Juliana Huxtable, Jacolby Satterwhite, Morehshin Allahyari Featured In New Series At The Rubin Museum
By: A.A. Cristi Apr. 25, 2018
Beginning May 4 at the Rubin Museum of Art, the performance art series "Refiguring The Future" will feature three works-in-progress by acclaimed New York artists Jacolby Satterwhite, Morehshin Allahyari and Juliana Huxtable, centered on the concept of alternative futures. The series is part of Rubin Museum's 2018 thematic exploration of "The Future," which brings together exhibitions, programs and experiences that invite audiences to consider a future that isn't fixed, but fluid.
The artists featured in "Refiguring the Future" turn a spotlight on traditionally marginalized stories, generating new pathways toward freedom and representation. Through their own personal and cultural mythologies they invent new narratives while transcending the boundaries of gender, sex, and race. Their ongoing work, centered on these themes, does not intend to create solutions to these problems, but rather to envision the possibility of more inclusive futures.
Working in such dynamic mediums as virtual reality, 3D scanning, research, and performance, all three artists' works incorporate elements of activism and pragmatism, creating a sense of immediacy while ushering in the possibility of a re-imagined future. When experiencing these performances, it is hoped that viewers will get the uncanny feeling that these worlds may not be so far away from their own.
PERFORMANCE LISTINGS
Blessed Avenue: A Performance by Jacolby Satterwhite
Friday, May 4, 2018
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Advance Tickets: $22.00 / Day of: $25.00
Members Advance: $19.80 / Members Day of: $22.50
Satterwhite performs the first concert version of his visual album Blessed Avenue. In Blessed Avenue, viewers are introduced to a phantasmagorical world of bodies and machines, exploring such themes as desire and sexual freedom, while drawing inspiration from such diverse sources as gospel to acid house and modern dance. The work-in-progress incorporates acapella songs originally composed by Satterwhite's mother Patricia as she struggled with mental illness. They are reimagined into an electronic and visually stirring odyssey around Satterwhite's latest musical and animated film. In collaboration with the electronic composer and musician Nick Weiss, this performance features live vocals and new choral arrangements by Alissa Brianna, Cedric Antonio, Brody Bromqvist, and a virtual vocal performance by Lafawndah, and Forrest Wu on viola.
This performance will be the closing event for Satterwhite's solo exhibition at Gavin Brown's enterprise.
Refiguring the Future
Friday, June 22, 2018
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Advance Tickets: $22.00 / Day of: $25.00
Members Advance: $19.80 / Members Day of: $22.50
Huxtable presents a new iteration of her ever-evolving performance, which incorporates text, video, and sound. It features instrumental performances by her frequent collaborators, the pianist, percussionist, and composer Joe Heffernan and Detroit-based harpist Ahya Simone. Blending poetry and ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) sounds, Huxtable creates an ambient and multi-sensory environment in which she reflects on the body and its materiality. Through these explorations, one may contemplate the power and powerlessness of the body as well as its dispossession in relation to technology, violence, and blackness.
Morehshin Allahyari with Shirin Fahimi
Breaching Towards Other Futures
Friday, June 29, 2018
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Advance Tickets: $22.00 / Day of: $25.00
Members Advance: $19.80 / Members Day of: $22.50
"There needs to be multiple futures, or plural futures, at least more than one...I believe that when there is a very small demographic of people imagining a future it is always going to be limited to what they know and what they think are the problems of the world," said Allahyari, in an interview in the Rubin Museum's Spiral magazine. "This is why I think it is really important to talk about reimaging that space and rethinking that future."
Allahyari and Shirin Fahimi will channel the revelation of the Jinn figure Aisha Qandisha and Ilm al-raml (Geomancy - science of the sand) as their method for telling and opening doors towards other futures. Aisha Qandisha is one of the most honored and fearsome Jinn in Islam. She is known as 'the opener'. When she possesses humans, she does not take over the host but rather opens them to an outside; to a storm of incoming Jinn and demons, making them a traffic zone of cosmodromic data. Ilm al-raml refers to the foresight that the Earth holds with itself. Through its practice, this foresight is revealed and the future is seen, known, and breached.
3D scanner provided by Eyebeam.
RELATED PROGRAMMING
How to Get Without Getting Got: Us//Ours & Institutions
Friday, May 4, 2018 + Friday, May 18, 2018
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Free with RSVP
As an opening program to Jacolby Satterwhite's performance, BUFU and invited guests will hold space to consider the relations between marginalized bodies, consumption//creation, visibility as a trap, and our institutional overlords.
To scam? To divest? To wage within? What are our options and their impact?
Co-presented with Eyebeam
Ensuring artists become central in the invention and design of our shared future.
About the Rubin Museum of Art
The Rubin Museum of Art is an arts oasis and cultural hub in New York City's vibrant Chelsea neighborhood that inspires visitors to make powerful connections between contemporary life and the art and ideas of the Himalayas, India, and neighboring regions. With a diverse array of thought-provoking exhibitions and programs-including films, concerts, and on-stage conversations-the Rubin provides immersive experiences that encourage personal discoveries and spark new ways of seeing the world. Emphasizing cross-cultural connections, the Rubin is a space to contemplate the big questions that extend across history and span human cultures.
The Rubin Museum's preeminent collection includes over 3,200 objects spanning more than 1,500 years to the present day. Included are works of art of great quality and depth from the Tibetan plateau, with examples from surrounding regions including Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and Mongolia.
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