The Armory Show
 September 5–7, 2025 | Javits Center
Explore the Sounds of The Kitchen
Armory Spotlight The Kitchen

Explore the sounds of The Kitchen's inaugural Armory Spotlight presentation

Photo Credit Entrance to The Kitchen at 484 Broome Street. Date unknown c.1978–1981. Photograph by Patrick Hinley.

The inaugural Armory Spotlight is in partnership with The Kitchen, one of New York City’s oldest not-for-profit spaces that presents a robust, multidisciplinary program of contemporary art and performance.

On the occasion of The Kitchen's presentation for Armory Spotlight, The Kitchen turns its institutional archive outward through a presentation of live performance recordings from 1976 through 1986—originally released in the “From The Kitchen Archives” album series—within an installation of print ephemera. At the fair, a digital jukebox will feature a selection of tracks that span musical styles and movements, from experimental music under the heading of “New Music” to jazz to No Wave to rock.

Explore Selections from the albums below:

FROM THE KITCHEN ARCHIVES NO. 4 – COMPOSERS INSIDE ELECTRONICS

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This album features live concert recordings by Composers Inside Electronics, a pioneering collective of musicians and sound artists centered around David Tudor, who is best-known for his collaborative relationships with composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham. The compositions featured on the disc by David Tudor, John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, Martin Kalve, and Bill Viola were recorded during two series of performances that took place at The Kitchen in 1977 and 1978. Known for creating sound works with the home-built circuitry devices they favored over commercial synthesizers, Composers Inside Electronics would bring together many of these custom-made instruments for each sound installation or performance, often linking them together differently for unique sonic results each time. While electronics were the primary focus, the compositions on this disc also include acoustic sound sources such as a gong, a saw, and an amplified conch shell. The work of Composers Inside Electronics was groundbreaking in its day, yet feels contemporary 30 years later, as so many younger musicians and sound artists look to take on this legacy, exploring both analog and digital music.

From The Kitchen Archives No. 5 – Pianos in the Kitchen

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Pianos in The Kitchen brings together select concert recordings of solo piano works performed at The Kitchen from 1976 through 1983, including works from the 1976 Bösendorfer Festival and the 1983 series of benefit concerts that supported the purchase of a new Steinway Baby Grand piano for the institution. Featured are names familiar to The Kitchen’s history such as Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Charlemagne Palestine, and Anthony Davis as well as performers/composers Harold Budd and Dennis Russell Davies, who have enjoyed important careers, but are not necessarily associated with The Kitchen’s programming. There is a notable immediacy and intimacy about each performance in this compilation, stemming perhaps from the nature of live recordings and the strength of the piano as a large organic, vibrant instrument. These recordings elicit an almost physical sense of closeness, an awareness of performers' breath and their hands, the reach towards new gestures beyond the academy.

"By allowing people to revisit these recordings of groundbreaking performances at The Kitchen in a different chapter of its life, we bring to a contemporary audience the opportunity to shape new relationships with The Kitchen’s history and the history of an avant-garde New York."
- Legacy Russell

From the Kitchen Archives – New Music, New York 1979

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Over the last thirty years, The Kitchen has made extraordinary efforts to document every on-site performance with video and/or audiotape. In 2001, close to 300 audio recordings of Kitchen concerts from the 1970s and early ‘80s were discovered. While the tape boxes promised rare and exciting recordings by such artists as John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and David Tudor, we were not able to listen to any of these reels without the funds and facilities to provide proper cleaning and re-formatting. A collaborative partnership with The Looking Glass Studios and the online label, Orange Mountain Music, has allowed for the restoration of a number of reels from the archive. The album documents outstanding performances by artists including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, Tony Conrad, Jon Gibson and many more.

FROM THE KITCHEN ARCHIVES NO. 6 – THE KITCHEN IMPROVISES: 1976 – 1983

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Curated by composer George Lewis, this album brings together performances from a moment of particular hybridity in the downtown music scene, and portrays the emergence of a new model of composer-improvisors. Included on the album are performances by Earl Howard, Gerry Hemingway, Roscoe Mitchell, Gerald Oshita, Thomas Buckner, Oliver Lake, Meltable Snaps It, and Lewis himself, who was additionally Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1980–1982.

"Now, in Armory Spotlight, we see two historic points intersecting, giving us the opportunity to ask, 'Where do we go from here? And what is necessary to refuse and reimagine now?'"
- Legacy Russell

From the Kitchen Archives No. 2 – Steve Reich and Musicians, 1977

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Steve Reich, an important "first generation" minimalist composer, remains one of the foremost composers of our time. While throughout the years, Reich has performed and recorded worldwide, some of his most dynamic performances have taken place at The Kitchen, including a performance by Mr. Reich and Musicians that was recorded in 1977. Now this recording, which had since been held in The Kitchen's extensive archives of historic audio and videotapes, is released by Orange Mountain Music, in collaboration The Kitchen.

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