Artists Studio: Jamire Williams

WELCOME

We are proud to welcome you to the tenth year of Park Avenue Armory’s Artists Studio series. Starting in 2016, the Artists Studio has been showcasing a diverse mix of some of today’s most creative voices who have a distinct relationship with improvisation and various art forms. Realized in the Veterans Room—a monument to the American Aesthetic Movement designed by Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists—these interventions expressly mirror the innovative spirit of the exceptional young artists present at the room’s inception.

The success of this series is founded on the incredible curatorial work of celebrated jazz pianist, composer, and MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran. A longtime friend of the Armory and brilliant musician and artist in his own right, Jason has the unique ability to find artists imagining outside of the box and give them the freedom to explore across categories and artistic forms, taking their practice in exciting new directions in the Veterans Room. We are thankful for Jason and his contribution to the Artists Studio series over the past decade.

This season, the Artists Studio opens with a tenth-anniversary celebration performance in January, where series curator Jason Moran gives an evening of solo performance and reflection in the very space where he inaugurated the opening of the Veterans Room after its revitalization. Percussionist and composer Jamire Williams brings his creative voice in March, developing an immersive and experimental solo percussion performance that pushes the boundaries of rhythm, texture, and memory. June brings a program by composer and performance artist Joy Guidry, who expands on her Award-winning ambient album Five Prayers by reimagining it into movements based on different themes of Black American spirituality and artistic expression ranging from jazz and minimalism to opera, ballet, blues, and gospel. In October, musician and visual artist Raven Chacon’s work connects Diné (Navajo) worldviews and relationship models with Western classical, avant-garde, and art-music traditions. Finally, director and sound artist IONE returns to the Artists Studio series following her 2016 appearance with her late partner, composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros; she closes out this milestone year with a deep listening exercise—Listening with Dreams

Through programming like the Artists Studio series, Park Avenue Armory strives to support artists to imagine and create innovative work, inspired by the unique surround of this marvelous space. We hope you find inspiration and fresh perspectives in the new, site-specific works by these thoughtful and groundbreaking artists.

Rebecca Robertson

Adam R. Flatto Founding President and Executive Producer

Deborah Warner

Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director

SEASON SPONSOR

2026 ARTISTS STUDIO IN THE RESTORED VETERANS ROOM

JAMIRE WILLIAMS

wednesday, march 25, 2026 at 7:30pm thursday, march 26, 2026 at 7:30pm

PUBLIC SUPPORT

Bloomberg Philanthropies is Park Avenue Armory’s 2026 Season Sponsor. Leadership support for the Armory’s artistic programming has been generously provided by the Anita K. Hersh Philanthropic Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Pinkerton Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Thompson Family Foundation, and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Major support was also provided by the the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Shubert Foundation, the SHS Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and Wescustogo Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams. Cover image by James Ewing.

ABOUT JAMIRE WILLIAMS

Jamire Williams is a distinguished multidisciplinary artist and educator who functions in the realms of music performance, performance art, composition, and assemblage sculptures. Throughout his illustrious career, he has collaborated with such luminaries as Solange Knowles, Virgil Abloh, Herbie Hancock, Jason Moran, Dev Hynes, Robert Glasper, Moses Sumney, Terrance Blanchard, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Kenny Garrett, Kahlil Joseph, Jamal Cyrus, Kara Walker, Christian aTunde Adjuah, Kris Bowers, Jeff Parker, Chassol, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and Carlos Niño. Williams has a deep resume as a recording artist and has seamlessly distinguished himself across the avant-garde, jazz, and indie music genres. Having been featured on over 30 label recordings, he has released several critically acclaimed solo albums (But Only After You Have Suffered 2021, Effectual 2016, Conflict Of A Man 2012 [ERIMAJ]).

As a visual artist, he has presented and/or installed works at The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Montreal Contemporary Arts Museum, Stony Island Arts Bank (Chicago, IL), and Brookfield Place (New York, NY). After delving deeper into this side of his practice, Williams was in residence at Lawndale Art & Performance Center as a member of their 2021/22 Artist Studio Program. The residency spawned a group exhibition, Taking Care, showcasing what Williams deemed his truest work to date at the time. Recently Williams was granted artist-in-residence at Ballroom Marfa for Ballroom Sessions-The Farther Place 2023/24. The residency concluded with a commissioned audio sound piece entitled Up North, High Above The Stars, which is being distributed exclusively on cassette through Ballroom Marfa. Williams latest work was an exhibition entitled Antidote For A Reprobate Mind showcased at Project Row Houses (Houston, TX) in conjunction with their Round 57: Southern Survey Biennial II. This presentation further cemented his voice as a visual artist and displayed a divine connection between his multiple practices and heritage.

PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Benjamin Wygonik Production Audio

Special thanks to Asia Williams, Austin Williamson, and Gio Suarez

ABOUT THE ARTISTS STUDIO

Launched in March 2016 alongside the inauguration of the revitalized Veterans Room, the Artists Studio serves as a space for artists to experiment, collaborate, create, and push the boundaries of their craft. Previous Artists Studio programs have featured performances by: jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran ; Dutch contemporary composer Louis Andriessen and pianist Jason Moran; American composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros and noted author, director, and dream specialist IONE; pianist and composer Conrad Tao and multifaceted percussionist, instrumentalist, and composer Tyshawn Sorey; seminal drummer and acupuncturist Milford Graves and drummer and musician Deantoni Parks; artist Lucy Raven; groundbreaking sound designer Ryan Trecartin with his primary collaborator Lizzie Fitch, music producer and DJ Ashland Mines (aka Total Freedom), and composer/producer Aaron David Ross; acoustic ensemble Dawn of Midi; composer Ryuichi Sakamoto; tenor Lawrence Brownlee with pianists Myra Huang and Jason Moran; multidisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome; vocalist Dominique Eade and pianist Ran Blake with composer Kavita Shah; experimental composer Alvin Curran; internationally renowned composer, saxophonist, sound experimentalist, and mixed-media practitioner Matana Roberts; pioneer of experimental music Charlemagne Palestine; art icon

NEXT IN THE SERIES

JOY GUIDRY

JUNE 3 & 4

Joy Guidry is a celebrated artist in the experimental and avant-garde music spaces, representing a convergence of sound, spirit, and radical self-expression. This multifaceted artist comes to the Veterans Room to create a ruminative performance in the spirit of a southern church revival and based on her ambient album Five Prayers, reimagining it into movements based on different themes of Black American spirituality and artistic expression ranging from jazz and minimalism to opera, ballet, blues, and gospel.

RAVEN CHACON

OCTOBER 7 & 8

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer, and visual artist who has developed a practice that connects Diné (Navajo) worldviews and relationship models with Western classical, avant-garde, and art-music traditions. This MacArthur Fellow and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music showcases his unique artistry when he comes to the Veterans Room to create a new work that cuts across boundaries of visual art and performance in his ongoing illumination of landscapes, their inhabitants, and histories.

and DJ Juliana Huxtable; composer and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell; experimental composer, improviser, and performer Miya Masaoka; My Barbarian collective founders Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade; cutting edge visual artist Rosa Barba; Dominican accordionist Krency Garcia (El Prodigio); the late trumpeter jaimie branch and visual artist Carol Szymanski; pioneer of performance and video art Joan Jonas; conceptual artist, writer, and performer Rodney McMillian; a full season residency by the revolutionary collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Inc. (AACM), featuring Pulizter Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, drummer and percussionist Thurman Barker, musical partners Adegoke Steve Colson and Iqua Colson, scholar and composer George Lewis, composer and percussionist Reggie Nicholson, and multidimensional artist and creator Amina Claudine Myers; artist and musician Jasper Marsalis; American poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother with free jazz quintet Irreversible Entanglements (IE); performance artist EJ Hill; filmmaker, writer, curator, and founder of the BlackStar Film Festival Maori Karmael Holmes; curator and composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe; Swedish experimental vocalist Sofia Jernberg; solo performer and drummer Guillermo E. Brown; and Norwegian artist and musician Sandra Mujinga

IONE

OCTOBER 20 & 21

An author, playwright, director, and dream specialist, IONE is also a noted sound artist who with her late partner Pauline Oliveros redefined the boundaries of music making in the development of experimental and electronic art music. She returns to the Veterans Room to lead a deep listening exercise—Listening with Dreams—with artistic collaborators to explore the difference between the involuntary and voluntary natures of hearing and the selective nature of listening through movement, and interactive sonic meditations.

ABOUT PARK AVENUE ARMORY

Part palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory supports unconventional works in the performing and visual arts that cannot be fully realized in a traditional proscenium theater, concert hall, or white wall gallery. With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall—reminiscent of 19th-century European train stations—and an array of exuberant period rooms, the Armory provides a platform for artists to push the boundaries of their practice, collaborate across disciplines, and create new work in dialogue with the historic building. Across its grand and intimate spaces, the Armory enables a diverse range of artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience epic, adventurous, relevant work that cannot be done elsewhere in New York.

The Armory both commissions and presents performances and installations in the grand Drill Hall and offers more intimate programming through its acclaimed Recital Series, which showcases musical talent from across the globe within the salon setting of the Board of Officers Room; its Artists Studio series curated by Jason Moran in the restored Veterans Room; Making Space at the Armory, a public programming series that brings together a discipline-spanning group of artists and cultural thought-leaders around the important issues of our time; and the Malkin Lecture

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chairman

Series that features presentations by scholars and writers on topics related to the Armory and its history. In addition, the Armory also has a year-round Artists-in-Residence program, providing space and support for artists to create new work and expand their practices.

The Armory’s creativity-based arts education programs provide access to the arts to thousands of students from underserved New York City public schools, engaging them with the institution’s artistic programming and outside-the-box creative processes. Through its education initiatives, the Armory provides access to all Drill Hall performances, workshops taught by Master Teaching Artists, and in-depth residencies that support the schools’ curriculum. Youth Corps, the Armory’s year-round paid internship program, begins in high school and continues into the critical post-high school years, providing interns with mentored employment, job training, and skill development, as well as a network of peers and mentors to support their individual college and career goals.

The Armory is undergoing a multi-phase renovation and restoration of its historic building led by architects Herzog & de Meuron, with Platt Byard Dovell White as Executive Architects.

Edward

Avant-Garde Chair

Directors Emeriti

M. Bains Angela E. Thompson*

Wade F.B. Thompson* Founding Chairman, 2000-2009

Deborah Warner

Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director

*In memoriam

ABOUT THE VETERANS ROOM

“In a sense, the Veterans Room, of all the Armory’s opulent reception rooms, has the deepest spiritual kinship with a work of contemporary art.” —The New York Times

The Veterans Room is among the most significant surviving interiors of the American Aesthetic Movement, and the most significant remaining intact interior in the world by Louis C. Tiffany and Co., Associated Artists. The newly formed collective led by Tiffany included some of the most significant American designers of the 19th century at early stages of their very distinguished careers: Stanford White, Samuel Colman, and Candace Wheeler among them. The design of the room by these artists was exotic, eclectic, and full of experimentation, as noted by Decorator and Furnisher in 1885 that “the prepondering styles appear to be the Greek, Moresque, and Celtic, with a dash of Egyptian, the Persian, and the Japanese in the appropriate places.”

A monument of late 19th-century decorative arts, the Veterans Room is the fourth period room at the Armory completed (out of 18). The revitalization of the room responds to the original exuberant vision for the room’s design, bringing into dialogue some of the most talented designers of the 19th and 21st centuries – Associated Artists with Herzog & de Meuron, Platt Byrd Dovell

White Architects, and a team of world-renowned artisans and experts in Tiffany glass, fine woodworking, and decorative arts. The revitalization of the Veterans Room follows Herzog & de Meuron’s design approach for the Armory building, which seeks to highlight the distinct qualities and existing character of each individual room while interweaving contemporary elements to improve its function. Even more so than in other rooms at the Armory, Herzog & de Meuron’s approach to the Veterans Room is to amplify the beauty of the room’s original vision through adding contemporary reconstructions of lost historic materials and subtle additions with the same ethos and creative passion as the original artisans to infuse a modern energy into a harmonious, holistic design. The room’s restoration is part of an ongoing $215-million transformation, which is guided by the understanding that the Armory’s rich history and the patina of time are essential to its character, with a design process for the period rooms that emphasizes close collaboration between architect and artisan.