New York, NY – March 8, 2013 – Park Avenue Armory announced today its 2013 season, a series of commissions, co-commissions and presentations that blur the distinctions between genres and break new ground for artists and audiences alike within the unconventional presentation platforms of the Armory’s soaring Wade Thompson Drill Hall and jewel-like historic rooms. Dedicated to giving artists the freedom to push the envelope with their work and to providing exceptional, thought-provoking, and immersive experiences for audiences, Park Avenue Armory catalyzes a new kind of work that extends far beyond what can be achieved in traditional theaters, concert halls, and museum galleries.

The Armory’s 2013 season will include WS, a monumental installation by Paul McCarthy; an enveloping sonic experience featuring Karlheinz Stockhausen’s electronic masterpiece OKTOPHONIE in a lunar environment created by Rirkrit Tiravanija; The Machine, a play by one of Britain’s fastest rising young playwrights, Matt Charman, that chronicles Garry Kasparov’s 1997 chess game against IBM’s Deep Blue super-computer, a contest that set man against machine; a new kind of imaginative experience conceived by Adam Curtis and Robert Del Naja mixing music, film, politics, and moments of illusion, performed by Massive Attack and special guests; and Robert Wilson’s powerful new staging of The Life and Death of Marina Abramović.

The season will also feature the debut of a recital series staged in the Armory’s exquisite Board of Officers period room, allowing audiences a rare and intimate opportunity to hear chamber music the way it was originally meant to be experienced. Scheduled to appear are baritone Christian Gerhaher, violinist Vilde Frang, and pianist Anton Batagov. The Board of Officers Room is currently being restored as a state of the art salon for music and performance and will be completed in September 2013 for the inauguration of the recital series. The architects are Herzog & de Meuron with Platt Byard Dovell and White as the executive architects. 
 
2013 will also see the continuation of the Armory’s Under Construction series—intimate evenings of works in progress presented by artists in residence in the Armory’s jewel-like period rooms.

Citi and Bloomberg are the Armory’s 2013 season sponsors.

With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall and array of dramatic period rooms, the Armory provides a robust and dynamic platform for artists to create and audiences to experience groundbreaking immersive works in all genres that cannot be realized elsewhere in New York City. Recent critically acclaimed presentations include the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; Philharmonic 360 with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, in which the orchestra surrounded the audience for a concert of spatial music; and Ann Hamilton’s participatory installation, the event of a thread, an Armory commission.

“The Armory inspires epic and immersive experiences that can be had nowhere else in the City. In 2013, the drill hall programming will focus on site-specific commissions and interdisciplinary collaborations, encouraging major artists from a range of backgrounds to push beyond their normal practices. The work will blur the line between high art and popular culture, ask tough questions about the world in which we live, and change the way audience members experience art,” stated Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer of Park Avenue Armory.  “To complement the monumental productions in the drill hall, the Armory will offer a program of more intimate experiences in its splendid period rooms including recitals by major soloists and works in progress by artists in the creative phases of their work.”