About the Work

Throughout their 40-year collaboration, Peter Cramer and Jack Waters have built a media-driven interdisciplinary practice that draws upon socio-political engagement with issues of sexual/gender identity and AIDS activism. For the Memorial, Cramer and Waters have conceived a durational performance/installation in collaboration with members of their “queer-skinned kitchen band,” NYOBS, featuring John Michael Swartz and Mike Cacciatore. For several hours, the ensemble will weave a tapestry of ribbons, sound, movement, music, and text throughout the Memorial site, evoking the tradition of springtime maypole celebrations. Inspired by the 1960s-era “Happenings,” musical instruments and art materials will be provided to the general public to activate the site as part of the event. In the spirit of an urban homestead, all attendees are encouraged to get involved in building together.

Named “New York City’s Most Radical Queers” by I-D Magazine, multimedia artists Peter Cramer and Jack Waters are constantly in the process of creating performances, films, videos, installations, and works of social practice. They are co-founders and directors of Le Petit Versailles, a community art garden in the Lower East Side that screens free experimental, underground movies outside under the trees.

About the Artists

Peter Cramer’s practice often addresses socio-political engagement and issues of sexual/gender identity, AIDS activism, and archival histories. Peter’s work has been presented at the MoMA, Whitney, New Museum, Danspace Project, Anthology Film Archives, Visual AIDS, and MIX NYC. His films have been preserved by the National Film Preservation Fund and are available through the Film-makers’ Co-operative and Allied Productions.

Jack Waters is a choreographer of social processes, engaging with performance, photography, visual art, and film/video. His films have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum and The National Gallery of Art. Choreographic credits include Personifications staged for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center Repertory Workshop, and his works created as a founding member of POOL, the choreographer’s collective that was the resident dance company of the legendary Pyramid Club in New York City of the 1980s.  Waters performed the title role of Jason Holliday in the acclaimed 2015 indie film “Jason and Shirley” for which he is a co-writer.

Location

Support

The New York City AIDS Memorial’s 2023 Live Arts Programming is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Ties That Bond is supported by a Visual AIDS Materials Grant. 

Photo Credit: Michael Bailey-Gates