Video Viewing Room
The Video Viewing Room series makes recent video works and archival recordings available online. This initiative revives The Kitchen’s longstanding Video Viewing Room—a dedicated space within our buildings from 1975 through the early 1990s.
Functioning at first as a resource facility where visitors could watch their own tapes or view videos from The Kitchen’s archive and collection, in fall 1978 the Video Viewing Room began to feature curated programs of artists’ videos. The image on the left is a hand-drawn floor plan showing where the Video Viewing Room was located within The Kitchen’s space at 59 Wooster Street circa 1984.
Featuring Brian Fuata’s of a house besieged (preposition tweaked) (2020), alongside a text written by Matthew Lyons.
Featuring a link to download Will Lee’s videogame All it does is turn, alongside a manual.
Featuring June Canedo de Souza’s ongoing project, Every Memory Belongs to a Myth, alongside an introductory text by Lumi Tan and writing by the artist.
Featuring a new project by A.J. McClenon and Katherine Simóne Reynolds, Gestures Investigating the Good and Not So Good In Relationships – As Shown to Us by Blondell Cummings (2022), alongside excerpts of the archival recording of Blondell Cummings’s performance at The Kitchen from November 30–December 3, 1989 and a series of collages by McClenon, Inspirited by For J.B. & 3B49 (2022).
Featuring Umber Majeed’s ongoing Trans-Pakistan Zindabad project, alongside a text written by Matthew Lyons.
Featuring excerpts from Amit Desai's film Cross Eyed (2021), alongside an introduction written by Lumi Tan and additional text written by the artist.
Featuring Allana Clarke’s Of My Longing and My Lack (2019), alongside a text written by Legacy Russell.
Featuring Rhea Dillon’s (Working Title) Browning 2025 (2021), along with contextualizing texts and a response to the video written by 2021–2022 Curatorial Fellow Sienna Fekete.
Featuring Abbey Williams’s Intermission (2018) and Overture (2020), alongside a text written by Legacy Russell and excerpts from films that the artist references in her work.
Featuring Neta Bomani’s Dark matter objects: Technologies of capture and things that can’t be held (2018–present), a storybook for children and adults about computational history and technology.
Featuring a new multimedia work by Ilana Harris-Babou, Coral Gardens (2021), which brings together video, archival documents, and contemporary correspondence.
Featuring a work-in-progress video by artist Jen Liu, Pink Slime Caesar Shift: Electropore (2021), alongside excerpts from the video recording of the sci-fi opera from which this new work draws inspiration: Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Womyn Warriors by composer and musician Fred Ho and librettist Ann T. Greene, staged at The Kitchen in 2000. Writing by Liu, archival materials related to Warrior Sisters, and reference materials for Electropore accompany the videos.
Featuring new writing by artist fields harrington that responds to three works represented in The Kitchen’s archive: Kerry James Marshall’s Doppler Incident (1997), Butch Morris’s Current Trends in Racism in Modern America: (A Work in Progress) (1985), and Tracie Morris’s Sonic Synthesis (1999). Excerpts from performance recordings and ephemera are also included.
Featuring a text by Matthew Lyons and selections of video stills and archival ephemera related to the 16mm film by Elaine Summers, Windows in The Kitchen (1981).
Featuring an interview between Steffani Jemison and curator Cindy Sissokho about the artist’s series of works titled Recitatif. Jemison and Sissokho discuss the series and their collaboration on the performance Recitatif: Never saying anything at all (2017), at Nottingham Contemporary in 2017.
Featuring a new video by Ian Andrew Askew, SLAMDANCE TV (2021), accompanied by writing by the artist and archival material from a 1986 performance by The Black Rock Coalition at The Kitchen.
Featuring a video that revisits ROOM, a 2005 installation and performance by Tracy + the Plastics and Fawn Krieger at The Kitchen. An introductory text, images, and ephemera accompany the video.
Featuring a new video by Woody Sullender, Four Movements: Live at the Kitchen (2021), which expands on the artist’s music album constructed in video game space, Four Movements (2020). A text by the artist accompanies the video.
Featuring an experimental video by Na Mira, Tesseract (test) (2020) with related archival images from a 1982 screening at The Kitchen of a work by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. These are accompanied by an introductory text by Kathy Cho, 2020–2021 Curatorial Fellow and a narrative written by Mira on the process of creating Tesseract.
Featuring recordings of selected performances and events by four artists who have presented literature or language-based programming at The Kitchen between 1976 and the present day—Constance DeJong, Jessica Hagedorn, Carl Hancock Rux, and Matvei Yankelevich of Ugly Duckling Presse—alongside images and ephemera from The Kitchen’s archive and an introductory text.
Featuring two videos and a performance by SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, along with accompanying text by Kathy Cho, 2020–2021 Curatorial Fellow.
Featuring a selection of videos produced by Carlota Schoolman and her production company Fifi Corday Productions, and projects she produced while working for The Kitchen. Also included are an introductory text contextualizing Schoolman’s tenure as The Kitchen’s Video Director from 1974–1977 and Associate Director for Television Production from 1978–1986, transcribed excerpts from an oral history with Schoolman, images, and ephemera.
Featuring two videos from Fawn Krieger’s mixed media work Property Acts (2012), which was commissioned for the 2012 exhibition Matter Out of Place. Also included are introductory texts by Curator Lumi Tan and Krieger, an interview between the artist and Sacha Yanow, and a variety of studies, reference materials, and installation views.
Featuring a recording of the live television broadcast We Interrupt This Program (1991), along with ephemera and a video conversation between the director of the show, Charles Atlas; scholar Roderick Ferguson; art historian and former Visual AIDS Program Director Alex Fialho; and one of the participating artists, Robbie McCauley.
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 a performance recording of Richard Kennedy’s opera Fubu Fukú (2020), along with images and an accompanying text by the artist.
Featuring footage of Greg Mehrten, Ron Vawter, and Marianne Weems’s Queer & Alone (1993), along with an introductory text written by 2019–2020 Curatorial Fellow Elizabeth Wiet; ephemera related to the artist trio’s Fall 1993 residency at The Kitchen; Ken Kobland’s End Credits (1994); and a video conversation between Mehrten, Weems, and Wiet.
Featuring an audio-essay by Ethan Philbrick on the colonial history of a Baroque slow dance called the Sarabande, as well as video documentation of a first meeting in an ongoing, remote collaborative research process between Philbrick and six dance artists: Anh Vo, Tess Dworman, Niall Jones, Tara Aisha Willis, nibia pastrana santiago, and Moriah Evans.
Featuring excerpts from a performance recording of Beau Bree Rhee, Performance Paysage (translation Performance as Landscape) (2020), along with an accompanying text and drawings by the artist.
Featuring a performance recording of Sahra Motalebi, Directory of Portrayals (2017), along with artist’s comments, an excerpt of the Director’s notes, and production images.
Video Viewing Room was initiated with the support of the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust; annual grants from Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.