Past Event: Performance & Protest in Public Art

Performance artists Tania Bruguera and Kate Gilmore both consider questions of power and identity in their work. Politically motivated, Havana-native Bruguera explores the relationship between art, activism, and social change, often through the lens of immigration. She recently opened Tania Bruguera: Untitled (Havana, 2000), a new installation at the Museum of Modern Art, and was just awarded the 2018 Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission, one of the most prestigious in contemporary art. The New York-based Gilmore engages with ideas of femininity, gender, and sex through performance, video, sculpture, and photography. In this intimate conversation, the two artists will discuss their turn to performance as a medium for critiquing contemporary issues of politics, gender, and society with Risë Wilson, Chief Program Officer for the High Line and founder of The Laundromat Project.

Join us for a reception during which Gilmore will stage "They Call Us a Storm," a live, site specific performance. Please note, the reception will now be taking place prior to the program rather than afterwards, see timeline below. 

Timeline: 
6:30 pm - Reception and performance of "They Call Us a Storm" 
7:30 pm - Conversation between Tania Bruguera, Kate Gilmore, and Risë Wilson begins
8:30 pm - Conversation concludes and the program ends

This program is inspired by our exhibitions Art in the Open: Fifty Years of Public Art in New York and Beyond Suffrage: A Century of New York Women in Politics. To view more Art in the Open programs, click here; for more Beyond Suffrage programs, click here. 

About the Speakers:
Tania Bruguera is a Cuban installation and performance artist whose work is in the permanent collection of the MoMA and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, among others. Her work explores the relationship between art, activism, and social change and examines the social effects of political and economic power. She was just awarded the 2018 Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission in London, one of the most prestigious in contemporary art.

Kate Gilmore is a fine artist drawing on multiple mediums including video, sculpture, photography, and performance. She currently lives and works in New York City and has exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the Brooklyn Museum, and PS1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center. Gilmore's work is supported by \Art, an annual fellowship that partners artists with Cornell Tech graduates to create new art, new art forms, and new art technologies. Gilmore is the 2017 \Art Artist and the 2017 \Art Fellows are Renée Esses and Nishad Prinja.

Risë Wilson (moderator) is Chief Program Officer for the High Line, where she is charged with spearheading a new phase of community engagement that highlights the intersections of public art, design, and the natural world. She is also founder of The Laundromat Project, which brings socially relevant and socially engaged arts programming to everyday community spaces. 

View videos of Tania Bruguera and Kate Gilmore's work here: