From the New Museum to the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Art is Life is Art
Life = art = life.
So many people in public view these days do something akin to performance art – from Facebook to the mainstream media – where they enmesh truth in fiction in a supremely ironic way, or not. From our neighbors to our politicians, everyone is a performer, and they couldn’t really all be behaving this way, right?
I recently attended a series of performance art events at the New Museum presented with the South African-based Center for Historical Re-enactments. A friend of mine, Donna Kukama, is a performing artist with the group and so I spent some good quality time with her and her colleague Kemang Wa Lehulere talking about their work after they had spent the day visiting Westchester.
They had just visited Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, apparently the final resting place for South African journalist Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa. Sadly the story is Nakasa was forced into exile by the apartheid government in 1964 when he accepted a Neiman Fellowship to study at Harvard. Later, falling into a depression, he committed suicide.
The duo was examining the real life suicide of this man with so much promise, in the context of staging their work: an institutional suicide for their own group, which began to grow the constraints and rigidity of officialdom – exactly what they had striven against by becoming a collective in the first place. Thankfully, no artists were hurt in the suicide of this institution, who by examining their own death were experiencing the kind of rebirth and realignment with their original promise – something they had not necessarily anticipated.
The conceptual work blended the life and art of the world they inhabit in Johannesburg in such a fascinating way that was at once difficult and yet very obvious to translate into the setting of such a stark institution, which they did in a spectacularly serendipitous way, bending the rigidity of million dollar walls and hyper conceptualized theories to their will and even using it as a great example. “What better place to stage an institutional suicide,” Kemang told me, as the group attempted to deconstruct themselves, their references and their work with calm, yet devastating scrutiny. After all, someone needs to be there to see it. From the New Museum site:
Donna Kukama at the New Museum
During public Museum hours on Sunday June 23, Donna Kukama, artist and member of the Johannesburg-based platform Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), will enact a series of performances that explore the politics of linguistic, cultural, and historical translations. The investigation spans South Africa’s recent past, including the historic 1976 Soweto Uprising in which students protested the teaching of certain subjects in Afrikaans and more recent eruptions of xenophobic hostility. These current and unresolved narratives are referenced through the use of audio, objects, text, and costume and will engender new readings of the works currently in the CHR presentation on the Fifth Floor. Throughout the day, Kukama explicitly embodies the physical and existential labor of translation provoking the public to participate, other times asking them to only observe. And in some instances, gestures will go unnoticed altogether.
Donna had effectively strapped bricks, real live bricks, to her tiny feet – sometimes two on each foot – and dragged herself up and down the corridors, mimicking the human struggle, obstacle, physical labor and endurance required of the process of cultural translation, of psychological border walls. She moved physical weight from point to point in the room, amassing five points where new bricks were deposited along her journeys. At times the bricks were stacked and then restacked, laid flat or built high with corresponding strings acting as boundaries.
In her performance Donna revealed the tiresome and repetitive work of her struggle. She had previously undertaken a project in Jo-berg called The Swing a few years back where she attached a swing to an overpass in an area known for the open fires of street vendors feeding the city’s taxi driver population. Donna mounted the swing in a beautiful white dress and started to throw small amounts of money as she swung back and forth – mimicking the elitism of the capitalist process. Ironically, the swing broke – terrible for her, as she was injured, but glorious for the meaning in her project. Art = life = art. The elitism, like her ankle, had come crashing down onto the ground. A video of this experience played nearby as she slowly walked the corridor, painted with “They will never kill us all.” At one moment, Donna is on the swing, the next, she is gone.
Observers of this project were the spectrum of New Museum visitors that arrived onto the fifth floor and tried to make sense of what this narrative, and this woman were all about. The thing about this piece is that it was meant to take the long view, the long narrative, which includes dialogue and engagement in a way that the tourist shuffle through does not quite achieve, as the educational philosopher John Dewey explained in Art as Experience.
But, a lot of information in a small space that prides itself on ambiguity may have left more than a few visitors in the dark. As it turns out, their experience of letting these concepts go unnoticed is part of the performance all along, because life is art is life. Theirs is still an important subjective contribution to the work overall because it mimics what is happening in real life.
To top it off I then went to see James Turrell at the Guggenheim, who is working with individual perception through use of light and darkness. I took in the experience within the institutional setting, but processing was a difficult one, it took nearly a day for it to click with me. It was outside of those rounded white walls that the concepts – I call them art grenades – clicked for me.
The line between art, performance and life has been on my mind for a while. This year has been particularly good for it in Brooklyn, especially since I attended the theatrical production of the John Cassavettes film Shadows at the Clinton Hill venue JACK back in May. The space itself is one large room, a storefront, with two doors that open directly onto Waverly Place, just off Fulton Street. The restaurant Sushi Tatsu is on the corner, and the kitchen staff is generally milling about the entrance to JACK, and their curiosity about the space has long dissipated.
Shadows at JACK in Clinton Hill
Because of its proximity to life, the art exhibited at JACK, like Shadows, which is directed by Alec Duffy, has the ability to dance along this line. Even the seats were part of the set during this production, and it felt like the show – based on an improvisational film about interracial relationships in Bohemian New York circa 1959 – was voyeurism on life more than just theater. Just perhaps, in somebody else’s home – which Alec ultimately decided not to do.
To shake the audience from the ambiguity of where life meets art, the entire cast and the accompanying jazz quartet – Jason Quarles, Julian Rozzell, Jr., Burkhardt, Alexandra Miller, Ike Ufomadu, Dustin Fontaine, B. Brian Argotsinger, Paul Perroni and Samantha Debicki, with music performed by Burkhardt/Emile Blondel (piano), Steven Leffue (saxophone) and Ezra Gale/James Ilgenfritz (double bass) – jumped immediately into a loud trumpeted jazz shuffle, flashy hands and all. Once the piercing ruckus was over, the art was on, taking the audience through a journey that is not so far from life in New York today.
It ended up getting more real than expected though, when on one night during the Shadows run, somebody outside of the theater called the police during a fight scene that purposefully spills out of the front doors and onto the sidewalk, as a scene in the film does. Cops showed up only to find that there was just art happening here, and within five minutes the scene was back on track, as if those extra seconds between scenes were planned.
This month, JACK hosts events as part of the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, kicked off on Independence Day with a performance by Martha Wilson as Barbara Bush, reflecting on her family, her presidential son and power as an aphrodisiac.
The same space that had previously been a 1950s Cassavettes-styled loft (where I sat next to the bedroom scene) slash kitschy diner setting is now a stark performance art bar, with an outdoor grill, and a center piece of cushy plastic red carpeting lit by exotic light bulbs and covered with the oddly robed and disorientingly liberated artist types. The air on July 4 was thick with humidity and the dialogue of the international artist citizenry, which promises to continue through the end of the festival on July 28.
You can engage your life with this art by attending some of this month’s performances, the remaining performances are listed below. This is a non-corporate, totally DIY, one time festival, which does not run any concurrent events, so you may actually catch them all. Most of the presentations are free or by donation.
You can catch me presenting my conceptual work The Subjective Objective at an event called Archiving the Now at Glasshouse Project at 7pm on July 19.
Friday, July 12th 4pm to 5pm Dovrat Meron
Friday 12 July 4-5.30 pm Please note the change in the time
148: Central Midtown Manhattan District 5
499 Park Avenue New York, NY 10022
Metro 4,5,6
Station 59th Str. link to map Read more
Ryan Krause
On your way to Grace Exhibition Space from Glasshouse, why not stop in for some Harp Therapy?
“Harp Therapy”
Lucia Stavros + Ryan Krause
Friday, July 12, 8-9PM
et al Projects (56 Bogart) Read more
Climate Change: Language Action Poetry Facilitators – From Asia With Love
Tonight we present artists from the other side of our globe, with differing perspectives, but cohesive in their understanding. These artists are rarely seen in NYC and it is with great esteem that we present their work.
$20 donation
Saturday, July 13th 1pm to 4pm Glasshouse Ryan Hawk
Ryan Hawk performs in the window; Ryan is a visual artist combining performance, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Through formal and aesthetic strategies, his work explores the complexities of space. Whether physical, psychological, or theoretical, his engagements often result in the deconstruction of previously understood narratives. Read more
Sunday, July 14th 10am to 4pm Dovrat Meron
The starting point for each day of action will be the JMZ line Marcy Avenue station
Untranslatable Words Brooklyn NY interactive action in public space
Untranslatable Words have a specific meaning in a certain language but have no exact equivalent in another. In order to translate the meaning and the emotion behind, it needs to be described in sentences. Read more
The Brooklyn Commune Bastille Day ShareBQ
Sunday, July 14th 2pm to 6pm The Invisible Dog Art Center Andy Horwitz
In 1839 the French Socialist Louis Blanc coined the phrase “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” On July 14, 2013 The Brooklyn Commune celebrates Bastille Day and the values of community, reciprocity & generosity with the first-ever Bastille Day ShareBQ. What is your ability, what is your need? Bring a skill, a song, a dance some food, drink or dessert. Kick some knowledge to the crowd or just donate some capital to the cause. But bring yourself and your friends to The Brooklyn Commune at The Invisible Dog, because change starts with you. Read more
BIPAF at the Gowanus Ballroom: Collective Spectacle
Tuesday, July 16th 6pm to 8pm Glasshouse Kikuko Tanaka
Thinking of You (Tragedy Continues!): episode 1 Rirkrit Tiravanija Untitled (Free/Still)
by Kikuko Tanaka, a collective TV dinner Read more
How are artists categorized via identity? How does the political operation of performance art relate with the artist’s identity and how are identifications made for political and institutional reasons? What effects do identifications have on the audiences experiencing the work and on the artists themselves? Jolie Pichardo, Anna Kalwajtys and Karolina Kubik, Jon Konkol, Hoesy Corona. Each artist performs, brief group talkback afterwards
(image: Hoesy Corona) Read more
Wednesday, July 17th
You Nakai
Wednesday, July 17th 4pm to 7pm The Woods Lindsey Drury
“Someone, let’s say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain. A speaker who is on the far end of this chain, who has heard about, say Richard Feynman, in the marketplace or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can’t remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman. He knows that Feynman is a famous physicist. Read more
Enter & Exit: Family Values
Wednesday, July 17th 8pm to 10pm JACK Ayesha Ngaujah
Enter & Exit: Family Reunion is a meditation on and celebration of the concept of family, whether defined by DNA, work, school, activities, lifestyle, or love. What happens when you bring a group of people—both friends and strangers—together in a space to create an immediate family? Let’s find out!
$10 door Read more
It Self-Destructs at Midnight
Wednesday, July 17th 10pm to Thursday, July 18th 12am Silent Barn
Experimental multimedia installations, performance art, sound art, musicians and the visitor create this one-night-only Happening.
Long Table on Performance Art and Politics: Body Art in the Americas
Thursday, July 18th 6pm to 7pm Glasshouse Rocío Boliver Ron Athey Christen Clifford
Body-based performance art, or Body Art, often uses the performer’s own flesh as a site for dealing with agency, human rights, identity, and human being itself. As a current of performance art running throughout the Americas as developed by artists such as Artur Barrio, Ana Mendieta, Rocío Boliver/La Congelada de Uva, and Ron Athey (the latter two joining us for this Long Table) and many others, Body Art posits flesh as index, protoype, and sometimes as martyr to the cause of its own liberation. Read more
Friday, July 19th 9pm to 11pm Grace Exhibition Space Ron Athey Rocío Boliver Peter Dobill Jill McDermid
Incorruptible Flesh: “Messianic Remains” (Ron Athey) and Time Goes by and I Cannot Forget you: “Between Menopause and Old Age” (La Congelada de Uva). Tonight, Grace Exhibition Space welcomes artists whose work explores the darker, yet healthy, parts of our psyches. “Ron Athey’s work explores challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality, and traumatic experience. Many of his works include aspects of S&M in order to confront preconceived ideas about the body in relation to masculinity and religious iconography” (wikipedia). Read more
Saturday, July 20th
Lecture as Performance
Saturday, July 20th 1pm to 4pm Glasshouse LECTURE AS PERFORMANCE curated by Chloe Bass: Jaamil Kosoko & Marjani Forte, babyskinglove (Bailey Nolan), Nathaniel Sullivan and others
Monday, July 22nd 7pm to 9pm Fitness Center for Arts and Tactics Hector Canonge
NEXUSURNEXUS: Live Networked performances from EL BUNKER, in La Paz, Bolivia, South America, plus live actions by artists from the program PERFORMEANDO in New York City. Organized by Hector Canonge. More information about participating artists coming soon. Read more
Tuesday, July 23rd 7pm to 9pm The Woods Hector Canonge
NEXUSURNEXUS: Live Networked performances from EL BUNKER, in La Paz, Bolivia, South America organized by Hector Canonge. More information about participating artists coming soon. Read more
Friday, July 26th 5pm to 7pm Glasshouse Andy Horwitz Chloë Bass
Andy Horwitz (Cuturebot) and Chloë Bass (BIPAF) stage a final four debate on the future of performance. All debates are structured around false binaries. The winner shall have prizes. Read more
Framing BIPAF Exhibition CLOSING
Friday, July 26th 7pm to 9pm Glasshouse Larissa Hayden
Spiked punch, performance/drinking game by Larissa Hayden (The Society for the Advancement of Social Studies, S.A.S.S). Read more
VestAndPage
Friday, July 26th 9pm to 11pm Grace Exhibition Space VestAndPage
Their work originates from a here-and-now interpretation of the fragility of the individual and its surroundings, researching private, social and environmental spheres through precariousness, transformation, liminality and authenticity. VestAndPage is German artist Verena Stenke and Venetian artist, writer and curator Andrea Pagnes. https://www.artful.ly/store/events/1392
$20 donation Read more
Saturday, July 27th
Niegel Smith and Sherman Fleming
Saturday, July 27th 1pm to 4pm JACK Niegel Smith Sherman Fleming Jason Zeren
1pm-4pm @ JACK
1 – 4 pm Sherman Fleming, Pose with Jocko, FREE
2 pm A walk written and directed by Niegel
Smith, led by Jason Zeren. $10 door Read more
Yoshihito Mizuuchi, Tadashi Yonago
Saturday, July 27th 5pm to 7pm The Woods Yoshihito Mizuuchi Tadashi Yonago
sexy and sexy… so sexy (Yoshihito Mizuuchi)
I connect many layers discovering fragments and do a performance that expresses feelings by the movement of one’s body. And I will drink beer with you afterwards. (sexy and sexy… so sexy)
floating pivot (Tadashi Yonago)
I will perform self-built electronics, the environment, and something that makes sound. (floating pivot) Read more
Sunday, July 28th 2pm to 4pm JACK Niegel Smith
Eat Me, Drink Me, Homo
A walk written and directed by Niegel
Smith, led by Jason Zeren. $10 door Read more
BIPAF
Sunday, July 28th 5pm to 6pm Panoply Performance Laboratory The Woods No Collective
This performance takes place in two venues simultaneously. The audience must choose which one to attend.
In either one of the venues, this will be a strictly punctual event. Late arrivers to that venue will not be allowed to enter. Read more
Closing Party and Bazaar
Sunday, July 28th 8pm to 11pm Grace Exhibition Space
Festival CLOSING PARTY and ephemeral bazaar of documentation, props, and other for-sale ephemera. Read more
Tonight we present artists from the other side of our globe, with differing perspectives, but cohesive in their understanding. These artists are rarely seen in NYC and it is with great esteem that we present their work.
Dovrat Meron
Jolie Pichardo
Silent Barn
No Wave Performance Task Force
LECTURE AS PERFORMANCE curated by Chloe Bass: Jaamil Kosoko & Marjani Forte, babyskinglove (Bailey Nolan), Nathaniel Sullivan and others
Lorene Bouboushian can you do
This Roundtable brings together New York based artists and professionals in the public art field to discuss the process of privatization of public spaces and the controversial regulations restricting performance art in the public realm in NY.
No Collective
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