Event Calendar
Virtual Conversation: Julie Henson and Christina Catherine Martinez
2PM EST / 11AM PST
Join us for a wide-ranging conversation between Julie Henson and LA-based comedian and performance artist Christina Catherine Martinez, on the occasion of Julie Henson: Character Studies, on view through December 18th. Henson and Martinez will discuss their shared interests in character, celebrity, and cheap glitter through the lens of sculpture, and performance, respectively—fan-girling about church, Los Angeles, and each other along the way.
Register to join the conversation via zoom, or watch it premiere later on IGTV.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85384084000?pwd=Nmt4Q0RLcThLZFUzb0wxc0RMRVhWZz09
Meeting ID: 853 8408 4000
Passcode: 936890
Christina Catherine Martinez is a writer, performer, and author of the essay collection Aesthetical Relations, published by Hesse Press. Her live act has been described as “a great bridge between many different disciplines, including performance art, stand-up, and clowning.” Her texts and performances have been commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and reviewed in Art in America and AQNB. She writes for Artforum, Art Agenda, Texte zur Kunst, LA Times IMAGE, and also for television, including The Eric Andre Show on Adult Swim, and the short-form comedy series Two Pink Doors on FX. She is a 2018 recipient of a Creative Capital / Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and was named a Comic to Watch in 2020 by Time Out Los Angeles, as well as a Comedian You Should Know in 2020 by New York Magazine. christinacatherine.info
K. M. Cannon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal
Julie Henson (b. 1983 in Charleston, SC) lives and works in Los Angeles. Henson received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2011. Solo exhibitions include the Neon Museum, Las Vegas, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, the Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, Yes Ma’am Projects, Denver, and SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York. Henson has participated in group shows at numerous museums and spaces including Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art, Los Angeles, the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance; and the Visual Art Center at the University of Texas, Austin.
Henson’s work has been reviewed in the pages of The Steidtz Magazine, Elephant Magazine, Artforum, and Hyperallergic. She was a 2017 nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 2019 Artist in Residence at The Neon Museum, Las Vegas and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson.
Julie Henson: Character Studies Opening Reception
Come celebrate the opening of Julie Henson: Character Studies, and meet the artist.
About the exhibition:
The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art is pleased to announce Character Studies, a large-scale installation of new sculptures and video by the Los Angeles-based artist Julie Henson. Exploring the reciprocal relationship between performer and audience, Henson’s work is invested in the stage as a space for the retelling of parables.
The artworks in Character Studies are created to evoke emotions produced by extreme abundance and contemporary media culture: the feelings of being simultaneously bewitched and repulsed, isolated and overexposed, and the weight of being constricted, squeezed, or restrained.
Many of her references generate from an exploration of her early childhood experience attending a hyper-performative megachurch. Utilizing similar strategies of spectacle as a means of expressing culturally shared beliefs, Henson’s installations and sculptures make use of rudimentary theatrical props, stage lights, and costuming to explore how celebrity transitions to idol as the individual seeks commonality in contemporary society through the image of performers. Through use of theatrical tropes, stage materials, and the isolated representation of the body, the installation considers how the construction of self is a product of consuming and reacting to popular culture designed for the screen. In turn, the notion of celebrity—via power, beauty, and wealth—is embodied by the consumer and performed for their audiences in an endless feedback loop that exchanges power between the audience and their chosen idol.
First Friday Cookout
Come see our exhibition, Lex Brown: Defense Mechanisms, and enjoy this first Friday with a chill cookout at BICA. BYO grillables or let Nando cook a dog (or veggie dog) for ya!
About the Exhibition
PLAY/GROUND 2021
20 immersive art projects at Buffalo Central Terminal, the Broadway Market, Matt Urban Hope Center, the Handley Room, and Canalside!
The House on Fire Show, Episode 3: Power
The House On Fire Show is an experimental youth climate drama produced by artist Kyla Kegler in collaboration with the WNY Youth Climate Council, artist Lindsey Griffith & over 40 young climate justice activists and artists from across the USA.
Over the course of three episodes, the House On Fire show tells the story of three communities in three cities— Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Louisville, and how they are entangled both personally and with regard to intersectional climate justice work.
This fictional drama based on real lives, real information and real legislation (namely the Climate and Community Investment Act) aims to entertain and educate its audiences on the language of climate justice, in order to give everyone the tools to participate in these essential conversations.
Episodes air at 8pm Eastern Time on June 19th, June 26th, and July 10th on the internet and live-screened outside at Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA).
This project has been generously supported by ASI WNY Global Warming Art Grant, ASI WNY Community Art DEC Grant, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center’s Equipment Access Award, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Lexington Coop, and BICA. BIG thank you to our sponsors for making this show possible!
The House on Fire Show Episode 2: Protest
The House On Fire Show is an experimental youth climate drama produced by artist Kyla Kegler in collaboration with the WNY Youth Climate Council, artist Lindsey Griffith & over 40 young climate justice activists and artists from across the USA.
Over the course of three episodes, the House On Fire show tells the story of three communities in three cities— Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Louisville, and how they are entangled both personally and with regard to intersectional climate justice work.
This fictional drama based on real lives, real information and real legislation (namely the Climate and Community Investment Act) aims to entertain and educate its audiences on the language of climate justice, in order to give everyone the tools to participate in these essential conversations.
Episodes air at 8pm Eastern Time on June 19th, June 26th, and July 10th on the internet and live-screened outside at Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA).
This project has been generously supported by ASI WNY Global Warming Art Grant, ASI WNY Community Art DEC Grant, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center’s Equipment Access Award, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Lexington Coop, and BICA. BIG thank you to our sponsors for making this show possible!
The House on Fire Show, Episode 1: Pain
The House On Fire Show is an experimental youth climate drama produced by artist Kyla Kegler in collaboration with the WNY Youth Climate Council, artist Lindsey Griffith, and over 40 young climate justice activists and artists from across the USA.
Over the course of three episodes, the House On Fire show tells the story of three communities in three cities— Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Louisville, and how they are entangled both personally and with regard to intersectional climate justice work.
This fictional drama based on real lives, real information and real legislation (namely the Climate and Community Investment Act) aims to entertain and educate its audiences on the language of climate justice, in order to give everyone the tools to participate in these essential conversations.
Episodes air at 8pm Eastern Time on June 19th, June 26th, and July 10th on the internet and live-screened outside at Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA).
This project has been generously supported by ASI WNY Global Warming Art Grant, ASI WNY Community Art DEC Grant, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center’s Equipment Access Award, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Lexington Coop, and BICA. BIG thank you to our sponsors for making this show possible!