Tuesday November 12, from 7 to 9 pm
Judson Memorial Church
Entrance at 243 Thompson St.
New York, NY 10012
Stress and Jest is a public program that seeks to examine how violence, entertainment, and spectacle are intertwined, placing particular emphasis on how tragicomedy, discorrelation or "the cartoonish" can expose structural dynamics as well as create spaces for renewal. These topics will be addressed from different artistic and literary disciplines, including performances, poetry readings, workshops, talks, and a subsequent discussion
Barnett Cohen, with performers Maddie Hopfield and Ray Tsung Jui Tsou, will present an excerpt of 𝑨𝑵𝒀𝒀𝒀𝑾𝑨𝒀𝒀𝒀 𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑹, a performance slipping between the genres of poetry and dance. Cohen’s new performance disperses a singular authorial voice into two, injecting velocity into the text-based score. Opposing the increasing demand for queer bodies to arrive in language intact and making themselves knowable, the artist advocates for figureless existence and disturbances of identity that subvert, sabotage, and disavow the violences in prevailing dominant ideologies. Visual artist, performer and poet Marcel Alcalá will read and perform from their forthcoming prose and poetry book. A lot of this work deals with personal contemplations with the highs and lows of the art market as a recent object maker and performer, longing for more in relationships or border politics between Mexico and the USA, in which the artist draws comparisons to Gaza and war as a business.
NIC Kay will present the performance work Must-Have Character: Trio, in which they, Joyce Edwards and AJ Wilmore will transform themselves into three newly birthed characters. After the performance, NIC Kay will give a short presentation about their work. Visual artist Brianna Rose Brooks will also introduce their work, highlighting some of their influences and speaking about “cartoon physics”, caricature imagery and other figures often cast as unreliable narrators. This will be followed by a brief discussion with the artists involved in the program.
That same afternoon, from 4 to 5:30 pm, we will also hold the workshop “The art of autobiography” with Milton Garcia Ninja and Luna Luis Ortiz, both visual artists and icons of NYC's House/Ballroom scene, as well as friends since their adolescence. Participants will create a "pictorial diary" representing their daily events through poetry, vignettes and cartoons. Photographer, artist, and long time friend Luna Luis Ortiz will join Garcia Ninja to facilitate the workshop. Both artists will also introduce themselves as part of the Ballroom scene and Visual AIDS Archive Project, a community-based arts organization committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS.
Curated by Leto Ybarra and Blanca Ulloa
<<<< WORKSHOP DETAILS AND INSCRIPTIONS >>>>
Event sponsored by a HCI Public Humanities Grant. Thanks to Visual Aids for their support.
FREE EVENT. ADMISSION WILL BE GRANTED ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST SERVED BASIS
ACCESIBILITY
The entrance for the event is accesible and by way of 243 Thompson St. Use the lift to get to the Meeting Room on Level 3 and Judson Memorial Church’s accessible bathrooms on Level B (basement). Return to Level 1 for street access back to the corner of West 4th & Thompson St. For access information or requests, please contact Leto Ybarra and/or ly2566@nyu.edu Blanca Ulloa bau209@nyu.edu