Presented by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art is pleased to announce that artist Francisca Benitez will stage 'As you lean on me and I lean on you, we move forward' (2015), a new work commissioned by High Line Art that merges sign language and contact improvisation. The performance will take place Tuesday, July 14 at 7:00 PM on the High Line starting at West 14th Street; Wednesday, July 15 at 7:00 PM on the High Line starting at West 22nd Street; and Friday, July 17 at 7:00 PM on the High Line starting at West 34th Street. As you lean on me and I lean on you, we move forward is part of High Line Performances, a series that transforms the High Line into an open-air theater with performances on and around the park.
Francisca Benitez probes the visible and invisible boundaries that populate our urban space. In...projects ranging from graphite rubbings of property line plaques found on the sidewalks of New York to photographs of over 1,000 Sukkahs - temporary huts constructed for the celebration of Sukkot - in Brooklyn, to the creation of a temporary sign language school, she explores the fluctuating delineations between public and private spaces. In each of her projects, Benitez identifies overlooked places whose uncertain borders she begins to tease apart, often through unconventional occupation and documentation. Using her own presence to push against and through these boundaries, Benitez reveals the frictions and meanings created by walls, be they social or architectural, linguistic or cultural.
For her High Line Performance, Benitez will engage park visitors in a series of three interrelated vignettes that weave through the park along paths choreographed in signs. The three chapters of her performance will unfold at three distinct locations in the park, reacting to each site individually. An extension of her previous work with both formal and informal sign languages, Benitez's performance will bring together a new group of collaborators in a melding of sign languages and contact improvisation, including performers with a background in ASL jamming and deaf poetry circles.
"Francisca Benitez's work will invite us all to broaden our understanding of the ways we use language and our bodies as tools of communication," says Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art. "Especially on the High Line, a public place where you can hear many languages every day, it is important to upend our day to day understanding of gestures of communication."
Francisca Benitez (b. 1974, Chile) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, New York (2014); Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago, Chile (2013); Die Ecke, Santiago, Chile (2011); and Nada.Lokal, Vienna, Austria (2009). Notable group exhibitions include Mapping Brooklyn, Brooklyn Historical Society and BRIC House, Brooklyn (2015); Efemérides, Museo Histórico Nacional, Santiago, Chile (2014); Pier 54, High Line Art, New York (2014); One Minute Film Festival 2003 - 2012, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2013); The Street Files, El Museo del Barrio, New York (2011); and Contaminaciones Contemporáneas, Museu de Arte Contemporánea da USP, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2010). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the Bienal de la Habana, Cuba (2015); Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Portugal (2013) the Beijing Biennale, China (2009); and the LA Frewaves 10th biennial of film, video and new media, Los Angeles (2006).
Entrada actualizada el el 08 jul de 2015
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