Art museums make new space for live performance

When the Art Isn’t on the Walls
Dance Finds a Home in Museums
by Hilarie M. Sheets, The New York Times, January 22, 2015

Yams Collective on Whitney protest and white supremacy in the arts

The Yams, On the Whitney and White Supremacy
by Ben Davis, artnet, May 30 2014

HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? collective pulls work from Whitney Biennial

Artist Collective Withdraws from Whitney Biennial
by Mostafa Heddaya, Hyperallergic, May 14, 2014

She's back! Jaime Shearn Coan sees taisha paggett at the Whitney

taisha paggett’s Geography of We
by Jaime Shearn Coan, The Brooklyn Rail, May 6, 2014

The consequences of men: Gutierrez and Mahar at the Whitney

Dancers Mickey Mahar (l)
and Miguel Gutierrez (before he went fabulously blond)
(photo by Eric McNatt)

Some questions raised by an afternoon visit to Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:1/, a world premiere and Whitney Biennial commission by Miguel Gutierrez in collaboration with Mickey Mahar:

1. Do ten nails with freshly, perfectly painted "divine decadence" trump an offer of fluorescent hot pink polish?

Answer: Why, yes. They do. Refuse the offer.

2. Fluorescent hot pink strips pop off white walls and floors. Is this the queerest color of them all?

Yes. Inescapably so. Especially in a swimming suit and face paint on a newly bleached-blond, bearded choreographer.

3. Is 13 a lucky number?

Answer: Yes, if it's your 13th show.

4. I have a thousand and ten thousand things to say to you. My heart is full of futurity. What does this William Blake line (from a letter to Thomas Butts) have to do with anything?

Answer: We'll find out.

Some man got nervous--or something--yesterday at the Whitney, just as Miguel Gutierrez was winding down his affable introduction to Age & Beauty Part 1 in front of an audience jammed into a small, white-box performance space. The guy got up, mumbled an apology and left. Who knows why? Maybe all that gleaming white reflection was too much. Or maybe Gutierrez's hot (pink) look? In any case, he surely missed a thousand and ten thousand things.

The duet with Mickey Mahar launches a new area of investigation for Gutierrez and, he says, "deals with the challenge of being a mid-career artist and the attendant questions of longevity, sustainability, aesthetic signature and burnout."

Its opening passage gives us ample time to compare the two men--different in ethnicity, age, physique, skin tone and garb--as they move in strict unison. It is all parade, a mechanical display of hotness--shimmying and shrugging shoulders, deep pliés, gestures of arms and legs growing in kinetic and linguistic intricacy--in sync with blaring, pounding house beats. Mahar's light, precise and detached approach contrasts, interestingly, with the choreographer's self-presentation. Gutierrez inhabits the movements in a way that seems to contain and constrain a thousand and ten thousand things just below the surface. (You're in there, Miguel. We see you!) This goes on and on but, in a little while, both men will achieve some moments of intense and impressive physical control and physical inevitability.

Further along, the individuality of each performer becomes more pronounced. Gutierrez is like hard rubber tumbling noisily; Mahar, equally turbulent but still somewhat delicate, strangely graceful in his awkwardness, like a baby animal.
And Gutierrez's text--a trenchant cross between spoken word and art song--wrenches an audience in so many directions in so short a space of time that the only possible response is sweat.

Age and Beauty Part 1 feels like entropy--a copious, detailed, rigorous language devolving into common and familiar, if passionate, expression, Mahar slow, dreamily writhing on the floor while Gutierrez runs or flails or belts a song into a white microphone.

At the end, Gutierrez calmly dismisses the audience: It's over; you can leave now, or words to that effect. Yesterday, the audience took a while to get that he was serious and to rise and file out. How strange to be told to leave at the end of a presentation but, remember, it was also kind of strange for Gutierrez to personally welcome us and introduce his own show. The feeling? Good and more than a little not so good. Friendly and maybe not so friendly. What is the choreographer saying about who we are and what we've been doing--and watching--for the last 55 minutes?

I could be wrong but, just below the surface, a thousand and ten thousand things, barely held in check, all sound like: Get the fuck out!

With additional dance material by Christoffer Schieche and Roman Van Houtven; set design by Miguel Gutierrez; lighting by Lenore Doxsee; costumes by Dusty Childers

Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/ runs through Sunday, May 4. Advanced ticket sales are closed. If available, tickets will be released each performance date at 11am. A stand-by line will form one hour prior to each performance.

For show information, click here.
For Biennial information, click here.
For general Whitney visitors information, click here.

2014 Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

She Gone Tarot: Flawless Sabrina reads Whitney Biennial artist

2014 Whitney Biennial artists Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst visit the apartment of drag performance icon Flawless Sabrina, who features in Drucker and Ernst’s video She Gone Rogue. Flawless Sabrina performs a Tarot reading for Drucker and the two discuss the pitfalls of success.

Watch video (2:36)

Storm alters the picture for the Whitney

One Eye on Art, the Other on Water
Whitney Revamps New Museum After Hurricane Sandy
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, June 26, 2013

Stuart Comer appointed MoMA's Chief Curator of media and performance art

Stuart Comer (photo by Daniel Terna/Light Industry)

Stuart Comer has been appointed Chief Curator of the Department of Media and Performance Art at The Museum of Modern Art, announced by MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry. 

Comer, who has served as Curator of Film at Tate Modern, London, since 2004, will oversee the department’s program of special exhibitions, installations from the collection, and acquisitions.  He will begin his new position at MoMA on September 23.

"Artists working across time-based media—from performance to the moving image and all of the many permutations in between—continue to push and reshape artistic practice in fundamentally challenging and exciting ways," said Comer. "I look forward to exploring this dynamic field and its rich history by continuing the development and exhibition of MoMA's distinguished collection. MoMA has become a leading institution redefining the role of media and performance in the museum, and this will be an exciting opportunity to further develop its programs in collaboration with artists, audiences, and colleagues."

Comer is a co-curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art 2014 Biennial, and will be working with both institutions concurrently until next March.

Alyssa Alpine on Michelson's "Devotion"

Devotion Study #1--The American Dancer
by Alyssa Alpine, Culturebot, March 9, 2012

Edward Hopper at the Whitney

Edward Hopper Seeking Solitude in Modern Times

by Deborah Feller, DeborahFeller.com, January 2, 2011

Trisha Brown at The Whitney

Trisha Brown Dance Company
reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, DanceMagazine.com, October 8, 2010