Matthew Lutz-Kinoy

For this project, Lutz-Kinoy reinterprets the one-act ballet Filling Station originally staged by the short-lived troupe Ballet Caravan (1936-1940)—which grew out of American Ballet, co-founded by Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine and Edward Warburg—as part of a presentation titled A Sunday in Town, which debuted in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 6, 1938. The original performance featured music by composer Virgil Thomson, choreography by Lew Christensen (known for his direction of the San Francisco Ballet from 1952 to 1984), and set and costumes by artist Paul Cadmus. This ballet is credited as the first ballet directed by an American choreographer, danced by an American company, and based on an American theme, with music and designs by American artists. A response to—and refusal of—a Eurocentric canon of classical ballet, this work brought to the fore a group of collaborators that shone light on questions of American industry, capital, class, and gender roles. It also put new language to an idea of the “American pastoral,” a renegotiation of city and country in a period where much of the material of American suburbanism was in the process of being built, deeply defined by the mobility of Americans via automobiles.

Lutz-Kinoy’s restaging considers this 1938 work of American dance through a contemporary lens, creating a dynamic, queered space for reflection on race, class, and gender. The multi-site presentation in New York brings together a culmination of research begun in 2020 with collaborators in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Archival elements drawn from Lutz-Kinoy’s research are on display as a document of three years of discovery, including reproductions of Paul Cadmus’s drawings and photographs by photographers George Platt Lynes and Fred Melton, alongside new photography by artist Mary Manning. Central to the exhibition is a series of immersive paintings by Lutz-Kinoy, inspired by Walker Evans’s photographs and Cadmus’s historic sets for the original Filling Station ballet. The artist’s canvases here utilized as set design for the rehearsal process merge into new architectures and relationships between the technical mechanics of the originating performance and its contemporary representation.

Lutz-Kinoy’s Filling Station features new choreography Niall Jones (lead choreographer) and Raymond Pinto (consulting choreographer); a new music score made by James Ferraro; a set design by Lutz-Kinoy; and costumes by Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta of fashion label Eckhaus Latta. The ensemble of dancers includes Bria Bacon, Ayano Elson, Maxfield Haynes, Niall Jones, Kris Lee, Niala, and Mina Nishimura.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy: Filling Station is commissioned by The Kitchen and organized by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator, and Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant, The Kitchen.

The performance at Dia Beacon is co-presented with Dia Art Foundation and organized by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator, The Kitchen, Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant, The Kitchen, and Jordan Carter, Curator, Dia Art Foundation.

Production by David Riley, Production & Exhibitions Manager, and Tassja Walker, Production Supervisor, The Kitchen. Rehearsal and performance videography by Al Foote III.

To learn more about this exhibition, visit The Kitchen’s digital guide on Bloomberg Connects.

PERFORMANCES

September 14 and 15, 5:30pm Horatio Street Gas Station (51-67 8th Ave (Horatio), New York, NY 10014)

Free with RSVP. SOLD OUT.

September 23, 2pm Dia Beacon (3 Beekman St, Beacon, NY 12508)

Free with museum admission, registration is required. SOLD OUT.

BIOS

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (he/him, 1984, New York City, New York) lives and works in Paris, France.

Embracing the spirit of collaboration as a means to expand knowledge and skills, the breadth of techniques and references used across Lutz-Kinoy’s practice are the result of many collaborative ventures. Where his ceramics are influenced by working with artists in Europe and Brazil, his large-scale paintings often installed like backdrops, tapestries, wall panels or suspended ceilings assert matters of pleasure, color, intimacy, motion, as fundamental. Lutz-Kinoy’s work looks through a history of representation from the rococo to orientalism to abstract expressionism; challenging what constitutes the inside and the outside of the arts, the social and the self. At the core of Lutz-Kinoy’s practice is performance. Influenced by histories of queer and collaborative practice as well as his background in theatre and choreography, his live work explores the interplay of narratives that are created and constructed between individuals and social spaces.

His recent solo shows include Plate is Bed Plate is Sun Plate is Circle Plate is Cycle, Mennour, Paris (2022), Link Room Project, Cranford Collection, London (2022), Manikin, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2022); Window to the Clouds, Museum Frieder Burda | Salon Berlin, Berlin (2021); Two Hands on Earth, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2019);* Sea Spray*, Vleeshal, Middelburg (2018); The Meadow, Le Centre d’édition Contemporaine, Geneva (2018); Southern Garden of the Château Bellevue, Consortium Museum, Dijon (2018); Fooding, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris (2018).

His recent performance work includes Soap Bubbles with Jan Vorisek, Art Basel Parcours, Basel (2022), Scalable Skeletal Escalator by Isabel Lewis, Kunsthalle Zurich (2020); Screaming Compost with Jan Vorisek, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich (2019); Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber by Isabel Lewis, Sharjah (2019); Rotting Wood, the Dripping Word: Shūji Terayama’s Kegawa no Marii, MoMA PS1, New York (2016).

James Ferraro (he/him) is an American experimental musician, producer, composer, and artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st-century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes related to hyperreality and consumer culture. His music has drawn on diverse styles such as 1980s electronic music, easy listening, drone, lo-fi, sound collage, and R&B. Ferraro began his career in the early 2000s as a member of the Californian noise duo The Skaters, after which he began recording solo work under his name and a wide variety of aliases. He released projects on labels such as Hippos in Tanks and New Age Tapes. Ferraro received wider recognition when his polarizing 2011 album Far Side Virtual was chosen as Album of the Year by The Wire.

Niall Jones (he/him) is an artist working and living in New York City. Jones constructs, inhabits, and explores the theater as a mode and location of instabilities. Working through an ongoing fascination with labor, temporality, and fantasy, Jones creates immersive, liminal sites for practicing incompleteness and refusal. Jones received a Bessie Award nomination for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer in 2017 and, more recently, a 2021 Grants-To-Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Recent works include: A Work for Others at The Kitchen OnScreen (2021); Fantasies in Low Fade at Chocolate Factory Theater, New York City (2019); Sis Minor: The Preliminary Studies at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (2018); Sis Minor, in Fall at Abrons Arts Center, New York City (2018), and Splendor #3 at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, New York City (2017). Jones received a BFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches at the University of the Arts, School of Dance in Philadelphia, where he is also producer and co-curator of The School for Temporary Liveness (Vol. 1 & 2).

Raymond Pinto (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice moves in and through performance. A graduate of the Juilliard School with a BFA in Dance and an MA from NYU-Performance Studies, their process of constructing performances often leans into the reconciliation of time as medium to situate experimental performance. Their works have been presented at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, CUE Art Foundation, Participant, inc., the Venice Biennale, Art Cake, Chez Bushwick. Raymond is inspired by the recovery of the arts, and is looking forward to future opportunities to continue to create experimental performances.

Mike Eckhaus (he/him) and Zoe Latta (she/her) are the founders of Eckhaus Latta, a New York– and Los Angeles–based label that distinguishes itself from its peers with gender-neutral designs and has built a reputation for casting models of all genders, ages, shapes, and sizes in its runway shows and campaigns. Eckhaus and Latta met at Rhode Island School of Design, where Latta studied textile design and Eckhaus studied sculpture. After graduating in 2010, the duo cut their teeth working for a number of brands and institutions: Eckhaus worked as an accessories designer at Marc by Marc Jacobs, while Latta was a knitwear designer at Opening Ceremony and also ran a textile company that supplied fabric to Calvin Klein and Proenza Schouler. In 2011, the two came together to launch Eckhaus Latta and showed their first collection in New York for Spring/Summer 2013. The designers are also known for using unconventional fabrics like plastics and fishing lines. Eckhaus and Latta started working with European fabric mills for the first time in 2017, although the designers still use deadstock materials—a key element of their early collections. In 2016, the label opened its first store in front of its studio space in Los Angeles. The brand is stocked in 55 locations around the world, including Nordstrom, Ssense, and Opening Ceremony, and was one of the finalists for the LVMH Prize in 2018.

Bria Bacon (she/her) is a 20-something, queer, performing artist. Although she is predominantly trained in movement art (dance), she holds passions and gifts in writing, sound-making, and theater. Bacon is currently occupying Munsee-Lenape lands in Brooklyn, as well as growing relationships abroad. She has worked with Sally Silvers Dance, Donna Uchizono Company, Kyle Marshall Choreography, Stephen Petronio Company, as well as Beth Gill and Rachel Comey in NYFW. Her current collaborations include Company Christoph Winkler, Stacy Spence, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group. Bacon is originally from Munsee-Lenape lands in central New Jersey.

Kris Lee (she/they) is a New York based dancer, performer and DJ. She received her BFA in Dance from University of the Arts in 2019. Kris was a member of the Stephen Petronio Company (2021-22) and has toured with nora chipaumire (2019-20). She was one of the creators and performers for high noon (2022), the interdisciplinary performance work produced by Ninth Planet. Most recently they have performed in Remains Persist (2022) & Out of and Into: Plot (2023) By Moriah Evans; Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd (reprisal) by Ishmael Houston-Jones & Miguel Gutierrez (2023); duel c by Andros Zins-Browne (2023).

Ayano Elson (she/her) is an Okinawan-American choreographer and dancer based in New York. She was born in Okinawa, a small island colonized by Japan in 1879 and occupied by the United States from 1945–1972. Elson’s choreography investigates roles of labor and power in contemporary American artmaking. Her choreography has been presented by AUNTS, the Chocolate Factory, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Knockdown Center, Movement Research, and Roulette, among others. She has received funding support from Dance/NYC, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. She has been an artist in residence at Abrons Arts Center, ArtCake, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, and Movement Research’s Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship. She has performed in works by Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, Milka Djordjevich, Simone Forti, Kyli Kleven, Abigail Levine, and Haegue Yang at Danspace, the Guggenheim, MoMA, MoMA PS1, MCA Chicago, New Museum, New York Live Arts, Pioneer Works, REDCAT, Roulette, SculptureCenter, and the Shed. Elson is currently working on a record with music collaborator Matt Evans and will be presenting new choreography at PAGEANT in October 2023.

Maxfield Haynes (they/he/she) is a multidisciplinary artist, dancer, and teacher living in NYC. They started their training at age 12 at the University of Louisville Dance Academy under Chuck Bronson and Cynthia Bronner, and continued their dance education with the Louisville Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School, Houston Ballet Academy, Dance Theatre of Harlem School, and HAMU Performing Arts University in Prague. They received a B.F.A. in Dance from NYU Tisch in 2018. Maxfield has toured extensively as a soloist with both Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. They are a frequent collaborator with Ballez, as well as Dance Heginbotham and Isaac Mizrahi for their yearly productions of Peter and the Wolf and Third Bird presented through the Guggenheim Works and Process. Most recently they started working for the Metropolitan Opera House as their first nonbinary soloist ballerina portraying the White Bird in Julie Taymor’s the Magic Flute. Their rep includes works by Marius Petipa, Peter Anastos, Paul Taylor, Bill T. Jones, Raja Featherkelly, Crystal Pite, Dwight Rhoden, Katy Pyle, John Heginbotham, Mark Dendy, Abdurrahim Jackson, Tislarm Bouie, and Durante Verzola.

Niala (she/they) is a Harlem-based black trans artist whose practice is centered around exploring the realms of music, movement, and acting. As a voguer in New York City’s ballroom scene, she implements her style of dancing into performances spaces throughout the city. Her recent collaborations include dancing for Honey Dijon at Ladyland Fest, and being a commissioned performer for The Shed’s second edition of Open Call and for The Studio Museum’s artist in residence program. Her artistry aims to contextualize and expound upon the black trans experience, while carrying on the legacy of the many iconic, legendary trans pioneers that have come before her.

Mina Nishimura (she/they), originally from Tokyo, was introduced to butoh and improvisational dance practice through Kota Yamazaki and studied at Merce Cunnigham Studio in NYC. Carrying Buddhism-influenced philosophies across her somatic, performance, choreographic, and art practices, Nishimura attempts to access and converse with invisible, marginalized, forgotten, abandoned or unknown beings, senses and realms. She has been performing and collaborating with a number of groundbreaking artists such as John Jasperse, Dean Moss, Kota Yamazaki, Neil Greenburg, Vicky Shick, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Yasuko Yokoshi, Yoshiko Chuma, Nami Yamamoto, DD Dorvillier, Ursula Eagly, Moriah Evans, Cori Olinghouse, and SIA for her Saturday Night Live performances. Commissioners of her recent works include NYU Skirball Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Danspace Project, Gibney, Mount Tremper Arts Center, Whitman College, and Sarah Lawrence College. Nishimura is a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award 2019, and was a cover and featured artist in the May 2021 issue of Dance Magazine. Nishimura was the Renewal Residency Artist of 2021-22 at Danspace Project where her new work, Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist, premiered in November 2022. She completed the MF Fellowship in 2021 at Bennington College in 2021, where she currently teaches.

Rob Kulisek (he/him, 1989, Philadelphia, PA) is an artist and photographer based in Paris. His work is marked by sensual, suggestive, and largely physical imagery. Capturing the high frequencies of bodies and interferences happening in group dynamics, his style is profoundly vibrant and contemplative. Whether in the form of exhibitions, collaborative works, experimental magazines, music labels or installations, he plays with rigid categories to espouse soft, flexible forms, sometimes deeply sincere and spontaneous, sometimes more analytical. Part of a generation of artists who are questioning porosities between art photography and Fashion photography and shifting their commercial and aesthetic stakes, his pictures are nurtured by subcultures that have emerged mostly in the 90’s and the 00’s in the indie-fashion photographic field. A large part of his practice is infused with anti-fashion, grunge, queer and porn-chic.

Commissioned by The Kitchen for the documentation of Filling Station, Kulisek drew inspiration from the iconic photographs of Walker Evans and George Platt Lynes from the original 1938 Ballet Caravan performance. This collaboration culminated in a publication that interweaves this new suite of images together with the historic Ballet Caravan imagery.

Mary Manning (they/them) models a method of close looking in carefully arranged juxtapositions of 35mm analog prints. Taking familiar objects and scenes as their subject matter, Manning’s photos picture people, nature, the street, and everything in between. Conceptualizing “paying attention as a practice of being alive,” the artist insists on the importance and meaning of quiet moments and humdrum things. For Manning, photography is an exercise in recording and collecting—often prints are paired with saved mementos such as insect parts, a restaurant napkin, or a plastic bag. The works exemplify both photography and looking as acts of care, tenderly drawing our attention to modest but remarkable moments. Manning has exhibited in solo exhibitions at Canada, New York; Sibling (née Little Sister), Toronto; and Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn. In 2022, they curated ‘Looking Back: The 12th White Columns Annual’ at White Columns, New York. A book compiling recent work, Grace Is Like New Music, was published by Canada in 2023. Manning received their BA in 1994 from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL.

Al Foote III is a photographer and videographer specializing in the performing arts. He has been one of the Kitchen’s in-house videographers for a decade. As a freelancer he’s worked with dozens of off-off-Broadway companies and dance companies, as well as portraiture and headshots. Clients include Nicole Mannarino Dance, Boundless Theatre Co., Resident Acting Co., Nylon Fusion, Hunger & Thirst and more.