FFor Immediate Release
PERFORMA 07, THE SECOND EDITION OF THE BIENNIAL OF NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE TO BE HELD IN NEW YORK CITY OCTOBER 27 – NOVEMBER 20, 2007
FEATURING ADAM PENDLETON’S THE REVIVAL
New York, September 19, 2007— PERFORMA 07, the second biennial of new visual art performance, will be held in New York City from October 27–November 20, 2007. Fea- turing over eighty artists presented in collaboration with a consortium of fifty cultural or- ganizations throughout the city, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Kitchen, Brooklyn Academy of Music, China Institute, and The Studio Museum in Har- lem, PERFORMA 07 promises an exciting three weeks of innovative cultural program- ming for New York City and the international world of contemporary art and visual art performance.
Adam Pendleton is one of ten featured artists commissioned by PERFORMA to create a new work for PERFORMA 07. Taking the tradition and energy of the Southern-style relig- ious revival and fusing it with experimental writing practices, Adam Pendleton's The Re- vival is a new form of community performance. The minimalist setting of a white floor scattered with black ceramic seating cubes creates a space for contemplation and reflection that builds via a live gospel, jazz, and pop score to a final crescendo. Pendleton's sermon, dream of an uncommon language, will invoke the power of experimental language to sub- vert the confines of everyday discourse. The sermon is constructed from text by the artist and a host of writers, including the playwright Larry Kramer and poets Paolo Javier and Leslie Scalapino.
Pendleton will be joined by a community of singers, dancers, artists, and poets, including acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran and vocalist and composer Alicia Hall Moran and including testimonials (confessions) by artist Liam Gillick and poet Jena Osman. Drawing inspiration from the Language Poets of the seventies, whose trajectory from Gertrude Stein leads through the Beat and New York Schools to Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews and others, as well as from a parallel school of conceptual artists who use language as image, from Lawrence Weiner and Joseph Kosuth to Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, Pendleton creates an entirely new space for himself: pure language as visual theater. The Revival will premiere as part of PERFORMA 07 at the Stephan Weiss Studio on November 1, 2007. Please visit www.performa-arts.org, and see the biennial schedule for more details.
Other recipients of PERFORMA Commissions for the 2007 biennial are Carlos Amorales, Sanford Biggers, Nathalie Djurberg, Japanther, Isaac Julien, Daria Martin, Kelly Nipper, Yvonne Rainer, and Francesco Vezzoli. The PERFORMA Commissions program origi- nates new performance by inviting artists—many of whom have not worked ‘live’ be- fore—to create work especially for the PERFORMA biennial. Selected by PERFORMA Director RoseLee Goldberg, commissioned artists work closely with the PERFORMA production team from conceptualization to presentation, including international tours fol- lowing the biennial.
PERFORMA is 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. The Revival is made possible by a grant from the Toby Devan Lewis Philanthropic Fund. Additional support is provided by Yvon Lambert, New York. PERFORMA Commissions are supported by the Toby Devan Lewis Philanthropic Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Greenwall Foundation and the PERFORMA Producer’s Circle member David Raymond. Adam Pendleton is represented by Yvon Lambert Gal- lery, New York/Paris.
For more information on the PERFORMA Commissions and PERFORMA 07, please visit http://www.performa-arts.org
Media Contact: FITZ & CO Dan Tanzilli +1 212 627 1455 x226 [email protected]