On Saturday, November 4th at 7pm, ISSUE celebrates the exact day of the organization’s 20th Anniversary with yours in dentistry, a specially produced final program from 2023 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow evil dentist (Alice Gerlach & David Farrow). This culminating Fellowship project brings together artists blurring the boundaries between life/work and art/work. These practitioners understand community building as integral to their creative practice, breathing new life into the spaces, scenes, and worlds they travel through. Multi-disciplinary artist Bk will present work that unifies sculpture, noise, and poetry to uncover unexamined histories. Electronic musician and performance artist ANNIHIL will intertwine pop, punk, and experimental dance music within a kaleidoscope of light and sound. Performances will occur at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Pl. theater within an immersive sound and sculptural installation by evil dentist. This installation will draw from their research to demonstrate how experimenting with space transforms intimacy, allowing a closeness in sound that is the kernel of community.
Caught between doing-it-yourself and institutionalization, how do artists navigate the cost of living in New York City? What freedoms and compromises exist between the basement venue and the fine art gallery? What role do artists play in shaping urban change? These questions have informed evil dentist's curation at ISSUE both in gathering artists who embody socially engaged creative practices and in transforming underutilized spaces through performance. The purpose of evil dentist's curatorial and installation practice is not to offer conclusive answers, but to arrange materials, perspectives, and people to initiate the conversation. To this end, in addition to performances by artists Bk & ANNIHIL, evil dentist's final program gathers artists, organizers, and writers involved in the do-it-yourself music venues and scenes throughout the city to reflect on the role of DIY culture in creative practice, community formation, and activism. Moderated by author Liz Pelly, the panel consists of Charlie Dore-Young, John Pugh, and ricky sallay zoker. In gathering together to hear the panel's insights and experience the performers' visions, evil dentist invites the audience to imagine what a democratic, non-hierarchical art space might feel like.
Between Friday, Oct 13th and Saturday, Nov 4th, ISSUE invites audiences to experience numerous programs including new commissions and restaging of programs specifically designed for a limited capacity environment of 74 people. In honoring ISSUE’s formation as a not-for-profit (501c3) organization on November 4th, 2003, ISSUE is pleased to be giving the 22 Boerum Pl. theater to curators and artists who bring forth ideas about real estate being utilized for experimental artistic practices. yours in dentistry is the final program in this celebratory Series, on the day of our 20th Anniversary.
During these presentations a lobby installation by Eva Davidova: Vinson and Catherine in the Garden, a series of augmented reality prints will be on display.
ISSUE Project Room Members tickets are half price and members retain exclusive access to all limited-capacity events until sold out.
Bk (Benjamin Kendall) is a poet, performance, visual, and sound artist from Atlanta, Georgia currently based in Brooklyn NY. Bk’s practice moves between objects and sound, reflecting on how sculpture reimages communication within physical and sonic spaces. Conceptually, Bk is concerned with revoicing and the reclaiming of stolen space, time, and histories. Audiences experience a unfolding and refolding of time through Bk’s performances as the stable space of experience is lost among the many ways time could have unfolded differently. To this end, Bk images every performance as “reconnecting, rediscovering, and recreating moments hidden; creating a new language of representation.”
ANNIHIL, alias of Nihil Hell Lean, is a producer, performer, and digital patchwork artist making outsider dance music. He has been traversing the realms of the underground since 2012, and is based in Queens, NY. In summer of 2023, he will be a guest composer at Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm, SE. Find him at annihil.xyz or @ann1h1l.
