Events Calendar

Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle is the first solo exhibition dedicated to the genre-defying artist Matthew Flower (US, b. 1972), better known as Machine Dazzle. A provocateur commanding an expanding repertoire of stagecraft, design, performance, and music, Machine Dazzle is a virtuoso practitioner of queer maximalism’s aesthetic language of gay liberation.

The exhibition brings together more than 80 of the artist’s creations for stage, spectacles, and street theater, alongside a variety of environments, ephemera, material samples, photography, and video. Together they chronicle the metamorphosis of Flower, a closeted suburban kid from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, into “Machine Dazzle,” the queer experimental theater genius.

On view will be both Machine Dazzle’s famous collaborations with drag and performance luminaries such as the Dazzle Dancers and Mx Justin Vivian Bond, among others, as well as the artist’s recent emergence from behind the scenes to center stage of his own artistic life. Installed on two floors of the Museum, the multimedia exhibition also includes the first public installation of the more than two dozen tour-de-force costumes created by the artist for himself and his long-time collaborator, Taylor Mac, to wear in the queer performance art concert production, Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2016), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Excessive in scale, color, surface, texture, and movement, Machine Dazzle’s living sculptures constantly transform as the designer combines the familiar embellishments of drag and burlesque, such as sequins, glitter, and feathers, beads, with found fantastical and found objects, such as ping pong balls, hoop skirts, slinkies, soup cans, and more, to build and deepen the work’s narrative intent. The result is an explosive “queer maximalism” aesthetic that joyfully counters the prejudices of high culture regarding extravagance and the overly decorated and embraces these associations as queer for affirming hybridity over purity, rejecting cultural hierarchies, and valuing different kinds of bodies.

Image: Machine Dazzle photographed by Gregory Kramer, 2019.

Risa Hokamura began the violin at the age of three, and at the age of 10 she began to capture top prizes in competitions in Japan. She first came to international attention upon winning the Silver Medal at the 2018 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, where she performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Ms. Hokamura won First Prize in the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions at the age of 17. 

HOOTIE'S BLUES: THE LIFE OF JAY MCSHANN

Pianist, vocalist, bandleader, and icon of Kansas City, Jay McShann enjoyed a nearly 80 year career that saw him oversee one of the Swing Era’s top bands, found him launching Charlie Parker into national acclaim, and allowed him to develop one of the most swinging and bluesy sounds in music history. Historian and musician David Basse shares the story of this musical titan.

Award-winning saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist McCoy Mrubata has crafted an international career from his home in South Africa. A rising elder of the music, Mrubata engages listeners with melodious phrasing as well as reflection and space. He returns to the Dizzy’s Club stage with a collection of acclaimed artists: Gary Wittner, Jennifer Vincent, Lumanyano Mzi, and Melanie Scholtz.

In 2022, which would have been the year of Lou Reed's 80th birthday, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center mounts Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars, the first large-scale exhibition featuring previously unseen and unheard work from Reed’s incredible archive.

On display from June 9, 2022–March 4, 2023, Caught Between the Twisted Stars  (a lyric from "Romeo Had Juliette") will chronicle the life's work of a prolific and uncompromising artist—songwriter, musician, performer, photographer, poet, accomplished tai chi practitioner—a story told through the voices, images, and music of Reed and his collaborators, including artists Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, and Robert Wilson; musicians Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, John Cale, Garland Jeffreys, Metallica, Sterling Morrison, Robert Quine, Mike Rathke, Fernando Saunders, and Maureen Tucker; manager Sylvia Reed; producer Hal Willner; photographers Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Billy Name, and Mick Rock; poets Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, Delmore Schwartz, and Anne Waldman; president Václav Havel; songwriter Doc Pomus; and tai chi master Ren Guangyi.

The exhibition is curated by Don Fleming and Jason Stern. Fleming served as the archivist for the Lou Reed Archive, and Stern as Reed's Technical Director and Archivist during the artist's lifetime. 

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Music & Recorded Sound Division acquired Lou Reed's archive in 2017. 

Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle is the first solo exhibition dedicated to the genre-defying artist Matthew Flower (US, b. 1972), better known as Machine Dazzle. A provocateur commanding an expanding repertoire of stagecraft, design, performance, and music, Machine Dazzle is a virtuoso practitioner of queer maximalism’s aesthetic language of gay liberation.

The exhibition brings together more than 80 of the artist’s creations for stage, spectacles, and street theater, alongside a variety of environments, ephemera, material samples, photography, and video. Together they chronicle the metamorphosis of Flower, a closeted suburban kid from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, into “Machine Dazzle,” the queer experimental theater genius.

On view will be both Machine Dazzle’s famous collaborations with drag and performance luminaries such as the Dazzle Dancers and Mx Justin Vivian Bond, among others, as well as the artist’s recent emergence from behind the scenes to center stage of his own artistic life. Installed on two floors of the Museum, the multimedia exhibition also includes the first public installation of the more than two dozen tour-de-force costumes created by the artist for himself and his long-time collaborator, Taylor Mac, to wear in the queer performance art concert production, Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2016), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Excessive in scale, color, surface, texture, and movement, Machine Dazzle’s living sculptures constantly transform as the designer combines the familiar embellishments of drag and burlesque, such as sequins, glitter, and feathers, beads, with found fantastical and found objects, such as ping pong balls, hoop skirts, slinkies, soup cans, and more, to build and deepen the work’s narrative intent. The result is an explosive “queer maximalism” aesthetic that joyfully counters the prejudices of high culture regarding extravagance and the overly decorated and embraces these associations as queer for affirming hybridity over purity, rejecting cultural hierarchies, and valuing different kinds of bodies.

Image: Machine Dazzle photographed by Gregory Kramer, 2019.

Greenmarket's gateway to the Upper West Side, the Tucker Square Greenmarket, offers locally grown produce just across the street from Lincoln Center. Seasonal vegetables range from fresh staples like corn and greens to delicacies like squash blossoms and fairtytale eggplant. Orchards boast sweet berries, stone fruit, and over 80 varieties of apples. Knowledgeable growers are at market to explain just how to care for their plants, flowers, and herb pots indoors and out.  Impeccable farmstead cheeses, fresh seafood, grass fed beef, duck and duck charcuterie, eggs, artisanal baked goods, and New York’'s only producer of both sorghum and maple syrup round out the offerings.  

Join us for a dynamic panel discussion featuring MAD Collection artists Beau McCall, Armarinhos Teixeira, and Sarah Zapata, moderated by independent curator M. Rachael Arauz. Together, the artists will discuss their innovative use of materials to express and explore the nature of identity in their individual craft practices. The panel will be followed by a reception hosted by Bin Bin Sake.

Kids of all ages are welcome to join us for a morning of classic children’s films celebrating friendship, compassion and love.  Short works will be shown in the cafe at the Library for the Performing Arts on our 16mm film projector.

If your little one wants to explore machines, dinosaurs, music and reading, this monthly film series is for them!

Let’s get inspired by some of the fancy fonts and inventive handwriting in the Museum’s collection! Join Access Educator Elizabeth Gronke for a special virtual Folk Art Reflections program and guided look at lettering, like this sampler made by Helen Livingston in the early 1800’s. Bring some plain paper and a pen or pencil to this interactive session where we will try our own hand at some of these fanciful writing styles.

From its days as a remote Dutch village, to the recent unveiling of the Gate of the Exonerated, Harlem has been geographically and culturally linked to the area that became Central Park’s north end. In this special virtual tour, presented in conjunction with Black History Month, Conservancy guides will share rarely seen archival images, historical and archeological research, and personal narratives that explore Central Park’s long-lasting status as Harlem’s backyard.

Celebrate urban culture and communal resiliency with us as we share the stories of Harlemites past and present who have and continue to call on Central Park to find inspiration, healing, and joy.

OPTIMISM BLUES: THE MUSIC OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT

A pioneer of New Orleans music whose artistic innovations paved the way for the iconic New Orleans sounds of the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, Allen Toussaint stands as one of the most forward-thinking and genre-defying musical minds of the 20th century. Producer and scholar Paul Siegel will guide you through the life of this New Orleans icon.