Performance Studies: A Selection of Recent Performative Work Developed at the Watermill Center

Closing Reception
Thursday, March 25, 2010
6:00PM–8:30PM

Curated by Dmitry Komis

Works by:
Maria José Arjona (Colombia)
C. Ryder Cooley (USA)
Robin Deacon (UK)
Katharina D. Martin (Germany, Holland)
H.E.R.D. Group (Ireland, South Korea)
Steven Vega (USA)
Implied Violence (USA)
Katherina Radeva (Bulgaria)
Klingon Terran Research Ensemble (Holland)
Joshua Seidner (USA)
Girlmachine—Carlos Soto / Charles Chemin / Christian Wassmann / Luisa Gui (USA, France, Switzerland, Italy)

The Watermill Brooklyn Gallery is pleased to announce a group exhibition of performance work developed at the Watermill Center during the 2009 Spring and Fall Artist-in-Residence Programs. The exhibition highlights various stages in the residency process, from early workshops and open rehearsals at Watermill to completed staging and performances at festivals and biennials. Many of these residencies have already gone on to perform in venues across the USA and Europe. NYC audiences may have recently seen Girlmachine at Performa, four Watermill residency groups at the New Island Festival (on Governor’s Island) in September, and artists Steven Vega and Joshua Seidner, who performed at the Esquire event at the SoHo Mews this October.

Highlights include: C. Ryder Cooley’s lyrical performances, which combine aerial movement with live music and projected visual accompaniment, are shown as performed at Watermill, and later as part of the New Island Festival on Governor’s Island. Katherina Radeva’s open rehearsal of Native Birds is exhibited with a future staging at Toynbee Studios, London, alongside original drawings. Implied Violence’s work, developed at Watermill and also exhibited as part of the New Island Festival, will be presented at the Danube Festival outside of Vienna in the spring of 2010. Maria Jose Arjona’s work has since been exhibited in Columbia and Germany, and most recently at Pulse Miami. Joshua Seidner’s Powderburn, developed in its earliest phases at Watermill, is shown reinterpreted as part of an event at Esquire SoHo in October. Girlmachine, workshopped at Watermill, became one of the highlights of the recent Performa 09 biennial of performance art in November. These and other works in the exhibition exemplify the diverse performative strategies developed at Watermill, and the lives these projects have after.

About Watermill Brooklyn Gallery
Watermill Brooklyn Gallery is an exhibition space in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn which brings the events and projects developed at the Watermill Center on Eastern Long Island to a larger audience in New York City. The gallery promotes Watermill's artists-in-residence, the vast and electic Watermill Collection, as well as other events and collaborators at Watermill. The gallery is operated by the The Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation, a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization chartered in 1969 in the State of New York. BHWMF, as operator of the Watermill Center, seeks to develop new approaches to the arts; to provide young people of diverse cultures with opportunities for artistic growth; and to document the work of its Artistic Director, Robert Wilson, and his contemporaries. In addition to the Watermill Center, the Foundation manages the Robert Wilson Archive and the Watermill Collection. The offices of BHWMF are located in Brooklyn, New York.