Alex Kahn is an American visual/performance artist and co-founder of the arts ensemble Processional Arts Workshop. He is most widely known for his creation of the large-scale puppet performance works that lead

New York's Village Halloween Parade The Village Halloween Parade is an annual holiday parade on the night of every Halloween, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The parade, initiated in 1974 by Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee, is the world' ...

each year.

Pageant puppetry and processional art

In 1998, Kahn and his partner, Sophia Michahelles, brought together an ensemble of artists, puppeteers, theatrical technicians, and performers to design the annual performances that lead New York's Village Halloween Parade. Originally named "Superior Concept Monsters", the group was incorporated as a non-profit in 2005 and renamed Processional Arts Workshop with a mission to create site-specific community-built processions, parades, and other open-space performances. These works are often developed through open community workshops that bring hundreds of volunteers together to build, rehearse, and ultimately perform cyclical pieces specifically for the parade. The performances typically incorporate elements of puppetry, sound, dance, costume/mask, lighting/projection and mobile architecture, an amalgam of mediums Kahn dubbed "processional art". In addition to leading

each year, Kahn's creations have appeared in venues nationally and internationally. His work, Metamorphosis, involving 20' tall pupating luna moths, officially opened the 2000 Henson International Festival of Puppet Theatre. In 2002, he and Michahelles initiated a midsummer pageant project in the Italian Alps village of Morinesio, drawing on local folklore and oral history to create a unique site-specific pageant. Inspired by the success of the now-annual tradition, they have seeded similar projects in diverse locales in Ukraine, Turkey, Italy, Texas, New York, and elsewhere. In 2006, Kahn was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, to study the artistic and cultural structures behind Caribbean Carnival and Trinidadian "Mas'", or costumed procession. More recent PAW works have included major commissions for

Socrates Sculpture Park Socrates Sculpture Park is an outdoor museum and public park where artists can create and exhibit sculptures and multi-media installations. It is located one block from the Noguchi Museum at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in th ...

the NY Architectural League's Beaux Arts Ball, the

PEN World Voices The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is an annual week-long literary festival held in New York City and Los Angeles. The festival was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts and was launched in 2005. The fes ...

Festival, Houston's Buffalo Bayou Park,"Houston Chronicle (6/2/2015) – Want to make art for Buffalo Bayou Park's big party?
/ref> the Grand Opening of the

High Line The High Line is a elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Opera ...

over Penn Rail Yards.

Other works

Kahn has maintained an independent practice as a theatrical designer, printmaker, installation artist, and teacher. His interdisciplinary approach was strongly influenced by his experience as technical director of the Kitchen Performance Center during the 1990s. During this time he created lighting, objects, and effects for performance artists including John Jesurun ("Chang in a Void Moon"), Mikel Rouse ("Failing Kansas"), Roseanne Spradlin,

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recordin ...

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...

, and David Hykes. Kahn trained as a master printer under

Robert Blackburn (artist) Robert Hamilton Blackburn (December 12, 1920 – April 21, 2003) was an African-American artist, teacher, and master printmaker. Early life and education Blackburn was born in Summit, New Jersey, to Janet Chambers and Robert Archeball B ...

and chaired the Printmaking Department at Maine College of Art from 2000 to 2004. Hi
Spam Cantos
a retooling of spam messages generated by Baysean algorithms into a series of letterpress poems, appeared at the Maine Institute of Contemporary Art in 2008. In 2016, Kahn performed in the role of "choir-master" in "The Visitors" a video-work by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, which has appeared at major museums around the world. His ongoing project, a fictional traveling museum called the Archive of the Synapse, has been exhibited nationally. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' art critic Kenneth Baker described the work as follows:

References

* "The Greatest Free Show on Earth: Carnival from Trinidad to Brazil, Cape Town to New Orleans" Claire Tancons. From exhibition catalogue for "Prospect 1: New Orleans" (PictureBox, 2008) * ''Puppetry International: Mega-Puppets Issue'' (Fall/Winter 2007-8) – "Greenwich Village Halloween" article by Rolande DuPree. * ''Trinidad Guardian'' (4/25/06) – “Puppeteers Find That Cultural Link” by Kayode James * ''La Guida'' (6/13/03) – “I Puppazzi gigante di Morinesio” by Massimiliano Cavallo * ''Middletown Times Herald-Record'' (2/23/03) – “It Takes a Community to Build a Puppet” by Deborah J. Botti * ''Harvard Magazine'' (Jan/Feb 03) – “Community Puppeteer” by Ellenor J. Honig * ''Art New England'' (Feb/March 2) – “Light Upon Light: Towers of Remembrance” by Chris Thompson * ''Portland Phoenix'' (10/26/00) – “Gathering Intelligence” by Chris Thompson * ''Teokikixtli - Mexican Review of Puppet Arts'' (July 1) – ”The Mysterious Life of Giant Puppets” by Sophia Michahelles * ''New York Times'' (11/1/ 00) – “Night of the Living Dot-Com” by Shaila Dewan * ''NyTeknik'' (11/00) – “Halloween årets rysare” by Jan Aschan. Swedish technical journal – feature article on puppetry works * ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (8/19/00) – “Artists Create Show at Refusalon’s ‘1:1’ ” review by Kenneth Baker * ''Chronogram'' (September 00) – “Pulling Strings: Hudson Valley Puppetry Renaissance” by Pauline Uchmanowicz * ''New York Times'' (11/1/98) – photo from performance work

External links

Official website for Processional Arts Workshop

Video compilation of PAW works

Official website for Archive of the Synapse

Official website for New York's Village Halloween Parade

WFUV Radio "Cityscape": documentary feature on Superior Concept Monsters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahn, Alex Living people American artists Jewish American artists Artists from New York (state) American puppeteers Puppet designers 21st-century American Jews Year of birth missing (living people) Fulbright alumni