[syndicate] Back to THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

[epistolaris at freemail.hu]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 19, 2009

Franklin Furnace presents
	     in association with Performa 09
 
 
THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE II
 
Friday November 6 and Saturday November 7, 2009
 
8 pm at Abrons Art Center / Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street
Manhattan
 
Tickets $20; $16 for members of Performa; free for Franklin Furnace members
over $99. Please visit Theatermania, online at
http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/shows/the-history-of-the-future-ii_160847/
or by telephone at (212)-352-3101 or toll free at (866) 811-4111
 
Cold roast beef and frozen fish pie; brand new body parts and wackily-mutated
worlds; Times Square the way it used to be; sublime subprimes; a 5’6” artist
boxing the 6”5” world heavyweight champion, aboard the Staten Island Ferry  –
who else but Franklin Furnace could dare put all this together in two fast and
furious evenings of visual art performance? 
 
If you have not been following the development of “visual art performance”
(this term was coined by RoseLee Goldberg, founding director of Performa, to
link the antics of the Italian Futurist poets and painters, the cross-dressing
experiments of Marcel Duchamp, the “Happenings” of Allan Kaprow and a multitude
of other historical events to today’s live practice), The History of the Future
II will provide you with an indispensable overview of artists and their
concerns during the last 35 years.  The program was curated by Martha Wilson,
Founding Director of Franklin Furnace and a visual art performance practitioner
in her own right, in consultation with two other visual art performance
artists, Salley May, artist and long-time curator of P.S. 122’s
Avant-Garde-Arama, and Tom Murrin a.k.a. Alien Comic, artist, playwright and
contributor to PAPER magazine.
 
>From Susan Mogul’s seminal (you’ll see why this term is so funny!) 1974
performance for the video camera, “Take Off,” to John Kelly’s recently reprised
impersonation of Joni Mitchell, the historical videos will provide a “crash
course” in the recent history of this field.  Complemented by full-length and
excerpted live visual art performance works by today’s brightest stars, The
History of the Future II will aid the curious to understand the vocabulary of
themes and approaches in the city-wide Performa 09 Biennial.
 
The History of the Future II, Franklin Furnace’s second biennial presentation
of today’s visual art performance artists, will honor Guy de Cointet (1934 –
1983), the French artist known for encryption drawings, theatrical productions,
and readymade language. Twenty-six artists, all Franklin Furnace alumns, will
be seen in this two-hour extravaganza.	The History of the Future II will be
presented on two evenings in lower Manhattan at the Abrons Art Center of The
Henry Street Settlement.
 
Downtown impresario Carmelita Tropicana will emcee The History of the Future
II, introducing the following live events in her inimitable style:
 
Nao Bustamante, “Silver and Gold”
Jibz Cameron, a.k.a. Dynasty Handbag, “Bags”
Deb Margolin, “Oh Yes I Will (I Will Remember the Spirit and Texture of This
Conversation)”
Shelly Mars, “The Human Bonobo Project”
Neal Medlyn, “The Paris Hilton of Performance Art”
Adam Pendleton, “Two Scenes,” with Alicia Hall Moran, to take place outside
Abrons Art Center
Cathy Weis, “A Lecture on Walking,” with Jennifer Miller
 
Historical video of visual art performance works will be presented
chronologically and interspersed with the above live events, as follows:
 
Susan Mogul, “Take Off,” 1974
Linda Montano, “Mitchell’s Death,” 1977
Johanna Went, at Hollywood Central Theater, 1979
Matt Mullican, hypnosis performance at The Kitchen, 1981
Suzanne Lacy, “Crystal Quilt,” 1987
Fiona Templeton, “You the City,” 1988
Andrea Fraser, “Museum Highlights,” 1989
David Leslie, The Impact Addict, bout with Riddick Bowe, 1994
David Cale, at Dixon Place, 1995
Bobby Baker, “Drawing on a Mother’s Experience,” 1996
Diane Torr, “Drag King for a Day Workshop,” 1996
John Malpede, LAPD, 1997
Robbie McCauley, “Sally’s Rape,” 1998
Slaven Tolj, “Globalization,” 2001  
Jennifer Miller, Circus Amok, “Subprime Sublime,” 2008
Rashaad Newsome, “Shade Compositions,” 2009
DANCENOISE, “Hoop Dance,” 2009
John Kelly, as Joni Mitchell singing “Down to You,” 2009
 
			Guy de Cointet, “Two Drawings,” performed at Franklin
Furnace in 1978 by		Jane Zingale and Mary Ann Duganne, will be
screened during the afterparty.
	   
Bios and photos are available, and interviews with artists may be arranged by
contacting Martha Wilson.
	   
About Abrons Art Center / Henry Street Settlement
Founded in 1893 by social work pioneer Lillian Wald and based on Manhattan's
Lower East Side, the Henry Street Settlement delivers a wide range of social
service and arts programming to more than 100,000 New Yorkers each year. The
Abrons Arts Center of Henry Street Settlement brings innovative artistic
excellence to Manhattan's Lower East Side through diverse, cutting-edge
performances; exhibitions/artist residencies, classes and workshops for all
ages; and arts-in-education programming at public schools.  Some of the most
adventurous artists of the past century have trained, taught, or performed at
Henry Street, including John Cage, Aaron Copland, Dizzy Gillespie, Martha
Graham, Alicia Keyes, Alwin Nikolais, Jackson Pollock, Denzel Washington, and
Orson Welles.
 
About Performa 09
Performa 09 (November 1-22, 2009) is the third edition of the internationally
acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, a
non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to exploring the
critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and
to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.
www.performa-arts.org
 
About Franklin Furnace
Franklin Furnace was founded in 1976 by artist Martha Wilson to champion
ephemeral forms neglected by mainstream arts institutions. Franklin Furnace’s
mission is to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize and advocate on behalf
of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to
institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular
content.  We have developed a place in art history for artists’ books,
temporary installation art, and visual art performance, and researched the
history of the contemporary artists’ book. Most profoundly, Franklin Furnace
has had an indelible impact upon art by launching the careers of artists whose
work has influenced art and cultural discourse in this country; Franklin
Furnace’s niche remains the bottom of the food chain, premiering artists in New
York who later emerge as art world stars. The organization set upon a course of
substantial change in 1993 when its collection of artists’ books published
internationally after 1960, the largest in the United States, was acquired by
the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  During its 20th anniversary season,
Franklin Furnace reinvented itself as a “virtual institution,” not identified
with its real estate but rather with its resources, made accessible by
electronic and other means.  During its 30th anniversary season, Franklin
Furnace received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and
signed a collaboration agreement with ARTstor to digitize and publish on the
web documentation of events it presented and produced, with the goal of
embedding the value of ephemeral art practice in art and cultural history.  In
its trademark irreverence fused with serious scholarship, Franklin Furnace will
soon publish The History of the Future: A Franklin Furnace View of Performance
Art, curated in 2007 by C. Carr, RoseLee Goldberg and Martha Wilson, an
electronic academic resource to be distributed to colleges and universities.
 
 
Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.
80 Arts - The James E. Davis Arts Building
80 Hanson Place, #301
Brooklyn, NY 11217-1506
T 718 398 7255
F 718 398 7256
http://www.franklinfurnace.org
mail at franklinfurnace.org
JOIN TODAY!
http://www.franklinfurnace.org/support/membership2009/index.html
Michael Katchen, Senior Archivist
Angel Nevarez, Program Coordinator
Harley Spiller, Administrator
Susie Tofte, Project Cataloguer
Martha Wilson, Founding Director
Judith L. Woodard, Financial Manager