Bucksbaum Award Winner Sarah Michelson to Debut Her Latest Work at the Whitney
Company:
Whitney Museum of American Art
Choreographer and Bucksbaum Award Winner Sarah Michelson to Debut Her Latest Work at the Whitney
New York, NY, December 5, 2013 – Choreographer and Bucksbaum Award winner Sarah Michelson reclaims the Whitney’s fourth-floor Emily Fisher Landau Galleries this winter to premiere the culmination of her acclaimed Devotion series. The new work, 4, will be presented in an eight-performance engagement from January 24 through February 2, 2014. 4 was co-commissioned by the Whitney and the Walker Art Center.
Jay Sanders, the Whitney’s curator of performance, noted: “Sarah’s work combines the rigor, physicality, and conceptual thinking that define and develop new possibilities in contemporary choreography.” Writing in The New York Times about an earlier segment of Michelson’s Devotion series, Claudia La Rocco commented that “Ms. Michelson is known for her uncanny ability to take over a space.”
Sarah Michelson (b. 1964) is a New York-based, British-born choreographer. Her 2012 Whitney Biennial piece, Devotion Study #1 — The American Dancer, commissioned by the Museum, employed a text written for the occasion at Michelson’s request by another Biennial artist, theater director/playwright Richard Maxwell, founder of New York City Players. Her new work will reunite her with Maxwell once again.
4 will be presented at the Whitney on January 24–26, 29–31, and Feb 1 and 2. All performances are at 2pm. Tickets are $25 and go on sale to the public on Monday, December 16 at noon via whitney.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the Museum during gallery hours (Wednesday–Sunday), starting December 18. Due to limited capacity, patrons are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance.
About the Bucksbaum Award
Melva Bucksbaum, a Whitney trustee since 1996, launched The Bucksbaum Award in 2000. Prior to Michelson, the recipients of the award have included conceptual artist Michael Asher, whose Biennial project in 2010 involved keeping the Museum open around the clock for three consecutive days, Paul Pfeiffer (2000), Irit Batsry (2002), Raymond Pettibon (2004), Mark Bradford (2006), and Omer Fast (2008).
The Bucksbaum Award, created and produced by Tiffany & Co., is given every two years in recognition of an artist, chosen from those included in the Biennial, whose work demonstrates a singular combination of talent and imagination. The selected artist is considered by the jurors to have the potential to make a lasting impact on the history of American art, based on the excellence of past work as well as present work in the Biennial. In addition to receiving a $100,000 grant, each Bucksbaum laureate is invited to present an exhibition at the Whitney, sometime within the succeeding two years.
The jury for the 2012 Bucksbaum Award that selected Sarah Michelson to receive the award was comprised of Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director; Donna De Salvo, Whitney Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs; the Biennial curators Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders; and three guest panelists, Lia Gangitano, Branden Joseph, and Christophe Cherix.
Funding for the Bucksbaum Award is provided by an endowment from the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation.
The 2014 Whitney Biennial, goes on view at the Whitney from March 7 through May 25, 2014, with portions of the show continuing into June. The next Bucksbaum laureate will be named from among the 103 participants in the 2014 Biennial.
Exhibition Support
4 is co-commissioned by the Walker Art Center, with support provided by the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
4 was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Generous support for 4 at the Whitney Museum of American Art is provided by an anonymous donor. Funding for the Whitney’s Performance Program is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Performance Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
About the Whitney
The Whitney Museum of American Art is the world’s leading museum of twentieth-century and contemporary art of the United States. Focusing particularly on works by living artists, the Whitney is celebrated for presenting important exhibitions and for its renowned collection, which comprises over 19,000 works by more than 2,900 artists. With a history of exhibiting the most promising and influential artists and provoking intense debate, the Whitney Biennial, the Museum's signature exhibition, has become the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the United States. In addition to its landmark exhibitions, the Museum is known internationally for events and educational programs of exceptional significance and as a center for research, scholarship, and conservation.
Founded by sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930, the Whitney was first housed on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. The Museum relocated in 1954 to West 54th Street and, in 1966, inaugurated its present home, designed by Marcel Breuer, at 945 Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. While its vibrant program of exhibitions and events continues uptown, the Whitney is moving forward with a new building project, designed by Renzo Piano, in downtown Manhattan. Located at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Streets in the Meatpacking District, at the southern entrance to the High Line, the new building, which has generated immense momentum and support, will enable the Whitney to vastly increase the size and scope of its exhibition and programming space. Ground was broken on the new building in May 2011, and it is projected to open to the public in 2015.
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art:
Robert Indiana: Beyond Love Through January 5, 2014
Rituals of Rented Island:
Object Theater, Loft Performance,
and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970–1982 Through February 2, 2014
T.J. Wilcox: In the Air Through February 9, 2014
Edward Steichen in the 1920s and 1930s:
A Recent Acquisition Dec 6, 2013-Feb 2014
In Parts Through March 2, 2014
2014 Whitney Biennial March 7-May 25, 2014
Jeff Koons: A Retrospective June 27-October 19, 2014
The Whitney Museum is located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, New York City. Museum hours are: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday. General admission: $20. Full-time students and visitors ages 19–25 and 62 & over: $16. Visitors 18 & under and Whitney members: FREE. Admission is pay-what-you-wish on
Fridays, 6–9 p.m. For general information, please call (212) 570-3600 or visit http://www.whitney.org.
Image credit: Sarah Michelson (b. 1964), Devotion Study #1—The American Dancer, February 2012, during the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Photograph © Paula Court
