What you looking at? / Who you talking to?

What you looking at? / Who you talking to?
A conversation with Helga Davis and Steve Locke

February 24, 2024
3:00–5:00 PM
Free entry
Please RSVP at rsvp@alexandergray.com

Join us at Alexander Gray Associates, New York for What you looking at ? / Who you talking to? A conversation between Helga Davis and Steve Locke on Saturday, February 24 at 3:00 PM.

The wide-ranging discussion will articulate the relationship between individual and collective experiences, prompting attendees to reflect on power dynamics, representation, and the intersectionality of identity. This event welcomes all individuals interested in how contemporary art influences broader cultural narratives.

Helga Davis is a vocalist and performance artist and was principal actor in the 25th-anniversary international revival of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's seminal opera Einstein on the Beach. She is artist in residence at National Sawdust and is a teaching artist with Youth Corps at the Park Avenue Armory. She is host of the eponymous podcast HELGA on WQXR, winner of the 2019 Greenfield Prize in composition, 2019 Alpert Award finalist, and the 2018–21 visiting curator for the performing arts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her new artistic venture is the study and application of CONDUCTION, a method of spontaneous composition developed by Lawrence Douglas “Butch” Morris.

Steve Locke is a Hudson Valley-based artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Through his critical engagement with the legacy of the Western canon, Locke interrogates the connections between desire, identity, and violence, ultimately pushing viewers to confront and critically engage with a complicated present and painful past. Locke’s work has been included in many exhibitions and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including the daily practice of painting, Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA (2022) and there is no one left to blame, curated by Helen Molesworth, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2013), traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI (2014). His works are represented in the collections of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC; Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY; Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL; Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., among others. Locke is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the Rappaport Prize from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2022) and the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2020).