Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
UK
The Serpentine Galleries announces a new summer of Park Nights, its annual series of art, music, film, philosophy and technology conceived in response to the Serpentine’s annual architecture commission, this year designed by the award-winning architect Francis Kéré. The 2017 Serpentine Pavilion encourages visitors to gather under its tree-like structure and connect with the natural landscape of the park. Each Park Night will examine the flow and movement of people, both within the space and in wider social contexts.
Park Nights 2017 commences on June 30 with renowned cinematographer and artist Arthur Jafa. Dancer and choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen presents Corbeaux, a performance which draws from 9th–11th century Persian literature. Artist Tamara Henderson enlivens her anthropomorphic sculptures through a filmed choreography that incorporates costume, scent and elixirs. The collective Black Quantum Futurism develops strategies for marginalised communities to survive in a high-tech world. Artist Shen Xin presents a live interpretation of her films, exploring criticism as an embodied emotional state. Pioneering performance artist Eleanor Antin makes a rare London appearance, in an event which addresses concepts of the self. Artist and writer Joseph Grigely focuses on language, and speaking without sound. Park Nights culminates with the GUEST, GHOST, HOST: MACHINE! Marathon on October 7.
Tickets avilable via Ticketweb.co.uk or phone T +44 20 7402 6075.
Arthur Jafa
Friday, June 30, 8pm
Cinematographer and artist Arthur Jafa hosts an evening in response to his summer exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions.
Bouchra Ouizguen, Corbeaux
Friday, July 14, 8pm and 9:30pm
Corbeaux is performed by ten women from Morocco and ten from London, brought together in a series of workshops. Forming geometric alchemical arrangements, the performers make piercing sounds and extraordinary cries in a stirring display of movement and sound. Presented in partnership with the Shubbak Festival 2017.
Tamara Henderson, Seasons End: Out of Body
Friday, July 21, 8pm
Tamara Henderson’s Out of Body is a choreography for film, 24 frames per second. Costumed nomadic species move through character phases, embodying their pasts in the present, collectively pulsing a plot-twisting heartbeat.
Black Quantum Futurism
Friday, August 18, 8pm
Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) is an interdisciplinary collaboration exploring the intersections of futurism, creative media, DIY-aesthetics, and activism in marginalised communities. BQF focuses on developing practices and temporal technologies for survival in a high-tech world dominated by oppressive, fatalistic constructs of linear time.
Shen Xin, half-sung, half-spoken
Friday, August 25, 8pm
Shen Xin presents her film Provocation of the Nightingale #1, which involves a personal dialogue between a Buddhist teacher who is an immigrant in Korea and her student who manages a commercial DNA company. The screening, followed by a performance, confronts how criticism can unfold through emotional states that are informed by socio-political structures.
Eleanor Antin, Me, Myself and I
Friday, September 15, 8pm
Eleanor Antin is the creator of the iconic photo postcard epic The Adventures of 100 BOOTS, the notorious conceptual sculpture CARVING, paper-doll film thriller The Nurse and the Hijackers, The King of Solana Beach and The Last Days of Pompeii among other works. Antin will read from three autobiographies, Conversations with Stalin, An Artist’s Life: Eleanora Antinova and Being Antinova, each authored by a different one of her selves.
Joseph Grigely, Blueberry Surprise
Friday, September 22, 8pm
Artist and writer Joseph Grigely presents a play for three voices. Grigely, who is deaf, communicates with people who do not know sign language by asking them to write things down. These inscribed notes, collected over a period of ten years and edited into a new narrative, form the basis of Blueberry Surprise.
Park Nights 2017 is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director; Claude Adjil, Curator, Public Programmes and Taylor Le Melle, Assistant Curator, Public Programmes.
