Whitney exhibition of downtown New York performance art of the 1970s

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From 31 October, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, will present ‘Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama – Manhattan, 1970–1980’, a unique look at a vibrant community of artists and the experimental performance art they produced. This exhibition showcases works created in alternative spaces, lofts, storefronts, and city streets that expressed the radical potential for theatre and art performance as a new means of artistic expression.

Organized by Jay Sanders, the Whitney’s curator and curator of performance, ‘Rituals of Rented Island’ will be on view from October 31 to February 2014 in the Museum’s third-floor Peter Norton Family Galleries.The Whitney’s inventive presentation will create an immersive experience that both documents the era and partly recreates it with installations of sets and environments, objects, film and video, live performance, photography, drawings, and ephemera by the following artists: Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Jared Bark, Ericka Beckman, Ralston Farina, Richard Foreman/Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Julia Heyward, Ken Jacobs Apparition Theater of New York, Mike Kelley, Kipper Kids, Jill Kroesen, Sylvia Palacios Whitman, Yvonne Rainer and Babette Mangolte, Stuart Sherman, Theodora Skipitares, Jack Smith, Michael Smith, Squat Theatre, Robert Wilson/Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, and John Zorn/Theatre of Musical Optics.

Built upon the foundation of Fluxus,  Happenings, and the Judson Dance Theater, the art scene in Manhattan – particularly SoHo – remained central for avant-garde performance throughout the 1970s. Experimental theatre flourished in venues such as Jack Smith’s two-story Plaster Foundation of Atlantis loft and Robert Wilson’s Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds. Nearby, both The Kitchen (founded in 1971) and Artists Space (which opened in 1973) became important venues for an emerging generation of artists whose performances pushed the formal limits of music, theatre, and dance. The performances in these spaces were unlike those of the 1960s. Instead of trying to break down the boundaries between art and life, this younger generation reacted to the growing cynicism and disillusionment of the decade. Their solo and ensemble performance works addressed social, political, and media constructions and were revolutionary in incorporating references to both high- and low-brow entertainment.

Moreover, the work produced during this time period provided a necessary footing for the next generation of artists, which coalesced as the vibrant East Village scene of the 1980s and its associated styles of No Wave, New Wave, and Post-Punk.

I see this constellation of artists representing a fascinating and unarticulated ‘secret history’ of New York art of the 1970s and of important and under-recognized currents in performance, says Sanders.

While much of the radical work of the ’60s has come into view, many of the most groundbreaking aspects of this subsequent decade still remain elusive. This work speaks fundamentally to strategies being investigated by emerging artists today in the ways it addresses the commercial world, media space, user-interfacing, persona and personal experience, and the body in performance. It’s clear that these more obscure aspects of the ’70s are extremely rich and important to our concerns today and give us many alternative ideas of what art can be.

The title of the exhibition comes from Jack Smith’s nickname for Manhattan, which he coined for his 1976–77 play The Secret of Rented Island. Emblematic of the era’s performances, Smith’s five-hour-long production, based on Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, cast children’s toys as lead characters and the artist in the role of Oswald, played here as an actor who couldn’t remember his lines. The dialogue, which was largely pre-recorded, was said either absurdly fast or painfully slowly.The terms ‘Object Theater’ and ‘The New Psychodrama’ refer to sensibilities present in these performances.

'Rituals of Rented Island' is the first museum exhibition to consider this decade in retrospect. As part of ‘Rituals of Rented Island’, performances will take place both within and outside the exhibition’s galleries, including:

• Periodic performances of John Zorn’s Theatre of Musical Optics
• A performance by Michael Smith of a new solo work, which mines gestures and objects and props from his seminal early pieces
• Reinvestigations of their groundbreaking 1970s performances by Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward, Sylvia Palacios Whitman, and others

This exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Jay Sanders and the writer and film critic J. Hoberman, who also served as a curatorial consultant on the exhibition. The book also includes numerous previously unpublished photographs of performances, ephemera from artists’ archives, and other primary source materials. Sanders and Hoberman will also arrange a series of events and film screenings that are related to the exhibition. Please check whitney.org  for the forthcoming schedule of screenings and events.