Jessie Stead

Adjunct Instructor

Jessie Stead is a New York based interdisciplinary artist working in overlapping patterns of installation, music, cinema, text, collaboration and performance.

Her work has been presented in widely varied platforms including music and film venues in addition to art galleries and project spaces. Recent solo and two-person gallery exhibitions include Jenny’s, OCDChinatown, Ciccio, Jan Kaps (Cologne), and 247365. Collaborative projects, group exhibitions and live performances have been presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, the Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw, Poland), Fridericianum (Kassel, DE), the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and Performa 13. Stead’s earlier cinematic work has screened at The London Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, MoCAD (Detroit), and in Greater New York at MoMA PS1 (2010).

She is the electronic percussionist, sampler and composer for the art-band Hairbone (formerly Haribo) which has staged recent performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, Knockdown Center, as well as various nightclubs and art spaces worldwide. Hairbone’s debut LP Earth To Momma, produced by Stead, was released in 2018 by Blank Forms Editions. Recent work in moving image includes directing two music videos for Hairbone and the editing and sound design for the feature documentary George: The Story of George Maciunas & Fluxus, which premiered at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight. Stead received an MFA from Bard (2007) and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art (2002) and has taught film, video and audio classes at NJCU, CUNY and Cooper Union School of Art. 

Jessie Stead, Left Behind By Runaway Interludes, Installation View, Jan Kaps, Cologne, 2015
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