New Circuits: Curating Contemporary Performance
September 28–29, 2015
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403
www.walkerart.org
This week theWalker Art Center hosts an invitational curatorial research convening that will focus on pressing areas of inquiry facing the field of curating contemporary performance. Providing a new platform for ongoing dialogue, the New Circuits website includes pre-conference features, as well as post-convening videos, articles, reports, and written reflections and convening analyses by arts writers Claudia La Rocco and Chris Sharp.
Made possible by a curatorial fellowship grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the research convening is organized by the Walker’s Artistic Director Fionn Meade and Director and Senior Curator of Performing Arts Philip Bither, who have invited a group of curators, programmers, artists, and producers to address the following:
–new models of performance curating that have arisen within and outside of the museum setting
–evolving standards for collecting and archiving performance and live arts
–challenges faced and learning opportunities in producing, commissioning, and acquiring performance-based art, including differing approaches to audience
–shared efforts toward artist advocacy and agency in the context of curating performance across stage, gallery, and emerging platforms
Bringing together colleagues from performing arts, visuals arts, and places in between, the research convening will include opportunities for open dialogue, as well as presentations, case studies, and panels with the following speakers: Adrienne Edwards (Performa), Kristy Edmunds (Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA), Chuck Helm (Wexner Center for the Arts), Judy Hussie-Taylor (Danspace Project), Ana Janevski (Museum of Modern Art), Kelly Kivland (Dia Art Foundation), Sam Miller (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), Chris Sharp (Le Mouvement: Performing the City), Sandra Teitge (FD13 Residency), Jonah Westerman (Performance at Tate), and Nate Young (The Bindery Projects).
The convening will also feature a number of conversations between artists and curators, including Maria Hassabi in dialogue with Aram Moshayedi (Hammer Museum), Pope.L joined by Adrienne Edwards (Performa), and a conversation with Charles Atlas and Rashaun Mitchell, moderated by Victoria Brooks (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center).
As part of the convening, choreographer and multimedia artist Ralph Lemon will revisit his 2014 performance/exhibition Scaffold Room in Scaffold Room: (Memory) refraction #1, taking place on September 28, 2015—a year after its Walker premiere. Thomas J. Lax (MoMA) will offer an afterword to the performance.
New Circuits is organized by Fionn Meade and Philip Bither, with Misa Jeffereis (Curatorial Assistant, Visual Arts, and Public Programs Associate) and Molly Hanse (Performing Arts Coordinator), and made possible by a 2014 curatorial fellowship grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
