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Performance

By Andrew Russeth 4/12 10:36am

Performance

6 Photos

At the Kitchen, Sam Green and Yo La Tengo Sing a ‘Love Song’ for R. Buckminster Fuller

You wouldn’t expect that the grandiosity of the translucent dome that R. Buckminster Fuller designed for Expo 67 in Montreal to translate on film, but for two nights this week at the Kitchen, Sam Green’s new documentary The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller came pretty close to capturing the spirit of the impressive construction.

Footage from the fair projected on a huge screen in the performance space, thousands of people walking up through the structure, marveling at gargantuan paintings by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann. Meanwhile, to one side of the screen, the rock band Yo La Tengo wailed away, drummer Georgia Hubley building a gigantic crescendo on one cymbal as sun burst through the dome, as a monorail glided into the building, as streams of people queued up to have a look. Read More

By Andrew Russeth 11/29/12 6:26pm

Performance

Peanut-butter cheesecake at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Chicago. (Getty Image)

Emergency Cheesecake: Sanders, Guyton Plan Evening With Performances, Pickle

It’s a time of transition at the Whitney! Today the museum announced the three curators who will organize its 2014 biennial, and tomorrow evening, Jay Sanders, who co-curated the 2012 show and was named a full-time curator of performance this summer, will present his first event in that role. (He’s also responsible, along with curator Chrissie Iles, for the just-opened exhibition “Dark and Deadpan: Pop in TV and the Movies.”) Read More

By Michael H. Miller 10/02/12 3:48pm

Performance

Performance still from "Habit," directed by David Levine. (Photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Daily Housework: In ‘Habit,’ David Levine Makes Acting a Chore

In Habit, a 90-minute play directed by David Levine and performed on a loop for eight hours a day at a warehouse space attached to Essex Street Market, there’s a one-bedroom house with the windows and doors knocked out and no roof. There are three actors inside and, depending upon what time you arrive or what their mood is like or any number of other variables, they are either snorting cocaine, showering, eating cereal, microwaving frozen pizza, firing a gun at each other, asleep or dead. At a certain point during any loop, one of them will always put on Captain Beefheart. Another will always get dressed. Another will flush the coke down the toilet and produce a gun. Beyond that, things are mostly unpredictable. Read More

By Andrew Russeth 4/05/12 6:15pm

Performance

DJ Spooky. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Company)

Met Unveils 2012-13 Talks and Performances, With DJ Spooky as Artist in Residence

At a press conference at the Metropolitan Museum of Art today, Limor Tomer, the museum’s concerts and lectures general manager, unveiled her plans for the 2012-13 season, which include performances by Patti Smith, the Endellion String Quartet (which will present Beethoven’s string quartets over a series of eight events) and Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. In addition, Paul D. Miller, a k a DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, will serve as an artist-in-residence from October, 2012, through June, 2013. Read More

By Andrew Russeth 3/30/12 12:56pm

Performance

3 Photos

SOLO by Dickie Landry at the Guggenheim, March 26, 2012

Playing the Museum: Dickie Landry Plays Solo Saxophone for John Chamberlain

On his 1977 album Fifteen Saxophones Dickie Landry uses tape delays and overdubs to pile saxes and flutes on top of one another. It sounds like a whole scrum of musicians is involved, but it’s played by a single man.

Performing in the center of the Guggenheim’s rotunda on Monday night, Mr. Landry was once again by himself, and though he didn’t quite conjure a whole gang of musicians with his tenor, there were moments when it seemed like two, maybe three, saxes were at work. His long, flowing scales bounced from the ceiling overhead back down to the floor as he blew, almost uninterrupted–except for a quick breath here and there–for about an hour. Read More

By Rozalia Jovanovic 3/08/12 6:02pm

Performance

Clifford Owens. Anthology (Kara Walker). C-print. 16x24 inches. Image courtesy On Stellar Rays.

Will Clifford Owens ‘Force a Sex Act’ on His Audience at MoMA PS1 on Sunday?

Since November, when his solo exhibition opened at MoMA PS1, the artist Clifford Owens has intimately kissed and groped strangers, fondled vegetables, and handled chickens in a suggestive way. At least two people have walked out of his performances, which are enactments of instructions—he calls them “scores”—written by other artists, like Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon. This Sunday, for his last performance at the museum, he will go above and beyond what he’s done so far, at least where Ms. Walker’s score is concerned. Read More

3/06/12 4:35pm

Performance

7 Photos

"The Haunting" (with Raphael Castoriano, Charles Kessler, Ju Hae Park, Helene Safdie, Joey Syta), 2012.

The Kid Stays in the Picture: Interviewing Ryan McNamara, and Becoming an Artwork

It is all but unheard of for an artist to become a fixture in the New York art world without having had any solo gallery exhibitions, the normal route to becoming well known. The artist Ryan McNamara, however, has managed to do this. Much of his production so far has consisted of short-lived performances that happened and were gone so swiftly that his reputation rests mostly on documentation produced after the fact. These performances have taken place in disparate locations ranging from gay bars to the Louis Vuitton store, to the woods outside the Watermill Center on Long Island. For one piece, Make Ryan a Dancer, part of MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York” survey in 2010, he spent six months taking dance lessons in the museum, a conflation of durational performance (he actually was learning how to dance) and practicality (he actually wanted to learn how to dance). His first solo exhibition in a gallery, currently at Elizabeth Dee, is both a reference to and an extension of his career to date. Read More