Performance Talks

In this episode, I’m speaking with Jenny Schlenzka, Director of the Gropius Bau in Berlin.
We talk about Jenny’s early years in New York, her time at the Museum of Modern Art as its first performance curator, what it means to program live work and performance in museum structures not designed for sound and movement, and questions of collecting and historicizing dance and performance. We also talk about 02020, a project she concocted with Sarah Michelson during her time as Director of Performance Space New York in which they gave a group of artist the mandate to run the organization together, and how all this experience continues to shape how she thinks about the museum as a public space today.
Jenny Schlenzka is a Berlin-born curator with a strong fucus in contemporary art. She has been Director of Gropius Bau since September 2023. Prior to this appointment, Schlenzka spent more than 20 years in New York City, where she was Curator at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 before becoming Executive Artistic Director at Performance Space New York (formerly PS 122) in 2017.
Follow Jenny:
https://www.instagram.com/jennyschlenzka
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Photo by Muriel Liebmann

In this episode, I am joined by co-interviewer Dylan Sherman. We speak with performer Mickey Mahar, whose work has been central to performances by artists like Maria Hassabi, Anne Imhof, Ryan McNamara, and Pope.L. We talk about what it means to perform inside museum spaces and art fairs, how it feels to be endlessly photographed by strangers, and the often invisible labor involved in co-creating performance works. Mickey reflects on growing up as a competitive Irish dancer, starting as a performer in the New York art world, and what it’s like to perform when you don’t always agree with the work.
Mickey Mahar is a dancer and performer originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He works mainly with artists creating performance inside of visual art contexts and has collaborated with Anne Imhof, Maria Hassabi, Gillian Walsh, and many others. He currently lives in Berlin.
Follow Mickey Mahar:
https://www.instagram.com/mikceyy
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The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Philip Bither, Senior Curator of Performing Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, who oversees one of the country's leading contemporary performing arts programs.
In this conversation, he and I talk about the Walker’s long history with commissioning and presenting live work, the evolving relationship between performance and visual art, and the ongoing questions around how to preserve liveness. And, maybe most importantly, we look at what it means to support artists over time—and why that matters.
Philip Bither has overseen significant expansion of the Performing Arts program, including the building of the McGuire Theater, an acclaimed new theatrical space within the Walker expansion (2005), the raising of the program's first commissioning/programming endowment, the commissioning of more than 100 new works in dance, music and performance, and the annual presentation/residency support of dozens of contemporary performing arts creators, established and emerging. Prior to this, he served as Director of Programming/Artistic Director for the Flynn Center, later becoming Associate Director/Music Curator at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). He received the Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award in 2009. He sits on numerous federal, state, local, and national foundation arts panels and he speaks and writes about the contemporary performing arts nationally.
Find the 70+ curatorial interviews by Bither on the Walker Art Center's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA0898AB8FAB61AA5
Follow the Walker Art Center:
https://www.instagram.com/walkerartcenter
Stay tuned for more episodes.
The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
Design by Katharine Wimett.

This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Beatrix Ruf, the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam.
In this conversation, we discuss the need to rethink the economy and infrastructure of museums to allow for performance and interdisciplinary experimentation, the specifics of how the cultural production scene of Amsterdam functions and her plans for the new museum in Amsterdam.
Beatrix Ruf is the Director of Hartwig Art Foundation, where she oversees the vision and realization of its new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam, which is currently under construction. Beatrix served as the Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 2014 to 2018. Her previous roles include Director of Kunsthalle Zürich, Director of Kunsthaus Glarus, and Curator at Kunstmuseum Thurgau in Warth. In 2006, Beatrix curated the third edition of the Tate Triennial in London, and in 2008, she co-curated the Yokohama Triennial in Japan. From June 2019 to February 2022, she was the Counseling Strategic Director at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. Additionally, from 1995 to 2014, Beatrix curated the Ringier Collection, and from 2006 to 2021, she was a core member of the think tank group for the LUMA Foundation in Arles.
Ruf is a member of several advisory and programme committees and frequently serves as a jury member. She is currently a Board Member of the Between Bridges Foundation in Berlin, a member of the Selection Committee of The Mondrian Initiative in Laren, and a Board Member of WeTransfer’s The Supporting Act Foundation in Amsterdam.
Beatrix has curated numerous exhibitions, collaborated with many renowned artists, and published extensively on contemporary artists, including Isa Genzken, Joan Jonas, Seth Price, Jana Euler, Ian Wallace, Laura Owens, Tino Sehgal, Wade Guyton, Avery Singer, Yang Fudong, Tony Cokes, Philippe Parreno, Kai Althoff, Jordan Wolfson, Rosemarie Trockel, Sturtevant, and Wu Tsang, among many others.
Follow Hartwig Art Foundation:
https://www.instagram.com/hartwigartfoundation
Stay tuned for more episodes.
The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
Design by Katharine Wimett.
Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.

This episode of Performance Talks is a conversation with Rachel Helm and Rachel Churner from the Carolee Schneemann Foundation, recorded at Schneemann's home in upstate New York.
In this conversation, We talk about the complexities of preserving the artist's home, a nearly 300 year old structure, as well as the intricacies of representing an artist who had such a strong presentation and idea of self through an archive, and their plans of turning her home into a residency.
Rachel Helm is the manager of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation and steward of Schneemann’s home in New Paltz, NY. Prior to her relocation to the Hudson Valley, Helm worked in public libraries in Missouri and Kentucky.
Rachel Churner is the director of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation. Churner is also an art critic and editor, whose writings have appeared in Artforum and October magazine, among other publications. She was a recipient of the 2018 Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and is the editor of multiple books, including, The New Television (no place press, 2024); Hans Haacke (MIT Press, 2015), and two volumes of writings by film historian Annette Michelson (MIT Press, 2017 and 2020). She currently teaches at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at the New School.
The Carolee Schneemann Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of Carolee Schneemann (1939–2019). Schneemann was a pioneering artist whose work spanned a range of media, including painting, film, video, dance and performance, installations, and writing. Her art is known for its radical formal experimentation and critical investigations of subjectivity, the erotic and taboo, images of atrocity, and the social construction of the female body. Established by the artist in 2013, the Foundation advances the understanding of Schneemann’s work through scholarship, exhibitions, and publications. Over the next few years, the Foundation will establish a residency program at Schneemann’s home in upstate New York in order to support artists whose work shares Schneemann’s commitment to new methods of aesthetic experimentation. For more information on The Carolee Schneemann Foundation, please visit their website.
The intro is a fragment of an interview by Robert Haller with Carolee Schneemann from 1973, accessed at the archives of the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Stay tuned for more episodes coming this Winter.
The research for this series was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
Design by Katharine Wimett.
Research assistance by Dylan Sherman.