Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley, The Newcomers, via Performa

Returning for another year of dynamic events, expansive projects, installations and performances spread throughout New York City this month, the wildly popular Performa Performance Art Biennial is set to touch down once again this year.  Curated once again by founder RoseLee Goldberg, Performa spans the next three weeks, bringing with it a sudden charge of energy and life to a city preparing for the subdued energy of the winter months. (more…)

Performa has announced a new Board of Directors, including artists Rashid Johnson as Vice Chair and Shirin Neshat as a newly appointed Director.  “My first experience with Performa was during the Performa 13 Biennial, when I worked with Performa to restage LeRoi Jones and Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play Dutchman in the 10th Street Russian-Turkish Bath House. I was impressed by Performa’s artist-first approach and their hands on involvement in helping realize my vision,” Johnson said.  “I look forward to helping continue the great legacy Performa has earned and helping it to grow as a resource for artists and a vehicle for producing and showcasing innovative performance-based works.”  (more…)

Oscar Murillo, Lucky Dip (2015), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Continuing his process of intricate, labor-intensive installations and performances, Oscar Murillo has set up shop at the Alexander Hamilton Custom House on Bowling Green, bringing his new work, Lucky Dip.  The performance, which places a series of laborers at the service of his own aesthetic and political interests, sees the artist reprising his interests in national identity, globalized labor and their exchange with the world of contemporary art. (more…)

Jesper Just and FOS, in the shadow/ of a spectacle/ is the view of the crowd (Installation View), all photos via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Part of this year’s Performa proceedings, attendees at Danish artist Jesper Just’s performance In the shadow/ of a spectacle/ is the view of the crowd, found themselves suddenly guided up to the 43rd floor of a towering Financial District skyscraper, the downtown home of Time, Inc. on Liberty Street.  There, in an empty office floor, abstracted from the usual goings-on in the city’s bustling hub of banking and investment, a series of works presented themselves, continuing the artist’s investigations of structure and function, related to the movements of the modern urban context.

Jesper Just and FOS, in the shadow/ of a spectacle/ is the view of the crowd (Installation View) (more…)

RoseLee Goldberg, the curator and art historian founded who founded Performa is in the New York Times this week, reliving some of her favorite moments from the ten-year history of the festival, including performances by Jesper Just, Mike Kelley and Francesco Vezzoli.     (more…)

Alexandre Singh, The Humans (Still) (2013), via Sprüth Magers 

Sprüth Magers London is currently presenting The Humans, an exhibition documenting the creation and the staging process of Alexander Singh’s play of the same name. Commissioned by Witte de With of Rotterdam and Performa 13 of New York, The Humans marks a tour-de-force in Singh’s career as a visual artist. Blending modern theatre with Greek tragedy, performance art and installation; this three-hour play tells the story of two characters–Tophole and Pantalingua– two vagabond spirits that are striving to prevent the creation of the Earth. Believing that the Creator of such an Earth could only be a vain and self-centered maniac, the duo finds themselves amongst Humans with all of their obnoxiousness and mischievousness–among them sculptor Charles Ray.

Alexandre Singh, Vernon Montgomery Spruce (2014), via Sprüth Magers

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Artist Lia Chavez and Surrealist-attired guests at A Surrealism Salon

On Monday July 29th, Performa presented A Surrealism Salon at the downtown loft of artist Lia Chavez, who presided over the event and moderated the eclectic panel discussion with speakers Dr. Megan Fleming, therapist Heide Banks, Performa 13 artist Shana Lutker, Peforma assistant curator Summer Guthery, and Marc Arthur, Performa research and archives. Modeled on the salon discussions among André Breton, Max Ernst and other early surrealists which helped to develop and continually reshape the 20th century artistic movement, the panel endeavored to “explore dreams and desires.” Addressing a diverse range of topics, the panel used their art historical subject as an unexpected but welcome entry point into more current subjects surrounding the “digital revolution,” such as Facebook and the dating app Tinder.

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Photo on site for Art Observed by Tara Sheena.

In a production for the Performa 11 Biennial, co-commissioned by the Royal Danish Theater and the Bergen International Festival, the artist duo of Elmgreen & Dragset presented their satirical theatre work, Happy Days in the Art World. A
referential collage of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days and Waiting for Godot, as well as Elmgreen & Dragset’s own play, Drama Queens, the work effectively combines a stream-of-consciousness humor with a bare bones set to reveal a contemporary commentary on the sociopolitical implications of the art world.

More text and images after the jump…
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Performa opens November 1 in New York with Elmgreen & Dragset work Happy Days in the Art World, featuring Joseph Fiennes [AO Newslink]

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