Guitar: Justin Allen with S*an D. Henry-Smith
Thursday, October 1st, writer and performer Justin Allen continues his 2020 ISSUE residency with the premiere of Guitar, a performance stemming from ongoing research into how to emulate, experiment with, and better understand the performance practices of punk singers. The performance is streamed from ISSUE’s 22 Boerum theater.
Building on his work Explain Totality (version 4) in which he performs as a singer of a four-piece punk band, Allen is preparing a series of performances in which he sings and experiments with screaming vocal techniques, accompanied by three isolated instruments: electric guitar, electric bass, and drums. The performances focus on the individual instruments, incorporating both rehearsed and improvised material as well as movement. The first performance of the series, Guitar, will feature electric guitar and vocals by poet S*an D. Henry-Smith.
Justin Allen experiments with performance and writing. His work focuses on the ways aesthetic, structural, and conceptual features in art and language communicate social histories. He has performed at Performance Space New York and Brooklyn Museum with frequent collaborator Devin Kenny, and performed solo work at Movement Research at the Judson Church, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and ISSUE Project Room, among other venues. He has read his poetry, fiction, and nonfiction at venues such as The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, Kampnagel (Hamburg, Germany), and Artists Space. His work has received support from Franklin Furnace, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and The Shed. He is from Northern Virginia and lives and works in New York City.
S*an D. Henry-Smith is an artist and writer working primarily in poetry, photography and performance, engaging Black experimentalisms and collaborative practices. S*an received their BA in Studio Art from Hamilton College, and have been awarded fellowships, grants, and residencies from Denniston Hill, Lotos Foundation, and Antenna/Paper Machine. S*an’s words and photographs have appeared in Apogee Journal, FACT, The Felt, The New York Times, Triple Canopy, and elsewhere. S*an collaborates with Imani Elizabeth Jackson as MouthFeel; their forthcoming book Consider the Tongue explores histories of aquatic labor and Black food through poetry, performance, and ephemeral practices. The author of two chapbooks, Wild Peach, S*an’s first full length collection of poems and photographs, is forthcoming on Futurepoem.
This recording features audio description and captioning
[Image description: Justin, a Black person wearing black gym shorts, a grey t shirt, black socks, and black pattern sneakers, leans back with his feet planted apart and sings into a mic. A spotlight illuminates one side of his body, while the other side and his face are cast in shadow].
ISSUE Project Room's annual Artist-in-Residence program provides New York-based emerging artists with a year of support, offering artists access to facilities, equipment, documentation, pr/marketing, curatorial and technical expertise to develop and present significant new works, reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience.
ISSUE Project Room's Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. ISSUE gratefully acknowledges additional 2020 Season support from The Golden Rule Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Metabolic Studio (a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation), NOKIA Bell Labs, and the TD Charitable Foundation.
