NEWSPAPER MUSIC (1965), Mantra for Jessie (some help in sleeping) (1971)

Thursday, 7/18 | 6:30—8:00pm

Alison Knowles: NEWSPAPER MUSIC (1965), from The Fluxus Performance Workbook (1990)

Performers who speak at least five different languages use newspapers or books in the different languages as scores. They read the texts in time and volume according to the instructions of a composer. (Can go from very soft to extremely loud and stop, soft-loud-soft again, varied tempos, etc.)

Alison Knowles: Mantra for Jessie (some help in sleeping) (1976)

I was around 7 years old and remember being in Vermont. I was having trouble falling asleep and had taken to knitting to help. Alison must have observed me knitting the lines of thread, each color being threaded by the needles. She wrote it down as a poem. I later discovered she had published it as an event.

This piece taught me the open nature of modalities and beginning intermedia. As the event unfolds it shifts from spoken word to representation of each color in the text by objects of the performer's choice. At this juncture in Alison's life and mine I find time shifting our caretaking roles as I often reflect on a pared down approach to their reciprocal nature when activated.

–Jessica Higgins, More by Alison Knowles

Unpublished Editions; First Edition (January 1, 1976)

Performers

Jessica Higgins is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. She engaged in formative dance studies in her youth at Juilliard and Joffrey. Higgins has direct experiential knowledge of Fluxus, having early formation in that culture by way of the original members and by participation in historic Fluxus events. She is an Intermedia artist, improvisational dancer, performance artist and visual artist. She received her B.A. from SUNY New York and attended the Art Students League and Parsons School of Design.

Clara Joy, based in NYC, is a known downtown artist and organizer. She began recording songs as Clara Joy in 2015, with 7 albums and 2 singles released to date, which have earned critical acclaim. During 2020, *Part of Something* (2021), the first film about Clara Joy, was made by Sophia Johnson and debuted in 2021. Recently, she has been organizing music evenings in untraditional spaces for artists with acts like Frankie Cosmos, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Tamio Siraisi, & Yoshiko Chuma. Clara has performed in a variety of notable venues and events, including The Brooklyn Rail, The Bowery Ballroom, The Glove, The Knitting Factory, and The Brooklyn Museum. She has been interviewed by various media outlets, including Office Magazine, and Humans of New York, and has received positive reviews from Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, and The Line of Best Fit. Clara has also contributed to the art world through performances with Alison Knowles, videography for Hans Ulrich Obrist, and assisting with various tasks for Printed Matter and Alison Knowles. She is currently a senior at Hunter College, studying English Literature. Clara Joy's dedication to the arts and her community has solidified her as a prominent figure in New York City's music and art scene.

Ed Pankov is a multidisciplinary artist known for his avant-garde exploration of life's absurdity through intermedia content, blending poetry, performance, music, and conceptual art. Influenced by Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono, James Brown, Le Corbusier, and his background as a first-generation Russian/Ukrainian Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, Ed began his journey as a tarot reader in NYC in 2010. His current projects include the album "Criminal Boredom" and the psychedelic neo-noir film "This Never Happened." He is also writing a poetry book, "Heroes for Another Time" (HOAT). Ed has modeled for Ryan McGinley, appeared on Humans of New York, and stars as Pavel in Jason Trachtenburg's play "Anna and Fyodor."

Sanié Bokhari (b. 1991, Lahore, Pakistan) is a mixed media artist. She earned a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Bokhari's art has been showcased internationally, including at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan; Harper’s Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Aicon Gallery, New York, NY; and Bonhams, London, UK. She has participated in residencies such as the Vermont Studio Center, NARS Foundation, PLOP residency and Macedonia Institute. Her work has been featured in Fondazione Imago Mundi, Fad Magazine, ArteEast, and G5A: Imprint, and is part of collections such as the Nion McEvoy Foundation.

Furen Dai (b. Changsha) is an artist whose work explores the origins of language and how categorization structures and systems function within a broader social and political context. She is the co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art New York. Recent exhibitions and commissions include Offworlds at YveYang gallery, New York, NY; Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, New York, NY; the National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan; the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA; and the New England Triennial. She is currently preparing her solo exhibition at the Broodthaers Society of America, New York, NY. Dai has received fellowships at MacDowell, New York, NY; the Center for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, Germany; International Studio and Curatorial Programs, Brooklyn, NY; and Art OMI, Ghent, NY. Her work has been featured in Artforum, LEAP Magazine, The New York Review, Boston Globe, and Boston Art Review and she has contributed writing to Asia Art Archive and Best!: Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts published by Paper Monument. Dai holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA in Russian Language and Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University. She is currently a lecturer in Photography at Parsons School of Design, The New School.