September 8–October 20, 2014
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York’s premiere French cultural center, is thrilled to announce the eighth annual edition of its acclaimed contemporary arts festival Crossing the Line, presenting interdisciplinary works and performances by artists from around the world in venues throughout New York City. Initiated and produced in partnership with leading cultural institutions, Crossing the Line nurtures the dialogue between artist and public, and examines how artists help re-imagine the world as critical thinkers and catalysts for social evolution. This year, the festival will offer New Yorkers a chance to engage with the work and imagination of 15 extraordinary international artists and companies.
Events include:
Olivier Saillard: Models never talk (world premiere)
Co-presented with Milk Studios
Monday, September 8, 4pm & 7pm
Milk Studios, 450 West 15th Street, 8th Floor (between Ninth and Tenth Avenues)
FIAF members 20 USD; non-members 30 USD
In the 1950s, Parisian couturiers arrived in New York with their collections in suitcases, models in tow.
In 2014, French fashion curator and director of the Palais Galliera Olivier Saillard will land with only his muses and their memories. Seven former supermodels break their traditional silence in a world-premiere performance that reveals the person behind the image, and the soul beneath the style.
Prune Nourry: Terracotta Daughters
Co-presented with China Institute
Opening: Wednesday, September 10, 7–9pm
September 11–October 4
China Institute, 104 Washington Street (corner of Rector Street)
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday noon–6pm, Wednesday noon–8pm
Free and open to the public
An army of young girls assembles in the first U.S. showing of Terracotta Daughters, a monumental exhibition of 108 life-sized and individually crafted clay sculptures that recall China’s famous Terracotta Warriors. Created by New York-based French artist Prune Nourry with expert craftsmen in X’ian, this installation is a powerful investigation of the impact of gender selection in Asia and beyond.
Julie Béna: T&T Consortium: You’re already elsewhere
Opening: Tuesday, September 16, 6–8pm
September 17–October 18
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–6pm, Saturday 11am–5pm
Free and open to the public
French artist Julie Béna invites gallery visitors to enter a transitional space at the threshold of science fiction and reality. Utilizing the familiar visual vocabulary of travel, her site-specific installation of sculptures, sound, images, and videos inspires visitors to imagine their own destinations.
Curated by Flora Katz
Fernando Rubio: Everything by my side (US premiere)
Co-presented with Performance Space 122 (PS 122) & Hudson River Park
Friday, September 26, Saturday, September 27 & Sunday, September 28
Hudson River Park
5 USD
Seven actresses in seven pristine white beds in a public space whisper vivid childhood memories to individual audience members in Everything by my side. This dreamlike installation and performance juxtaposing a quiet personal moment with the busyness of the city marks the US debut of celebrated Argentinean artist Fernando Rubio.
Gilles Jobin Company, Gilles Jobin & Julius von Bismarck: QUANTUM (US premiere)
Co-presented with BAM 2014 Next Wave Festival and the Hermès Foundation’s (Fondation d’entreprise Hermès) New Settings program
Thursday, October 2–Saturday, October 4, 7:30pm
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space, 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NYC
20 USD
Six dancers vibrate, scatter, and whirl beneath a pendulous light installation programmed to swing in response to the slightest movements. In this new collaboration between Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin and German visual artist Julius von Bismarck, the crackling energy of subatomic particles is magnified to human scale, while Carla Scaletti’s soundscape, derived from particle collision data, provides the sonic ether.
Retrospective by Xavier Le Roy
Presented by MoMA PS1 as part of Crossing the Line 2014
October 2–December 1
MoMA PS1, 22–25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NYC
Hours: noon–6pm
Tickets: museum admission
A landmark exhibition of gesture and speech highlights the canonical career of French choreographer Xavier Le Roy in the MoMA PS1 galleries. Over the course of two months, more than a decade’s worth of solo work is continuously recycled and transformed by a team of local performers, while visitors are invited to experience the varying ways we use, consume, or produce time.
Jessica Mitrani & Rossy de Palma: Traveling Lady (world premiere)
Friday, October 10 & Saturday, October 11, 7:30pm
Co-presented with the Hermès Foundation’s (Fondation d’entreprise Hermès) New Settings program
FIAF, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues)
FIAF members 10 USD; non-members 20 USD
Colombian-born, New York-based visual artist Jessica Mitrani conjures the daring spirit of Nellie Bly, the 19th-century American journalist who circled the globe in 72 days carrying little more than the clothes on her back. Spanish actress Rossy de Palma—best known as Pedro Almodόvar’s muse—plays many roles in this multimedia adventure that explores and explodes feminine archetypes and stereotypes.
Ryoji Ikeda: superposition (US premiere)
Co-presented with the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Friday, October 17 & Saturday, October 18, 7pm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
35 USD
A music, visual, and theater work at the intersection of art and science, superposition, from the restless and vital mind of composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda, is an immersive experience: an orchestrated journey through sound, language, physical phenomena, mathematical concepts, human behavior, and randomness, all simultaneously arranged and rearranged in a theatrical arc that obliterates the boundaries between music, visual arts, and performance.
Ryoji Ikeda: test pattern [times square] (US premiere)
Co-presented with Times Square Arts and Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC)
October 1–October 31, 11:57pm–midnight
Times Square
Free and open to the public
Ikeda’s test pattern, first experienced as an installation in New York at the Park Avenue Armory, is brought outdoors and reimagined for Times Square as the October Midnight Moment, tightly synchronized, flickering black and white imagery—mining data for mathematical beauty.
Ryjoi Ikeda at Salon 94
Co-presented with Salon 94
October 20–October 31
Salon 94, 12 East 94th Street (between Fifth and Madison Avenues)
Hours: Monday–Friday: 11am–6pm
A special exhibition of select pieces by Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda.
For the full schedule of events, visit our fiaf.org/ctl.
