A Project
The act of combining visual arts and dance has initiated Bokaer’s entire oeuvre. This is a life-long project which continuously questions and challenges the role of a choreographer’s participation in fine art.
Inquiries
Original works on paper, stills, animations, 2D, 3D, and 4D works are available on a limited basis. Bokaer’s visual works and archives are managed independently. For inquiries please contact: [email protected].
Private Collections
• Beth Rudin DeWoody – Los Angeles
• Ashton Hawkins, Esq. & Johnnie L. Moore III – New York
• Susan Baker & Michael Lynch – New York
• Noreen & Kenneth Buckfire – New York
• Celia & Silas Chou – Hong Kong
• Anita Contini / Bloomberg Philanthropies – New York
• Brandon Fradd – New York
• Susan & Peter Kessler – New York
• Michèle Gerber Klein – New York
• Helen Yee Little & William Little – New York
• Long Road Foundation – Florida
• Ron Mandos – Amsterdam, Holland
• Patrick Miko Collection – Florida
• David Noble & Douglas Choo Collection – Florida
• Jay Pagano – Mayor of Fire Island, LI
• Keith Recker – Pittsburgh, PA
• Robert Stilin – New York
Public Collections
• Parrish Art Museum
• Center for Jewish History New York
• Florida State College at Jacksonville
• Long Road Foundation
• Nathaniel Wilson Center for the Performing & Fine Arts
• Trident Editions Collection
Museum, Exhibitions, Commissions
• Ackland Art Museum – Chapel Hill, NC
• Arter Museum – Istanbul, Turkey
• Asia Society – New York
• Asia Society Texas Center – Houston, TX
• Atlanta Contemporary Art Center – Atlanta, GA
• Center for Jewish History – New York
• Clark Art Institute – Williamstown, MA
• Contemporary Arts Center – Cincinnati, OH
• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum – New York
• Delaware Art Museum – Wilmington, DE
• Fabric Workshop and Museum – Philadelphia, PA
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden – Washington, DC
• Institute of Contemporary Art – Philadelphia, PA
• IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern – Valencia, Spain
• Kunsthalle St. Gallen – St. Gallen, Switzerland
• La Ferme du Buisson – Marne-La-Vallée, France
• La Triennale di Milano – Milan, Italy
• Le Carré d’Art – Nîmes, France
• Ludwig Museum of Budapest – Budapest, Hungary
• MAC Marseille – Marseille, France
• MAC VAL – Vitry-Sur-Seine, France
• MASS MoCA – North Adams, MA
• MIT Museum – Cambridge, MA
• MOCA North Miami – Miami, FL
• MoMA PS1 – New York
• Mona Bismarck American Center – Paris, France
• MUDAM – Luxembourg (2012)
• MUDAM – Luxembourg (2017)
• MuMa: Musée André Malraux – Le Havre, France
• Musée D’Orsay – Paris, France
• Museo Internacional del Barroco – Puebla, Mexico
• Museum of Art & Design – New York
• Museum of Contemporary Art – Zagreb, Croatia
• Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art – Kansas
• New Museum – New York
• Palazzo delle Arti – Napoli, Italy
• Parrish Art Museum – Watermil, NY
• Pérez Art Museum Miami – Miami, FL
• Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts – Moscow, Federation of Russia
• Pulitzer Arts Foundation – St. Louis, MO
• SCAD Museum of Art – Savannah, GA
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum / Rotunda Commission – New York (2011)
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum / Works & Process – New York (2010)
• The Glass House – New Canaan, CT
• Whitney Museum of American Art – New York
Education
Bokaer completed a dual concentration in Visual & Media Arts at The New School between 2003-2007. While studying, he was recruited to dance in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (2000-2007). Being only 18 years old, he was the youngest member in the company’s history. Following his education, Bokaer was invited by theatre artist, Robert Wilson, to choreograph operas on many of the world’s largest stages (2007-Present). Wilson mentored Bokaer, and challenged his use of scale, space, light, and narration. A self-taught animator, Bokaer utilized his skills in keyframe animation and completed additional studies at Parsons School of Design.
Early Work
Bokaer’s is a complex art: his education led to a unique, multi-disciplinary body of work incorporating graphic arts, drawing, animation, choreography, performance, and projection – often with large scale installation or technical elements. Early works focused on 3D animation and digital renderings of the body, with an emphasis on harnessing different media of motion capture, to pre-figure choreography, arriving at an image-as-engine for his performances. He still combines these forms with an ability to transform space, often using the metaphor of motion, and its role in interpreting reality.
Exhibiting
Bokaer’s work is not strictly focused on the topical aspects of programming dance in museums or galleries. He seeks exhibitions which encompass the aesthetic, philosophical, and symbolic elements that lie at the origin of how choreography and visual art have fused together, historically and presently. His work often incorporates choreographic ephemera from the past, which have vanished, or can help further investigation into the hidden roots of how choreography exists in museum spaces. His work from 2002 to present contains constant references to dance, performance history, and the body. The presence of choreography in museums is not only a form, but is a subject itself.
Influence of North Africa and the Middle East
Beginning at age 6, Bokaer first traveled to Tivon, Jordan, the Dead Sea, and other areas with his father, to visit family members in the southeastern Mediterranean. During a trip to Beirut in 2000 at age 18, to perform with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Bokaer was further exposed to areas of the world that have been marginally represented in the visual and performing arts. He has made subsequent visits to Tunisia as an adult, where his father was born in 1941, in search of lost family history, signs, and material (both biographical and artistic). The return to Tunisia, as well as his father’s history there and throughout the Mediterranean basin, has become one of the recurring themes in his artwork.