In Performance: Anne Waldman and James Brandon Lewis respond to ‘Pat Steir. Blue River and Rainbow Waterfalls’, NYC
Sat 19 Nov 2022, 2 pm
Hauser and & Wirth, 22nd Street, NYC
On the occasion of ‘Pat Steir. Blue River and Rainbow Waterfalls’, the artist’s inaugural exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, and first show in New York City since 2017, please join us for a performance by poet Anne Waldmanand visionary composer and tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, in response to the works on view at Hauser Wirth New York 22nd Street.
This event is free, however, reservations are required.
About Pat Steir
Among the great innovators of contemporary painting, Pat Steir first came to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s for her iconographic canvases and immersive wall drawings. By the late 1980s, her inventive approach to painting—the rigorous pouring technique seen in her Waterfall works, in which she harnessed the forces of gravity and gesture to achieve works of astonishing lyricism—attracted substantial critical acclaim. Informed by a deep engagement with art history and Eastern philosophy, and a passion for artistic advocacy in the both the visual and literary realms, Steir’s storied five-decade career continues to reach new heights through an intrepid commitment to material exploration and experimentation.
About Anne Waldman
Poet, curator, professor, performer, and cultural activist Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics program at Naropa University. She is the author of over 60 volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies including The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in The Mechanism of Concealment (Coffee House Press) which won the Pen Center Literary Prize. Penguin has published her books over many years, including Trickster Feminism, among five others. Her album SCIAMACHY was released in 2020 by Fast Speaking Music and the Levy-Gorvy Gallery. Waldman is most recently the author of Bard, Kinetic (Coffee House Press, 2023) and co-editor with Emma Gomis of New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive, (Nightboat, 2022). Waldman was the keynote speaker for the Bob Dylan and the Beats Conference in Tulsa in the Spring of 2022, and she wrote the libretto for the critically acclaimed opera/movie “Black Lodge” with music by composer David T. Little that premiered at Opera Philadelphia in October of 2022. Publishers Weekly has called Anne Waldman a “counter-cultural giant.”
About James Brandon Lewis
James Brandon Lewis is a critically-acclaimed composer, saxophonist, and writer. He has received accolades from NPR, ASCAP Foundation, Macdowell, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. He has released several critically-acclaimed albums, most recently highly touted 2021’s Jesup Wagon, and is a member and co-founder of American Book Award winning Ensemble Heroes Are Gang Leaders. James was recently voted Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist by Downbeat magazine’s 2020s International Critics poll, and most recently named top Tenor Saxophonist for 2021 by Jazz Times Magazine. Lewis was recently named the Inaugural recipient of the Phd Fellowship in Creativity by the University of the Arts in collaboration with The Balvenie, drummer and Academy Award-Winning Director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.
