September 19–October 13, 2013
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York’s premier French cultural center, is thrilled to announce the seventh 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.
Over twenty-five days, the festival will offer New Yorkers a chance to engage with the work and imagination of seventeen extraordinary international artists, several presenting their work and ideas in New York for the first time. 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.
Events include:
Xavier Veilhan & Eliane Radigue, Systema Occam (US premiere)
Co-presented with the Hermès Foundation’s New Settings program
Thursday, September 19, 8pm
FIAF, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues)
FIAF members: 20 USD; non-members: 30 USD; New Settings Package: 50 USD
This two-part performance, created by renowned French visual artist Xavier Veilhan and pioneering French electronic music composer Eliane Radigue, begins with a sensory art installation, interpreted by five performers who breathe life into inanimate objects through simple movements, and gradually gives way to Eliane Radigue’s work for solo harp, performed by illustrious British harpist Rhodri Davies, creating an immersive, continuous soundscape.
Martine Fougeron, Teen Tribe
Co-presented with The Gallery at Hermès, an exhibition produced by the Hermès Foundation
Friday, September 20–Friday, November 8
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 10am–6pm, Thursdays 10am–7pm
The Gallery at Hermès, 691 Madison Avenue at 62nd Street, 4th Floor
Free and open to the public
New York-based French photographer Martine Fougeron explores the transformative state of adolescence in Teen Tribe, a series of portraits of her two teen-aged sons and their friends. A colorful, sensual visual diary that captures the liminal state between childhood and adulthood, the feminine and the masculine, innocence and burgeoning self-identity.
Steve Lambert, Capitalism Works for Me! (True/False) (New York premiere)
Co-presented with Times Square Arts
Friday, September 20 noon–5pm
Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets
Sunday, October 6–Wednesday, October 9 noon–7pm
Broadway Plazas between 44th and 47th Streets
Free and open to the public
American artist Steve Lambert invites the public to engage in one of the 21st century’s most discussed hot topics by voting True or False to the phrase “Capitalism works for me!” Set amidst the bustle of Times Square in the form of a massive, attention-grabbing, illuminated scoreboard, the piece creates the ultimate public forum for one of today’s most complicated and important issues.
Fanny de Chaillé, The Library (U.S. premiere)
Co-presented with The New York Public Library’s Jefferson Market Branch
Tuesday, September 24 and Thursday, September 26 4–8pm
FIAF, Haskell Library, 22 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)
Friday, September 27 noon–4pm
Jefferson Market Library, 425 Avenue of the Americas
Free and open to the public
French artist Fanny de Chaillé creates a living library where visitors are invited to choose from a catalogue of “books”—actually, people—each of whom will relate their individual story once selected. Each “book” is the result of a collaboration between the artist and a New Yorker, who, together, determine a theme, topic, or personal history to be shared. Illuminating each individual’s unique role in an increasingly computerized and detached society, The Library is a reminder of the power of storytelling, a practice as ephemeral as it is enduring.
Fanny de Chaillé & Philippe Ramette, Passage à l’acte / Acting Out (US premiere)
Co-presented with the Invisible Dog Art Center and the Hermès Foundation’s New Settings program Thursday, September 26–Saturday, September, 28; 8pm
The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn
FIAF members: 20 USD; non-members: 30 USD; New Settings Package: 50 USD
This collaboration between Fanny de Chaillé and renowned French visual artist Philippe Ramette, comprised of twelve performances, is rooted in the duo’s shared fascination with the body and its surrounding environment of human-made objects.
With a series of delightfully absurd human sculptures set in motion, the artists attempt to “rationalize the irrational,” recreating comic and improbable situations, and toying with our sense of perspective. Like visitors in a museum, audience members are invited to circulate through the room and observe the performers, who playfully ignite our imagination and challenge traditional notions of spectatorship and performance.
Ernesto Pujol, Time After Us (world premiere, a CTL13 Commission)
Co-presented with Trinity Wall Street
From Thursday, October 3, 10:30am to Friday, October 4, 10:30am (24 hours)
St. Paul’s Chapel, 209 Broadway at Fulton Street
Free and open to the public
In his first public piece in New York, site-specific artist and social choreographer Ernesto Pujol asks: “What if we could go back in time to revisit, repair, restore?” Set in St. Paul’s Chapel, a primary refuge for first responders after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, the work is performed in silence by Pujol and twenty-three artists, who enter the space at thirty-minute intervals. Lasting a full twenty-four hours, the piece creates a solitary yet connected community, and invites people from all walks of life to observe and reflect on the nature of the paths we take.
Kyle deCamp & Joshua Thorson, Urban Renewal (world premiere)
Co-presented with the Hermès Foundation’s New Settings program
Thursday, October 10, Friday, October 11; 8pm
FIAF, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues)
FIAF members: 20 USD; non-members 30 USD; New Settings Package 50 USD
Award-winning American theater artist Kyle deCamp’s Urban Renewal is a meditation on perception, public policy, and the significance of the buildings we live in, from a child’s rigorously unsentimental point of view. In this multimedia solo created in collaboration with video artist Joshua Thorson and co-director Yehuda Duenyas, deCamp maps an experience of growing up in Chicago in the chaotic ’60s, caught in the crosshairs of power and history.
For further information and for the full schedule of events and talks, visit our website.
