting artists to create powerful images paired with one suggested act, a single concrete step individuals can take to make an impact. Through street posters across NYC, an online exhibition, and a social media campaign, these messages will circulate widely, transforming public space into a call to action.

Join our fundraiser next week Friday the 27th, from 6-9 pm. Ticket link can be found in our bio.

Address

New York, NY

Website

https://artatatimelikethis.com/

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