When an artist becomes part of an art institution, they often bring in other artists with whom they have established connections in the past. For instance, Robert Longo served as Acting Video Curator at The Kitchen from fall 1977 to spring 1978 and, during that time, was able to organize programming with artists from his own communities…

Visual music defends a most sublime impossibility—that the eyes may be seduced to hear. The concept has served as a useful analogy for the creation of art since at least the Renaissance … The synesthetic origins of The Kitchen are noticeably in the context of downtown theater. But nothing quite like it had ever truly existed—a room full of TV sets, where each night a different audience would assemble and make applause for a medium they could just as easily watch at home. The difference was in the communities it brought together…

Featuring a recording of Jill Kroesen’s performance Stanley Oil and His Mother: A Systems Portrait of the Western World (1977), along with archival images, ephemera, and a new interview between Kroesen and Alison Burstein, Curator, Media and Engagement.

Featuring an archival recording of Rhys Chatham, Drastic Classical Music for Electric Instruments (1981) alongside an introductory text written by the artist and related images and ephemera from The Kitchen’s archive.