When Thoughts Are FreeCurated by Sara Reisman
March 7 – May 17, 2026
601Artspace, 88 Eldridge Street, NYC
Liz Magic Laser
Kameelah Janan Rasheed
Aliza Shvarts
Jaro Varga
Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, March 7th, from 6-8pm.
601Artspace is delighted to present When Thoughts Are Free, an exhibition curated by Sara Reisman that questions the limits of free speech and freedom of thought in an era of increasing political, technological, and cultural pressures. The title is drawn from a 12th-century German song with a long history of use by political movements called Die Gedanken sind frei (“Thoughts are free”), and the exhibition features artworks by four interdisciplinary artists that explore the tension between thought, speech, and action.
When Thoughts Are Free features two participatory artworks by Jaro Varga that delve into the archival and literary aspects of institutional and collective knowledge, exploring how it is accumulated and accessed. “Library” (2017-ongoing), is an immersive installation that invites visitors to inscribe the titles of personally significant literary works onto blank book spines lining the gallery walls. This act of writing the names of books into the “Library” renders graffiti out of book titles in a symbolic challenge to authoritarian restrictions on access to knowledge. Varga’s second work in the exhibition, “Our Silence Will Not Protect Us” (2024-2026), was first performed in a former synagogue on the outskirts of Bratislava in 2024, and is re-created in the gallery through workshops at Parsons School of Design. Students have been invited to paint the titles of personally relevant books onto protest banners, creating a new set of tools for protest that links scholarly thought and literary language to forms of public activism.
Aliza Shvarts’s “Homage: Congratulations” (2017), consists of small RSVP cards that Shvarts has used to respectfully decline wedding invitations, citing the erasure and heteronormative strictures that the institution of marriage imposes on queer and non-binary individuals. Recently married, Shvarts’s shift in attitude toward the institution of marriage is articulated in her new work, “37 Illocutions (With this Ring)” (2026), which invites viewers to "try on" a set of 37 linguistic commitments by slipping various rings on their fingers, each ring engraved with an illocution, in other words, an act of speaking or writing that constitutes the intended action. The work frames the wedding vow as the ultimate performative speech act, in which the material deed is performed by the simple articulation of words. Within the current political landscape, the polarization of ideological positions has made the expression of nuanced opinions and the changing of one’s mind increasingly fraught. Together, this pair of works by Shvarts enacts an individual’s right to change one’s mind.
Also on view are two videos from Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s Bad Karaoke series, in which the artist works across translation, closed-captioning, and algorithmic text generators to explore the relationship between automated language, passive engagement, and pattern-seeking. Working with the aesthetics of the karaoke bar, these videos explore the linguistic phenomena of contrafactum (the purposeful substitution of new text over existing music), and mondegreen (the accidental mishearing of lyrics). In “Smooth Operetta” (2022/2026), Rasheed rewrites the lyrics to Sade’s 1984 record, “Smooth Operator,” using analog and digital algorithmic text-generators to produce altered closed-caption text. What is seen on the screen does not correspond with what is heard. A similar strategy drives “Never Too Must” (2026), in which she riffs on Luther Vandross’s 1981, “Never Too Much.” These works reflect Rasheed’s interest in how repetition naturalizes and encodes – how what we mishear, mispronounce, and misremember becomes encoded as factual, ubiquitous, and unquestioned. She is particularly attentive to the way in which subtle ruptures slow and reorganize perception, inviting us to re-hear, re-read, and re-see.
“Power Moves” (2026) is a new video by Liz Magic Laser made in collaboration with choreographer Cori Kresge, who guides viewers through codified oratorical gestures packaged as a somatic fitness regimen. Co-directed by artist/filmmaker Zoe Chait and filmed by Alexander Mejia, “Power Moves” aligns the subliminal body language of political power with aspirational fantasies of feminine self-care and empowerment. Laser’s new installation, “The Committee: Virtual Hearing Room Set” (2026), developed in collaboration with Nazareth Hassan, invites viewers to listen to Laser’s satirical radio play, “The Committee: Act 1 & 2” (2025), which imagines a congressional hearing investigating Laser’s Columbia University performance art class. In Act 1, Donald Trump and his resurrected counsel, Roy Cohn interrogate Laser, while Act 2 turns to the students’ testimonies. A survey polls gallery viewers about Laser’s culpability and appropriate punishment. The installation includes testimonies, evidence, and ephemera developed in collaboration with Giorgia Alliata di Montereale, Mason Harper, Yshao Lin, and Maya Love Shkolnik.
The artists featured in When Thoughts Are Free map a critical analysis of free speech and thought in relation to AI-generated groupthink and political polarization. Through movement, text, video, and participatory methods, these artists articulate the collective responsibility of protecting the fundamental freedoms to think, speak, and act independently in the face of rising global authoritarianism.
Image: Jaro Varga, "Our Silence Will Not Protect Us" (2024- 2026), detail, photography by @_isonative |
