KRISTIAN KRUUSER/COURTESY THE WATERMILL CENTER
The Watermill Center, a so-called “performance laboratory” founded by avant-garde director Robert Wilson in an abandoned Western Union facility on Long Island, turns ten next year. To celebrate, the center has organized a yearlong schedule of events and programs.
Most notably, Watermill will amp up its number of artist residencies, from the usual average of 14 to 27 in 2016. Past alumni of the residency program include artists like Christopher Knowles and Shirin Neshat. Watermill has also started a new program called reACT, showcasing past artists-in-residence, with performances next year by Jack Ferver, Paola Prestini, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company, which will inaugurate the series on May 28, 2016 with a performance called Trisha Brown: In Plain Site.
In addition, Watermill has started a new fellowship, named for philanthropist Inga Maren Otto, and will present site-specific commissions at Berlin’s Kindl Centre for Contemporary Art. The center will also host a series of events out of its West 29th Street offices in Manhattan throughout 2016.
In a statement, Wilson said: “At Watermill, the space is maintained in a certain order, allowing others to interface with it, change it, and develop their own work in an aesthetic that can be completely different from my own. This is how I learn and grow in my own work.”
The full lineup is below.
Inga Maren Otto Fellows
Basco Vazko, Untitled
February 29 – March 27, 2016
G.T. Pellizzi, Hands-on Abstraction
June 1 – 19, 2016
Zeinab Shahidi Marnani, Histories
September 5 – 25, 2016
reACT Series
Trisha Brown Dance Company, Trisha Brown: In Plain Site
May 28 & 29, 2016
Paola Prestini with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Oceanic Verses
September 24 & 25, 2016
Jack Ferver, Chambre
October 29 & 30, 2016
2016 Special Events
FADA | The Watermill Center in Berlin
Kindl – Centre for Contemporary Art
April 29 & 30, 2016
23rd Annual Watermill Center Summer
Benefit & Auction
July 30, 2016
Discover Watermill Day
August 14, 2016
Viewpoints @ 29th Street
March 1, 2016
October 11, 2016
December 6, 2016
Summer Lecture Series
August 2 – 13, 2016
International Summer Program
July 18 – August 20, 2016
2016 Artists-in-Residence:
- Hans-Jörn Brandenburg, performance artist, Germany
- Sophia Brous, composer and performance artist, Australia
- Kenneth Collins, musician, United States
- Alejandro Contreras, multidisciplinary artist, Chile
- Matty Davis, film and performance artist, United States
- Joe Diebes, performance and visual artist, United States
- Francesca Fini, visual and performance artist, Italy
- Ébana Garín, multidisciplinary artist, Chile
- Joss Lake, site-specific novelist, Untied States
- Armando Mariño, visual artist, United States
- Mary Mattingly, visual artist, United States
- Noel McKenna, visual artist, Australia
- Sahra Motalebi, performance artist, United States
- Ebe Oke, composer and performance artist, United Kingdom
- Andrew Ondrejcak, performance artist, United States
- Alan Lucien Øyen, performance artist, Norway
- Matthew Prest, performance artist, Australia
- Álvaro Restrepo, performance artist, Colombia
- Thomas Riccio, multidisciplinary artist, United States
- Silas Riener, performance artist, United States
- Lisa Ross, visual and performance artist, United States
- Zach Eugene Salinger-Simonson, designer, United States
- Tori Wrånes, performance artist, Norway
- Netta Yerushalmy, performance artist, United States