Joan Jonas, Charles Atlas, Xiu Xiu & More Set for The Kitchen's Spring 2016 Season

The Kitchen, founded in 1971, has continued to serve as an important catalyst for a broad community of groundbreaking artists working across disciplines. In today's landscape, where contemporary artists and arts institutions are collaborating in new ways, and generating new contexts for the continuing evolution of multi-disciplinary art, The Kitchen, as a nimble, smaller-scale organization, plays an especially vital role: it provides emerging and established artists a hot-house environment for the presentation and discussion of their work, supporting and seeking to foster a vibrant, living dialogue among artists from every field and area of culture.

The Kitchen's Spring 2016 season, April 6-June 11, exemplifies the institution's commitment to a broad range of artists, and to collaboration and discourse among them. At the core of the Spring 2016 season is a continued interest in themes explored in the winter exhibition "From Minimalism into Algorithm", with three projects that foster intergenerational and interdisciplinary dialogues. Joan Jonas' performance They Come to Us without a Word II (April 6-8) makes its U.S premiere, featuring new compositions by longtime collaborator, composer Jason Moran. They Come to Us without a Word II blends live performance with video footage from the artist's pavilion installation at last year's 56th Venice Biennale. The American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) perform two concerts (April 9 & 10) of music revolving around conceptions of minimalist composition, featuring key works by composers seminal both within and beyond The Kitchen's history, with Charlemagne Palestine conducting his "strumming music" on April 10.

Groundbreaking music programming continues on April 30 with the return of American experimental group Xiu Xiu, playing music from Twin Peaks. Grammy-nominated Steinway Artist Ensemble ZOFO performs on May 10 duet works from their critically acclaimed album, ZOFO plays Terry Riley, in addition to world premieres of self-commissioned works by rising star composers Katherine Balch and Dylan Mattingly along with work by David Lang and Urmas Sisak.

The Spring 2016 season continues The Kitchen's commitment to visceral multi-disciplinary dance and performance works with its Dance and Process (May 6 & 7) program organized by Moriah Evans, Yve Laris Cohen, and Sarah Michelson, featuring world premieres from Karen Bernard, Benjamin Van Buren, Niall Jones, and Ander Mikalson. Downtown performer and playwright Mike Iveson premieres his second full-length play, The Tear Drinkers (May 19-27), in a suite of sci-fi songs for six performers. Iveson leads a team of exceptional artists, including pioneering video artist Charles Atlas, in a look at the private heartaches and private bathroom rituals of humans and aliens alike.

From April 13 - May 14, in The Kitchen's gallery, Ed Atkins will present an expansive new work explicitly concerned with how contemporary technologies of representation mediate our lives. Curated by Tim Griffin with Lumi Tan as part of "From Minimalism into Algorithm." Contemporary artist Xaviera Simmons presents a new body of photographic and text-based sculptural works (June 22-July 30) in conjunction with a new performance in the theater, continuing her investigations of experience, non-linear narrative, and memory against present and future histories.

The season's public programming includes a reading on May 9 from Say Bye to Reason and Hi to Everything, a new chapbook anthology edited by Andrew Durbin featuring new work by Dodie Bellamy, Cecilia Corrigan, Amy De'Ath, Lynne Tillman, and Jackie Wang and cover art by Nayland Blake.

On May 26, The Kitchen's Spring Gala will honor videos artists Charles Atlas and Dara Birnbaum.

More information on The Kitchen's Spring 2016 programming is below. Tickets are available online at www.thekitchen.org; by phone at 212.255.5793 x11; and in person at The Kitchen (512 West 19th Street), Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2:00-6:00 P.M.

THE KITCHEN SPRING 2016 PROGRAMMING

[PERFORMANCE]
Joan Jonas
They Come to Us without a Word II
April 6, 7 at 8pm, April 8 at 7pm; $20
Developed in conjunction with her exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion at last year's 56th Venice Biennale, Jonas's work features new compositions by her longtime collaborator, composer Jason Moran. The jazz pianist will perform live, accompanying Jonas, other performers featured in Venice, and video footage from the artist's pavilion installation that is evocative of the fragility of nature in a rapidly changing situation. "Although the idea of my work involves the question of how the world is so rapidly and radically changing, I do not address the subject directly or didactically," Jonas says. "Rather, the ideas are implied poetically through sound, light, and the juxtaposition of images of children, animals, and landscape." This is the U.S. premiere of They Come to Us without a Word II. Organized as part of "From Minimalism into Algorithm" by Tim Griffin and Katy Dammers.

[MUSIC]
ACME with Charlemagne Palestine
April 9-10, 8pm; $15
The American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) performs two concerts of music revolving around conceptions of minimalist composition, featuring key works by composers seminal both within and beyond The Kitchen's history. With different programs presented each evening, the concerts will include rarely performed pieces by Joseph Byrd, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich (Saturday); and Julius Eastman, Meredith Monk, and Charlemagne Palestine, who will conduct his "Strumming Music" (Sunday). Organized as part of "From Minimalism into Algorithm" by ACME with Nico Muhly.

[VIDEO]
Ed Atkins
April 13-May 14
The artist will present an expansive new work explicitly concerned-as it corrals live bodies, animated surrogates, and departed performances-with how contemporary technologies of representation mediate our lives. Curated by Tim Griffin with Lumi Tan as part of "From Minimalism into Algorithm."

[MUSIC]
Xiu Xiu plays the music of Twin Peaks
April 30, 8pm; $25
The music of Twin Peaks is everything that the band Xiu Xiu aspire to as musicians. It is also everything they want to listen to as music fans. It is romantic, it is terrifying, it is beautiful, it is unnervingly sexual. The idea of holding the "purity" of the 1950s up to the cold light of a violent moon and exposing the skull beneath the frozen, worried smile has been a stunning influence on them. Xiu Xiu admits there is no way that they can recreate Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch's music as it was originally played; that it is too perfect and that they could never do its replication justice. Their attempt will be to play the parts of the songs as written-meaning, following the harmony melody but to arrange in the way that it has shaped them as players. Organized by Lumi Tan.

[DANCE]
Dance and Process
Karen Bernard, Benjamin Van Buren, Niall Jones, and Ander Mikalson
May 6-7, 8pm; $15
This event features new works and is the culmination of a ten-week group process of sharing work and feedback. Including Karen Bernard, Benjamin Van Buren, Niall Jones, and Ander Mikalson. Facilitated by Moriah Evans, Yve Laris Cohen, and Sarah Michelson.

[READING]
Say Bye to Reason and Hi To Everything
May 9, 7pm; Free
Capricious presents Say Bye to Reason and Hi to Everything, a new chapbook anthology edited by Andrew Durbin featuring new work by Dodie Bellamy, Cecilia Corrigan, Amy De'Ath, Lynne Tillman, and Jackie Wang. Packaged as a box set, each book features cover work by artist Nayland Blake. For the book launch, Corrigan, Tillman, and Wang will read from their respective chapbooks.

[MUSIC]
ZOFO plays Terry Riley
May 10, 8pm; $15
Grammy-nominated Steinway Artist Ensemble ZOFO performs duet works from their critically-acclaimed album, ZOFO plays Terry Riley, including pieces written by the composer for four-hands piano: "Etude from the Old Country," "Waltz for Charismas," "Cinco de Mayo," and "Half-Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight." The duo will also present world premieres of self-commissioned works by rising star composers Katherine Balch and Dylan Mattingly along with work by David Lang and Urmas Sisak. Organized as part of "From Minimalism into Algorithm" by Tim Griffin and Katy Dammers.

[THEATER/PERFORMANCE]
Mike Iveson
The Tear Drinkers
May 19-21, 24-25, and 27, 8pm; $20
Mike Iveson's second full-length play, The Tear Drinkers, is a suite of sci-fi songs for six performers. It follows four humans who have been abducted by the United States government and brought to an underground holding tank in New Mexico, so that the government can determine which of them is actually an alien from another planet masquerading as an earthling. Downtown performer Mike Iveson leads a team of exceptional artists, including pioneering video artist Charles Atlas, in a look at the private heartaches and private bathroom rituals of humans and aliens alike. Organized by Sarah Michelson and Matthew Lyons.

[GALA]
The Kitchen Spring Gala honoring Charles Atlas and Dara Birnbaum
May 26, Cipriani Wall Street
The Kitchen celebrates two pivotal artists from the organization's history on one incredible night. While redefining the role of film and video with respect to performance, Charles Atlas has consistently fostered collaborative relationships with artists from Leigh Bowery and Michael Clark to Yvonne Rainer, Antony and the Johnsons, and Merce Cunningham. Dara Birnbaum changed our most basic understanding of the video medium, pirating footage from television during the 1970s and after to parse the mass media's ever-growing presence in American culture-and presciently challenging it from within. For more information, see thekitchen.org.

[EXHIBITION]
"On Limits: Estrangement in the Everyday"
May 24­-June 11
This experimental exhibition presents more than 20 artworks in a surprisingly intimate and formally incoherent dialectical array, putting into dialogue proximate discourses on social reproduction, state violence, racism, queerness, and the environment. Whether explicit or implicit in relation to a recognizable contemporary politics, the selected painting, sculpture, print, sound works, films, videos, photographs, and performances point to the pernicious ideological exclusions that structure neoliberal capitalism, pushing certain problems and bodies beyond view and taking effect at the limits of social intelligibility. Curated by Daniella Rose King, Viktor Neumann, Samuele Piazza, and Kari Rittenbach, Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Including works by Hannah Black, Merlin Carpenter, Enrique Chagoya, Kevin Jerome Everson, Harun Farocki, William E. Jones, Barbara Kruger, An-My Lê, Yolanda López,Tracey Moffatt, Catherine Opie, Claire Pentecost, William Raban, Allan Sekula, A.L. Steiner, Milica Tomic, William Leavitt, Taocheng Wang, and others.

[EXHIBITION/PERFORMANCE]
Xaviera Simmons
June 22-July 30
Simmons presents a new body of photographic and text-based sculptural works in conjunction with a new performance in the theater, continuing her investigations of experience, non-linear narrative, and memory against present and future histories. Curated by Matthew Lyons.

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