The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation Announces Winter 2022 Programming
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to announce its Winter 2022 series of programs presented in conjunction with Kindred Solidarities: Queer Community and Chosen Families, on view at The 8th Floor through January 22, 2022. Featured events include: Documenting Kiki Family: The Explosion of Ballroom, a discussion between creative and healer Twiggy Pucci Garçon; director of the documentary Kiki Sara Jordenö; along with artist and founder of RAGGA NYC and Connek Ja Christopher Udemezue, on the longevity of Ballroom culture as it relates to the notion of chosen family. To celebrate the final day of Kindred Solidarities on January 22, there will be two performances by artists in the show: Larry Krone will stage Loving You is Easier, charting the journey of an individual’s painful family fragmentation and resulting salvation through finding their chosen family. The audience will experience Krone’s narrative through a musical theater format. In Kalup Linzy’s The State of my Feelings and Emotions… a melodramatic performance art piece, the artist will adopt the persona of Taiwan Braswell, a member of his Queen Rose family of characters, featuring new and previously made songs from Linzy’s lyrical repertoire.
All events are free and open to the public.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Saturday, January 8, 2 to 3:30pm EST
The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street, NYC
Documenting Kiki Family: The Explosion of Ballroom
This discussion will address the task of actively forming community, centering on the 2016, film Kiki, that introduced a new generation to Ballroom culture, the queer families that formed it, and those formed through it. Panelists include documentary maker and visual artist Sara Jordenö; non-binary healer and ballroom participant Twiggy Pucci Garçon; and artist and activist Christopher Udemezue. The conversation will be moderated by the curators of Kindred Solidarities, George Bolster and Anjuli Nanda Diamond.
Saturday, January 22, 2 to 4:00pm EST
The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street, NYC
Closing Celebration: Performances by Larry Krone and Kalup Linzy
Larry Krone and Family: Loving You is Easier
A performance by Larry Krone
2pm
Loving You is Easier is the third in a series of scripted musical performances on the theme of personal identity by Larry Krone. Preceded by Who or What I Am, presented at Joe’s Pub in 2018, and Beyond Repair, presented at the RISD Museum in 2019, this new work will focus on the individual in the context of family. This entertaining and thought-provoking 40-minute extravaganza will take the audience through the painful dissolution of failed biological family dynamics and the work it takes to rebuild a new, healthier family unit based on love. Consistent with his practice over the past 25 years, Krone expresses himself in Loving You is Easier through a concert format, performing his original country songs interspersed with storytelling.
Intermission
20 minutes
The State of my Feelings and Emotions…
A performance by Kalup Linzy
3pm
In The State of my Feelings and Emotions… multidisciplinary artist Kalup Linzy will perform as his alter-ego Taiwan Braswell. The new piece will feature tunes from his repertoire, alongside yet to be released material. The character is a member of Linzy’s Queen Rose family, whose sagas have been the mainstay subject of his irreverent video works. Modeled after soap operas, his cast of characters feature the artist in a variety of guises playing real and invented relations. Linzy’s work explores the love and loss inherent in real, fictional, and chosen familial structures through performance, film, and collaged paintings.
On View Through January 22, 2022
The 8th Floor, 17 West 17th Street, NYC
Kindred Solidarities: Queer Community and Chosen Families, featuring Jamie Diamond, Andrea Geyer, Nan Goldin, Larry Krone, Kalup Linzy, Carlos Motta with Julio Salgado, Parallel Lines (David Kelley, Jeannine Tang, Mike Cataldi, Hans Kuzmich, and Jens Maier-Rothe) and FIERCE, and Christopher Udemezue
Kindred Solidarities: Queer Community and Chosen Families, is a group exhibition reflecting on chosen familial structures in the context of queer culture, expanding beyond the notion of a heteronormative, nuclear, or government mandated framework. Artists in the exhibition mine the politics of representation, history, soap operas, and popular culture to examine questions surrounding the importance of safe neighborhoods, the depiction of queer love and happiness, and intergenerational supportive relationships. Addressing activist and outsider narratives, each draw on political engagement to further collective concerns, forming a connective thread of kinship with queer contemporaries and forebears.
Open Thursday through Saturday, 11am-6pm, or by appointment.
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About The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
The Foundation believes in art as a cornerstone of cohesive, sustainable communities and greater participation in civic life. In its mission to make art available to the broader public, in particular to underserved communities, the Foundation provides direct support to, and facilitates partnerships between, cultural organizations and advocates of social justice across the public and private sectors. Through grantmaking, the Foundation supported cross-disciplinary work connecting art with social justice via experimental collaborations, as well as extending cultural resources to organizations and areas of New York City in need.sdrubin.org
About The 8th Floor
The 8th Floor is an independent exhibition and event space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin to promote artistic and cultural initiatives. Inspired by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the gallery is committed to broadening the access and availability of art to New York audiences. Seeking further cultural exchange, The 8th Floor explores the potential of art as an instrument for social change in the 21st century, through an annual program of innovative contemporary art exhibitions and an events program comprised of performances, salon-style discussions, and those organized by external partners. the8thfloor.org
Contact: Andrea Bruce