Fall 2022 Program
The Bunker, located at 222 Bowery, will host programming from The John Giorno Foundation’s second season. The John Giorno Foundation’s objective to assist contemporary artists and the history of the avant-garde and LGBT communities in New York is furthered by The Bunker’s program. The program will offer a wide range of artist talks, video series, and performances that reflect John Giorno’s ethics, activism, and aesthetic accomplishments. The Bunker offers a gathering place for artists of different eras to collaborate.
September 28, 7–8pm
Karen Finley performance
Following Karen Finley’s reading and performance of a work-in-progress commissioned by The Poetry Project and John Giorno Foundation, Kyle Dacuyan, Executive Director of Poetry Project, will host a discussion. Finley creates art in a range of forms, including memorials, music, books, television, cinema, installation, video, performance, public art, and visual art. The Giorno Poetry System’s CD Like A Girl, I Want You To Keep Coming included Finley as a featured artist (1989).
October 25, 7–8pm
No Land performance
No Land, a poet and visual artist, will read some of her poetry as Bentley Anderson and Daniel Carter provide dreamy musical accompaniment. The Bunker will be illuminated by No Land’s cine-poems at the same time as Mercy-Eyed, a brand-new Anne Waldman-starring film, and Monastic Night (Poet’s Temple). The legacy of the downtown New York City artist counterculture is carried on by No Land. Her videos and poet-performances with musicians are examples of how her practice creates appreciation for mystery and delicate disarray. Meetings with poets and artists in the downtown area, such as Anne Waldman’s support of the “outrider” tradition in poetry, have served as a source of inspiration for her.
November 8, 7–8pm
John Yau on Joe Brainard moderated by Barry Schwabsky
The newly released book Joe Brainard: The Art of the Personal by art critic and poet John Yau will be discussed during a conversation with art critic at large Barry Schwabsky. Joe Brainard (1942–1994), who is best known for his globally acclaimed memoir I Remember, was also a successful graphic artist. Yau’s book details how Brainard used hundreds of pieces of multimedia to show his love of the world by turning the commonplace into something beautiful. Joe Brainard and John Giorno were friends and fellow poets and visual artists who frequently communicated, worked together on projects, and shared ideas and creations. In the original recording of The Dial-A-Poem Poets album, which was recorded and issued in 1972, Brainard is combined with an excerpt from I Remember.
December 6, 7–8pm
Sara Cynwar video screening moderated by Stuart Comer
Glass Life (2021), a six channel film by Sara Cwynar that explores the connection between visuals and the self, will be screened for the first time with its predecessors, Red Film (2018) and Rose Gold (2017). A talk with Cynwar will be facilitated by Stuart Comer, The Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media, and Performance at MoMA, following the screening. It has been said that Sara Cwynar’s films and photographs continue the heritage of the 1980s Pictures Generation. The artist is curious on how popular imagery and design affect our psyches and how visual tactics permeate our consciousness. She considers how familiar, often sentimental images smooth over unpleasant realities, to cover up “the systems of control embedded within our social, economic, and political lives.”
November 15, 7–8pm
Film screening—I Remember: A Film about Joe Brainard by Matt Wolf & I Remember by Avi Zev Weider & David Chartier
Two film screenings at The Bunker continue the theme of the artist Joe Brainard. I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard, directed by Matt Wolf, was released in 2012 and includes interviews with poet Ron Padgett and audio recordings of Joe Brainard reading from the poem. The 1999 movie I Remember, directed by Avi Zev Weider and David Chartier and starring John Cameron Mitchell and Liam Aiken, explores the idea of memory.
December 13, 7–8pm
Film screening: A selection of films by Jean-Jacque Lebel
French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Lebel (born 1936), who also collaborated closely with the Beat Generation artists, is also an artist, poet, translator, publisher of poetry, political activist, art collector, and art historian. Lebel and John Giorno met through Polyphonix, a sound poetry, performance, video, and music festival that was co-founded and was the festival’s first president. The event took place in Paris, France, starting in 1981.
Buddhist programming
Tibetan Buddhist Ceremony: The Bunker’s monthly events are pleased to welcome Padma Samye Ling (PSL) Monastery back home. Early in the 1970s, John Giorno, Yeshe Dorje (Indestructible Wisdom), met His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma school, and later became a devoted and obedient follower. The Bunker has been utilized by the lamas to conduct ceremonies and deliver teachings since the late 1980s. Beginning on September 10 at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., The Bunker will once again host ceremonies and lectures from the Padma Samye Ling (PSL) Monastery.
Iyengar yoga class with David Rubeo
The first Saturday of each month, David Rubeo, certified Iyengar Yoga instructor, will hold a class at The Bunker. “The system of yoga known as Iyengar Yoga was created and developed over 75 years ago by Yogacara B.K.S. Iyengar. Mr. Iyengar devoted devoted his life to the evolution of his approach to yoga, which is based on the traditional eight limbs of yoga taught over 2500 years ago by the sage, Patanjali. Mr. Iyengar believed that yoga goes beyond being a physical discipline—it is also an art, a science, and a philosophy, that he developed with this in mind.” Classes will be on the first Saturday of each month starting on October 1st.
The John Giorno Foundation
The Bunker
222 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
United States