Winter/spring 2015 Performance Program
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Avenue
Long Island City, NY11101
For the 2015 winter/spring season, The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Media and Performance Art and MoMA PS1 present a dynamic contemporary program of new commissions, exhibitions, conversations, live events, and residencies. In addition, the exhibition program at MoMA includes an unprecedented number of exhibitions that examine performance across a wide range of media and time periods. Postwar performance is represented through such exhibitions as Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971 (May 17–September 7), Gilbert & George (May 9–October 25), and Art on Camera: Photographs by Shunk-Kender, 1960–1971 (May 17–October 4). Björk (March 8–June 7) honors the composer, musician, and artist with her first major museum retrospective. Finally, other exhibitions highlight recent acquisitions of Argentinian performance from the 1960s including the work of artists such as Marta Minujín and David Lamelas.
MoMA PS1 Live Program:
MoMA PS1 commission: Anne Imhof: DEAL
Performance: January 17 and 18
Exhibition: January 31–March 9; with special performances on Sundays.
Anne Imhof’s inaugural U.S. solo project consists of a two-day performance followed by an exhibition. Based on the structures of illegal street deals that are underpinned by strict rules and codes while functioning beyond words and juridical regulations, DEAL evolves through different media such as moving image, sculpture, drawing and performance. Rejecting ontological hierarchies between the live event, its mediation, as well as objects and props, Imhof creates an image that gradually emerges in time.
With Franziska Aigner, Billy Bultheel, Frances Chiaverini, Ian Edmonds, Niall Jones, Mickey Mahar,Olga Pedan, Justin Tate and Lea Welsch.
CHOREO_POLITICS of the TRANS_HUMAN, with Peggy Phelan and Avital Ronell
January 25, noon
CHOREO_POLITICS of the TRANS_HUMAN, organized by Cristina Caprioli, is a lecture/performance designed to inspire a collective discussion of contemporary choreography as a political and social practice. The lectures will be given by the authors, Peggy Phelan, Avital Ronell, and Adham Hafez, and performed within a frame of choreographic patterns and virtual imagery. The audience is invited to watch, listen, discuss, rephrase, resist, reaffirm, retrace, and re-embody the subjects and actions that arise.
Lynn Hershman Leeson presents an afternoon on the future of humanity
February 22, 2pm
In an era of programmable DNA, when human organs can be printed and banked, limbs regenerated, and new life forms created daily, who will have the power to make decisions that affect us all? Will wealth alone determine who benefits from biological engineering? What will it mean to be human? For decades, artist Lynn Hershman Leeson has followed technological and scientific progress and its effects on our lives. She has invited artists, musicians, and scientists who have firsthand knowledge of innovations in biomedical engineering to explore what their experiences reveal about our possible futures.
With Oron Catts, Chicks on Speed, Patricia Maloney, Luke Massella, Aimee Mullins, Keith Murphy, and NASA scientist Dr. Josiah P. Zayner
Artist residency: ALLGOLD
Ongoing
Run by artists, for artists, this residency, located in a storefront on MoMA PS1′s block, comprises an event space, an artist studio, a gallery, and a community center. ALLGOLD‘s diverse backgrounds in visual art, design, and music encompass a variety of creative practices, and the program ranges from scheduled events like screenings, talks, performances, concerts, and dance nights to long-term projects that invite other artists and MoMA PS1 audiences to spend time and participate in the residency.
With Kevin Beasley, Inva Çota, Golnaz Esmaili, and Stephen Decker.
MoMA Performance Program:
Trajal Harrell, Eiko Otake, and Sam Miller in conversation
January 15, 7pm
For the second part of In one step are a thousand animals, American choreographer Trajal Harrell’s (American, b. 1973) two-year Annenberg Research Commission Residency at MoMA, Harrell engages in a public conversation with Japanese choreographer and dancer Eiko Otake and Sam Miller, the President of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. They will focus on the artistic legacy of avant-garde dance in 1960s Tokyo, Eiko’s integral participation in that scene, Harrell’s research on butoh, and the parallel aesthetic threads in their work.
Yvonne Rainer: The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there’s nothing left to move?
June 12–15, 8pm
The Museum of Modern Art presents the East Coast premiere of Yvonne Rainer’s (American, b. 1934) new work, The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there’s nothing left to move? (2014). First performed as a work-in-progress at the J. Paul Getty Museum in October 2014, the piece considers personal themes of aging and mortality, combined with Rainer’s sharp humor. Participating dancers read aloud from diverse historical and literary texts. This iteration, in MoMA’s fourth-floor Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Lobby Gallery, will involve the use of works from MoMA’s collection.
Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine
June 25 and 27, 1pm and 4pm
Brooklyn-based artist Steffani Jemison (American, b. 1981) presents her new multipart commission Promise Machine. Jemison will bring together members of Harlem-based community organizations for a reading group in MoMA’s library to discuss black American literary and political visions of an ideal society. Participants’ ideas of utopia will inspire an original libretto for the live musical performance in June 2015. The commission is organized in conjunction with the exhibition One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North and is inspired by the Utopia Neighborhood Club, a Harlem-based women’s social service organization that directly supported Jacob Lawrence.
Sunday Sessions and the ALLGOLD residency are organized by Jenny Schlenzka, Associate Curator, with Alex Sloane, Curatorial Assistant, and Rosey Selig-Addiss, Associate Producer, MoMA PS1.
Sunday Sessions and the VW Dome at MoMA PS1 are made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen of America. Major support for Sunday Sessions is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.
Anne Imhof: DEAL is a MoMA PS1 Commission as part of Sunday Sessions. With special thanks to Goethe-Institut.
The Print Shop at MoMA PS1 is made possible by the MoMA PS1 Annual Exhibition Fund.
ccap would like to thank The Swedish Arts Council and the City Council of Stockholm and coproduction partner Tanz im August for their support of CHOREO_POLITICS of the TRANS_HUMAN.
The MoMA Performance Program is organized by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator; Ana Janevski, Associate Curator; and Thomas J. Lax, Associate Curator; with Martha Joseph, Curatorial Assistant; and Giampaolo Bianconi, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.
Trajal Harrell’s Research Commission Residency and the Performance Program are made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.
Yvonne Rainer’s The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there’s nothing left to move? is co-commissioned by Performa and J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. This performance is organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
