On View: March 16
The Video Viewing Room series presents recent video works and archival recordings. This online initiative revives The Kitchen's longstanding Video Viewing Room—a dedicated space within our buildings from 1975 through the early 1990s.
On March 16, The Kitchen and Electronic Arts Intermix launch their inaugural collaboration for The Kitchen’s Video View Room (VVR) program, featuring Merlo (1974) by Joan Jonas and Four Duets (1982) by Bill T. Jones. Both works are drawn from EAI’s collection of The Kitchen’s archives and reflect a shared history rooted in the emergence of video art and interdisciplinary performance within New York's downtown arts scene.
Merlo (1974), a single-channel video produced in Florence at Art/Tapes/22—then one of the world’s leading centers for video production—investigates the perceptual relationship between sound and spatial distance through a solitary performance staged across dramatic outdoor landscapes. In the work, Jonas appears alone in a series of striking locations: a rocky gorge, a wind-tossed riverbank, and a balcony overlooking a wide valley. Cloaked in a dark Haori Robe, she uses a long paper cone as a megaphone, singing melodies and emitting keening, animal-like calls into the surrounding landscape. Both the cone figure and the distinctive melodies recur throughout Jonas’s practice; their presence here resonates with the title, as merlo is the Italian word for “blackbird.” Merlo was originally presented in The Kitchen’s Video Viewing Room program in December 1983.
Award-winning choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones came to prominence in the early 1980s when he founded the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with his long-term partner Arnie Zane. Their “new wave” choreography frequently incorporated video, text, and autobiographical elements, often in collaboration with artists from New York’s downtown scene. On four consecutive evenings between September 30 and October 3, 1982, Jones presented a series of dance works at The Kitchen. Documented here as Four Duets, these performances offer a vivid snapshot of the early 1980s dance and performance landscape.
In the first, and featured performance on VVR, Long Distance, Jones performs a powerful solo while artist Keith Haring paints directly on the wall behind him, creating his iconic graffiti-like imagery. Jones dances in silence, accompanied only by the sound of Haring’s brush. For the second piece, The Double, Jones collaborated with Rob Besserer and Brian Arsenault; the intimate duet unfolds in two parts, first performed by Jones and Arsenault, then by Jones and Besserer. In the third work, Shared Distance, Jones performs with Julie West, who was a member of his company at the time. The final piece, Response-ability, is a solo for Jones, with Haring’s painting serving as the sole set design for the performances.
Together, these works pioneered experimental approaches to performance on video that emerged from New York’s vibrant avant-garde community, while highlighting the longstanding relationship and legacy between The Kitchen and Electronic Arts Intermix. Presenting them today revisits a formative moment in the development of interdisciplinary performance and underscores the lasting influence of these artists’ innovations on contemporary practices in video, dance, and performance.