JULY 31 – AUGUST 8, 2021

The Watermill Center
39 Watermill Towd Road, Water Mill, NY 11976

presented by
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS

led by
CARRIE MAE WEEMS & ROBERT WILSON

The Watermill Center is pleased to announce CROSSROADS: The Watermill Center’s Summer Festival, a week-long gathering exploring themes of ritual, healing, faith, and hope, led by Carrie Mae Weems, in collaboration with Robert Wilson. The festival, running from July 31 – August 8, affirms The Center’s dedication to offering artists time, space, and freedom to create while revealing artistic processes to the wider community. CROSSROADS is presented by Van Cleef & Arpels.

FEATURING: Kenyon Adams, Laurie Anderson, Laura Anderson Barbata, Arooj Aftab, Kyle Bass, Blake Brewer, Joann Yarrow, Brooklyn United Marching Band, Hoesy Corona, Marcelle Davies-Lashley, Vinson Fraley, Francesca Harper, Craig Harris, Nona Hendryx, Stewart Hurwood, Vijay Iyer, Daryl Johns, Laurie Lambrecht, David Lang, Memorialize The Movement, Moor Mother, Kimberly Nichole, Vernon Reid, The Revival Resistance Chorus, Carl Hancock Rux, Tanya Selvaratnam, Dianne Smith, So Percussion, Tyshawn Sorey, Paul Thek, Basil Twist, Shane Weeks

JULY 31
6:00 – 9:00 PM

KICK-OFF CELEBRATION
WITH LAURIE ANDERSON, SHANE WEEKS,
AND MEMBERS OF
THE SHINNECOCK NATION

PAUL THEK: INTERIOR / LANDSCAPE

AUGUST 07
7:00 – 11:00 PM

PERFORMANCES, INSTALLATIONS,
AND FILM SCREENINGS BY

CRAIG HARRIS, NONA HENDRYX, DAVID LANG & SO PERCUSSION, MEMORIALIZE THE MOVEMENT, VERNON REID, CARL HANCOCK ROX, AND MORE!

AUGUST 08
5:00 – 8:00 PM

PERFORMANCES AND INSTALLATIONS BY

KYLE BASS, VIJAY IYER, MEMORIALIZE THE MOVEMENT, AND MORE!

To purchase by phone or email, please contact us at +1 (631) 726-4628 or festival@watermillcenter.org
Members of The Watermill Center Byrds, please contact byrds@watermillcenter.org for your discounted rates.

Unable to attend but would still like to contribute? Make a fully tax deductible donation here!

All ticket levels are subject to availability. All sales are final. All proceeds benefit The Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation, no refunds or exchanges will be issued. Tickets are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

SPECIAL THANKS

PRESENTING SPONSOR
Van Cleef & Arpels

BOARD OF TRUSTEES
William Campbell (Chairman), Roger Ferris (Secretary), Karolina Blaberg, Nicolas Bos, Lisa Ehrenkranz, Audrey B. Gruss, Stein Erik Hagen, Robert Wilson

FESTIVAL CO-CHAIRS
Christine Wächter-Campbell & William I. Campbell, Lisa & Sanford Ehrenkranz, Anke Beck Friedrich & Jürgen Friedrich, Audrey & Martin Gruss, Wendy Keys, Calvin Klein, Katharina Otto-Bernstein & Nathan Bernstein, Katharine Rayner, The May & Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Anastasiya Siro, and Helen & David Warren.

FESTIVAL PARTNERS
James Lane Post

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For all press inquiries, please email Brian O’Mahoney at press@watermillcenter.org.

For all sponsorship inquiries, please contact Erin Wainwright at sponsorship@watermillcenter.org or at +1 (212) 253-7484 x 115.

#WatermillCenter #WatermillSummer

This event is rain or shine. The Watermill Center is committed to providing accessible programs and services for all patrons and artists with disabilities. For further information about any accessibility issues or needs, please contact us at +1 (212) 253-7484 x 119 or email us at festival@watermillcenter.org.

COVID SAFETY GUIDELINES

If you’re planning to attend CROSSROADS, please review this section to find out how to prepare, what to expect, and what we’re doing to make your visit safe and enjoyable in accordance with NYS and CDC Guidelines during COVID-19.

Please note that all CROSSROADS attendees are required to be vaccinated to attend any festival events. Attendees are required to present proof of vaccination at check-in. Masks are required to be worn when indoors.

BEFORE YOU ARRIVE

1. If you don’t feel well, have symptoms, or have had contact with a COVID-19 patient in the previous 14 days prior to your visit, please stay home and seek care.
2. Please be sure to bring a mask with you, as masks are required to access the main building, including our restrooms. If you do not have a mask, one will be provided to you prior to your entry into the building.
3. Please bring a digital or physical copy of your vaccination card to present during check-in. Only guests with proof of vaccination will be admitted.

INDOOR GUIDELINES

1. Only guests with masks will be admitted inside the building. If you do not have a mask, one will be provided to you prior to your entry into the building.
2. Restrooms at The Center will have hand washing and hand sanitizing supplies. The capacity for restrooms is 3 guests at any one time.

OUTDOOR GUIDELINES

1. Maintain physical distancing of 6 feet between you and other groups.
2. No outside food or beverages allowed at The Center at any time.

PLEASE NOTE: In the interest of your personal safety and community health, The Watermill Center requires that all visitors observe the precautions outlined here. Visitors who do not follow these guidelines will not be admitted, and will be asked to leave the premises. The risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By visiting The Center and its grounds, you assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19.

PHOTO & VIDEO RELEASE

By visiting The Watermill Center or any of its associated events, you consent to interview(s), photography, audio recording, video recording, and their release, publication, exhibition, or reproduction to be used throughout the universe, in all media, now known or hereafter devised, in perpetuity by The Watermill Center, its affiliates and representatives.

You release The Watermill Center, its officers, and employees, and each and all persons involved from any liability connected with the taking, recording, digitizing, or publication of interviews, photographs, computer images, video, and/or sound recordings.

By entering the premises, you waive all rights you may have to any claims for payment of royalties in connection with any exhibition, streaming, webcasting, televising, or other publication of these materials, regardless of the purpose or sponsoring of such exhibiting, broadcasting, webcasting, or other publication irrespective of whether a fee for admission or sponsorship is charged.

You also waive any right to inspect or approve any photo, video, or audio recording taken by The Watermill Center or the person or entity designated to do so by The Watermill Center. You waive any right of inspection or approval of your appearance, including any Materials related to your appearance.

You have been fully informed of your consent, waiver of liability, and release before entering the premises.

CARRIE MAE WEEMS

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953) is widely renowned as one of the most influential living American artists, with a complex body of work encompassing photography, text, fabric, audio, digital image, installation, performance, and video. Her work examines how our society structures power through embedded stories, images, and ideas, asking us to look deeply at the two-dimensional image and revisit unexamined perspectives. A gifted storyteller who works porously between text and image, Weems has developed a revolutionary approach to the expression of narratives and histories of women, people of color and working-class communities, “conjuring lush art from the arid polemics of identity” (The New York Times).

Weems’ work is organized into cohesive bodies that function like chapters in a perpetually unfolding narrative. The Kitchen Table Series (1990), for instance, is one of Weems’ most seminal works, and widely considered one of the most important bodies of contemporary photography. The series, for which Weems herself posed as the main subject, is set at a woman’s kitchen table—a domestic stage—revealing intimate moments of her life as the story unfolds. The protagonist, though in many ways seemingly commonplace, is a multifaceted woman encompassing a variety of roles such as lover, parent, friend, and breadwinner.

Weems is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; MoMA, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MOCA, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Tate Modern, London. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frist Center for Visual Art, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain. Weems has received numerous awards and honors, including the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the Rome Prize, the U.S. Department of State Inaugural Medal of Arts, BET Honors Visual Artist Award, and W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University. She Weems resides in Syracuse and Brooklyn, New York. She is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery.

ROBERT WILSON

Born in Waco, Texas, Robert Wilson is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide.

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson founded the New York-based performance collective “The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds” in the mid-1960s, and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974-1975). With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Jessye Norman and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande, Goethe’s Faust, Homer’s Odyssey, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Sophocles’ Oedipus. Wilson’s drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings, and his works are held in private collections and museums throughout the world.

Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds 8 Honorary Doctorate degrees. France pronounced him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2003) and Officer of the Legion of Honor (2014); Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2014).

Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts and humanities in Water Mill, New York.

VAN CLEEF & ARPELS

Founded at Paris’ 22 Place Vendôme in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels came into being following Estelle Arpels’ marriage to Alfred Van Cleef in 1895. Over the decades, the excellence of the High Jewelry Maison was established throughout the world. The Maison’s emblematic signatures – including the Alhambra® motif, the Zip necklace, or the Mystery SetTM, technique; the exceptional, emotion eliciting gems named Pierres de CaractèreTM; the savoir-faire of the Mains d’OrTM the virtuoso craftsmen of Van Cleef & Arpels’ workshops – have ushered forth jewelry and watchmaking collections redolent of dreams and enchantment. Today, the Maison remains faithful to this highly distinctive style characterized by poetry, refinement, creativity and artistic sensibility. Whether inspired by nature, couture, dance or the imagination, it offers the world a gateway to a timeless universe of beauty and harmony.

Van Cleef & Arpels’ constant commitment to creation also finds expression in its various activities as a partner and patron in the cultural field. Reflecting the Maison’s attachment to values of transmission and sharing, these initiatives take place in sectors that it holds dear: they include heritage protection, fine and decorative arts, design, ballet and poetry.