Performa is a biennial focused solely around new visual art performance. Founded by Rosa Lee Goldberg whom I inexplicably admire too much, Performa 2011 officially begins Tuesday and I’m creating a hefty “to check out” list for the month long festival. For anyone as excited as I am be prepared to be inundated with a schedule filled to the brim with over 100 participating artists culled together to “break down the boundaries between visual art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, graphic design, and the culinary arts”. I love Performa for exactly this reason. That it brings together different cultural boundaries is such a breath of fresh air when the stuffy gallery system isolates itself into its own lonely microeconomy. Here are what I assume will be highlights and have marked on my calendar:
- Jonathan VanDyke With One Hand Between Us: Three actors are framed within paint dripping sculptures and partitions for five days.
- 33 Fragments of Russian Performance opening: An exhibition documenting Russian performance from the 20s to today.
- Serkan Ozkaya Artist Class: Speech Acts and 3D Modeling: Learn to replace the world with language and representation.
- Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler SEVEN: The artists combine their kinetic sculpture and videos to create a performance where sweat is collected as shamanic ritual.
- Matthew Stone Anatomy of Immaterial Worlds: Music, dance, opera, and video all in one.
- Boris Charmatz Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro: A museum of dance where all you experience is the movement, gesture, and stories of the dancers.
- Jonathan Meese WAR ‘SAINT JUST (FIRST FLASH)’: The artist amuses himself and viewers in an unscripted German Kasperletheater.
- Christine Sun Kim with Lukas Geronimas Feedback: A deaf artist plays with audio equipment for a visual effect.
- Mai-Thu Perret Artist Class: On Utopia: A class on Russian Constructivism and Utopia.
- Lili Reynaud-Dewar Interpretation: A performance about Sun Ra, free jazz and personal biography.
- Liz Glynn Utopia or Oblivion: Recreating Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome in Times Square.
- Performa Ha!: Conceptual Art vs Comedy.
- Performa Film Program: Not Funny Comics on the Edge in the 1970s: Andy Kaufman and comedy in the 70s.
- MPA and Amapola Prada Revolution Two Marks in Rotation: Two performers with cinder blocks, plate glass, and their bodies. Sounds violent.
- Simon Fujiwara The Boy Who Cried Wolf: A performance on homosexuality, family dynamics, and AbEx painting.
- Justin Vivian Bond Full Moon Tranifestation Circle with Justin Vivian Bond and Friends: A solo exhibition based around the soon to be demolished loft.
- Shirin Neshat OverRuled: A performance referencing Iranian & Arab uprisings against dictatorship and theocracy.
- Eric Steen Brew Day: All about home beer brewing.
- Jonas Mekas Fluxus Cabaret: New film by Mekas compiled from fluxus performances.
- Laurel Nakadate and James Franco Three Performances in Search of Tennessee: I think I’m obligated to highlight this.
- Abbas Akhavan, Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid al Gharaballi, and Youmna Chlala The Anti-Artist Talk Series: Undoing the conventional artist talk format.
- Ben Kinmont An Exhibition in Your Mouth: 10 artist written recipes turned into a 5 course menu.
- Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle A Guiding Light (Part II): Screening and critique, happening at the same time.
- Ben Kinmont with Laurel George (NYU) Ethical considerations in project art practices:
- Proposed curriculum on contemporary art and performance: Dennis Oppenheim and the art of survival, Day 17: Seminars around the life and work of Dennis Oppenheim.
- Will Cotton Cockaigne: A Ballet celebrating cotton candy.
- Zhou Xiaohu Crazy English: Learn English the Chinese way with plenty shouting and wild gestures.
- Athi-Patra Ruga Ilulwane: Synchronized swimming reflecting the passage of time.
