The Wind Up Series of After-Hours Events Presents 
<br/><i>ALPHABET PARTY</i>
<br/>Inspired by the Exhibition <i>Mel Bochner: Strong Language</i>
<br/>On July 24

High Water

Release Date: July 8, 2014

The Wind Up Series of After-Hours Events Presents
ALPHABET PARTY
Inspired by the Exhibition Mel Bochner: Strong Language
On July 24

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New York, NY – The Jewish Museum presents the next event in its popular series of after hours events, The Wind Up. Featuring art, live music, activities, and an open bar, The Wind Up: ALPHABET PARTY will take place on Thursday, July 24 from 8pm to 11pm.  Focused on the exhibition, Mel Bochner: Strong Language, the evening celebrates Bochner’s colorful and cerebral Thesaurus paintings. Attendees will enjoy a live performance by High Water, a genre-blending, multi-instrumental artist on the rise, and create their own block printed tote bags inspired by the exhibition. There will also be a DJ set by DJ Le Chev, guided tours of Mel Bochner: Strong Language, a kosher wine tasting, cotton candy and other summery treats, and an open bar with beer and wine.

Tickets for the July 24 event are $13 in advance; $18 day of event.  For further information, the public may call 212.423.3337. Tickets for this program can be purchased online at www.thejewishmuseum.org/thewindup. The Jewish Museum is located at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, Manhattan.

High Water is a project multi-instrumentalist Will Epstein started in 2013. High Water could be called experimental electronica with a psychedelic mindset and jazz and minimalist influences. Epstein released his debut EP The Beautiful Moon in October 2013.

Le Chev is an American producer and DJ from Chicago, currently living in New York.  His production style has been described as “massive” (Clash), “colorful, thrilling” (Pitchfork), and “a vision of paradise” (Brooklyn Vegan), and as a DJ, Le Chev takes aim directly at the dance floor playing club music.  As a producer, Le Chev was awarded “Best New Music” by Pitchfork Media twice for his work with Frankie Rose and Lemonade, and made SPIN’s top 50 albums of 2012.

Mel Bochner: Strong Language is a survey of Bochner's career-long fascination with the cerebral and visual associations of words. The exhibition includes over 70 text-based works. Among the highlights are his mid-1960s Portrait Drawings, never before exhibited in New York, and paintings from the last decade using synonyms appropriated from the latest edition of Roget's Thesaurus. Bochner was inspired by the Thesaurus' new permissiveness to broaden his linguistic references juxtaposing proper with vernacular, formal against vulgar, high against low. His Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to be Viewed as Art is considered to be the first Conceptual Art exhibition. Mel Bochner (b. 1940) emerged at a time when young artists considered painting exhausted. A pioneer in incorporating language into visual art, Bochner has taken an unusual turn toward painterly expressiveness during the past two decades. Mel Bochner: Strong Language reveals the artist's longstanding engagement with the possibilities of language as image, medium, and content. Visitors are able to see a broad selection ranging from often witty early conceptual works to vibrantly colored and lushly executed recent paintings.

Kosher wine is provided by Royal Wine.

Public Programs at The Jewish Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Major annual support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

About the Jewish Museum

Located on Museum Mile at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, the Jewish Museum is one of the world's preeminent institutions devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary, offering intellectually engaging, educational, and provocative exhibitions and programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. The Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains a collection of over 30,000 works of art, artifacts, and broadcast media reflecting global Jewish identity, and presents a diverse schedule of internationally acclaimed temporary exhibitions. For general information, visit the Museum’s website at www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200.

Press contacts

Anne Scher, Molly Kurzius,
or Alex Wittenberg
The Jewish Museum
212.423.3271 or pressoffice@thejm.org