Feb 26, 2020
For our Winter/Spring 2020 season, The Kitchen will build on our tradition of giving artists free rein of our spaces—a tradition that has been central to our organization since the earliest days. We deepened our commitment to this practice throughout fall 2019 by initiating a new residency model that allows artists to shape our facilities according to the shifting needs of their project.
This season, we are thrilled to continue in this vein with three ambitious residencies in our partner space, Queenslab, where the expansive scale and open layout invite artists to experiment with exciting new formats for exhibitions, performances, and programs. Meanwhile, in our Chelsea building, we will be working with artists to reimagine the functions of each floor—moving outside their previously defined roles of theater, gallery, and offices—and through additional offsite partnerships we will present programming in a range of unique settings.
We launched our season in January with the U.S. premiere of Richard Maxwell ’s Queens Row in our Chelsea building’s second-floor space. Through architectural alterations, Maxwell and his collaborators worked “to find the ‘outside’ inside the space.” That month, we also were honored to present an evening of improvisational music performed by Lonnie Holley with Nelson Patton at The Dance NYC.
This past weekend, Felix Bernstein and Gabe Rubin ’s residency began with the opening of their new video installation Vomitorium at Queenslab. With this work, on view through March 22, Bernstein and Rubin invite visitors to enter a custom 360-degree viewing space and to become immersed in a tragicomic reflection on the history of metatheatre from religious ritual to livestreaming.
For the next residency at Queenslab in April, the participants in this year’s Dance and Process program—Leslie Cuyjet, Kennis Hawkins, Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal, and Alex Rodabaugh—will meet regularly to share work and feedback with one another. Curated and facilitated by Moriah Evans and Yve Laris Cohen, Dance and Process will culminate with public presentations of new work. From May through June, the final residency of the season will see Autumn Knight responding to Queenslab’s architecture with improvisation, text, choreography, and sculpture.
Two newly commissioned performances will extend our music series this Spring. In Chelsea in April, Ka Baird and Max Eilbacher will stage a new incarnation of Baird’s ongoing Vivification Exercises series, centering on an exploration/deconstruction of The Kitchen’s Steinway piano. In May, Claire Chase will present the seventh part of her twenty-three-year project Density 2036 at Queenslab, performing a new solo flute composition entitled Sex Magic by Liza Lim.
Throughout the season, our annual series The Kitchen L.A.B. furthers its exploration of this year’s term, “regeneration.” Following events in January and February that featured mayfield brooks, E. Jane, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Wayne Koestenbaum, Ethan Philbrick, and Tourmaline, the next L.A.B. will take place on March 16 at Queenslab with Lauren Bakst, Felix Bernstein, Narcissister, and Gabe Rubin (doubling as an after-hours opportunity to view Bernstein and Rubin’s Vomitorium).
Also running throughout the Winter/Spring season is a series of programs and events drawing connections between The Kitchen’s past and present in anticipation of the institution’s 50th anniversary in 2021. We launched a new series of intergenerational artist conversations earlier this month with a program pairing Dara Birnbaum and Sondra Perry . Next will be a Choreographers Convening on March 21 bringing together DANCENOISE (Anne Iobst and Lucy Sexton), Neil Greenberg, Ishmael Houston-Jones, koosil-ja, Sarah Michelson, Dean Moss, and Tere O’Connor to reflect on dance programming at The Kitchen and beyond in the 1980s and 1990s.
For our Spring Gala Honoring Debbie Harry and Cindy Sherman on April 15, we are proud to honor two artists who first presented work with The Kitchen forty years ago and who have remained integral members of our community ever since. Later in April, we will transform our building into a continuous site of display with a 50th Anniversary Benefit Exhibition co-curated by Board Members Wade Guyton and Jacqueline Humphries and The Kitchen extending across all three of our floors. Featuring major artworks donated by artists in support of The Kitchen as we approach this significant historical milestone, this exhibition will spotlight the unique physical characteristics of our Chelsea building. Stay tuned for more information on this exhibition in the coming weeks.
We hope that you’ll join us in Chelsea, at Queenslab, and beyond as we bring these exciting artists and ideas to the fore!
Sincerely,
Tim Griffin
Executive Director & Chief Curator
Image: Video still from Felix Bernstein and Gabe Rubin, Vomitorium, 2020. Courtesy the artists and David Lewis, New York.