Whitney Biennial 2019:
Film Screenings and Performances
Now – Sept. 22
The Whitney Museum
NYC
In the final weeks of the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the Whitney Museum will host a variety of performances by Biennial artists, including Brendan Fernandes, Autumn Knight, Steffani Jemison, and Madeline Hollander. The final installment of the exhibition’s film program, guest curated by Sky Hopinka and entitled What Was Always Yours and Never Lost, also takes place this month, as well as a public program led by Biennial artist Tomashi Jackson.
Check out the list of performances with dates and times below:
Brendan Fernandes: The Master and Form
Fridays, 5–9 pm
Saturdays and Sundays, 12–4 pm
Brendan Fernandes conceived of this installation as an exploration of the mastery and discipline embodied by ballet. Fernandes has likened the project to S&M culture, noting that they each place “an emphasis on trust and confidence within a space where roles of mastery and submission are in play.”
This event is free with Museum admission.
Autumn Knight: Sanity TV
Thursday, September 5, 7:30 pm
Saturday, September 7, 7:30 pm
Autumn Knight’s ongoing performance series Sanity TV, which began in 2016 during Knight’s residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, takes the form of an imaginary television talk show in which she plays the role of host. Provoking laughter and occasional discomfort, Knight uses irrationality as a way to make meaning in the contemporary situation.
Tickets are required ($10 adults; $8 students, seniors, and visitors with disabilities; free for members).
Steffani Jemison with Garrett Gray: On Similitude
Friday, September 13, 7:30 pm
In a companion performance to her video Sensus Plenior, on view in the 2019 Biennial, Steffani Jemison draws on the work of Étienne Decroux, who popularized mime in the mid-twentieth century and pitted physical movement against language. Jemison connects this history to mime ministry, which combines physical theater with gospel recordings and has become a fixture in churches with African-American congregations over the past two decades. Jemison will be accompanied by Garrett Gray, an actor, educator, and mime from Savannah, Georgia.
Tickets are required ($10 adults; $8 members, students, seniors, and visitors with a disability).
From Seneca Village to Brooklyn: A Conversation with Tomashi Jackson
Sunday, September 15, 4 pm
Drawing on research for her recent paintings on view in the 2019 Biennial, Tomashi Jackson discusses the long history of displacement and gentrification in New York City. Jackson’s project examines the destruction of Seneca Village, a free Black community that was razed in the 1850s for the creation of Central Park. The artist draws a parallel between this history and contemporary practices of redevelopment that rely on the targeted dispossession of Black and Brown property owners through the Third Party Transfer Program. Speakers include Tourmaline, Tsubasa Berg, Diana diZerega Wall, Jonathan Kuhn, Meredith B. Linn, Kelly Mena, K-Sue Park, Nan Rothschild, Marie Warsh, and Stephen Witt.
This event is free with registration.
Madeline Hollander: Ouroboros: Gs
Thursday, September 19, 5–9 pm
In the site-specific performance Ouroboros: Gs, Madeline Hollander will choreograph the installation of a portion of the Whitney’s flood mitigation system, collaborating with trained Whitney staff to simultaneously build and dismantle segments that circumnavigate the Museum. The Whitney has been in its current location since 2015 and while flood mitigation was always planned for the site, the Museum invested in a more advanced, protective system after waterfront damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
This event is free.
What Was Always Yours and Never Lost
Friday, September 20, 7 pm
Saturday, September 21, 4 pm
This collection of films deals directly and indirectly with indigeneity, traversing a wide range of topics and formal strategies. The artists featured assert their identity and presence in the face of—and regardless of—colonial history and outdated traditions of anthropology and ethnography. Their films make space for poetry, beauty, and movement between cosmological and visceral worlds, sometimes blurring the lines between both. These artists claim what was always theirs, and celebrate what was never lost. Artists included are Caroline Monnet, Colectivo Los Ingràvidos, Thirza Cuthand, Adam Khalil, Zach Khalil, Jackson Polys, and James Luna. Visit whitney.org for a full program schedule.
This screening will be followed by a conversation with guest curator Sky Hopinka, whose work was shown in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and a number of artists and filmmakers.
Tickets are required ($10 adults; $8 students, seniors, and visitors with disabilities; free for members). Capacity is limited; visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance.
ABOUT THE 2019 WHITNEY BIENNIAL
Featuring emerging and established artists and collectives working in painting, sculpture, installation, film and video, photography, performance, and sound, the 2019 Biennial takes the pulse of the contemporary artistic moment. Introduced by the Museum’s founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932, the Biennial is the longest-running exhibition in the country to chart the latest developments in American art.
The 2019 Whitney Biennial’s fifth floor, third floor, lobby gallery, and programming will conclude on September 22, and the exhibition’s sixth floor will close on October 27.
To learn more click here.
