Performance Talks is an audio series featuring conversations with artists, dancers, choreographers, writers, photographers, curators, and directors about the afterlives of performance, presented by art historian and curator Jeanette Bisschops.
This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Philip Bither, Senior Curator of Performing Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, who oversees one of the country's leading contemporary performing arts programs. In this conversation, he and I talk about the Walker’s long history with commissioning and presenting live work, the evolving relationship between performance and visual art, and the ongoing questions around how to preserve liveness. And, maybe most importantly, we look at what it means to support artists over time—and why that matters. Philip Bither has overseen significant expansion of the Performing Arts program, including the building of the McGuire Theater, an acclaimed new theatrical space within the Walker expansion (2005), the raising of the program's first commissioning/programming endowment, the commissioning of more than 100 new works in dance, music and performance, and the annual presentation/residency support of dozens of contemporary performing arts creators, established and emerging. Prior to this, he served as Director of Programming/Artistic Director for the Flynn Center, later becoming Associate Director/Music Curator at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). He received the Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award in 2009. He sits on numerous federal, state, local, and national foundation arts panels and he speaks and writes about the contemporary performing arts nationally. Find the 70+ curatorial interviews by Bither on the Walker Art Center's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA0898AB8FAB61AA5 Follow the Walker Art Center: https://www.instagram.com/walkerartcenter Stay tuned for more episodes. The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Design by Katharine Wimett.
This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Beatrix Ruf, the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam. In this conversation, we discuss the need to rethink the economy and infrastructure of museums to allow for performance and interdisciplinary experimentation, the specifics of how the cultural production scene of Amsterdam functions and her plans for the new museum in Amsterdam. Beatrix Ruf is the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam, which is currently under construction. Beatrix served as the Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 2014 to 2018. Her previous roles include Director of Kunsthalle Zürich, Director of Kunsthaus Glarus, and Curator at Kunstmuseum Thurgau in Warth. In 2006, Beatrix curated the third edition of the Tate Triennial in London, and in 2008, she co-curated the Yokohama Triennial in Japan. From June 2019 to February 2022, she was the Counseling Strategic Director at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. Additionally, from 1995 to 2014, Beatrix curated the Ringier Collection, and from 2006 to 2021, she was a core member of the think tank group for the LUMA Foundation in Arles. Ruf is a member of several advisory and programme committees and frequently serves as a jury member. She is currently a Board Member of the Between Bridges Foundation in Berlin, a member of the Selection Committee of The Mondrian Initiative in Laren, and a Board Member of WeTransfer’s The Supporting Act Foundation in Amsterdam. Beatrix has curated numerous exhibitions, collaborated with many renowned artists, and published extensively on contemporary artists, including Isa Genzken, Joan Jonas, Seth Price, Jana Euler, Ian Wallace, Laura Owens, Tino Sehgal, Wade Guyton, Avery Singer, Yang Fudong, Tony Cokes, Philippe Parreno, Kai Althoff, Jordan Wolfson, Rosemarie Trockel, Sturtevant, and Wu Tsang, among many others. Follow Hartwig Art Foundation: https://www.instagram.com/hartwigartfoundation Stay tuned for more episodes. The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Design by Katharine Wimett. Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.
This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Rachel Helm and Rachel Churner from the Carolee Schneemann Foundation, recorded at Schneemann's home in upstate New York. In this conversation, We talk about the complexities of preserving the artist's home, a nearly 300 year old structure, as well as the intricacies of representing an artist who had such a strong presentation and idea of self through an archive, and their plans of turning her home into a residency. Rachel Helm is the manager of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation and steward of Schneemann’s home in New Paltz, NY. Prior to her relocation to the Hudson Valley, Helm worked in public libraries in Missouri and Kentucky. Rachel Churner is the director of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation. Churner is also an art critic and editor, whose writings have appeared in Artforum and October magazine, among other publications. She was a recipient of the 2018 Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and is the editor of multiple books, including, The New Television (no place press, 2024); Hans Haacke (MIT Press, 2015), and two volumes of writings by film historian Annette Michelson (MIT Press, 2017 and 2020). She currently teaches at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at the New School. The Carolee Schneemann Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of Carolee Schneemann (1939–2019). Schneemann was a pioneering artist whose work spanned a range of media, including painting, film, video, dance and performance, installations, and writing. Her art is known for its radical formal experimentation and critical investigations of subjectivity, the erotic and taboo, images of atrocity, and the social construction of the female body. Established by the artist in 2013, the Foundation advances the understanding of Schneemann’s work through scholarship, exhibitions, and publications. Over the next few years, the Foundation will establish a residency program at Schneemann’s home in upstate New York in order to support artists whose work shares Schneemann’s commitment to new methods of aesthetic experimentation. For more information on The Carolee Schneemann Foundation, please visit their website. The intro is a fragment of an interview by Robert Haller with Carolee Schneemann from 1973, accessed at the archives of the Carnegie Museum of Art. Stay tuned for more episodes coming this Winter. The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Design by Katharine Wimett. Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.
This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with the General Manager of Live Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Limor Tomer. Tomer earned both her B.A. and M.A. from The Juilliard School. For 10 years, she performed professionally as a classical pianist in solo and orchestral performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. While at The Met, Tomer expanded and branched out the museum's performance program into exciting new arenas. In this conversation, we speak about what it looks like to program live work at a historical museum, the interaction between architecture and performance, and the evolution of live art programming at the Met, which started as the 'lectures and concerts' department, contained within it's auditorium, but now encompasses all performing arts, which visitors can encounter throughout the museum. Follow Limor: https://www.instagram.com/limor_tomer Stay tuned for more episodes coming this Fall. The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Design by Katharine Wimett. Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.
For this episode of Performance Talks I had the pleasure to interview the New York-based curator and Co-Director of Centre Pompidou Jersey City, Charles Aubin. Aubin started his career at Centre Pompidou in Paris, served as Senior Curator and Head of Publications at Performa, and was recently hired as Co-Director of Centre Pompidou Jersey City (scheduled to open in 2026) in a full circle moment. Working at Performa for more than a decade, the artists he curated work by are almost too numerous works to name: Madeline Hollander, Jérôme Bell, Danielle Dean, and Franz Erhard Walther. A few years ago, he started an oral history project focussing on Yvonne Rainer's choreographic work since her return to dance in 1999. In our interview, we delve into Charles' origins as a curator and speak to the challenges of gathering first hand accounts of Yvonne’s 21st-century works. Follow Charles: https://www.instagram.com/charles_aubin Stay tuned for more episodes coming this Fall. The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Design by Katharine Wimett. Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.