The Kitchen

The Kitchen is a non-profit, interdisciplinary organization that provides innovative artists working in the media, literary, and performing arts with exhibition and performance opportunities to create and present new work. Using its own extensive history as a resource, the organization identifies and supports artists who are making significant contributions to their respective fields as well as serves as a safe space for more established artists to take unusual creative risks.

The Kitchen is one of New York City’s oldest nonprofit spaces, showing innovative work by emerging and established artists across disciplines. Our programs range from dance, music, performance, and theater, to video, film, and art, in addition to literary events, artists’ talks, and lecture series. Since its inception, The Kitchen has been a powerful force in shaping the cultural landscape of this country, and has helped launch the careers of many artists who have gone on to worldwide prominence.

Founded as an artist collective in 1971 by Woody and Steina Vasulka and incorporated as a nonprofit two years later, The Kitchen has from its infancy been a space where experimental artists and composers share progressive ideas with like-minded colleagues. It was among the very first American institutions to embrace the emerging fields of video and performance, while presenting visionary new work in established disciplines such as dance, music, literature, and film. This unique combination generated an environment immediately conducive to groundbreaking and cross-disciplinary explorations, helping launch the careers of many artists who have defined the American avant-garde, including Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Charles Atlas, Dara Birnbaum, Lucinda Childs, Bill T. Jones, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Elizabeth Streb, among many others. Today, The Kitchen is an internationally-acclaimed institution giving support to—and seeking to foster a living dialogue among—artists from every field and area of culture in the effort to create an art for our time.