Today is a historical marker for the New York City based performance art venue, Grace Exhibition Space [NYC] as it celebrates 15 years of performance actions, happenings, lectures, workshops, festivals and so much more. Grace Exhibition space has focused primarily on contemporary performance art over its 15 year tenure but it has also provided a Space for experimental theatre and unconventional dance. Performance art luminaries such as Martha Wilson, Ron Athey, Linda Mary Montano and La Pocha Nostra have performed at Grace along with an incredibly diverse array of international and emerging artists. Co-Directors Jill McDermid and "Hoke" Hokanson have devoted their lives to not only creating space for performance art to happen but they have also cultivated a community. Even throughout the dreaded pandemic they continued presenting performance from artists across the world. Notably last spring nearly 100 artists contributed live, virtual performances from across 11 different countries. WILD & ALIVE opens today as a kick-off to their 15th year anniversary program. The exhibition will feature artifacts of past performances from both their Brooklyn and Lower East Side (NYC) locations. Expect an eclectic array of energized objects, piercingly captivating images and raw, hand held video documentation. The true essence of Grace and performance art as it has evolved in New York City will be on view and this is a must see. The exhibition is scheduled to continue through May 2022 with ongoing performance programming interspersed throughout the fall and spring seasons Visit the exhibition: Friday, September 17th 2021 9pm EST Grace Exhibition Space 182 Avenue C, New York, NY 10009 DONATE to help keep the space alive. The pandemic has made it extraordinarily challenging for performance spaces and Grace needs financial support now more than ever. A BRIEF HISTORY OF GRACEOpened in 2006 by friends and performance artists Jill McDermid and Melissa Lockwood, Grace Exhibition Space is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid-career or established. Our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.
1 Comment
Performance Is Alive at Satellite Art Show NYC Artist Announcement Curated by Quinn Dukes October 3-6, 2019 Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Avenue, 1st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11206 We are THRILLED to publicly announce our upcoming programming for Satellite Art Show NYC! As usual, we will feature several artists that are local to the fair's location while integrating programming from an international group of performance and video artists. Our live performance programming will run throughout all 4 days of Satellite Art Show, featuring 17 live durational actions. Our screening program features 23 dynamically diverse works exploring performance, ritual and body politics. We are additionally honored to host a special screening featuring the work of seminal video artist, Barbara Rosenthal. Stay tuned for our performance and screening schedule. You will undoubtedly experience something different each time you visit our space. FEATURING PERFORMANCE ART from Thomas Albrecht (New York, NY), Christie Blizard (San Antonio, TX), Mairead Delaney (VT), Vyczie Dorado (New York, NY), Rebecca Fitton (NY/England), Kathie Halfin (NY/Ukraine) Markus Holtby (Larchmont, NY), Amanda Hunt and IV Castellanos (Brooklyn, NY), Amanda Kleinhans (Tallahassee, FL), SUNGJAE LEE (Chicago/Korea), Stephanie McGovern (Brooklyn, NY), Butch Merigoni (Brooklyn, NY), Matthias Neumann (NY/Germany), Christopher Unpezverde Núñez (NY/Costa Rica), Alison Pirie (Brooklyn, NY), Sandrine Schaefer (Boston, MA), Wild Actions - Patience, Carley McCready-Bingham, Ginger Wagg (Chapel Hill, NC) FEATURING VIDEOS from Carolina Alamilla (Miami, FL), Alex Apostolidis (Montreal, Canada), Katina Bitsicas (Columbia, MO), Jeffery Byrd (IO), Victor de La Rocque (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Christina M Dietz (Jersey City, NJ), Julha Franz (Porto Alegre, Brazil), Tales Frey (Portugal/Brazil), Edgar Fabián Frías (Tulsa, OK), Igor Furtado (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Rodrigo Gomes (Lisbon, Portugal), Jiang Feng (New Taipei City, Taiwan), Maria Del Pilar (PILI) Lopez-Saavedra (New York, NY), Tone Haldrup Lorenzen (Berlin, Germany), Nadja Verena Marcin (Brooklyn, NY), Rachel L Rampleman (New York, NY), Barbara Rosenthal (New York, NY), Monstera Deliciosa (NY/London), Sylvain Souklaye (Copenhagen/France), Alison Starr (Dallas, Texas), Natacha Voliakovsky (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Christopher Willauer, Cherrie Yu (Chicago, IL) PUBLIC FAIR HOURS Thursday, October 3: 5pm – 12am (VIP/Press Preview) Friday, October 4: 5pm – 12am Saturday, October 5: 12pm – 12am Sunday, October 6: 12pm – 6pm Review: Layers of Erasure AC Institute, NYC July 2019 by Damariz Damken Layers of Erasure by Natacha Voliakovsky (Argentina) and Julha Franz (Brazil) is a performance that questions the ephemerality of the visible and tangible through our perception and subjection to social, political and gendered violence to unmask what is “real”. As Latin American artists Voliakovsky and Franz collectively position their political critiques by exercising their autonomy to transform the human body as praxis. They juxtapose their approaches to performance in conjunction to create complementary pieces that dialogue with one another, while simultaneously opening a conversation with the audience. Upon entering the performance space, the artists keep themselves out of plain sight, leaving the audience to wander a seemingly empty room and instead observe video recordings of each artist undergoing independent performances. These videos in themselves reflect a critical argument of the artists’ line of work and practice, and present yet another layer beneath which the artists choose to conceal themselves. Brazilian artist, Julha Franz, situates her piece from within a boxed space elusive to the eye as just another black wall in the gallery. However, upon closer observation, one notices light escaping from cautiously carved peeping-holes that outline a figure: one hole at eye level, two in the chest resembling nipples, and one centered at groin level. The viewer is compelled to find the so-far hidden artists and in looking through the holes, satiates their curiosity. As a queer femme artist, Franz’ line of work centers on transforming herself and body by exploring drag culture and playing with the hyper-politicized intersections of gender and sexuality through performance. Politically, Franz’ work protests and challenges pertinent issues of violent repression against queer and female identities. In hiding behind the black gallery walls, she performatically subjects herself back into the closet, physically and metaphorically. Franz’s piece interacts with the audience by also inviting them to participate in the ‘role-play’ of performance by becoming a voyeur, observing through the peeping-holes. We find Franz painting her face with makeup as she transforms into a Drag King. This vision immediately forces the audience to question the premise of Franz’s hiding and feels as though they are intruding in a private ritual, thus exposing the taboo. In continuing to observe through the remaining holes, the audience now as another character in the performance, observes how Franz chooses to reveal and conceal parts of her body. She leaves one side of her chest exposed and the other covers her nipple with a piece of black tape. Looking into the last hole, the viewer expects to observe the groin of a human body given its location but is instead dazed by a bright light. In this way, Franz reappropriates the trope of the male-gaze by forcing the viewer into the role of “Peeping Tom”. Her political statement subverts the hetero-centric patriarchal stereotypes of Drag culture and Queerness. And through this subjective role-reversal, regains her autonomy as a dissident identity outside the frame that chooses the parameters through which they can be seen. Simultaneously, Natacha Voliakovsky constructs her frame by arranging the equipment utilized for her performance hung in a horizontal line against the wall: a pair of medical scissors, two latex gloves, a syringe, a bag of cotton balls, a stool resting on its side on the floor. The empty sterile environment once again leaves the audience with an unsettling feeling of discomfort as if out of place. Eventually, Voliakovsky appears dressed modestly in monochrome. She slowly approaches the “operating table” set up and begins prepping for her performance by assembling an injection. Sitting on the stool, Voliakovsky proceeds her durational performance lasting nearly forty minutes by injecting her legs over and over again in micro doses of anti-cellulite solution until the syringe is empty. As an Argentine artist, Voliakovksy’s political narrative pushes the boundaries of the human form in its most viscerally vulnerable essence to expose its strength and resilience. Her praxis challenges what is perceived or understood as “natural” for the human body by engaging with her own physical self as a warred territory. Voliakovsky literally embodies this struggle for dominion by physically and metaphorically bearing the pain and violence of patriarchal political and cultural regimes. She too reappropriates this repression by subjecting herself to a procedure socioculturally understood as a private matter. However, in constructing her own space and assuming the role of both administrator and patient against the public view, Voliakovsky rejects confining herself into a concealed clinic scenario dominated by male practitioners and reclaims the authority to permanently transform her own body according to her terms. In bearing witness, the audience is forced to contemplate yet another taboo ritual and questions the internalization of their own physical and psychological repression. Situating these performances within our contemporary time and space in New York City, these Latin American artists raise critically relevant questions of political body autonomy and gendered violence worldwide. At the peak of Pride celebrations and preparations, Natacha Voliakovsky and Julha Franz carve at the root of the crises driving the urgency for these social movements. Abortion rights and access in the United States continue to be under attack at the same pace that the fight for legalized abortion in Argentina has culminated in protests nationwide. The deaths of over ten transgender women in the United States alone, most recently Layleen Polanco Extravaganza 27; the sentencing of Mariana Gomez (Argentina) to one year in prison for kissing her wife; and Brazil’s highest reported LGBTQ murder rate in the world, reveal the war, violence and repression against marginalized bodies and identities persists. Franz and Voliakovsky juxtapose their subjectivity, insisting we collectively reconsider our own confinement and compliance as both victims and prosecutors of the structures of violence that coerce the erasure of our bodies. They expose themselves as vessels revealing difficult truths and carry a question that seems easy to ask but hard to answer: What do the layers of our own erasure truly conceal?
Erasure
Reflections on Ain’t I a Woman (?/!): Dusk Chronicles II, Satellite Art Show SXSW, March 2019 by Nicole Goodwin The concept of self-discovery through performance art is one that has been erected on a consistent basis. It is the struggle to find one’s self by digging through the layers upon layers of identity, peeling back the ego and the psyche to unearth ideas that are fresh, new and groundbreaking. That was the purpose behind my performance “Ain’t I a Woman (?/!): Dusk Chronicles II” at the Museum of Human Achievement (MoHA) with Performance Is Alive. I was searching for self through the idea of “erasure.” Trying to discover or “recode” myself through swimming into the murky sea of mixed-race genetics, while trying to redefine self and what it is to be Black. Or rather looking into the depths of my own soul searching for the reality I wish to form outside of oppression while recognizing that oppression is indeed all around me trying to take over my mind and body. Diving headfirst into what makes this corruption a solid thing—what is the force that is trying to corrupt my spirit? Alive At Satellite
March 13-17, 2019 Satellite Art Show Austin Museum of Human Achievement, 3600 Lyons Road, Austin, TX 78702 Performance Is Alive performance space Curated by Quinn Dukes | Contact: quinn@performanceisalive.com Performance Is Alive continues to offer Satellite Art Show viewers a rare opportunity to experience bold, unapologetic and socially conscious projects through the boundless manifestations of performance art. In collaboration with Houston-based artist and organizer, Julia Claire Wallace (Creative Director of Experimental Action Festival), our live programming celebrates the work of emerging and established Texas-based artists while integrating the performance video works of a global performance community. Artists will activate our live programming with interactive performances, durational gestures, audio scoring and projection mapping. Performance highlights include Houston's seminal performance artist, Jim Pirtle’s exploration of PTSD treatments through ice, projection and multi-media. Michael Anthony García's work investigates the alienness of being a person of color while creating tulle clad sculptures to a live a cappella soundtrack. Durational performances include Christian Cruz, who will be brown and unbothered during a piece entitled They tried to bury us proverb. Sarah Sudhoff confronts the politics of breastfeeding while confronting loss and failure. Hailing from New York, Nicole Goodwin immerses her nude body in flour to examine racial identity. Also from New York, Prism House + Matt O'Hare will debut "Separator", a 40-minute multichannel video and audio composition. We are also proud to present films, experimental video and performance for camera documentation at Satellite’s official screening. Selected artists are both locally and internationally based, maintaining our efforts to merge performance communities. Among the 16 projects, our screening program features the work of award winning filmmakers, Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón (aka PULSAR) for their film, Velvet Cry, a story inspired by the 18th century hoax of Mary Toft. An unexpected character is positioned to execute karaoke in Ryan Hawk’s video, Sweet Surrender. Jessica Yatrofsky and NY FEM FACTORY’s video stars Lil’ Touches performing the story of a scorned woman “calling out” a former lover in Cunt Keeper. Award winning artist, Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s, The Sign explores the visual culture of shame in relation to the body. LIVE PERFORMANCES BY Christian Cruz (Dallas, TX), Serap Erincin (New Orleans, LA), Michael Anthony García (Austin, TX), Nicole Goodwin (New York, NY), Prism House + Matt O'Hare (New York, NY), Henry G. Sanchez (Houston, TX), Jim Pirtle (Houston, TX), Sick Din (Brooklyn, NY), Sarah Sudhoff (Houston, TX), Antonius-Tin Trung Bui (Houston, TX), Julia Claire Wallace (Houston, TX) SCREENINGS Christie Blizard (San Antonio, TX), Charles Chace and Ginger Wagg (Carrboro, NC), Chun Hua Catherine Dong (Montreal, Canada), Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón (Gainesville, FL), Kiyo Gutiérrez (Guadalajara, Mexico), Ryan Hawk (Houston, TX), Pei-Ling Ho (New York, NY), Manuel López (Daimús, Spain), Jenna Maurice (Denver, CO), Maryam Nazari (London), Alison Pirie (Brooklyn, NY), Rocha & Polse (Barcelona, Spain), Natacha Voliakovsky (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Jessica Yatrofsky and NY FEM FACTORY (New York, NY). Full schedule here. "Sing out loud, in ESTHER’S HONOR!"
The final command from Ayana Evans during Panoply Performance Laboratory’s (Brooklyn, NY) closing festival, Metamorphosis (Nov 16-18) on Saturday, November 17th. Evans’ is holding her signature sparklers as neon blue & green wrist bracelets sway in the dark to the beat in nearly every hand and the room erupts in song, “Your love is my love and my love is your love,” all faces turned towards Esther Neff. We are two thirds of the way through performances on the second evening of the festival and so it’s time for tears, time for joy, seeing soft light in the dark, yes. Co-founded by Esther Neff and Brian McCorkle, Panoply Performance Laboratory (or PPL) has served as a site of experimentation in performance art for nearly 7 years at it’s Meserole St. location in Bushwick. Before that, PPL's PERFORMANCY FORUM has been hosted by other sites, among them the infamous Grace Exhibition Space (which recently relocated from Brooklyn to Manhattan due to the rising price of rent). Metamorphosis marks the transition of a decade-worth of organizing and collaborative community work that has, both out of necessity and choice, resisted the gate-keeping capitalistic model of the art world, providing integral support to the performance scene in Brooklyn and beyond. BROAD SENSE: Interviews and Event Recap
Marshall, North Carolina By Quinn Dukes @quinndukes Last October, six artists from across the United States were welcomed to the picturesque mountains of Marshall, North Carolina by curators and performance artists, Alice Vogler and Vela Oma for their multi-experiential event, Broad Sense. I was delighted to receive an invitation to perform in Broad Sense despite the NYC stress cyclone I was managing at the time. I knew it would be a logistical challenge but the promise of nature, crisp air and performing with a group of artists that I have known and respected for years was irresistible. So, I fled NYC. Flight delays led to nearly missing my rental car pickup but I successfully retrieved my car and drove two hours to a magical place in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, I awoke to the sounds of event preparation and artist discussions of material, performance site location and politics. Collectively, the 6 of us (Sandy Huckleberry, Jeff Huckleberry, Joseph Raven, Phil Fryer (Moondrawn), Coorain Devin and yours truly) performed across multiple locations on the 7-acre property for 9 hours. After Broad Sense concluded, I reached out to Vela, Alice and all participating artists to preserve the event's memory from multiple perspectives. Performance art documentation typically counts on visual documentation but in a campfire discussion, we realized that our collective memories write the history of performance. It was a beautiful weekend of local community exploring unknown paths in sporadic rain showers to discover durational outdoor actions. I am pleased to share the event through the words of the artists and thoughtful curators. Alive at Satellite - Performance Art takes over Miami Art Week for Satellite Art Show 201811/26/2018 Performance Is Alive has partnered once again with Satellite Art Show to present Miami’s only non-stop performance art program during Miami Art Week. Alive At Satellite features live and video based performance art projects from over 20 artists across the globe. The 4-day performance program celebrates SATELLITE’s mission to honor the significant impact of performance art - an often underrepresented medium during contemporary art fairs.
This year performance artists will embrace the location shift from Miami Beach to the Ice Palace’s 33,000 sq ft parking lot in downtown Miami by exploring beyond the boundaries of a centralized performance zone. Performances are often interactive and durational, allowing the viewer to become sensorially immersed within their experience. Political protest and the quest to harness identity thru social conflict are recurring points of motivation for Alive at Satellite artists. We invite you to join us in protest, drink tea with us on the back of an artist and to witness your first (and perhaps your only) face ballet. In the true spirit of SATELLITE - no two moments will be the same. One of Brooklyn's central performance art hubs, Panoply Performance Lab (aka PPL) concludes their 7+ years of programming at 104 Meserole Street this weekend. METAMORPHOSIS (or if you are looking at their tradition of hand-lettered show posters as seen above, METAMORHOSIS) is a 3-day performance, community potluck features performances from artists who developed their performance career with the support of the space.
Organizers note "Under the name PPL, the site has operated as a laboratory for the performance art communities of Brooklyn and beyond, home to hundreds of events, gatherings, meetings, exhibitions, think-tanking sessions, projects, and performances." As a PPL viewer and performer, I can attest to the tremendous and unyielding support offered by Esther Neff and Brian McCorkle in performance art, action art and a myriad of other live art forms. Their lab/incubator has fostered the growth of many emerging artists, collectives and think tanks. This weekend is sure to be full of community gratitude, compelling performances and a few tears. Full schedule outlined below and on our live events listing page. From all of us at Performance Is Alive, THANK YOU PPL!!! <3 Dispatch from the opening of AiOP in rainy Manhattan
Thursday, October 11th, 2018 By Alexandra Hammond @walliealie Today I quite literally took shelter from the remnants of global-warming-fueled Hurricane Michael in Westbeth Gallery, the indoor extension of BODY, this year’s manifestation of the Art in Odd Places festival. Most performances, which would have taken place outdoors at various locations from Avenue C to the Hudson River, were postponed due to intermittent warm downpours. As I leapt over the curbside reservoirs in the Meatpacking District, I contemplated the effects of the rising sea level on the newly-restored cobblestone streets of this high-gloss neighborhood and headed southwest to the gallery. We are absolutely thrilled to see the countdown for Art in Odd Places nearing closer and closer. Soon BODY will come to life in so many tremendous forms. The festival curator, Katya Grokhovsky, recently announced an AIOP kick-off party at 14th Street's iconic Beauty Bar on Wednesday, September 26th. So mark your cal for a pre-festival bevie celebration. We've outlined a few must see moments for you below. Just add them to Google Cal, we've made it easy for you. Also, the AIOP team has proudly released the schedule and project details for all 45 participants this year on their newly designed website body.artinoddplaces.org. In the words of Katya, "It's purple, it's pretty" and is an incredible celebration of female identifying and non binary artists. <3 So there you have it, get to event adding and we look forward to cheering with you September 26th @ Beauty Bar! -Quinn Dukes From my experience, the time period prior to a live performance includes intentional times of reflection and often ritual. Pre-performance time is sacred. Non-performers can often feel alienated and confused when trying to engage. The truth is, most of us just need to do, our own thing. But what is... that thing? What are y/our pre-performance rituals? I thought this was a perfect topic for our first #PerformanceIsRevealing Series. Throughout this series, we will pose unique questions to current performance practitioners as a way to archive and share y/our practice.
My pre-performance rituals involve days of replaying the performance over and over and over again in my mind until I can actually reach a half-way point. I never see the end of the performance but you better believe I know the color of the room, the smell and my proximity to the audience. I also like to scour Home Depot or Art Supply stores for inspiration and never buy anything. I am pleased to begin this post series with three artists well known to the Performance Is Alive community: Ernesto Pujol, Kara Rooney and Christopher Unpezverde Núñez. I hope you enjoy the series and consider revealing your process with us too. -Quinn Dukes We are delighted to collaborate with Satellite Art Show again this year during Miami Art Basel Week (December 6-9, 2018). This year, Satellite Art Show moves to its largest location thus far and will be located across from NADA Art Fair (Miami, FL). Over the past 2 years, we have presented the most comprehensive performance art program available and look to present the same for 2018. Check out our programming from 2017 here. Artists are invited to submit performance, performance art, live art, action art, durational and performance based video projects to our #AliveAtSatellite Open Call. Projects with complex technical needs may not be well suited for the space. Performances will be held outdoors and throughout the fair grounds from 3pm-10pm. Consider lighting, power and tech needs within your proposal. There is no application fee. Submission deadline is September 1st, 11:59 EST. Selected artists will be notified in mid-October. Performancy Forum: Civic Reflex / Reflejo Civico
by Luke Mannarino Over the course of six evenings from April to November of 2018, Panoply Performance Laboratory will be programming artist’s who will be “sustaining and framing ‘civic’, ‘civil’, and ‘reflexive’ performance practices and performance theories.” The first two installments of Civic Reflex / Reflejo Civico took place in April and May of this year. Some necessary time has passed since the two evenings have happened, and taking the time now to reflect upon them has been an important part of the process. I will be covering each of the performance evenings not only to generate written documentations of each performance but with the intention of placing them all into context with each other. Each fall, the streets of New York City (more specifically 14th Street) are injected with a higher and more concentrated dose of public installation and performance art via Ed Woodham's grass-root initiative, Art In Odd Places. Curated by performance artist and curator, Katya Grokhovsky, this year's festival and corresponding exhibition exclusively features female identifying artists. After reviewing the largest number of applications ever received in the organization's 14-year history, Ed and Katya spoke with us about AiOP's exciting history, the necessity for reclaiming public space and the decision to focus on the (female) BODY. It is a great honor to share our discussion with you here and stay tuned for the incredible list of participating artists for AIOP 2018 BODY. - Quinn
Last December, artist and writer, Alexandra Hammond asked the visitors of Performance Is Alive at Satellite Art Show, "What Keeps You Up at Night?" It was a pleasure to witness the piece in it's full 3-hour duration. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to participate in the conversation because there was never an empty spot at the "campfire!" I came up with a cascade of responses as I simultaneously eavesdropped and welcomed our guests. What keeps me up... planning art fairs, worrying about artists traveling internationally, posting on PIA... I'm sure you can create a laundry list of your own and I hope you do in comments! Luckily, the dutiful ethnographer transcribed her conversations of which I am pleased to share with you here for our latest Artist Feature. - Quinn Dukes
OPEN CALL OPPORTUNITY: Persistence: Performance Art on the Farm 2018 Curated by Marcy B. Freedman5/15/2018 We are always happy to share performance opportunities, especially for events in beautiful locations! For the past 11 years, Marcy B. Freedman has curated performance on the Saunders' Farm, a 140- acre historic, working farm on Old Albany Post Road in Garrison, NY. Performance art proposals are due June 1, 2018. Full details below. For the 12th year in a row, Collaborative Concepts has been invited by Sandy Saunders to create a temporary exhibition of outdoor sculpture and installation art on his 140- acre historic, working farm on Old Albany Post Road in Garrison, NY. For the ninth year in a row, a program of performance art will be curated by artist and art historian Marcy B. Freedman.
Last December, a plastic covered and patriotic "Diane The American Swimmer" portrayed by NYC based performance artist, Diane Dwyer, set the out to Miami Beach with a very specific message about climate change. Learn more about this great "American Swimmer" in our latest artist feature! - Quinn Dukes
FROM DUST TO DUST: CLOSING THOUGHTS ON THE CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE ART EXHIBITION, REMAINS
FERGUS McCAFFREY GALLERY, NYC By Ian Deleón THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-TROUBLED ARTIST Going back as far as the Renaissance, when artists sought to differentiate themselves from the trade of craftspeople, an idea has persisted that the true artist is an outsider to the world––isolated and divinely inspired. Early on, artists were thought to be unified under the astrological influence of the planet Saturn, which explained their supposed melancholia and detachment. In their study Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists, Margot and Rudolf Wittkower dissect these persisting assertions and stretch an eclipsing hand of doubt over them while reaffirming their deep, symbolic significance, “Alienation, in effect, was a rung by which artists sought to climb the social ladder.” And just how far up that social ladder have artists been able to climb? In Politics We Trust: Observing JUST SITUATIONS
Various Locations across Brooklyn, NYC | July 2017 By Polina Riabova Sitting at Panoply Performance Lab (Brooklyn, NY) on Thursday, July 20th I am sweating buckets. “It’s so HOT in there!” I say to Esther Neff, organizer of JUST SITUATIONS (alongside Kaia Gilje and Leili Huzaibah) as I smoke in-between performances. “It’s just because there’s so many people,” Esther tells me. JUST SITUATIONS, a “hybrid-convention, festival and ‘political science fair’” with an intent to create alternative structures and “modes” of being under a capitalist, power-hungry system through performative methods, spanned a total of 10 days (July 13 - 23). For an intensive festival involving more than 60 performers (or ‘situators’), the crowd makes sense. REMAINS PROVES PERFORMANCE ART STILL HAS A PULSE
Fergus McCaffrey, NYC, July 2017 By Ian Deleón To use the word remains is to invoke in someone associations with death, decay, and possibly even dismemberment. Generally speaking it refers to the parts left behind, once some significant change in status has taken place. That change is usually framed in terms of a negative, destructive event but of course destruction can be a kind of creation as well. The word’s linguistic ties to remaining mean that it can also convey that which lives on, or that which stays put. In relation to the art of live performance, talking in terms of remains certainly articulates some of the finer points about post-action detritus and extended duration times, but it’s also important to address the aspect of performance art’s own supposed untimely demise. The notion that one art form or another has died at some point is pervasive in contemporary art historical discourse. Painting has died so many times it has spawned zombie movements. But that kind of makes sense, painting was old. But performance art is fairly new...at least, by some accounts. When we talk about performance in this article we may concede to the influence of its antecedents: of the theater, of dance, of magic, of cinema, of protest. But performance art cannot be all of those things if we are going to have a productive conversation about it. It has to be its own thing, while often appearing in the guise of those other art forms. Performance wasn’t a flash in the pan either, with its death knell rung by an explosion of consumer culture, information, communication or globalization in the early 90s...NO. Performance Art is NOT dead and this exhibition is the proof––the exhumation, the surprise discovery that the remains are intact...and ALIVE. Performance art organizer-extraordinaires, Leili Huzaibah, Esther Neff and Kaia Gilje have taken on yet another enormously ambitious series of performance events which promise to "host artists and active citizens who are working in performative ways, moving beyond the trending commercialization of art “about” politics." Under the title of "JUST SITUATIONS," over 50 artists are slated to participate/perform/activate the nebulous web of un/convention. The “political science fair” (as it is also referred to by the organizers) begins this evening, Thursday, July 13th at Panoply Performance Lab, Brooklyn, NYC. JUST SITUATIONS opens their programming with specific invitations. Chloë Bass invites viewers to consider how our lives have changed since the election of the 45th president while J. COATL/KEVIN LENNY invites guests to consider how to "make space for engagement."
All events during JUST SITUATIONS are "pay-what-you can" with a sliding scale recommended donation of $5-$20. You can also support this incredible project and the participating artists on the festival's Generosity page. Full festival details are available here.
Performance participants sought, Governor’s Island, NY, June 3-4
OPEN CALL! Participants needed to take part in a participatory weekend public performance project SLOW DANCE by artist Katya Grokhovsky for DREAM BIGGER : NYC Figment Festival on Governor's Island! Saturday and Sunday 3rd and 4th of June 2017, 3-6pm DREAM BIGGER: Figment NYC Governor's Island *Video of previous version of the project for reference below, no dance training needed, just desire to slow dance, connect and talk to people. You can do any part or all of the set time, with breaks as needed. Slow Dance, 2014 from Katya Grokhovsky on Vimeo. Murakami Saburo, Passing Through, 1956. Performance views, 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition, Ohara Kaikan, Tokyo, ca. October 11–17, 1956. Photo: Otsuji Seiko Collection, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo. © Otsuji Seiko and Murakami Makiko. Courtesy Musashino Art University Museum & Library. Photo: Otsuji Kiyoji. BEYOND ABSTRACTION Summer Performance Art Show at Fergus McCaffrey By Ian Deleón “Ruins unexpectedly welcome us with warmth and friendliness; they speak to us through their beautiful cracks and rubble”.1
For six weeks this summer, Fergus McCaffrey gallery in Chelsea, NYC will present a unique program of more than twenty-five live performances by internationally acclaimed and emerging artists Máiréad Delaney, Hee Ran Lee, Daniel Neumann, Clifford Owens, Nigel Rolfe, and Liping Ting. |
CONTRIBUTORSIan Deleón Archives
July 2023
|