Venerated avant-garde nonprofit The Kitchen closed New York Art Week with its annual spring gala. Artists and patrons gathered at City Winery for cocktails in the Hudson River-facing reception hall, followed by a multi-course seated dinner.
Executive Director and Chief Curator Legacy Russell led the room in a moment of acknowledgement for the late benefactor Agnes Gund. The evening honored her daughter Catherine Gund, alongside Garrett Bradley, Shari Frilot, and Cheryl Dunye, with moving introductions by longtime collaborators including T. Lax, Jacqueline Woodson, and Yolonda Ross.
Following a video retrospective of genre-defining works by Kitchen alumni—among them Philip Glass, gala co-chair Laurie Anderson, and esteemed guest Bill T. Jones, who graciously received the crowd’s applause—rising songwriter-producer keiyaA took the stage for an intimate live performance. Guests also received a first look at Bradley’s new limited-edition print in the palm of my hand. Proceeds will support The Kitchen.
Dunye closed the evening with reflections on her seminal 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. The NEA-funded project, which received Congressional pushback for its open depictions of Black lesbian sex, was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 2021. “What they tried to kill is now canon,” she remarked, an apt parting message for torchbearers of The Kitchen’s time-honored experimental vision.
