PERFORMA07

PERFORMA07, the second biennial of new visual art performance, opens on October 27 in New York City, launching a four-week program of performances, exhibitions, screenings, symposia, and live events including ten major PERFORMA Commissions by Carlos Amorales, Sanford Biggers, Nathalie Djurberg, Japanther, Isaac Julien, Daria Martin, Kelly Nipper, Adam Pendleton, Yvonne Rainer, and Francesco Vezzoli. PERFORMA07 features the work of over ninety international artists at more than fifty leading cultural institutions and venues throughout the city, with the participation of more than thirty curators, and is organized under the artistic direction of its founder, RoseLee Goldberg.


ARTISTS:
Vito Acconci / David Adamo / Carlos Amorales / Francis Baudevin / Ei Arakawa & Amy Sillman / Are You Meaning Company / assume vivid astro focus / Fia Backström / Ronnie Bass / Jérôme Bel / Tamy Ben-Tor / Sanford Biggers / John Bock / Ulla von Brandenburg / Pablo Bronstein / Trisha Brown / Tania Bruguera / James Lee Byars / John Cage / Kabir Carter / Dimitri Chamblas / Boris Charmatz / Zoila Imaculada de la Concepción / Douglas Coupland / Tom Cole & Lovett / Codagnone / Tony Conrad / Marie Cool & Fabio Balducci / Nick Currie (aka Momus) / Philippe Decouflé / Nathalie Djurberg / Pete Drungel / Brock Enright / Nicolás Dumit Estévez / Emilio Fantin / James Fei / Ryan Gander / Gang Zhao / Rainer Ganahl / Grand Union / Nicolas Guagnini / Deborah Hay / He Yunchang / Karl Holmqvist / Hans Isaksson / International Festival / Christian Jankowski / Joan Jonas / Japanther / Isaac Julien & Russell Maliphant / Allan Kaprow / John Kelsey & Christopher Williams / Jon Kessler / Alison Knowles / Elke Krystufek / Tove Leffler / Shaun El C. Leonardo / Xavier Le Roy / Long March Collective / Robert Longo / Daria Martin / Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.org) / Dave McKenzie / David Medalla / Gustav Metzger / Meredith Monk / Robert Morris & Stan VanDerBeek / My Barbarian / Bruce Nauman / Maurizio Nannucci / Luigi Negro / Kelly Nipper / Giancarlo Norese / Michael Northam / Darren O’Donnell / Yoko Ono / Serkan Özkaya / Adam Pendleton / Mai-Thu Perret / Cesare Pietroiusti / Michael Portnoy / Emilio Prini / Qiu Zhijie / Yvonne Rainer / Zach Rockhill / Robert Rauschenberg / Aïda Ruilova / Jelena Rundqvist / Carolee Schneeman / Second Front / Dexter Sinister / Markus Schinwald & Oleg Soulimenko / Snöfrid / Barbara Sukowa / Agathe Snow / Elaine Summers / Emily Sundblad / Eva Svuje / Min Tanaka / Javier Tellez / TM Sisters / Tomas Vanek / Francesco Vezzoli / Marianne Vitale & Agathe Snow / Tris Vonna-Michell / Jennifer Walshe / Lawrence Weiner / Michael Williams & Melissa Brown / Ian Wilson / The X-Patsys / Xu Zhen / + MORE

PERFORMA07 CONSORTIUM:
Anthology Film Archives / Artists Space / Art in General / Art Radio WPS1.org / Aperture Foundation / Baryshnikov Arts Center / The Bronx Museum of the Arts / Brooklyn Academy of Music / China Institute / Creative Time / Dance New Amsterdam / Dance Theater Workshop / Dispatch / The Drawing Center / Electronic Arts Intermix / Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts / The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum / Japan Society / The Jewish Museum / The Judson Memorial Church / The Kitchen / Lower Manhattan Cultural Council / The Museum of Arts and Design / Museum of Chinese in the Americas / New York University / Participant, Inc. / Performance Space 122 / P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / SculptureCenter / The Studio Museum in Harlem / Storefront for Art and Architecture / Swiss Institute—Contemporary Art / WFMU 91.1FM-NYC and www.wfmu.org / White Box / White Columns / The Whitney Museum of American Art / WPS1 Art Radio / + MORE

ADDITIONAL VENUES:
590 Madison (The Atrium) / The Box / Columbia University / Dexter Sinister / Freemans / The Highline Ballroom / The Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel / Joe’s Pub / Passerby / The New School / Second Life / Stephan Weiss Studio / World Financial Center / The Zipper Theater / + MORE

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES:
Canada / Chambers Fine Art / Deitch Projects / Fruit and Flower Deli / Greene Naftali Gallery / James Cohan Gallery / Metro Pictures / Salon 94 / Smith-Stewart / + MORE

Moroloja, the chant of the dead

Like a reawakening, as if the little space inside the Cafausu had expanded. I’m dressed up, in a shirt and tie I haven’t worn for ages, perfectly still. Maria Concetta slides eyeglasses into position on my head, then emits a long shout. At first I don’t understand that it is the prelude to a chant. A melodious lament that goes on for hours, hypnotic, anguishing: the Moroloja, the chant of the dead. Somebody pays her to do it, I’m not sure whom, also because I’m not supposed to be dead and in any case I don’t even know what is supposed to have killed me. All I know is this lamentation, this woman who just a few minutes ago was stealing my gold and my watch. Now she’s crying (tearlessly) and singing my praises. She seems to know me, as if we’d met time and again for years. I am on the ground in the Cafausu, surrounded by people I’ve never seen before. Maria Concetta wails and cries, shaking her head, mussing her hair, shaking. She holds a kerchief in one hand. Candles and rotting flowers waft a putrid odor of lavender and coffee. I feel like throwing up but I can’t. Evidently the dead are not allowed to vomit. The “chiangimuerti” is sweating now, swimming toward a spoken tone, but then her inebriating sobs return, another spasm of grief. I can hear the way she avoids the pleasures of singing, out of respect, eschewing the harmony of the musical structure, keeping a perfect balance between groan and tune. I start to pay attention to the words. They express no Christian concepts of death or resurrection, no mention of Christ, Mary, saints.

After life there is only dissolution, “dark night”. I listen to an appeal to Thanatos, death personified, and to the fairy Fate, with her dramatic power of dominion and destiny. I think I can salvage a memory: my grandmother, Vicenzina, became senile when she was about eighty, and would often sing a song by Orietta Berti:

"Stretti stretti nell’estasi d’amor la spagnola s’amar così bocca bocca la notte e il dì."

Then she would immediately cut it short, and lose herself in a wailed lament:
Ohimmè, Sorte noscia." (Oh my… such is our Fate)