(Untitled): The Helga Piece

“(Untitled): The Helga Piece,” is a short monologue written by Hilton Als based on the performer’s interest in the depiction of the black body in Botticelli’s The Story of Lucretia, painted between 1496 and 1504 and now on view at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Throughout the history of Western painting, the black figure has often been seen as a troubled and troubling presence. Why is difference generally manifested in this way? And what does it mean to turn the black female gaze onto the white male artist who, centuries ago, presumed to know her in the first place?

Helga Davis is a vocalist and performance artist with feet planted on the most prestigious international stages and with firm roots in the realities and concerns of her local community. Her work draws out insights that illuminate how artistic leaps for an individual can offer connection among audiences. Davis was principal actor in the 25th-anniversary international revival of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’s seminal opera, Einstein on the Beach. Among the collaborative and works written for her are Oceanic Verses by Paola Prestini, You Us We All by Shara Nova and Andrew Ondrejcak, and Faust’s Box by Italian contemporary music composer Andrea Liberovici. Robert Wilson describes her as “a united whole, with spellbinding inner power and strength.” She also starred in Robert Wilson’s The Temptation of St. Anthony, with libretto and score by Bernice Johnson Reagon, and The Blue Planet by Peter Greenaway.

Hilton Als became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1994 and a theatre critic in 2002. He began contributing to the magazine in 1989, writing pieces for The Talk of the Town.

Before coming to The New Yorker, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor-at-large at Vibe. Als edited the catalogue for the 1994-95 Whitney Museum of American Art exhibition “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art.” His first book, The Women, was published in 1996. His most recent book, White Girls, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014, discusses various narratives of race and gender. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2017.

Als is an associate professor of writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and has taught at Yale University, Wesleyan, and Smith College. He lives in New York City.
 

Tickets include Museum admission.

Adults $15, seniors $12, students $10, free for members and children 17 and under.

• Online, by clicking the TICKETS button above*
• By calling the box office at 617 278 5156, Wednesday-Monday, 10 am-4 pm*
• In person: Visit the Museum and purchase at the door, Wednesday-Monday, 11 am-4:30 pm

*Handling charges apply to these orders