The octopus has nine brains, one located in its head and eight in its arms. Every arm senses the surrounding world and thinks with autonomy, and yet, each arm is part of the animal. Using this decentralized nervous system as an inspiration for Performance Space New York’s curatorial practice, the Octopus series invites artists and guest curators to individually organize an evening-length program with several artists working in any number of disciplines. Octopus continues Performance Space’s legacy of artist-centric programming and creating space for the exploration of ideas free from expectations.
Archives: Shows
Every body is welcome to Open Room, a publicly accessible space for communal use. Dozie Kanu’s installation Blood Type inaugurates the program.
Open Room is located on the 4th floor with elevator access, gender-neutral restrooms, and free WiFi access.
The space is facilitated by Performance Space’s Head of Community Access and Inclusion, Ana Bé Sepulveda. If you have questions you can reach her at ana@performancespacenewyork.org.
Blood Type
With his installation, Blood Type, artist Dozie Kanu inaugurates Performance Space’s Open Room, a publicly accessible space for community. The room is softened and soaked in dark tones. A work table snakes down the wall, onto the floor, across the room, back onto the floor, across the room. An array of stools are lined up, free to be taken and used.
In his sculptural work Kanu often teases and disrupts functionality by juxtaposing the utterly familiar and domestic with jarring culturally evocative materials. In the case of Blood Type the banal discomfort of a present day coworking space is undercut with anachronistic shapes from Portugal, Nigeria, and America that trace a darker entangled past. The artist—born in Houston, TX to Nigerian immigrant parents, and currently residing in a warehouse he converted in rural Portugal—offers up history and autobiography as a gathering space: to be filled with performances, visitors, and community members each bringing multitudes of interpretation to its charged surfaces.
On October 19 Kanu will present a performance program in his installation as part of Performance Space’s Octopus series.
Octopus
The octopus has nine brains, one located in its head and eight in its arms. Every arm senses the surrounding world and thinks with autonomy, and yet, each arm is part of the animal. Using this decentralized nervous system as an inspiration for Performance Space New York’s curatorial practice, the Octopus series invites artists and guest curators to individually organize an evening-length program with several artists working in any number of disciplines. Octopus continues Performance Space’s legacy of artist-centric programming and creating space for the exploration of ideas free from expectations.
._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION]
Installation
The Keith Haring Theatre
October 23 – December 19
Thursday – Sunday | 12 – 6pm
Free
Performance
The Keith Haring Theatre
October 22, 23 | 7:30pm
Tickets | $25
Power is everywhere, in our relationships, our bodies, our beds, behind screens, and between the artist and her audience. In her 20-part multimedia opus, THE CHAMBER SERIES (2017-2021), SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY uses the languages of BDSM, animal training, algorithms, and robotics to explore how power, desire, and violence are inextricably interconnected from our most intimate to our most public relationships.
._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION] — part expanded cinema installation, part evening-length performance–marks the end of the series and is organized around scores. Ranging from direct commands to subtle interventions the performers and audience members have to negotiate how to respond to the power at play. To the artist, BDSM’s explicit rules around submission and domination offer the opportunity to recognize more clearly how in our lives “pleasure, love, desire, violence, and anything that could be dark or dangerous are in conversation with each other at all times.”