A MARRIAGE: 1 (SUBURBIA) Arrives at HERE Arts Center Tonight

Coming up in its 2012-2013 producing Season, HERE proudly presents A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia), created and performed by HERE Resident Artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin. This premiere marks the culmination of a residency in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) takes over HERE (145 Sixth Avenue) from tonight, April 23 - May 4, as this immersive interdisciplinary installation fills every space within the building. HEREart exhibit of A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia): April 3 - May 4, Tuesday - Sunday 2:00-7:00pm. Full installation at HERE: April 23 - May 4, Tuesday - Sunday 2:00-10:00pm with 8:30pm performances.

Step into a double self-portrait steeped in the iconography of the American Dream as husbands Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin commandeer HERE's physical space with a blend of performance art, video, sculpture, drawing and sound to create an immersive building-wide mixed media installation. A panorama of visual and performative art, A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) reveals the artists' experiences of their same-sex marriage and expresses their deep ambivalence towards their new standing as a Normal American Couple.

A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia), in a world premiere at HERE with this New York production, marks the launch of a three-part series of interdisciplinary installations, immense in scope and painstakingly detailed in execution. Artists, partners-in-life, and collaborators Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin render a timely examination of the position of same-sex marriage in the fabric of the American Dream in an expansive mixed media show that transcends the boundaries between visual art and theater in a piece that draws upon the artists' lives to examine the experience of being in a same-sex marriage in America today.

In the course of an evening's visit to A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia), audience members will experience a full exhibition on HERE's walls and in every interstitial space. As they enter HERE's Mainstage and Dorothy B. Williams Theatre turnEd Gallery white-spaces, they will encounter multiple artworks and art actions, including: a four-channel video/play in which the artists assume the characters of a fictional cul-de-sac accompanied by an audio recording of scenes from daily life on the cul-de-sac; video interviews in which artists of different generations, both older and younger than the 30-year-old artists [Vaughan & Margolin], express their views on same-sex marriage and the suburban American dream; exquisitely cut works on paper combined with original video art, and a 14-day-long accumulative action in which the artists themselves, along with audience members, read the entire oral arguments of Perry v. Schwarzenegger into clear plastic bags that when sealed and hung together create a vast abstraction of the physical volume of breath contained in this landmark case. At 8:30pm each evening, Vaughan and Margolin will perform a different 90-minute action in which they abstractly "build" a suburban ranch house using evocative materials including many pounds of bubble-gum, shag-carpet encased in paraffin wax, and gallons of acrylic ink from a spectrum of kit-house colors. On any given night, while the artists execute a single action, the audience will see the remnants of the previous nights' actions and the materials for upcoming actions.

A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) will be followed in 2014 by A Marriage: 2 (West-er) -- an immersive four-channel narrative video installation with sculpture: a love-letter to the American West, the Cowboy, the Frontier and the Homesteader - and in 2015 by A Marriage: 3 (50 States) - part documentary, part social action, part visual art, as Margolin and Vaughan interview and photograph same-sex couples from every state to compose 50 portraits made from elaborately cut-out state maps and backed with abstract video from their weddings/commitment ceremonies.

Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin began collaborating as performance/installation artists in 2007. They met through their work with the collaborative theater company The TEAM; Jake as a creator/performer and Nick as a creator/scenographer. In 2007 they got engaged and presented their first performance/installation, Preparation for a Marriage at Pittsburgh's Future Tenant Gallery in conjunction with Pavel Zustiak's dance theater work S(even) for which they designed the environment and costumes. They were married in May 2008. In November 2009, they presented Vietnam, Texas, a sound installation/performance work, as part of Danspace Project's Food for Thought series. In March 2010, Margolin and Vaughan were named Resident Artists at HERE (HERE Artist Residency Program, HARP), where they developed A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia).

With an aesthetic that frames sculptural elements as theatrical events, and presents narrative theatrical performance in the context of visual artwork, Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin aim to create a middle ground, a visual art that opens under the extended gaze traditionally reserved for performance, and a theater that behaves like visual art, something between theater, performance art and installation. Over the last eighteen months, select sculptural elements from A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) have been exhibited at HEREart (NYC), Double Take Gallery (Saugerties, NY) and ArtCenter/South Florida (Miami). Outside their own collaboration, Margolin and Vaughan continue to work together with a number of theater and dance artists including the TEAM, Yoshiko Chuma, Pavel Zustiak and Chantal Pavageaux. This summer, they will have a month-long performance installation at Gallery 51 as part of DownstreetArt in North Adams, MA. They recently showed two multi-media sculptures at SCOPE NY 2013 and The Invisible Dog Art Center will present a solo show of their work in Spring 2014.

A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia): Created by Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin. With text by Jessica Almasy, text performed by Jess Barbagallo; consulting direction for 11 nightly performance actions by Faye Driscoll; sound design by Matt Hubbs; lighting design by Rie Ono.

Since 1993, the OBIE-winning HERE, Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director, has been one of New York's premier arts organizations and a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge and Yoav Gal's Mosheh, among many others. HERE is also co-producer with Beth Morrison Projects of the new PROTOTYPE annual festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre. HERE's work is challenging and alternative and offers audiences the opportunity to feel that they are part of something new and fresh.

The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's core program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines -- theater, dance, music, opera, puppetry, media, visual arts, installation, spoken word and more -- creating a seamless integration aimed at reflecting the complex age of imagery and information in which we live. Through HARP, the Resident Artists are given the opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions.

Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists also receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate.

In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."

And now at HERE: HEREart:
In response to the growing number of artists interested in creating work that fully integrates visual and performing art forms, HERE has begun providing visual artists with residencies through HARP, creating more opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange while supporting a wide range of artistic disciplines and encouraging artists to work beyond a single art form. Additionally, HEREart provides emerging and early career visual artists and curators access to a dynamic space within HERE's active, multi-arts center, with a focus on exhibitions that creatively work within its unique spaces. The program provides some artists with their first show in Manhattan, while for others the challenge of HERE's specific public setting offers the opportunity to engage with a new audience in a bold new environment. Through HEREart, and notably its 8-10 annual exhibits, HERE is invested in supporting artworks of all media (painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, collage, video). HEREart exhibits are open to the public free of charge Tuesday - Saturday from 2:00 - 7:00pm.

HEREart exhibit of A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia): April 3 - May 4, Tuesday - Sunday 2:00-7:00pm.
Full installation at HERE: April 23 - May 4, Tuesday - Sunday 2:00-10:00pm with 8:30pm performances.

In honor of its 20th Anniversary Season, HERE has launched a new ticket pricing initiative aimed at keeping performances accessible to all: tickets are available for $10 in advance, and $20 (regular price) on the day of show. Student rush: free with valid student ID, when performance is not sold-out. Tickets can be purchased at www.here.org or by calling (212) 352-3101 or at the HERE Box Office (5PM until curtain on show days). For A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia), patrons are invited to return FREE on subsequent dates with original ticket stub.

HERE is located at 145 Sixth Avenue, one block below Spring Street. For more, visit www.here.org.

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