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Coco Fusco

Studio Museum in Harlem

December 13, 2013

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira Animal Psychologist (2013)

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira Animal Psychologist (2013)
Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 2013

Press Release

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art

Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
November 12, 2012 - February 16, 2013

Grey Art Gallery, New York University, NY
September 10 - December 7, 2013

Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
November 14, 2013 - March 9, 2014

Coco Fusco performs Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist as part of Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, part two of the exhibition's New York presentation, at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The legendary female chimpanzee of the Planet of the Apes films resumes her life as a public intellectual after more than twenty years of seclusion in remote circuses and primate study labs. For her lecture at the Studio Museum, she will concentrate on her assessment of the particular characteristics of human aggression in the twenty-first century.

Fusco performed on December 13, 2013 at 6:30 pm and 8:00 pm.

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art is the first exhibition to survey over fifty years of performance art by visual artists of African descent from the United States and the Caribbean.

Featuring live performances as well as objects, Radical Presence includes more than one hundred works by thirty-seven artists. The exhibition also presents objects used in performances: costumes, scores, sculptures, and installations, which, depending on when viewers see them, serve as prompts for or traces of performances. Both the live performances and the art objects call attention to the possibilities and limitations of the active body, and the installations reflect some of the myriad ways in which museums have exhibited this ephemeral medium.

Organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Radical Presence is presented in New York in two parts: Part I at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and Part II at the Studio Museum in Harlem. For its New York presentation, the exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem is overseen by Thomas J. Lax.