Lunch/Performance | Performing Alison Knowles’s "The Identical Lunch"
About this Event
Lunch/Performance | The Art of the Tuna Fish Sandwich: Performing Alison Knowles’s The Identical Lunch
In conjunction with the Grey Art Museum's exhibition by Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960–2022)
Join Prof. André Lepecki and Prof. Jeannine Tang (Department of Performance Studies, NYU Tisch) for a lunchtime conversation catalyzed by Alison Knowles’s performance The Identical Lunch, based on the artist’s habitual order at NYC diner Riss Foods: “a tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast with butter and lettuce, no mayo, and a cup of soup or glass of buttermilk.”
From 1969 until the artist’s death in 2025, numerous artists, friends, and strangers ate variations of this lunch with Knowles across the United States and internationally, writing about their experiences as performers and documentarians of this iconic work.
Honoring this legacy, discussion will situate the performance within Knowles’s art of everyday life, ritual, and relation. It will also consider the implications of posthumously activating this communal performance, including changing food cultures such as the recent viral spread of the humble tuna fish sandwich. Attendees will dine on Knowles’s signature meal, and vegan alternatives will be available.
NYU’s Grey Art Museum provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be submitted at least two weeks in advance. Please email [email protected] or call (212) 998-6780 for assistance.
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