Banks live at the Guggenheim Musuem
On Wednesday night, the Guggenheim Museum hosted their fourth annual International Gala—presented by Dior. Part one of the two-night soiree featured a pre-party that was hosted by the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council (a committee formed to vote on new acquisitions to the museum’s contemporary art collection). This year’s event featured a special performance by honored the current retrospective on Agnes Martin (open in the main rotunda through January 2017).
Key among the latter was the fact that the date marked the inaugural live performance by Banks of songs from her latest release The Altar (her second studio album, which dropped on Harvest Records in September of 2016). The artist’s half hour set included “Gemini Feed,” “Fuck with Myself” and “Trainwreck” off her recent album and “Waiting Game” off her debut album Goddess (Harvest, 2014). There is a subversive level of awe and bewilderment when contextualizing Bank’s music with the psychical altar where she performed. With acts like Grimes and The xx setting the stage in year’s past, there is a certain kind of renown and an admissible art that each performer brings to the Guggenheim (already renowned for it’s unsurpassable art collection and architecture).
What Banks brings to the stage, and the site-specific space, is a pure sense of immersion. As calm and surreal as the art that adorns the Guggenheim’s rotunda, Banks creates a complete atmosphere with her music. Accompanied, at points, by two solitary dancers, she transforms and transcends traditional concert norms. Attired in a custom-made Dior dress, she floats poignantly around the rotund stage almost with a vision in mind (tracing the waves of her lyrics from side-to-side, top-to-bottom); ethereal might be the most fitting way to describe her movement and energy. As a whole, the evening was nothing short of incredible—the energy, the well-dressed socialites, and the socially graced atmosphere conversed to create a unique and totally immersive space.
Be sure to check out Banks at hernameisbanks.com, and for all the latest happenings at the Guggenheim Museum check back regularly at guggenheim.org.