Bri Blvck, Ravi Coltrane & More to Perform at The Kitchen's 2021 Gala, Honoring Debbie Harry and Cindy Sherman

The Kitchen will present its annual Gala Benefit, bridging legacy and futurity in the midst of a milestone anniversary and a period of transformation, on September 14. This year honoring Debbie Harry and Cindy Sherman and welcoming the next avant-garde with performances by Bri Blvck, Ravi Coltrane, L'Rain, and Moses Sumney, the gala will, as a COVID safety precaution, take place outside The Kitchen's building (512 W. 19th Street) between 10th and 11th Avenues. The milestone event begins at 6pm with cocktails, featuring a roving dinner and special performances; a welcome to Legacy Russell; a tribute to Tim Griffin; and a dance party from 9:00pm to 10:00pm, with drinks, desserts, and a DJ set by April Hunt.

Cindy Sherman and Debbie Harry's visions-one iconically shape-shifting, the other, equally iconically, grounded within her unmistakable image and sound-brilliantly disrupted the historic flow, respectively, of photography and music history. Both artists' own pasts intersect with The Kitchen's: Sherman's Untitled Film Stills made their New York premiere at The Kitchen in 1980, and Harry participated the same year in Dubbed in Glamour, a three-day extravaganza of music, performance, and video organized by Edit DeAk at The Kitchen. (These tributes were postponed from last year's gala, which could not take place due to the pandemic).

The next avant-garde is represented by performers including hip hop violinist and singer/songwriter Bri Blvck; Grammy-nominated jazz saxophonist Ravi Coltrane; April Hunt, "the art-world PR maven who moonlights as a DJ...[and] throws a kick-ass party" (Artnet News); L'Rain, whose work has been described as bearing "wearied landscapes of synth, air horn, strings, and saxophone [that] distill a suite of low moods-depression, regret, and fear-into resilience and hope" (Pitchfork); and Moses Sumney, whose widely acclaimed 2020 double-album, Græ, the New York Times named one of the 10 best albums of 2020, writing that it "demands to be heard as a rhapsodic whole, a suite of songs and fragments continually dissolving and rematerializing around [Sumney's] otherworldly voice" as he "ponders solitude and connection, masculinity and identity, self-doubt and self-realization, existence and transcendence."

The gala also provides an opportunity to introduce incoming Executive Director & Chief Curator Legacy Russell -and the vision she'll begin collaborating with co-staffers to realize-and recognize Tim Griffin's work with the organization in this position across the past decade. Russell arrives from The Studio Museum in Harlem, where she led the organization's renowned Artist-in-Residence program, helped to expand its scope of acquisitions, and organized numerous exhibitions. Her academic and curatorial work and research (including her first publication, the acclaimed Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, and her forthcoming second book, BLACK MEME) have revolved around new media and performance as it travels through, and is mediated by, the Internet in intersection with Black and queer visual culture.

Honorary co-chairs include Eric Bogosian, Robert Longo, Janelle Reiring, Molly Ringwald, Chris Stein, and Helene Winer; the gala's co-chairs are Melanie Shorin & Greg S. Feldman, Sydney Reising & Ryan Schreiber, and Mila & Tom Tuttle.

The event's star-studded, wide-ranging benefit committee comprises Marla Mayer & Chris Ahearn, Jennifer & Jonathan Allan Soros, Laurie Anderson, Laurence Carty & Paola Antonelli, Jackie Reses & Matt Apfel, Augusto Arbizo, Jody & John Arnhold, Salome Asega, Ladin Awad, Joeonna Bellorado- Samuels, Tanya Bonakdar, Eileen & Michael Cohen, Paula Cooper, Katie Cusack, Jill Brienza & Nick Daraviras, Polly Motley & Molly Davies, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Bryce Dessner, Kristy Hurt & Matthew Doull, Dike Blair and Brendan Dugan, E. Jane, Fab 5 Freddy, JiaJia Fei, Arthur Fleischer, Jr., Charlotte Feng Ford, Doreen Garner, Julie Graham, Greene Naftali, Johanna Burton & Tim Griffin, Agnes Gund, Wade Guyton, Douglas Hand, Hauser & Wirth, Ebony Haynes, Jen Wink Hays & Tyler Hays, Rujeko Hockley, Jacqueline Humphries, Ashley James, Rashid Johnson, Cristina Enriquez-Bocobo & Michael Kantrow, Gia Kuan, Thomas Lax, Lévy Gorvy, Marian Goodman Gallery, Kyla McMillan, Metro Pictures, Dani Miller, Tyler Mitchell, Morgan Stanley, Nico Muhly, Oliver Newton, Catherine Orentreich, Friedrich Petzel, Brian Phillips, Naudline Pierre, Garland Hunter & Matthew Ritchie, Andrea Rosen, Antwaun Sargent, Judith L. Church & Edward K. Schlieben, Chloë Sevigny, Xaviera Simmons, Jamie & Robert Soros, Sotheby's, Marianne Vitale and Rudolf Stingel, Stretch Armstrong, Virginia Davies and Willard Taylor, Sam Tsao, Nicola Vassell, Thea Westreich Wagner & Ethan Wagner, Adeze Wilford, Courtney Willis-Blair, Suzy Coue-Wilson & Edward Wilson, Bonnie Chan Woo, Qualeasha Wood, Debra Singer & Jay Worthington, and David Zwirner.

RSVP Details and Additional Information

Tickets to the event are limited. For ticket availability or questions, please contact Lauren Cronk at (347) 352-1464 or lauren@thekitchen.org. Those unable to attend can make a fully tax-deductible donation here.

This event will take place on 19th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in front of The Kitchen. In order to ensure the safety of our honorees, performers, guests, staff, and our community at large, all ticket holders must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend.

In accordance with New York City guidelines, vaccinations will be checked upon entry and masks and social distancing will be encouraged. Additional details relating to safety protocols and entry requirements will be provided to all ticket holders via email in the weeks prior to the event.

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