The Kitchen Spring Gala Honors Lynn Hershman Leeson

This May, The Kitchen is delighted to honor artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson during its annual Spring Gala on May 22, alongside visionary patrons Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi and trailblazing composer Max Roach (1924–2007).

In a career that spans fifty years, Hershman Leeson’s experimentation and acute concern with our physical and psychological relationship to digital media and evolving technologies have remained core components of her cutting-edge work.

Hershman Leeson’s innovative new media works grapple with Orwellian subject matters and complex cyborgian themes surrounding the female body, relating to surveillance culture, and advertising. Her widely celebrated, futuristic approach, confronts contemporary issues combining elements of photography, collage, sculpture and performance art with audio, video and interactive interfaces.

For the past thirty years, Hershman Leeson’s collaborations with The Kitchen have prompted meaningful and philosophical discussions around avant-garde artistic practices, inspiring generations of artists. Lynn Hershman Leeson first presented at The Kitchen in 1990 as part of the New Works, First Runs screening. Later, in 1999, Leeson hosted TV Dinner No.3, in which she presented a few works including photographs from her Phantom Limb series (1985-87) and clips from her then recent film, Conceiving Ada (1997) starring Tilda Swinton.

Beginning on May 13th, The Kitchen will present Desire Inc., which includes four distinct works across Hershman Leeson’s five-decade career: Commercials for "Forming a Sculpture Drama in Manhattan" (1974), A Commercial for Myself (1978), Test Patterns (1979), and Desire Inc. (1990). Taking its title from the artist's 1990 work Desire Inc., in which the artist appropriates the format of the TV commercial to emphasize the media's role in human desire, this presentation explores the artist’s radical engagement with television. The films will be available online On Screen through June 16, 2024.

Hershman Leeson’s boundary-defying exhibitions and her charitable artistic contributions to The Kitchen, notably her participation in the 2019 edition series, with proceeds supporting The Kitchen’s ongoing initiatives, have played a pivotal role in advancing the organization's mission. It is a joy to recognize her achievements at this year’s Spring Gala, The Kitchen's largest event of the year, celebrating art world luminaries who are beacons of their communities.

The 2024 Spring Gala will take place on May 22, 2024, at Guastavino’s in New York. Ticketing information is available here.

ABOUT LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum’s first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023.

Her six feature films—Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries—are in worldwide distribution. Artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

She is represented by Bridget Donahue in New York, where her most recent solo exhibition Anti-Aging is on view until May 18, 2024; Altman Siegel in San Francisco; Waldburger Wouters in Brussels; and ShanghART in China.