Displaying items by tag: performance art

With a $200,000 donation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation will be the lead foundation donor for the US pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Last week, curator Okwui Enwezor announced the 136 artists and collectives included in the “All the World's Futures," the Biennale's main exhibition.

The gift was announced by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the organizer of the US pavilion, which will feature an immersive multimedia installation from veteran video and performance artist Joan Jonas, inspired by the work of writer Halldór Laxness as well as other literary sources.

A sweeping reinstallation of The Museum of Modern Art’s contemporary collection presents a wide range of artistic approaches to the political, social, and cultural flux that have shaped the current global landscape. "Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection," on view from March 8, 2015, through March 2016, features video, installation, sculpture, drawing, prints, and photography created in the past three decades by more than 30 international artists, with more than half of the works on view for the first time. "Scenes for a New Heritage" is organized by Quentin Bajac, the Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography; Eva Respini, Curator, Department of Photography; Ana Janevski, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art; and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints; with Katerina Stathopoulou, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography.

The last 30 years have seen remarkable societal and cultural change, as major shifts in geopolitical dynamics destabilized the established world order, new economies emerged to challenge those long dominant, and the Internet radically altered the ways in which we access and generate information.

"Old Masters, New Voices" is a themed panel series hosted annually by the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s, inviting contemporary scholars, artists, and specialists to take a new look at the influence of Old Master Paintings. This year’s panel, coinciding with Sotheby’s Master Week sales on January 29, will focus on the role played by food in the history of Western Art. From the sumptuous feasts so delicately reproduced in 17th century painting, to the use of food in 21st century performance art, the panel discussion will explore the ways in which artists have used food throughout history.

Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s Senior Vice President and Head of Old Master Paintings Department and George Wachter, Sotheby’s Executive Vice President and Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide invite the public to join Old Masters, New Voices 2015 panel discussion, moderated by Michael Wilson, former Editor in Chief of La Cucina Italiana.

Following its inaugural outing in 2012, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ 5×5 program takes to the streets again this fall. The city’s largest public arts project kicks off with an opening weekend celebration on September 6 and 7, promising both visual art and cultural events spread across each of the city’s eight wards through December. The works take the form of everything from site-specific performance art to sculpture to screenprinting demonstrations, all of which are free and open to the public.

The 25 participating artists — as chosen five apiece by five curators, hence the festival’s name — range in both medium and background.

Nobody explores the space between intimacy and technology quite like Miranda July.

The performance artist, writer and filmmaker continually investigates the shapes of interconnectedness in the digital age, through films like "Me and You and Everyone We Know" and art initiatives like "We Think Alone," in which July's famous friends forwarded their intimate emails to your inbox.

Now July has created an app that will blur the line between digital and personal interaction, and it's called "Somebody."

The lineup of scheduled “Dialogues” for this year’s edition of EXPO Chicago, which runs September 18–21 at Navy Pier, touches on virtually every corner of the art market, from grant-making at charitable foundations and the changing nature of collecting, to the history and importance of performance art, photography, and public art.

First up on the schedule for Friday September 19, is a conversation between Elizabeth Smith, the executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation, and Christy MacLear, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. They will discuss their respective foundations’ initiatives, including grant-making activities and legacy programs.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has approved a $1.4 billion capital facilities bond bill that includes a $25.4 million grant for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA). The financial boost will allow the institution to embark on the final phase of its multi-decade effort to renovate its 26-building, 60,000-square-foot factory campus. The Phase III development will include the addition of approximately 130,000 square feet of exhibition space, ultimately doubling the space currently available for shows, plus considerable work on the museum’s performing arts courtyard and other exterior venues.

Mass MoCA opened in North Adams -- a city nestled in the picturesque Berkshire Mountains -- in 1999.

How do you archive a performance? Can you put human speech and action under glass and frame it? Stow art that unfolds in three dimensions within acid-free archival boxes, to be filed away in a cool, dark vault?

The conundrum of how best to preserve the history of midcentury American performance art — art created before phones had video cameras — lies at the center of the Getty Research Institute's recently announced acquisition of Robert McElroy's archive. In more than 700 prints and 10,000 negatives, the photographer documented the performative works of Allan Kaprow, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and other artists whose "Happenings" grew from niche New York art events into a full-fledged pop culture phenomenon.

When Marina Abramović called the Serpentine Gallery’s co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist to explain the idea for her forthcoming London performance, she said: “This is what I want to do: nothing … there’s nothing. There’s no work, just me, and the public is my live material, and that’s the most radical, the most pure I can do.”

Entitled 512 Hours, the piece will involve the veteran performance artist being present in the gallery six days a week from 10am to 6pm for the duration of the exhibition. Nothing else will be exhibited, although the performance will also feature props and furniture.

On Saturday, May 17, Jack Shainman inaugurated The School, his new gallery in Kinderhook, New York, with a performance by Nick Cave. Shainman, who runs two galleries in Manhattan, originally set out to find a storage space for his growing collection. After a change in plans, he enlisted Spanish architect Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas to convert the former Martin Van Buren Elementary School into a gallery. Outfitted with the requisite white walls and poured concrete floors, the space retained some of its original features, including the proscenium arch that once towered over the auditorium’s stage.

The 30,000-square-foot gallery, which is currently open by appointment only, is hosting an abbreviated Cave retrospective. Cave, a former dancer who trained with Alvin Ailey, is best known for his Soundsuits -- wearable fabric sculptures that are brightly colored and otherworldly, often made from found objects. The exhibition at The School also includes tondos sculpted out of fabric, mind-bending wallpaper, and bricolage sculptures. Cave’s performance on Saturday night featured dancers from nearby Williams College wearing his Soundsuits and traditional Ghanese music courtesy of the Agbekor Friends Society. In addition to hosting exhibitions, The School also houses Shainman’s growing permanent collection.