Main content
Neuberger Museum of Art

Hard Return: Brendan Fernandes

Artist Brendan Fernandes collaborated with an ensemble of Purchase College student dancers and with vogue artist, Pose cast member, Purchase alumnus, and current faculty member Jason Rodriguez in a work that responded to African art in the Neuberger Museum’s collection.

Neuberger Museum of Art
February 5, 2023

Choreography was developed over the five days in an environment designed by Fernandes featuring those African works, the artist’s own sculptures, and an immersive soundscape.

Discussions co-hosted by the artist and Purchase Art History Professor Hilary Whitham Sánchez considered how cultural forms and knowledge are transmitted across time and space and from body to body.

Brendan Fernandes’s project for Hard Return features vogue expert and Pose cast member Jason Rodriguez and an ensemble of student dancers performing dance pieces and engaging in conversations in response to African art in the Neuberger collection.

Performances in “Hard Return”

  • Brendan Fernandes Stills 001

    Brendan Fernandes' performance in Hard Return (February 1-5, 2023)

  • Alix Pearlstein in Hard Return 021

    Alix Pearlstein's performance, Inventory, in Hard Return (February 15-19, 2023)

  • Daniel Bozhkov in Hard Return 005

    Daniel Bozhkov’s Cosmic Cucumber Carousel in Hard Return (February 22-26, 2023)

  • Nao Bustamante in Hard Return 007

    Nao Bustamante’s performance, Bloom, in Hard Return (March 8-12, 2023)


In conjunction with the performance, a Vogue Ball was organized by the artist in collaboration with Purchase College’s Queer People of Color (QPOC) Club. Influenced by expressions of gender and performance that flourished in the Black Queer scene of 1980s New York City, the Ball was open to the public. Attendees were invited to view or participate in the expressive dance form known as Vogue, walking any Vogue category that they choose (Hand/Arm Performance, Catwalk, Duckwalk, Spins & Dips, and Floor Performance). Attendees were also invited to create their own categories as forums for the creation and appreciation of identities.

 

Over the course of nine weeks from February through May, Hard Return: 9 Experiments for this Moment will transform the Neuberger Museum of Art into a site of collaboration, investigation, and performance art. Nine artists have been commissioned to create diverse, participatory, durational week-long projects that experiment with a sense of being alive in this moment while probing the influence of history on the present, proposing different ways of shaping and understanding community.

Hard Return: 9 Experiments for this Moment is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, and co-curated by Purchase College faculty members Kate Gilmore, a renowned performance artist, and Jonah Westerman, an art historian who specializes in performance art.

Generous financial support for this exhibition has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Purchase College Foundation. Additional support of the student participation in Hard Return has been provided by Ivan Bart & Grant Greenberg and Ava & Paul Zukowsky.