Shows | Page 45 of 47 | Performance Space New York Spring Gala

Blood and Guts In High School

Organized by Sarah Schulman

“When you look in the mirror and see a smart, angry girl who wants to be free, you’re seeing a paradigm Kathy helped bring into the realm of the recognizable,” writes Sarah Schulman in The Gentrification of the Mind. Schulman, who has lived across from Performance Space New York for the last forty years, invites more than seventy artists—including many of Acker’s peers, friends, mentees, and cultural descendants—for a marathon reading of the notorious 1978 novel Blood and Guts in High School. Its plot, partly situated in the East Village, spins the all-American coming-of-age story into a girl riot.

Readers

Nuar Alsadir, Emily Apter, Penny Arcade, Charles Bernstein, Nayland Blake Jennifer Blowdryer, Justin Vivian Bond, Wendy Bowers, Kaucyila Brooke, Teresa Carmody, Cynthia Carr, Stuart Comer, Peter Cramer, Ruth Curry, Maria Damon, Leslie Dick, Zackary Drucker, Johanna Fateman, Melissa Febos, Karen Finley, Richard Foreman, Kay Gabriel, John Godfrey, Ariel Goldberg, Johnny Golding, Rigoberto Gonzales, Veronica Gonzalez, Bette Gordon, Jessica Hagedorn, Michelle Handelman, Carla Harryman, Pooh Kaye, Elisabeth Koke, Phoebe Legere, Rachel Levitsky, Catherine Lord, Sara Mameni, Jaime Manrique, Aline Mare, Shelley Marlow, Douglas Martin, Jason McBride, Tracie Morris, Laura Parnes, Julie Patton, Dale Peck, Tommy Pico, Q Lee, Ariana Reines, Avital Ronell, Aida Ruilova, Carl Hancock Rux, David Salle, Connie Samaras, Harris Schi, Carolee Schneemann, Bina Sharif, Ana Simo, Pamela Sneed, Anna Joy Springer Max Steele, Sara Jane Stoner, Sur Rodney Sur, Betsy Sussler, Stacy Szymaszek Lynne Tillman, Masha Tupitsyn, Jeanne Thornton, Aldrin Valdez, Stephanie Vella Sarah Wang, Mckenzie Wark, Jack Waters, Zoe Whittall, & Chavisa Woods

Funding Credits

This event was made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

“boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father”

Organized by Matias Viegener

Kathy Acker famously described the father of her main character Janey in Blood and Guts in High School as “boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father.” Centered on Acker’s notorious video with Alan Sondheim, Blue Tape, this screening program examines the urgency with which Acker approached sex, intimacy, relationships and writing in her work. Through this lens we look at clips of Acker reading, performing, and being interviewed from the 1970s to the 1990s—intimate, formal, and unpredictable.

Includes screening excerpts from:
Fuses (1966) by Carolee Schneemann
Blue Tape (1974) by Kathy Acker and Alan Sondheim
Variety (1983) by Bette Gordon
The South Bank Show: Kathy Acker, Season 7, Episode 13 (1984) by Alan Benson
Raw Heat, Kathy Acker (1977)
Kathy Acker at the ICA (1986)

Funding Credits

“In the beginning there was a young girl…”

Organized by Tina Satter with works by Jess Barbagallo with Lauren Bakst & Shana Fletcher, Ariana Reines, Jim Fletcher, I.U.D., Ser Brandon-Castro Serpas, Jeremy O. Harris with Jesse Rasmussen, Anne Waldman with Erika Hodges & Janice Lowe, Tina Satter with Emily Davis & Amber Gray, and Diamond Stingily

Kathy Acker: “In the beginning there was a young girl…” brings together a group of artists, writers, and performers whose practices and output at times recall the spirit of Kathy Acker and her work, but are also very different. Their collision with her writing and life offers us a necessary live communion with what Acker gave and what is still to come.

Funding Credits

In the beginning there was a young girl… was made possible with support from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Shubert Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Who Wants to Be Human All the Time

Work by Kathy Acker, Ser Brandon-Castro Serpas, Celia Hempton, I.U.D., Beatrice Marchi, Bjarne Melgaard, Alan Sondheim, Diamond Stingily, Women’s History Museum.

In 1974, 26-year-old Kathy Acker met the conceptual artist Alan Sondheim, and suggested a collaboration that would allow them to get to the bottom of their sexual attraction by exchanging “as much information about ourselves as possible.” The result is Blue Tape, an hour-long, highly charged and confrontational truth-and-sex tape. It is remarkable for its braveness, as well as the insight it gives into a young Acker, about to find her voice on sexuality, intimacy, family, and power relations–all themes that consistently recur throughout her oeuvre. For this group exhibition, Blue Tape will be shown next to works by contemporary artists in dialog with Acker.

Exhibition Program

Funding Credits

Who Wants to Be Human All the Time was made possible with support from the Royal Norwegian Consulate-General in New York, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons

Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons is a surreal, sexual, cinematic romp through nocturnal America.

Dane is excited about spending a quiet Autumn in Pepper Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio near the lake. He is a guest in a friend’s home. Her fake plants are mixed in with her real plants. Everyone is waiting for the snow. Upon getting a late-season job at the rough-and-tumble under-dog Pepper Heights Zoo, Dane becomes entangled in a strange plot involving the zoo’s premiere attraction, Zoe The Zebra. Something has been sleeping under Pepper Heights, caged in the dark rock for millions of years, under neat lawns edged by high wild grasses.

Written, composed, performed by Dane Terry. Directed by and developed with Ellie Heyman. Singers: Avery Leigh Draut, Morgan Meadows, Saretta Wesley. 2016 Ethyl Eichelberger Award Winner + participant in Performance Space 122’s Ramp Residency Program.