On Sunday March 8th at 1pm, NYU Skirball will host a panel conversation on Franz Kafka’s The Trial, censorship, artistic freedom, and artists at risk, in relation to the continuing global rise of right-wing and populist politics. This will be followed by a marathon reading of The Trial at 3pm.
These events are in response to the cancellation of Polish director Krystian Lupa’s adaptation of The Trial, which was scheduled to perform at NYU Skirball on March 7 & 8, 2020. In December 2019, the Polish Cultural Ministry withdrew promised financial support for the production and its 46-person company, making it impossible to travel to New York as planned. As Mr. Lupa states: “The declaration… is clear: Artists who do not sympathize with the current leadership’s cultural policy, who criticize its values, decisions and actions will be treated as enemies of Poland and will not be supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in any form.”
The panel includes Monika Fabijanska, a curator, former art business student at CALA, and the former director of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York. Monika notes “My interest in censorship drives a lot of what I curate and, in addition, I brought Krystian Lupa’s Kalkwerk to Lincoln Center Festival in 2009, his first production presented in New York City.”
RSVP is recommended, but not required. More information here.
1PM: PANEL “ART IN DANGER, ARTISTS AT RISK”
Monika Fabijanska, Former Director of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York
Holly Hughes, Professor at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design, and one of NEA Four,
Felix Kaputu, Resident “Writer at Risk” at Fordham University
André Lepecki, NYU Performance Studies Professor and Chairperson
Krystian Lupa, Director
Julie Trébault, Director, Artists at Risk Connection, PEN America
Moderated by Catherine R. Stimpson
3PM: THE TRIAL MARATHON READING
The first fragment will be read by Krystian Lupa, followed by Salman Rushdie, Kathleen Chalfant, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Zadie Smith, and many more (you can read, too!)
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