RALPH LEMON'S NEW PROJECT SCAFFOLD ROOM TO DEBUT AT WALKER ART CENTER IN SEPTEMBER 2014

MINNEAPOLIS, June 3 2014--Scaffold Room, the new project by Ralph Lemon commissioned by the Walker Art Center, will premiere September 16-28, 2014. Equal parts theater work and gallery installation, Scaffold Room is perhaps Ralph Lemon's boldest experiment yet with the boundaries of form and presentation. Merging performance, visual art, music, and text, this "lecture-performance-musical" refracts ideas of contemporary performance through archetypal black female personae in American culture. The two-story environment/theater for Scaffold Room in the Walker's Burnet gallery comes alive with performances by Okwui Okpokwasili and April Matthis inspired by iconic figures drawn from history and pop culture such as Moms Mabley, Amy Winehouse, and Kathy Acker. These live fragments of pop and contemporary art culture exist alongside images of a rural Mississippi Delta community embodied on video by 86-year-old Edna Carter and her extended family, continuing a decade-long partnership between the family and Ralph Lemon on a range of artistic projects. The electronic/turntable-based sound score is composed by Marina Rosenfeld.

The public is invited to Scaffold Room during installation and rehearsals September 16-24, followed by the opening on September 25--a Target Free Thursday Night. Scaffold Room will continue in different formats Friday, September 26 through Sunday, September 28. These will include ticketed evening performances and projects in the gallery space throughout each day