Whitney Museum of American Art: Watch and Listen: Events

March 7, 2013Greil Marcus: Jay DeFeo and All That Jazz

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:40:07 -0400

Jay DeFeo came to the fore as part of a vibrant community of avant-garde artists, poets and musicians in the 1950s in San Francisco. Over the course of four decades, she produced an imaginative and diverse body of work in a wide range of media. In conjunction with Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective, author and critic Greil Marcus discusses DeFeo’s stylistic inventions, physical processes, and improvisational approach to materials. As Marcus argues, DeFeo loved jazz, and “in the deepest, fiercest, and most playful moments of her work, Jay DeFeo’s work was jazz,” too.

March 6, 2013Bennett Simpson: Why Contemporary Art Gives Me the Blues

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:16:53 -0400

Blues for Smoke features a wide range of contemporary art, music, literature, and film and explores the blues not simply as a musical category, but as a web of artistic sensibilities and cultural idioms. In conjunction with his exhibition, curator Bennett Simpson, from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, discusses the vitality and innovation at the core of the blues tradition as a major catalyst for experimentation within modern and contemporary art.

February 1, 2013Performance: Eleanor Antin: Conversations with Stalin

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:04:51 -0400

Spanning a variety of mediums including photography, video, film, performance, installation, drawing, and writing, Eleanor Antin’s work has explored entrenched assumptions about gender and power. As one of the first artists to re-introduce autobiography, narrative, and performance back into the art world in the 1960s and ’70s, Antin created an imaginary theater of personae and mythological characters, dramatizing contemporary personal and political narratives through a kind of historical time travel. In this performance, she reads four chapters from her coming-of-age memoir Conversations with Stalin, a no-holds-barred black comedy of growing up in New York City. This event is part of a four-part series of readings across the city.

Youth Insights: Teens Build a Haunted Studio with Tom Thayer

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:50:46 -0400

Leaders from the Whitney's Youth Insights program collaborate with artist Tom Thayer on a "Haunted Studio" installation.

November 5, 2012Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture: Sarah Sze

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:04:40 -0400

Known for large-scale sculptural installations, wall-mounted reliefs, and works on paper, Sarah Sze transforms our perception of quotidian items, such as notebook paper, plastic spoons, string, and straws, by assembling works of extraordinary beauty, movement, balance, and surprise. By playing with scale and illusion created through the mass accretion of small objects, she creates architectonic pieces that seem to defy gravity and form their own model universe. The Whitney has exhibited and supported Sze’s work since early in her career and remains steadfastly committed to her vision of what an artwork can be. In this eighth Walter Annenberg Lecture, Sze speaks about her work in conversation with Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director.

In honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador, the Whitney Museum of American Art established the Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture to advance this country’s understanding of its art and culture. Support for this lecture and for public programs at the Whitney Museum is provided, in part, by Jack and Susan Rudin in honor of Beth Rudin DeWoody, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the Museum’s Education Committee.

November 15, 2012Gallery Talk: John Yau and Jennifer Gross on Richard Artschwager!

Whitney Museum of American Art — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:24:05 -0500

Artist and poet John Yau, a longtime friend and peer of Richard Artschwager, joins exhibition curator Jennifer Gross for a gallery talk exploring Artschwager’s groundbreaking artistic processes and the impact of his body of work.

September 13, 2012Obsess, Create, and Repeat: Obsession and the Creative Process

Whitney Museum of American Art — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:31:38 -0400

This roundtable conversation explores the myths surrounding artistic production and the unique characteristics of extremely creative artists. The panel discusses the role of obsession, activity, and repetition in contemporary art practice, as illustrated by Yayoi Kusama's life and work. Participants include artist Janine Antoni, critic and scholar Lyle Rexer, and psychoanalyst Robert Langan.

July 27, 2012Julianne Swartz: Tactile Sound Accumulation

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:28:53 -0400

Through installation, sound art, and sculpture, artist Julianne Swartz probes the interfaces between private and public, inside and outside, individuals and surroundings. Taking a cue from Yayoi Kusama's immersive environments and happenings, Swartz, along with collaborators Ian Turner and Bob Bielecki, led a live action event in the public space of the Museum. For this program, visitors explored sonic texture, using digital and wireless technology to record, edit, and compose an audio object. This interactive sound collage made by Swartz, Turner, Bielecki and collaborators is the final product.

April 20, 2012 Laura Poitras: Surveillance Teach-In

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:08:53 -0400

Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras explores issues of war, justice, and power. Her current film trilogy, focusing on America post 9/11, documents the Iraq War, secret state surveillance, and the suspension of the rule of law in the “war on terror.” For this evening program, Poitras gives the floor to Jacob Appelbaum, computer security researcher, privacy advocate, hacker, and human rights activist, and Bill Binney, National Security Agency whistleblower. Appelbaum and Binney discuss domestic surveillance and the ways in which technological innovations have allowed for increasingly ubiquitous access into what was once private information. Woven through the Museum, interactive installations by Stimulate allow the viewer a dramatic glimpse of surveillance in action.

2012 Biennial: Nicole Eisenman: Figure Drawing Atelier

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:34:12 -0400

In this video, Margie Weinstein, manager of education initiatives, describes 2012 Whitney Biennial artist Nicole Eisenman's public program: a figure drawing workshop with live models.

2012 Biennial: Joanna Malinowska: Fieldwork

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:23:47 -0400

In this video, Margie Weinstein, manager of education initiatives, describes 2012 Whitney Biennial artist Joanna Malinowska's public program, Fieldwork.

May 17, 2012 Werner Herzog

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:01:22 -0400

Inimitable filmmaker Werner Herzog, characterized as the “romantic visionary” of New German Cinema, is best known for his unorthodox approach to capturing authenticity in his films—close encounters with danger and submitting cast members to unusual training, among others—as well as his mixture of fact and fiction, in narrative and documentary films alike. The subject of his work, described as “an extended essay on the meaning of meaninglessness,” is often the extraordinary qualities of ordinary things around us. For this program, Herzog discusses his particular contributions to the Biennial and his thoughts on contemporary art with co-curators Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders.

April 27, 2012 Lucy Raven: Standard Evaluation Material

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:01:48 -0400

Lucy Raven explores the nexus of old and new technologies, in projects ranging from sculptural installations and animated films to performative lectures and live television. Her work unmasks the often invisible processes, analogue and digital, that have come to define modern life. For this program, she shares a series of rarely seen test films—snippets of narrative assembled only for the technical information they contain, dating from the 1940s to today. These sights and sounds—seldom seen or heard outside of a film projection booth—tell alternate stories about the moving pictures and how we view them.

January 5, 2012 Gallery Talk: Charles Ray and Michael Fried on David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy

Whitney Museum of American Art — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:10:37 -0500

Art historian Michael Fried joins contemporary sculptor Charles Ray for a special walk through of David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy. Fried and Ray, whose work has been featured in four Whitney biennials, consider modernist abstract sculpture and its lasting influence on contemporary art.

December 15, 2011 Artist, Critic, Canon: Critical Approaches to Art History, After Levine

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:09:12 -0500

Sherrie Levine stands at the forefront of a group of artists, such as Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Barbara Kruger, whose work has altered the way we distribute, perceive, and study representational images. In conjunction with SHERRIE LEVINE: MAYHEM, a panel of scholars and artists, including David Joselit, Zoe Leonard, and Elisabeth Sussman, explore how Levine and other artists have generated discourse on authorship, originality, and reproduction, and in turn, instigated new critical approaches to the art historical canon. This conversation investigates significant shifts in contemporary art practice and theory since the 1970s, and how these shifts influenced a generation of artists for whom the impulse of borrowing, reframing, and reproducing imagery is fundamental.

November 1, 2011 Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture: Claes Oldenburg

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:05:21 -0500

One of the most innovative artists of the postwar period, Claes Oldenburg is best known for work that disrupts our expectations of how objects “behave.” Since the beginning of his career, Oldenburg has focused his attention and immense talent on ordinary, commonplace items, such as kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, and various foods. As he once explained, “I make my work out of my everyday experiences, which I find as perplexing and extraordinary as can be.” The Whitney has championed his work for several decades and now possesses one of the world’s largest collections of his art. In this seventh Annenberg Lecture, Oldenburg speaks about his work in conversation with Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director.

In honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador, the Whitney Museum of American Art established the Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture to advance this country’s understanding of its art and culture.

September 8, 2011Artist Talk and Film Screening: Kevin Jerome Everson

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:01:53 -0400

Artist Kevin Jerome Everson works in a variety of media, including film, painting, sculpture, and photography, exploring aspects of everyday life. Some of his films are constructed from appropriated news and film footage, bringing to light forgotten details of the experiences of African-Americans from the Great Migration to life in the 1960s and ‘70s. Everson, whose work was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, approaches the topics of race, sexuality, and economic conditions in observant and insightful ways. His latest exhibition at the Whitney Museum, More Than That: Films by Kevin Jerome Everson, explores his interest in labor and its relationship to class, identity, and the human body. Kevin Jerome Everson was joined in conversation by curator Chrissie Iles. Following the talk, Everson screened films from his latest project, the Tombigbee Chronicles.

August 10, 2011My Turn: Title TK Meets Danny Goldberg

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:07:06 -0400

Title TK is a band consisting of artist/musicians Cory Arcangel, Howie Chen, and Alan Licht. Danny Goldberg is a legendary music mogul. This unscripted conversation covers the twists and turns of music culture over the last fifty years. Goldberg has had a long and distinguished career since the late 1960s, ranging from personal manager, record company president, public relations man, and music journalist. Among other things, he served as Chairman and CEO of Mercury Records Group and of Warner Bros. Records, was Vice President of Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records, and managed The Allman Brothers, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and the Beastie Boys. Title TK is a “banter prone” band which Arcangel, Chen, and Licht describe as “a cross between David Antin and Spinal Tap.”

This program is part of the My Turn public programs series. For Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools, My Turn invited Arcangel to create programs for the Whitney’s public that are an extension of and informed by his own artistic processes and methods.

July 20, 2011The Fine Art of Comics with Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware

Whitney Museum of American Art — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:37:08 -0400

“The Kin-der-Kids” and “Wee Willie Winkie’s World,” the pioneering and popular comic strips that Lyonel Feininger debuted in 1906, formed the basis of many of his subsequent paintings, as the visual language of comics that he employed for his commercial work migrated into his canvases. The cross-pollination between comics and high art, which began in the early 20th century, also fed the extraordinary explosion of graphic novels and comics in the past several decades. In conjunction with the exhibition Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World, a panel of master comic artists, including Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware, discuss the intersection of comics and fine art. Moderated by John Carlin.

April 28, 2011Culture Is Burning, with Douglas Crimp, Catherine Lord, Linda Nicholson, and Tricia Rose

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:20:52 -0400

Inspired by the moment in which Glenn Ligon rose to prominence, this panel contextualizes the art of the late 1980s and early '90s in the U.S. This era marked a shift in social and cultural life from a money-driven, individualistic ethos of the Reagan and Bush years, to a foregrounding of collective identities of communities that had been pushed to the margins, a period commonly cited as the rise of identity politics. Correspondingly, the visual arts found itself in the midst of the “culture wars,” and a field that had been, in many ways, an extension of free-market excess and conservative values shifted, as artists explored a visual vocabulary of progressive possibility. This panel examined the multifaceted political, social, economic, and cultural forces that provided the conditions of possibility for a generation of artists who take up questions of power, representation, gender, race, and sexuality, to gain prominence and define a new mode of artistic practice. Panelists included art historian Douglas Crimp, artist and writer Catherine Lord, political historian and theorist Linda Nicholson, and cultural historian Tricia Rose.

April 21, 2011 Reflections on the Midcareer Retrospective, with Glenn Ligon, Scott Rothkopf, and Huey Copeland

Whitney Museum of American Art — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:36:11 -0400

What does a midcareer retrospective mean for an artist, and how is a career defined? This roundtable takes up these questions on the occasion of Glenn Ligon’s midcareer exhibition. The Whitney has long supported living artists at key moments in their careers, and the Museum is unique in the number of midcareer exhibitions it features. Moreover, the Whitney has featured Ligon’s work in numerous exhibitions since the early 1990s, and has amassed the largest institutional holdings of his art. Ligon is joined by exhibition curator Scott Rothkopf and art historian Huey Copeland for a dialogue on the joys, fears, and implications of a midcareer show.

March 23, 2011 On The Death of Tom, with Glenn Ligon, Jason Moran, and Terrance McKnight

Whitney Museum of American Art — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:46:31 -0400

Glenn Ligon‘s latest video piece, The Death of Tom (2008), offers an abstractionist recreation of the final scene in Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 silent movie Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Ligon asked experimental jazz musician, pianist, and composer Jason Moran to create a soundtrack for this piece, playing to changes in light on the screen. The film and live, improvised performance are followed by a conversation between Ligon and Moran, moderated by Terrance McKnight.

January 6, 2011Gallery Talk: Rachel Harrison and Elisabeth Sussman onthe Legacy of Paul Thek

Whitney Museum of American Art — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:39:00 -0500

Though overlooked by much of the American art establishment, Paul Thek’s ephemeral installations and collaborative strategies continue to inform and influence a generation of younger artists. Join Rachel Harrison, acclaimed conceptual artist, and Elisabeth Sussman, co-curator of Paul Thek: Diver A Retrospective, as they take a closer look at this “artist’s artist,” his work, and his broad-reaching impact on the contemporary art scene.

Elizabeth Streb Discusses her Performance of Trisha Brown’s Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970)

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:25:43 -0400

Elizabeth Streb describes what it felt like to walk down the facade of the Museum for her performance of Trisha Brown’s Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970) during Off the Wall: Part 2—Seven Works by Trisha Brown. Streb also explains how Brown’s choreography often works to explore simple actions—such as walking—when taken out of their everyday context.

Trisha Brown Dance Company Performs a Compilation of Brown’s Early Works

Whitney Museum of American Art — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:39:58 -0400

In this video, the Trisha Brown Dance Company performs some of the choreographer’s most iconic works from the 1970s during Off the Wall: Part 2—Seven Works by Trisha Brown, an exhibition organized on the occasion of the company’s fortieth anniversary