Performa 09 Commissions: Arto Lindsay and Guy Ben-Ner
ARTO LINDSAY : SOMEWHERE I READ
Multidisciplinary Arts Procession to Feature Music Delivered by Cell Phones
Arto Lindsay, I AM A MAN, 2008
Sun Nov 1 at 8 pm at Times Square
FREE
For Performa 09, acclaimed musician and artist Arto Lindsay will design and organize a multidisciplinary procession, SOMEWHERE I READ, featuring 50 dancers and performers. Serving as Performa 09’s opening event, Lindsay’s procession will proceed down Seventh Avenue (between 47th and 42nd Streets) in Manhattan on the same day as the New York Marathon (November 1). A central element of the piece will be the use of cell phones as musical instruments. All the participants will carry cell phones playing music specially composed by Lindsay. An inventive adaptation of the standard carnival format, Arto Lindsay’s Performa Commission will create an oddly intimate public spectacle in New York’s busiest junctions, Times Square. Developed in collaboration with choreographer Lily Baldwin and architects Bureau V.
A Performa Commission. Presented in partnership with the Times Square Alliance.
GUY BEN-NER : UNTITLED
Ben-Ner Has a Conversation With Himself About How Art Can Serve Life
Guy Ben-Ner, Untitled, 2009. Video stills.
Sun Nov 1-Sun Nov 22 at 7 pm daily at Performa Hub (41 Cooper Square)
FREE
Filmed and edited over the course of twelve months, Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner will present an unusual “live film,” commissioned by Performa, that captures an ongoing phone conversation between the artist and himself as he flies to and fro between Berlin and Tel Aviv, the respective locations of his girlfriend and his family. Unlike a regular film, which is edited externally after all of the shooting is complete, Ben-Ner’s film never leaves the camera during a twelve-month period. The film always remains “live,” awaiting the next shot, which might take place in either Israel or Germany. Ben-Ner’s “storyboard” is life itself, and each scene occurs in real time, although with significant ellipses in between. Since the only editing is done entirely in-camera, the move from one shot to the next requires a real physical move: the camera traveling the full distance from Tel Aviv to Berlin and back as the dialogue progresses. Shot in Hebrew, and subtitled in English, the film presents a conversation in rhyme, which discusses how art can be at the service of life and the repercussions of such a unified relationship. Supported by the Consulate General of Israel.
A Performa Commission with Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund
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