COURTESY AMHERST.EDU
France’s Ministry of Culture and Communication announced today that the executive director of The Kitchen, Tim Griffin, and composer David Lang will be awarded the insignia of chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters tomorrow, October 16, at the Payne Whitney Mansion in New York. Bénédicte de Montlaur, the French Embassy’s cultural counselor, will present the award, which was created in 1957 to recognize those who have contributed to the furthering of French art.
Both as editor-in-chief of Artforum International and in his current role at The Kitchen in New York, Griffin has notably supported French artists such as Guy de Cointet, Chris Marker, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Cyprien Gaillard. In 2014, he organized a symposium at The Kitchen that included French philosophers Patricia Falguières, Patrice Maniglier, Emily Apter, and Tristan Garcia, and has contributed to arts initiatives produced by the French Embassy, such as ART2: An International Platform on Contemporary art in April 2014 and DANSE: A Franco-American Festival of Performance and Ideas in May of the same year.
David Lang’s achievements in music (which have earned him a Grammy, a Bessie, an Obie, and a Pulitzer) include his work as co-founder and co-artistic director of contemporary music collective Bang on a Can, which has toured widely in French. Additionally, Lang often collaborates with French choreographers like Maud le Pladec and Benjamin Millepied, and has contributed to French art projects and installations at the Fondation Cartier and the Raymond Raymond Poincaré hospital.