Artist Talk: The Let Go

CONVERSATION SERIES: INTERROGATIONS OF FORM ARTIST TALK: THE LET GO

Thursday, June 7, 2018 at 6:00pm Board of Officers Room Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory Featuring:

Nick Cave Bob Faust Nona Hendryx Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson Moderated by Malik Gaines

SEASON SPONSORS

Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Altman Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Kaplen Brothers Fund, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, the Richenthal Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation.

Cover image: Da Ping Luo

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS NICK CAVE NONA HENDRYX Nick Cave is an artist and educator working between the visual Revolutionary art-rock, new-wave goddess Nona Hendryx is and performing arts through a wide range of media inclusive of sculpture, installation, video, sound, and performance. His solo exhibitions have toured globally from the United States through France, Africa, Denmark, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean. Cave also works as a professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Two exhibitions related to The Let Go will be presented at Jack Shainman Gallery: Weather or Not in May 2018 and If a Tree Falls in November 2018. Recent exhibitions and projects include: Nick Cave: Feat. (The Frist Center for Visual Arts, 2018); Nick Cave: Until (Mass MoCA, 2017); Nick Cave (Telfair Museums, 2017); Spotted by Nick Cave (artspace 2016); Nick Cave: Here Hear (Cranbrook Art Museum, 2015); Currents 109: Nick Cave (Saint Louis Art Museum, 2014); Nick Cave: Sojourn (Denver Art Museum, 2013); and HEARD•NY in New York’s Grand Central Terminal (2013).

BOB FAUST Bob Faust creates visual, visceral and contextual art experiences

that inform, empower, and/or instigate in the service or celebration of human difference. Faust is also the studio/ special projects director for artist Nick Cave, and has been recognized nationally and internationally for his creativity and clarity through many prestigious exhibitions and publications including: Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Container (Chicago Design Museum, 2018), GU LTY / NNOCENT (Call-and-Response to Nick Cave’s UNTIL, MASS MoCA, 2017), Nick Cave: Kaleidoscopic Playground (MASS MoCA, 2017), Fluid Bound (Co-Prosperity Sphere, 2016), Unfolded: Made with Paper (Chicago Design Museum, 2016), Bob Faust: Peace Pop (Chicago Cultural Center, 2016), Bob Faust: Betweens (Riverside Arts Center, 2016), CHGO DSGN (Chicago Cultural Center, 2014), Nick Cave: Body Work (ICA Boston, 2014).

a vocalist, songwriter, musician, and author. Tackling social issues, love, and politics, Hendryx’s career spans decades of sound and style evolution. A member of the groundbreaking group Labelle; their No.1 worldwide hit Lady Marmalade (Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi C’est Soir?). Hendryx came into her own as a solo artist post-Labelle. On her album Mutatis Mutandis, Hendryx lends gravitas to a striking rendition of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit with a smoky vocal tessitura somewhere between funk and the stratosphere. She is Ambassador for Artistry in Education for Berklee College and Joe’s Pub’s 1st Vanguard Artist in Residency for 2018.

AHMAYA KNOELLE HIGGINSON Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson is an international stage performer

and serves as executive program director and musical instructor at the Mama Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) not-forprofit located in central Harlem. In 2006, she co-founded the acclaimed Gospel for Teens music education program from which the “Sing Harlem Choir” is elevated. As an enthusiastic New York Harlem resident, Higginson continues to serve her community through teaching music to the next generations.

MALIK GAINES Malik Gaines is a writer, performer, and teacher living in New

York. He is the author of Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left (NYU Press, 2017). His essays have appeared in journals, exhibition catalogues, and arts publications. Gaines has performed and exhibited extensively with the group My Barbarian, and makes performance work solo and in collaboration. He is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

NEXT IN THE SERIES ARTIST TALK: THE DAMNED Thursday, July 19 at 6:00pm

Visionary director Ivo van Hove discusses the creative process and development of this landmark work with writer, director, visual artist, and vocalist Laurie Anderson.

SUNDAY SALON: LITERATURE Sunday, September 23 at 3:00pm

Armory Artist-in-Residence and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins hosts an intimate afternoon of readings and conversation with a selection of thought-provoking poets, playwrights, and writers.

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