FRIDMAN GALLERY

Fridman gallery will present a weekend dedicated to past and new visions on art and technology, and to explorations of the performance series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, and the festival Visions of the Now.

 

In late 1965 Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Klüver invited ten New York artists, composers and choreographers to work with a group of thirty engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories, to develop technical equipment that would become an integral part of their works. These collaborations resulted in a series of ground breaking performances titled 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, held in October 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. 

 

Originally these performances had been developed for a 1966 Stockholm festival on Art and Technology, Visioner av Nuet (“Visions of the Now”), as part of an ambitious project to examine the impact of technology on humanity, society and art. Almost half a century later, Swedish artist Anna Lundh began a research effort into the 1966 festival and produced an updated version, to reconsider its original concerns in a world fully immersed in the technology that in 1966 was called ”the new”. Lundh’s festival, Visions of the Now, took place on May 24-26, 2013, and brought together over thirty international artists, musicians, theorists and scientists, in a series of lectures, panels, open discussions, art and music performances.

 

This artistic experiment has now been documented in an extensive multi-volume archive box, published by Sternberg Press. On Saturday October 28, Fridman Gallery will host the international release of this publication, and Anna Lundh will present a lecture performance that “unpacks” its contents. Performance starts at 6 pm, followed by a conversation and book signing.

 

The archival film and sound material from 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, has been developed into a series of video documentaries, reconstructing each of the ten artist’s performances and documenting its artistic and technical elements. This series will be presented by Julie Martin, director of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), in a marathon screening on Sunday, October 29, from 2 pm to 11 pm.

​

9 Evenings Marathon showing schedule: 

1:30 Introduction by Julie Martin
2:00  Alex Hay, Grass Field   
2:45  Steve Paxton, Physical Things
3:30  Yvonne Rainer, Carriage Discreteness
4:15  Deborah Hay, Solo   
5:00  Lucinda Childs, Vehicle

5:45  Robert Whitman, Two Holes of Water -3
7:00  John  Cage, Variations VII
 

7:45  8:30  Break for Dinner

​

8:30  Robert Rauschenberg, Open Score
9:15  David Tudor, Bandoneon ! (a combine)
10:00 - 11:00  Oyvind Fahlström, Kisses Sweeter than Wine