I am thrilled to be included in this wonderful group show at Sapar Contemporary. Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales June 3, 2022- July 15, 2022 —extended to August 26 Opening reception Friday June 3, 6-8pm 9 NORTH MOORE, NEW YORK, NY 10013
Yes! that is tomorrow! — or today if you open this in the morning! So much looking looking forward to see you; it’s been too long!
Zinaida (Ukraine), Iryna Maksymova (Ukraine), Rita Maikova (Ukraine), Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Aya Shalkar (Kazakhstan/US),Yerke Abuova (Kazakhstan/US),
Nicole Peyrafitte (France/US) and Susan Coyne (US).
Curated by Nina Levent, Ph.D.
June 3, 2022- July 15, 2022
Opening reception on June 3, 6-8pm
Featuring installation + Video Antediluvian Sympoiesis pdf of installation: here
Sapar Contemporary is thrilled to present Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales, a group exhibition of women artists who draw strength from the connection with the non-human nature, involving it in their healing practices and increasingly fantastical visions of human unity with nature. The show includes artists from Ukraine (Zinaida, Rita Maikova, Iryna Maksymova, poet Kateryna Babkina) and Kazakhstan (Aya Shalkar and Yerke Abuova), representing the gallery’s DNA, as well as works by French (Nicole Peyrafitte) and American (Susan Coyne) artist.
The inspiration for the exhibition came from seeing intergenerational caravans of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and family pets migrating from the war zones, as well as the images of nature’s destruction in Ukraine: suffering trees, plants, animals of all kinds, and the whole steppe and wetland ecosystems – in addition to cultivated land. These images have been deeply felt at the gallery whose founders have family, friends, artists, and roots in Ukraine. The sense of terror brought to mind sources of strength available to women, connections that they forge across time and space, rituals recovered and re-invented in times of cataclysms. Ukrainian poet, Kateryna Babkina, contributed a poem she has written in March 2022, which was translated in English by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps for the exhibition. The poem opens with a line: Give me a brother who can protect me; woman is seeking protector and shelter, the sky responds with the final line of the poem: Make it yourself. You are on your own.
Thank you! Poet Curator Mbizo CHIRASHA for featuring my work in such details on the TIME OF THE POET REPUBLIC.
“Time of the Legend with Acclaimed Performance Poet Nicole Peyrafitte.
“Performance Poet Nicole Peyrafitte your dub verse is mind raving and lyrical gymnastics scintillates lowspirited readers to resurrect themselves to activity. Your poetry heaves with heart throbbing rhythm, that of a dense canopy of papaya tree dancing on the passing wind and as well dangling with ripe yellow ready to be give us Vitamin C. Your art is mature and provokes the world to rise and see dots of darkness in the sun as such to realize patches of dirty on the undergarments of the moon .Your philosophy concocted imagery raves and cracks our mental boxes, like how stray tendrils of marijuana smoke spirals into the nostrils of a saint, a nonsmoker and wrecks his brains to speak to himself or herself. Mind boggling. Thus, the power of your voice is extraordinary”….more
Friday April 24th was the finale our Live Cooking Videos—while confined.
First and foremost THANK YOU to all the viewers, & a very special thank you to all the regulars from literally all around the globe. During these 24 daily livecast rendez-vous, you provided sustained warm & joyful support which gave me a some sense of purpose in these trying times while we are all confined, waiting for the virus to pass.
By now, sadly most of us know someone who has succumbed to the coronavirus, and we are also all watching — or no longer watching in order to stay sane — the ineffective & disgusting political debacle. Even if most of us are safely at home, and in a somehow privileged situation — I sure feel mine is that — we still all go through the emotional roller coaster, so if the show helped make your ride smoother, I am super happy. You need to know that it sure eased mine tremendously, so gratitude to you all for watching & cheering! I really know that I also learned a lot from the whole process.
Do not hesitate to reach out via messenger at any point if you have cooking questions of just want to keep in touch; I would love that!
Meanwhile, stay healthy, take great great care & eat the best you can.
Much much love from the two of us.
P.S: The videos of all 24 videos from the last to the first below & they all have notes & links with useful information. Below the videos more cooking background info.
What do we eat/cook & why? A few years back for serious health reasons we switched to healthier, low glycemic foods & adopted the 16/8 intermittent fasting method that involves eating only during an 8-hour window & fasting for the remaining 16 hours. So we eat a variety of foods but avoid pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, processed flour & we favor veggies, legumes, eggs, healthy whole grains, & responsibly raised meat, poultry, & seafood, some fruits…Well, you get the idea & you will discover the details in the videos below. We will keep adding them as we go. Never hesitate to ask questions or request foods recipes you would like to see demonstrated or talked about.
Voilà! Bon Appétit, stay home & healthy!
“Voilà Lunchtime” were daily live-casted on FB & IG from March 24 -April 24 2020 M-F 12:00 EST
A little background:
Once upon a time I was a cook! I never liked the term chef, though I did run kitchens & was called one! I never really missed the restaurant business, but never stopped cooking. In the early years of this blog I posted more recipes & articles on food, I taught cooking & went as far as taping a demo cooking show, and filming several recipes. My aim has always been to empower people in the kitchen, not to impress them. I appreciate sophisticated techniques & truly enjoys highly skilled chefs but I was never into that kind of cooking. My background is in French regional Southwestern food but I have been in the US since 1987 and learned so much about food here. Getting together with Pierre Joris (here producer/dishwasher/husband) in 1989 was crucial for my artistic future but also for my cooking experience: it is through Pierre that I met Diane Rothenberg & Margie Byrd who are my mentors in many ways. Both are great cooks and had open tables for many years. Diane, an anthropologist, tremendously expanded my perspectives on the history of food; Margie taught me many American staples — the best corn bread ever! & then there is my childhood friend Ariane Daguin from d’Artagnan who is an inspiration has been incredibly supportive of my food related performance work. She was an early supporter of La Garbure Transcontinentale/The Bi-Continental Chowder, a performance that included texts, videos, cooking and sharing the result with the audience. Pierre & I went on doing more of these performance & a memorable one was at the Jardin des Cinq Sens et des Formes Premières in Provence; this performance included the making of a Primordial Soup, readings, vidéos, music by Denis Brun and a Karstic-Action Painting. Here are some pix.
But my cooking debut were really early! I was born in Luchon (French Pyrenees) into the 5th generation of a family of hoteliers-restaurateurs (Hotel Poste et Golf) & my very early cooking training started when I was 6 years old with my grand-father chef Joseph Peyrafitte (whose father Louis was also a chef). Later, when I took over the family kitchen, I went to intern at award winning restaurants in France –1982: Restaurant Vanel, Toulouse, 1991: Hotel de France, Auch. Both places had 2 stars at the Michelin Guide — then I got a few awards myself!
Anyway! forwarding to today: like everyone else we are trying to make the best of this imposed confinement & I always find solace in cooking & eating well. So Pierre & I decided to share the prepping of our simple & healthy home cooking live. We are live both on Facebook & Instagram Monday-Friday from 12 to 12:30 —sometimes a bit longer. Sharing & live-casting our cooking is really in line with our Domopoetic* practice.
* Domopoetics is our collaborative attempt to think, feel & make us respons/able to this/our world & it responsive to us. We do this via our private lives & public actions & performances that meander dialogically between Nicole Peyrafitte’s drawings & videos, voice-, textual & cooking work & Pierre Joris’ poems, translations & essayistic thinking.
Memorabilia:
Sitting next to a chaud-froid de volaille at the hotel KitchenHotel Poste & Golf Bagnères-de-Luchon (here circa 1965)My grand-pa Chef Joseph PeyrafitteSan-Diego 1990 : Nicole, Pierre Franey, Ariane DaguinAward 1981Award 1982
It is impossible to wrap my head around Steve’s departure. I met Steve and Yuko at an Art opening for Mary Beach in the early 2000. When I permanently moved to NYC in 2007, they were incredibly supportive. They took me around and Steve got me several readings & introduced me to a lot of great music & musiciens.
When I asked them to be part of my film Thing Fall Where They Lie along with Eric Sarner & Katalin Pataki, they were once again totally supportive. We shot for one week. These two pairs of artists had never met each other and their backgrounds were four different countries and four different mother-tongues. What was supposed to be some sort of historical portrait of Bagnères-de-Luchon, my hometown in the French Pyrenees, became an exercise in poetic drift through their personal stories. They all fell in love with each other, they shared love for jazz and poetry — their sensitivities coupled with a joyous curiosity took over. For seven days, shooting in cinéma vérité style, I followed them in the once upon a time glamorous spa where we all re-imagined the lives of a famous jazz violinist and of Karl Marx’s grandson, both buried in Bagnères-de-Luchon.
Steve was inexhaustibly funny, smart, bringing so much to the group dynamic of group — & yes! He was happy for a full week! I personally never saw him so consistently happy for one full week. I spent countless hours editing the film, and it truly was a joy, I loved looking at Steve on the screen, his soft gaze, his pursing lips, his deambulations….
We have not lost Steve, he departed before us. Thank you for being you, Steve, and to you Yuko, be strong! We need you! Much much love and we hug you tight.
I am so blessed to have known you, Steve: you enriched and brought much joy to my life. I love you forever.
Here are a few shots of our Domopoetics event in Austin. Above is the Kasrtic-Action Painting made during the performance.
Thank you Roger West & Kate Rex for bringing us here. Thank you Francis McGrath for the improvised music. Thank you Samantha Barendson for the snapshots. Next action will be at the fantastic New Orleans Poetry Festival ; & here is our program:
A little background:
