News

June 22, 2026

Internationaal Theater Amsterdam - Grote zaal

Suzanne Bocanegra weaves her personal story together with her interpretation of this sixteenth-century tapestry, revealing a rich tapestry of characters and narratives. The work comes alive in a dynamic mix of Bocanegra’s sharp cultural observations, personal reflections, colorful imagery projected on a large screen, and a compelling performance by actress Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under).

From Renaissance weaving to Bauhaus textiles, from the Spanish Inquisition to girl scout badges and Hansel and Gretel, art history, childhood memories, and feminist commentary, flow together seamlessly. Honor is witty, humourous, and unexpectedly moving, a performance about status, labor, and the question: "Who decides what honor really means?"

The performance Honor is one of the works personally selected by composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, associate artist of Holland Festival 2026.

Tickets here

Presented by Make Hauser & Wirth, ‘CRADLED’ opens 20 November at the gallery’s Downtown Los Angeles location. Conceived and curated by artist Suzanne Bocanegra and actor/producer Frances McDormand in collaboration with Shaker Museum (Chatham, NY), the exhibition expands on its 2024 staging in upstate New York. The Los Angeles presentation of ‘CRADLED’ explores—through objects, sound, and activations—the Shakers’ embrace of caregiving and community from cradle to grave.

‘CRADLED’ will be on view Saturdays and Sundays, 22 November 2025 through 4 January 2026.

RSVP to the opening activation on November 20, 6-9pm.

Thursday, September 18, 2025, 6:30 pm

Part of Hancher’s Infinite Dream Festival

Suzanne Bocanegra recounts threads of her family’s life on a Texas farm. Her tale unfolds as aural and visual memoir, weaving elements of art, design, and monologue into a startling, humorous performance. The narration comes from Bocanegra, but it is actress Lili Taylor (Mystic Pizza, Six Feet Under) who mimes the emotions and breakthroughs to the audience. It’s a disquieting American story delivered at a remove that is—surprisingly—an unusual kind of intimacy. 

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Sept 3–6 at 7 pm
Sept 7 at 2 pm
Sept 9-13 at 7 pm
Sept 14 at 2 pm

“Peak lecture-performance in the age of the internet: hundreds of images and deftly intertwined stories that romp through time, inserting the personal into a broader cultural history with precision and wit.” – Claire Bishop, ARTFORUM

Tickets here

Jan 31, 2025 7:30 PM

Feb 1, 2025 7:30 PM

Performed by celebrated film actor Lili Taylor and centered on one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s greatest tapestries, Honor is a brilliant weave of musical and theatrical elements that emerge in surprising and delightful ways.

Tickets here

Exhibition open to the public September 15 - December 1, 2025, at the Kinderhook Knitting Mill in Kinderhook, NY.

Artists Frances McDormand and Suzanne Bocanegra have joined forces with Shaker Museum to present Cradled, a thought-provoking exhibition that explores the transcendent impact of the Shakers’ communal embrace from cradle to grave through objects, values, and inspired modern-day artistic expression. Through the curation of objects, soundscapes, lighting, ephemera, and experience, Cradled invites visitors to feel the communal embrace and take part in the literal and figurative mending and communal care that were central to Shaker values.

Press release here.

Hauser & Wirth

3pm & 7:30pm

FILM SCREENING: ‘FARMHOUSE/WHOREHOUSE AN ARTIST LECTURE BY SUZANNE BOCANEGRA STARRING LILI TAYLOR’
by Suzanne Bocanegra
starring Lili Taylor
1 hr 30 min

Register here

Honor, starring Lili Taylor and directed by Geoff Sobelle, is based on a 16th-century tapestry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled “Honor,” which depicts 69 historical and allegorical figures who offer personal stories as moral lessons in honor and in dishonor.  Bocanegra’s very close reading of the tapestry leads her to weave together such diverse topics as Carole King’s Tapestry album, tableau vivant, the founding of the Girl Scouts of America, Anni Albers, the Monkees, and the history of theater.

Tickets here

February 22–24, 2024

“Of the many lecture-performances I’ve seen over the past twenty years, few have been as exhilarating. … The finale was breathtaking and euphoric.” —Claire Bishop, Artforum (Best of 2022)

ASL interpretation is planned for Friday, February 23. 

Part of Out There 2024.

Tickets here

The third lecture in a four-part series taking the stage at NYU Skirball this season, Bodycast is inspired by the two teenage years Bocanegra spent in a body cast due to scoliosis. Bodycast mines specific details of Bocanegra’s life to create a more general meditation on art-making and shifting ideals of feminine beauty.

Starring Ruth Negga (Oscar, Golden Globe, and Tony nominee) and directed by Paul Lazar.

Tickets here

The second lecture in a four-part series taking the stage at NYU Skirball this season, When a Priest Marries a Witch tells a spellbinding tale set in the 1960s about a priest, an artist, and a young girl in Pasadena, Texas.

Tickets here

Oct 30: Farmhouse/Whorehouse
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Nov 27: When A Priest Marries a Witch
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Jan 29: Bodycast
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Apr 8: Honor
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Farmhouse/Whorehouse is the first of four lectures by Suzanne Bocanegra taking place throughout NYU Skirball’s 2023-24 Season.

Tickets here

Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 8 PM

$15 for members + students / $25 for nonmembers

Get tickets here

This subversive performance by conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra masquerades as an artist talk but reveals her current fixation—and aesthetic engagement with—one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s greatest tapestries, the colossal Honor (from the series The Honors), measuring almost 19 by 25 feet. Weaving Bocanegra’s personal narrative with an artist’s interpretation of the 16th century tapestry which reveals a multitude of different characters and narratives, Honor features celebrated film and theater actor Lili Taylor in the title role of “The Artist.”

Friday, January 27, 2023 | 8:00pm-9:00pm

Moody Center for the Arts | Lois Chiles Studio Theater

Register here

Houston-born artist Suzanne Bocanegra presents an original "artist talk" performed by film and television actor Lili Taylor, with vocalists from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Centered on a sixteenth-century tapestry of the same name in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Honor weaves Bocanegra’s personal narrative with her interpretation of the historic tapestry, in turn revealing a multitude of different characters and stories.

July 12–December 11, 2022

Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier OH

Link here

In 1967 Judy Garland was cast in the film Valley of the Dolls, a story of three women undone by drugs and stardom on Broadway in the 1950s. An amazingly gifted performer, Garland had been exploited since she was a girl by the entertainment industry. At this point in her career she was known to be unpredictable and painfully fragile. She was fired soon after work on the film began.

Some of the only footage that remains of Garland’s participation in the film are her wardrobe tests, in which she models her costumes for the film. These wardrobe tests have no script, no scenario, no song. The movement and nervous chatter are her own. Garland had performed professionally from the age of 2, yet in this footage she appears awkward and uncomfortable, and that awkwardness makes her feel authentic and vulnerable. With the help of The Fabric Workshop and Museum, I recreated this footage, casting eight strong women artists that I admire in the role of Garland. Performers include poet Anne Carson, choreographer and dancer Deborah Hay, artist Joan Jonas, singer Alicia Hall Moran, author and actor Tanya Selvaratnam, actor Kate Valk, artist Carrie Mae Weems, and ballerina Wendy Whelan.

After Judy Garland was fired from the film, she took her wardrobe with her. She wore them in her concerts until her death of a barbiturate overdose two years later, bringing long-lasting notoriety to the iconic late-1960s costumes.

— Suzanne Bocanegra

April 29–30, 2022 at 7pm
MOCA members ticket release: Monday, April 18
General ticket release: Tuesday, April 19

This subversive performance by conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra masquerades as an artist talk but reveals her current obsession—and aesthetic engagement with—one of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s greatest tapestries, the colossal Honor (from the series The Honors), measuring almost 19 by 25 feet. Weaving Bocanegra’s personal narrative with an artist’s interpretation of the 16th century tapestry which reveals a multitude of different characters and narratives, Honor features celebrated film and theater actor Lili Taylor in the title role of The Artist.

Saturday, February 19, 2022
7 pm
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Starring Lili Taylor
Directed by Geoff Sobelle

This subversive work by conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra masquerades as an artist talk about one of The Met’s most important 16th-century tapestries. Featuring celebrated actor Lili Taylor in the role of the Artist, Honor weaves together Bocanegra’s personal narrative and her obsession with the colossal tapestry, revealing a multitude of different characters and stories as rich and complex as the work of art itself.

Tickets start at $25 (includes Museum admission).

Buy tickets now

Tuesday, August 10, 2021
5:00 p.m. CT

Register here: blantonmuseum.org/witch

In Suzanne Bocanegra’s theatrical takes on the standard “artist lecture,” an actor appears as Bocanegra, recounting significant moments in her artistic development. Part artist’s talk, part performance, part cultural history, this filmed version of Bocanegra’s 2010 lecture features actor Paul Lazar of New York’s legendary Wooster Group and Big Dance Theater. Lazar channels Bocanegra, describing her early life in Pasadena, Texas, in a tale incorporating Elvis, Abstract Expressionism, the pope, astronauts, the singing nun, and (obviously!) a witch. This one-time virtual screening is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Suzanne Bocanegra: Valley. A livestream Q&A with Bocanegra will follow the screening, moderated by Claire Howard, Blanton Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art