BAM... and Then It Hit Me by Karen Brooks Hopkins

Author:Karen Brooks Hopkins [Hopkins, Karen Brooks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781576878002
Publisher: powerHouse Books
Published: 2021-02-14T18:30:00+00:00

Edward Albee headlines Eat, Drink & Be Literary, spring 2011.

Eat, Drink & Be Literary in the Lepercq Space, 2016.

When Louise Bourgeois designed this print, Hamlet and Ophelia, for BAM, she explained to me in a very thick French accent that the way print buyers could identify Ophelia was by her high heels. Hamlet’s identity also seemed pretty obvious to me!

BAMart evolved into annual auctions,2 during which we displayed the donated works on temporary walls in our lobby. These strategies filled our building with wonderful works of art while also filling our coffers with funding. It was the perfect merger of fundraising and programming. And since visual artists had been part of the BAM community from the beginning of Harvey’s tenure, the works of major artists would also show up onstage (e.g., Merce Cunningham worked with Andy Warhol on RainForest in the early seventies; William Kentridge designed and directed The Magic Flute; and Keith Haring paired with Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in the dance work Secret Pastures). Inspired by the success of the auctions, we launched exhibition programs in all of our public spaces. One of my favorites was a show created by Dr. Lisa, a self-proclaimed psychoanalyst. She put her subjects on the couch, gave them a personalized therapy session, and wrote a diagnosis and prescription (which hung on the walls along with a photo of the “patient”). I was one of the people who was treated by Dr. Lisa and, no surprise, she proclaimed that I was a workaholic and suggested various remedies for my condition! We also commissioned a large mural by José Parlá, which gave the lobby of the BAM Fisher heart, while an installation by KAWS in the empty lot across the street on Lafayette Avenue, filled with decorative bike racks designed by David Byrne, gave it soul. The pièce de résistance, of course, were the amazing “Leo Lights,” as we called them, or Stars, a light installation by Leo Villareal, illuminating the front of our historic Peter Jay Sharp Building at 30 Lafayette Avenue.

BAMart, with the assistance of the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust, led by Richard Schneidman, has now evolved and includes a magnificent public art program for the entire district, which will feature “Leo Lights,” as well as other major pieces to be installed on each of BAM’s buildings. The presence of these works announces to the world, “You are now in a place of art, a cultural district.”3

Sundance Institute at BAM

At some point, in the early days of BAM cinema, Harvey was having dinner with Dick Fisher and his wife, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, and Robert Redford. Jeanne was on the board of Redford’s Sundance Institute and Dick was chair of the BAM Endowment Trust. At dinner, they talked about doing something together, but it never materialized. Nevertheless, there was still a great deal of interest on both sides. So years later, when I was president and running the cinemas, I said to Jeanne, “Let’s revisit the Sundance at BAM idea. Let’s really do it this time, and think about what it could be.

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