Performance Exhibition Series 1, 2, 3
March 7 & 8, 2009
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 708-9400
PERFORMANCE 1: TEHCHING HSIEH
Through May 18, 2009
Media Gallery, second floor
Tehching Hsieh (Taiwanese, b. 1950) is best known for his five One Year Performances. Between 1980 and 1981 the artist spent one year punching a time clock every hour on the hour. The following year he lived entirely outdoors, without shelter. From 1983 to 1984, Hsieh and the artist Linda Montano spent twelve months roped together without touching each other. And finally, he spent one year, 1985 to 1986, without making, viewing, discussing, or in any other way participating in art. This installation presents documentation of the artist’s earliest performance, commonly called Cage Piece (1978–79), in which he spent 365 days in a cell-like cage, in near-solitary confinement, doing absolutely nothing.
PERFORMANCE 2: SIMONE FORTI
March 7 and 8, 2009
Performances at noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00 p.m.
Special Exhibitions Gallery, second floor
Simone Forti’s (American, b. 1935) dance constructions of 1961 are based on improvisation and chance. In Huddle, dancers gather in a tightly packed group, then take turns climbing over the mass, forming a living sculpture that moves through the gallery. Platforms is a dance construction and duet in which performers lie under wooden platforms and communicate by whistling. In Accompaniment for La Monte’s “2 sounds” and La Monte’s “2 sounds,” a twelve-minute recording by Minimalist composer La Monte Young plays as a dancer stands in a large loop of rope suspended from the ceiling; a second person turns the dancer around and around until the rope is completely wound up, and then releases. The piece ends when the recording stops.
PERFORMANCE 3: TRIO A BY YVONNE RAINER
March 7 and 8, 2009
12:30 and 4:30 p.m.
Special Exhibitions Gallery, second floor
Trio A is a well-known dance sequence by Yvonne Rainer (American, b. 1934). Since its first presentation in 1966 as part of the larger performance The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1 at Judson Church in New York, it has been performed repeatedly in various forms and contexts by dancers and nondancers alike. The piece comprises a sequence of unpredictable movements that unfold in a continuous motion, deliberately opposing familiar dance patterns of development and climax. Trio A is performed at MoMA by Pat Catterson, a professional dancer, and Jimmy Robert and Ian White, two visual artists and nondancers, in front of a projection of a historical recording of Rainer’s own 1978 performance of the piece.
The Performance Exhibition Series is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, and Jenny Schlenzka, Assistant Curator for Performance, Department of Media and Performance Art.
The Performance Exhibition Series is made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.
For press information, please contact Paul Jackson at (212) 708-9593 or paul_jackson@moma.org.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 708-9400
