En un cuartito los dos by Niño de Elche

Join musician and performer Niño de Elche for an evening of contemporary performance and sound exploration produced during his residency at the James Gallery, followed by a conversation with the artist.

This event is part of En un cuartito los dos, a curatorial project featuring artist Niño de Elche at the CUNY Graduate Center’s James Gallery, from Tuesday, April 30 until Thursday, May 2. Conceived as a short artist residency, Niño de Elche will spend a few days at the James Gallery exploring the curatorial and spatial implications of the space in order to articulate innovative venues for the public to gather.

The notion surrounding the Spanish term cuarto –partially translated for “room” in English– is the main premise for this project. The cuartos flamencos used to be marginalized performing spaces where dissident bodies and practices could take place in fin-de-siècle Spain. Related spaces such as cafés cantantes contributed to articulate traditional imaginaries on Iberian culture that ignored the individuals who inhabited them. Niño de Elche aims to explore the non-normative practices spaces censor by working on sound experimentation and performative actions in the gallery space. By calling on other cuartos such as black holes and dark rooms, he will explore notions such as tradition, intimacy, and queerness.

About Niño de Elche

Niño de Elche is a Spanish musician and perfomer. Trained as a cantaor or flamenco singer, his practice moved away from the traditional Flamenco sphere and into contemporary practice. He combines his music recordings –Voces del extremo (2015) and Antología del cante flamenco heterodoxo (2018) are two of his most remarkable albums– with performing arts collaborations with artist such as Angélica Liddell and Israel Galván. His heterodox artistic interests made him participate in Documenta 14 in Kassel as well as collaborate with singer C. Tangana with whom he released the song Un veneno. He is now working on his next album, Colombiana, to be released in May 2019.

The conversation moderated by PhD student Daniel Valtueña will be held in Spanish with consecutive interpretation into English.