Oliver Herring: Herring as Nureyev as Nijinsky as Faun: 302 Bowery, New York, USA

As part of Armory Off-Site, between September 6th and 15th, BANK will take up residence inside the old Patricia Field store at 302 Bowery to present Herring as Nureyev as Nijinsky as Faun, a solo performance developed during the COVID pandemic. The performance will be presented alongside related movement drawings and video.

Inspiration for Nijinski's original ballet came from flat depictions of figures in ancient Greek, Egyptian and Etruscan art. From the source material Nijinsky devised a movement language of radical economy and distortion –three-dimensional human bodies as two-dimensional moving shapes. Herring taught himself the central role of the faun as a means to make sense of the constraints and possibilities of limited movement and sociability during the COVID pandemic, and in a more general sense, in a search for meaning and freedom within a set of radical limitations. 

"Herring as Nureyev as Nijinsky as Faun" was developed in the studio with audiences who reached the performance by invitation or through word of mouth.  This iteration of the performance maintains the format used in the studio, which includes conversations following the piece. Previous conversations were moderated by Vivien Greene (Senior Curator of 19th and Early 20th Century Art, Solomon Guggenheim Museum), Jeannette Bisschoffs (Independent curator, researcher, and writer), Kyle Croft (Executive Director, Visual AIDS) and Sheldon Gooch (Curator, MoMA PS1).