Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2021: NORMAL, is set to celebrate its 16th festival, Friday through Sunday on May 14-16, along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River. Curated by artist Furusho von Puttkammer, NORMAL challenges what has been and what never was. Boldly pushing its way through pandemia, where social constructs warp to reveal discriminatory realities, corporations relentlessly claw at tax-payer dollars while citizens are made homeless, and the police continue to brutalize the black community, NORMAL confronts the term with artistic work that redefines the word and the traditional ideas behind it.
This year’s festival features 60+ artists’ projects with over 100 artists. Within them, cultural vigilantes, forgotten manifestos, utopian fantasies, avant-garde performances, and work that aligns with anti-elitist nature.
With public access as one of AiOP’s propelling forces, this year’s curator von Puttkammer shares her inspiration behind this year’s focus: “This year’s focus is meant to highlight how restrictive and destructive NORMAL actually is for most people in this country. The art world has become inaccessible and elitist. We take art outside of the galleries and museums and bring it out onto the streets of New York City. In the past couple of decades, art has become increasingly removed from everyday people. AiOP rebels against that and acts as a tribute to the DIY Punk nature of old-school NYC performance art. We’re accessible in multiple ways; free to artists who apply, free to view, and free to attend. We are here first and foremost to bring art to the masses.”
At this time when cultural presentations are being reevaluated, NORMAL brings together the great work happening in physical and online platforms – to bridge the much-needed gap between the two. Working with digital partners PopWalk and Pollinate, NORMAL will explore making the festival available in real-time on 14th Street in situ and virtually. COVID-19 does not have to kill cities — just our old idea of what cities were, how they worked, and who they were for.
Participating artists include: JRC | Yasmeen Abdallah & Berdscarnival | Sally Apfelbaum | Reid Arowood | Christy Bencosme | Blanksy | Jessica Blinkhorn | Reg Bloor | KS Brewer | Leslie Bush | Day de Dada Performance Art Collective | Hector Canonge | Tim Cusack | Evan Dawson | Al Diaz | Nisha Pinjani, Terra Keck & Jan Dickey | Latefy Dolley | Tasha Douge | Kevin Dudley | Kevin Frech | Judy Giera | GOODW.Y.N. | Anthony R. Green | Christalena Hughmanick & Marianne Villière | Akiko Ichikawa | Julia Justo | Christopher Kaczmarek | Andrew Kass | Ariel Kleinberg | Mechelle Lachaux | Michel Lafleur | Kesha Lagniappe | Georgia Lale | Sara Lynne Lindsay | Hannah Lutz Winkler & Ryan Diaz | Jonathan Lyons (Buddy The Rat) | Nima Nikaklagh | Sari Nordman | Christy O’Connor | Liz Oakley | Christopher Olszewski, Raymond Yeager & Burke Swanson | Connie Perry | Samanta Elena Pizarro Aliste & Adam Arhelger | Jason Pochapsky | Marcie Revens | Sunny Samuel | AnkhLave Arts Alliance | Ivan Sikic | Anthony Sims | Yeseul Song | Laura Splan | Iguana Collaborative: Sherry Erskine & Bonnie Sue Stein | Caito Stewart | Jaime Sunwoo & Matt Chilton | Gretchen Vitamvas | Robert Wallace | Lynne Yamamoto | Xiao Yang | Boyang Yu
Curated by Furusho von Puttkammer. Partners include Popwalk and Pollinate. The Full Team Here.
Art in Odd Places 2021: NORMAL is the 16th annual NYC festival featuring performances, symphonic manipulations, visual installations, video, sound, and more in public spaces. ALL EVENTS ARE FREE. For more information about AiOP’s history and artists’ project descriptions and schedules, visit the website: artinoddplaces.org
Art in Odd Places 2021 will take place from May 14-16 at various locations along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River. The festival will be following social distancing guidelines.
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