On December 1, 2016, dance artist, actor, singer, and educator K.J. Holmes gave a special Outside the Box gallery talk on “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest.” This talk was a journey into Rist’s newest work, 4th Floor To Mildness. Holmes lead a simple movement-based improvisation through the senses, perceptions, and what she calls “the mind of the body,” in relation to Rist’s immersive video installation. Through the lens of Holmes’ extensive experiential research into somatics, dance, theater, and poetics, visitors was guided through an experience that enhanced the “unexpected encounters with the textures and forms of the living universe” in Rist’s work.

Outside the Box offers a roster of gallery-based talks given by a variety of guest speakers over the course of a season. In this series, lecturers with diverse backgrounds and affinities addressed the New Museum’s fall exhibition, “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest,” in forty-five- to sixty-minute presentations taking place in the Museum’s galleries. As a way to emphasize the Museum’s strong commitment to new art and new ideas, Outside the Box gallery talks are open to the public and are intended to provide participants with multidisciplinary perspectives on New Museum exhibitions. To this end, lecturers speak about the exhibition or themes emergent in Rist’s works from the various positions they occupy—be they academic, personal, political, or otherwise. With their distinct individual relationships to the artist and works on view, lecturers engage in rich investigations that illuminate and probe the Museum’s current exhibition program.

Brooklyn-based dance artist, actor, singer, and educator K.J. Holmes travels the world performing and teaching at universities, festivals, and venues ranging from theaters to site-specific spaces to living rooms. Holmes has collaborated extensively with dancers Simone Forti, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson/Image Lab, and Steve Paxton; poet Julie Carr; actor/performer Keith Biesack; dancer/playwright Karinne Keithley Syers; and trumpeters Dave Douglas and Roy Campbell Jr. Holmes attended the School for Body-Mind Centering®, the William Esper Studio (with master teacher Terry Knickerbocker), and Satya Yoga (with Sondra Loring), and studied Roy Hart vocal technique with Richard Armstrong; the play between these techniques is essential to her current practice. Holmes has taught at NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing, Juilliard, and Movement Research, where she was a teaching artist and Artist in Residence. She has recently performed with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People; in “Xavier LeRoy: Retrospective” at MoMA PS1, New York (2014); and in “Steve Paxton: Selected Works” at Dia:Beacon, New York (2014). She has acted in Dylan Stephen Levers’ film That Universal Feeling (2016) and in Casting Call The Project (2016). Currently Holmes is completing an installation/performance entitled HIC SVNT DRACONES, which has been rehearsed and performed in chapters at residencies at Mana Contemporary, Chicago; Sector 2337, Chicago; The Belfry, Hornell, NY; Hanna Barn, Vashon Island, WA; chashama, New York; and Studio Current, Seattle.