When David Geffen Hall reopens on the Lincoln Center campus this fall, two new works of art – by Nina Chanel Abney and by Jacoby Satterwhite – will be spread over 65th Street frontage and a 50-foot media wall in Renovations lobby.
These highly visible works, commissioned by the performing arts center in partnership with Studio Museum in Harlem and Public Art Foundationis positioned to help reintroduce the long-standing home of the New York Philharmonic to the city and will inaugurate a rotating program of invited visual artists to stamp their stamp on Lincoln Center.
Henry Timms, president and chief executive officer of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, said: “One of the key goals of the new David Geffen Hall was to find ways to make more meaningful connections with the outside world – not just to open the door but also to reach. . “We were very intentional in thinking about different voices, different audiences, more people seeing themselves at Lincoln Center. Museum Studio is the perfect partner for that. ”
Because museumhas hosted temporary public art installations since 2016 in Harlem while its 125th Street building being built, this partnership is “an excellent opportunity to expand our involvement in site-specific commissioned artworks,” said Thelma Golden, the Museum’s director and principal curator Studio said. It also allows the museum to complement the work at Lincoln Center “to expand and deepen and broaden their program and the ways in which they engage audiences.” Golden has used the Public Arts Foundation for the organization’s resources and expertise in undertaking large-scale public projects.
Together, the organizations developed a curatorial vision and identified two prominent locations for the artwork – a 10,000 square foot site on the north facade of the building and a multimedia wall. just ran down the hallway. This space has been treated as a kind of lounge, open to the public all day for drinks. The nonticketholder will be able to view the artwork on the media wall which will also broadcast the Philharmonic down the hall while it is playing upstairs. Abney, 39, is known for her bold, large-size paintings, and Satterwhite, 36, a multidisciplinary artist who combines digital media and painting, was selected from more than half a dozen skin artists. color is invited to make recommendations specific to each location.
That façade has long been thought of as the empty back of the building and is concealed from view, said Nicholas Baume, artistic and executive director of the Public Art Foundation. “It’s right at the intersection of all these major thoroughfares and can express this concept that Lincoln Center wants to expand with the city and address some of the podium elevations like the iconic citadel of the original building complex.”
In a dynamic constellation of colorful stylized figures, symbols and patterns that will be printed on vinyl and applied across a grid of 35 windows in that north façade, Abney will pay homage to San Juan Hilla predominantly Black and Puerto Rican neighborhood was demolished to make way for the 14-acre federal-supported Lincoln Center project, which broke ground in 1959.
Abney, who is working with Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture to study the San Juan Hills, considered the birthplace of Charleston and bebop, and home to musicians including jazz pianists Thelonious Monk. “It’s an acknowledgment and celebration of what was there.”
In parallel, the Lincoln Center commissioned the composer Etienne Charles to explore the neighborhood’s heritage in a production, “San Juan Hills,” which will be performed for free by the Philharmonic in the new hall on October 8.
“This is part of a necessary attachment to our history,” said Timms. “This is not a one-time.”
In a poetic, digitally animated setting that will unfold on a 50-foot media wall in the lobby, Satterwhite intends to tell a story about the past, present, and future of the New York Philharmonic. “The history of Lincoln Center is very male and white – that’s what it’s supposed to be,” says Satterwhite. He is working with archivists there to exploit footage of conductors and performers of different races and genders working more on the sidelines of the Philharmonic, to turn it into a kind of concert. pastoral concert with 100 student musicians and dancers from Alvin Ailey, LaGuardia High School and others that Satterwhite is filming.
“I wanted to reframe a timeline that could be told traditionally, without any sort of hierarchy,” says Satterwhite. According to him, the pandemic has provided an opportunity for “culture and society to reshape and reflect on itself. I wanted this piece to be about moving forward.”
