Whitney Museum of American Art
The exhibition 'Blues for Smoke' will be accompanied by a series of concerts, performances and readings showcasing the enduring legacy and innovative possibilities of the blues in contemporary music and live art.
The Blues for Smoke performance series is organized by curator Jay Sanders.
Blues for Smoke will be accompanied by a series of concerts, performances and readings showcasing the enduring legacy and innovative possibilities of the blues in contemporary music and live art. Reflecting on the exhibition’s consideration of “the blues” as a political and aesthetic idiom within the visual arts, the performances will showcase contemporary musical forms that extend aspects of the blues legacy. The series will look at music, as well as poetry and playwriting, as powerfully expressive forms, conceptual orientations, and looser frames which enable improvisation, repetition and communication. Through various experimental approaches, these artists bring forth the powerfully ecstatic, improvisatory, conceptual, political, mournful, and incantatory aspects inherent in the blues.
Performance Schedule
Lonnie Holley and Cooper-Moore
March 22
Speaking the Blues: An Evening of Poetry
March 29
smokeforblues: A Weekend-Long Music Festival
April 5–7
King Holiday Presents: bloo voyage
April 6
“in the life”: A reading of works by Gay Black Men
from the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties
April 14
Matana Roberts, Keiji Haino, and Loren Connors
April 20
Tickets required. This performance is free for members but advance registration is required. To register for this event, please email memberinfo@whitney.org with your name and membership number.
Annette Peacock
April 26
Thomas Bradshaw
April 26–28
The Whitney Museum
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, New York City
Museum hours are: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm, Friday from 1 pm to 9 pm, closed Monday and Tuesday.
General admission: $18.
Full-time students and visitors ages 19–25 and 65 & over: $14.
Visitors 18 & under and Whitney members: free.
Admission is pay-what-you-wish on Fridays, 6–9 pm.
All performances are free with Museum admission, unless otherwise noted.