NEW PERFORMANCE COMMISSIONS AND ARTIST COLLABORATIONS
Job Piston, born in Detroit, Michigan, is an independent curator, artist and producer based in New York and Los Angeles. He combines his expertise in visual arts, photography and live performance to develop new exhibitions and art commissions. His areas of focus include gender studies, identity, architecture, pop visual culture, social movements and 20th century avant-garde history.
He is a curator of five iterations of the Performa Biennial in New York City where he has organized projects with Barbara Kruger, Zanele Muholi, Tania Bruguera, Korakrit Arunanondachai, Jacolby Satterwhite, Sara Cwynar, Kia LaBeija, Athi-Patra Ruga, Shikeith, Pilvi Takala, amongst others. At Performa, he contributed to art partnerships with Art Basel, Sprüth Magers, Salon 94, Yossi Milo, Lever House, Performance Space New York, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NYC Dept of Parks & Recreation, Finnish Cultural Institute NY, The Josie Club, Parish Harlem, 99 Scott, Neuehouse, Rockaway Hotel, Edition Hotels, Swarovski, Rodarte, Buccellati, MAC Cosmetics, Volcom, AOL, amongst others.
He well has produced independent projects with The Bronx Musem of the Arts; The Armory Show VIP; For Freedoms AAPI Campaign; Jessica Silverman Gallery; Banff Centre for Arts; Art at a Time Like This; Mana Contemporary; Perrier; Nowness; and Nowness Asia. Additionally, he has organized artist partnerships and record-breaking digital streaming programs.
He is the 2024 recipient of a Frame Contemporary Art Finland grant; Banff Artist Residency; and ARCAthens Curatorial Residency. Piston received his MFA from University of California, Los Angeles and his BFA from the California College of Arts, San Francisco.
Barbara Kruger's "Untitled (The Drop)", is a powerful commentary on consumerism and gender roles in our society. Featuring Kruger's signature text-based style within skateboarding culture, the public commission encompassed the Lower East Side skate park, the New York subway system, a school bus, a public billboard, a Soho storefront and biennial branding to interrogated how counterculture movements are often commodified by mainstream society.
A Performa Commission supported by Sprüth Magers, VOLCOM, Mary Boone Gallery, Larry Warsh, NYC Parks and Recreations Department, Eric Goode, and Dazed Digital. Special thanks to Eric Goode, The Park Restaurant, The Turtle Conservancy, Steve Rodriguez, and EP+Co.
Excelsior
Short films and videos by Asian and Asian diaspora artists
Excelsior—named after the starship led by Captain Sulu of Star Trek and meaning ‘onward and upwards’ – is a public presentation curated by Job Piston for the Art at a Time Like This and NOWNESS, featuring artists of Asian descent in visual arts and short films. It was presented as part of the Armory Show VIP Program in 2022..
This exhibition embodies the diversity of experience and outlook of 8 artists, from the video essay of Astria Suparak, underscoring the absence of Asian actors in blockbuster Hollywood films set in Asia to Lu Yang’s powerful alter ego, DOKU. On view is a wide range of Asian American and Asian diaspora artists who defy adversity or familial history through the use of constructing new mythologies, alternate realities, and cinematic dreamscapes. They paint a multinational landscape inhabited by fictional, or at times dystopic, heroines. Fabled empresses, fashionistas, pop singers, queer goddesses, genetic nurses, and a digital avatar take viewers on a journey into a world that blends reality with fantasy.
"Untitled (The Black Act)" combined the avant-garde costumes and choreography of the most famous Bauhaus performance, the Triadic Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer, with the expressive and geometric elements of voguing. Exploring themes of identity and empowerment through dance and movement, the performance featured a diverse cast of queer Black femme performers, the artists brother Kenn Michaels and father percussionist Waren Benbow, to embodied the spirit of ballroom culture and showcasing the ongoing evolution of these two iconic art forms. Costumes by Kyle Luu.
A Performa and Performance Space New York Commission supported by Mickalene Thomas and Racquel Chevremont, Nina Chanel Abney and Jet Toomer, Abigail Pucker, Victoria Rogers, and Swarovski.
The artist’s first-ever digital commission, Tania Bruguera staged a social media project entitled "Insta Citizen” where a general public anonymously shared their personal encounters with censoring themselves. Releasing the password to the artists public social media platform, the public was granted unprecedented access to create and share content with the hashtag #instacitzen. The profile bio prompted users to post ones immigration journey and status. Over a period of three weeks, the public conversation accelerated to cover a broad spectrum of disclosures and personal involvement with their family history, mixed identity, religious upbringing, gender issues, social injustices, and hidden hypocrisies.
A Performa Digital Commission supported by Christina Enriquez-Bocobo and Michael Kantrow.
Anna Maria Häkkinen
Afterglow, low lingering sips of light, 2023, is a new commission that takes minimalist dance as a point of departure, exploring the sublime through ideas of surrender, release, tempo, autonomy and cooperation. Collaborating with an emerging generation of performers from the Pageant dance community in New York, Häkkinen reinterprets Judson Dance Theater figures lucinda Childs and Yvonne Rainer, creating a bridge between the past and the present, and between the Baltic Sea and Atlantic Ocean. This post-night club minimalist dance performance is accompanied by an original soundtrack by harpist and electronic dance composer Keliel, dramaturgy by Emil Santtu, and dancer Emmi Venna.
” To catch Anna Maria Häkkinen’s dizzyingly beautiful Afterglow, low lingering slips of light, commissioned for the Finnish Pavilion, attendees shuffled aboard a ferry to Governors Island just before sunset, where composer Keliel filled the The Arts Center with an immersive score that fused the elegance of a harp with the undulating soundscape of electronic dance music. In the foreground, Häkkinen’s group of emerging, New York-based dance artists put on an entrancing show, an effortless balance of synchronicity and surprise.” Financial Times, November 8, 2023.
A Performa Finnish Pavilion commission. Co-produced with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Additional support provided by rendezvous, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Arts Management Helsinki, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Together, 2019, is a multimedia performance that blurs the line between reality and fantasy, immersing the audience in a fever dream combining visual art, cinematography, and movement in a landscaped installation. The show explores mythology and spirituality within a global cultural identity, taking inspiration from national headlines surrounding the Tham Luang cave rescue of 13 Thai soccer players trapped in the caves during heavy rainfall. Through sculptural installations, immersive lighting, video projections, vocal performances, and the collective’s first group choreography presentation, the performance weaves together ghost stories from traditional Thai culture with contemporary references, creating a compelling and visually stunning journey into personal histories and belief. Collaborators include Aaron David Ross, Bonaventure and Nitemind.
A Performa Commission supported by C L E A R I N G gallery, Liz and Jonathan Goldman, Bruce Karatz, The Rosenkranz Foundation, Young Arts Foundation, Esther Kim Varet and Joseph Varet, NOWNESS, and The Standard.
TIME SHARE is video program that explores live performance’s relationship to video sharing platforms, and imagines, in a few select examples, how social media might have shaped our experience of iconic works from history. Performance documentation and pioneering media artists are presented with contemporary video artists and social media clips to reflect on ephemeral social networks in relationship to liberation and performing resistance. An essay by Joseph Akel revisits Susan Sontag’s essays on “Illness as Metaphor” and “AIDS and Its Metaphors”.
Featuring Vanessa Beecroft, Judy Chicago, Shikego Kubota, Zanele Muholi, Robert Rauschenberg with Xavier Cha, Sara Cwynar, Jane Jin Kaisenm Richard Kennedy with Martine Syms, Nicole Miller, Oscar Nñ, Viva Ruiz, Jamilah Sabur, Jacolby Satterwhite, Nick Sethi, Ryan Trecartin, and more.
New York Times, Flash Art, Cultured Magazine, Paper Magazine
Teo Ala-Ruona
Enter Exude is a performance where gender unfurls through the sleekness of a high-performance sports car. Exploring techno-trans-masculinity, merging gender with technology, Ala-Ruona takes audiences on a hypnotic and lyrical joyride, a sensory journey examining themes of sexuality, familial bonds, and toxicity in queer ecology.
A Performa Finnish Pavilion performance. A co-production with Scott Ave Association. Commissioned by the Kiasma Theatre at the Finnish National Gallery. Produced by Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Viernulvier, and Warehouse9. Supported by Kone Foundation, Niilo Helander Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre, Wihuri Foundation, Oskar Öflund Foundation, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, and the Finnish Cultural Institute of Denmark. Previously presented as part of the Vilnius Biennial.
A performance program exploring de-colonial narratives and self-care in a global nightlife context with Zanele Muholi, Richard Kennedy, Tabita Rezaire, Yulan Grant, and Discwoman, 2017.