About this Event
For her High Line Performance commission, Gray presents Cookie. The play follows the traditional picaresque format, a literary style developed during the height of Spain’s Golden Age in which a clever but poor hero, a pícaro, uses their wits and tricks to survive in a corrupt and crumbling society. Drawing inspiration from 16th-century picaresque novellas like Lazarillo de Tormes and Francisco de Quevedo’s The Swindler, Cookie is a story of desperation disguised as elite ambition. At its center is Gunnar Churchwell, a sleazy yet charismatic suit salesman who arrives in Madrid, only to be recruited by the egomaniacal ringleader of a grifting crew of makeshift “tailors.” Their baseline rule for survival is simple: “never let them know you are hungry.”
Staged in the parking lot of the Meatpacking District’s former final meat purveyor, the performance unfolds around The Lair, a twisted aluminum sculpture resembling a street scaffold. Cookie critiques societal decay, and highlights anti-heroes who maneuver through the cracks of a glittering superpower purely to secure their next meal.
About the artist
Georgia Gardner Gray works across painting, performance, and theater. Her vivid canvases depict exaggerated figures in social spaces—bars, apartments, rehearsal rooms, city streets—each imbued with the comedy, absurdity, instability, and contradiction inherent in our modern lives. As an accomplished playwright, Gray captures the tension between intimacy and display, self-awareness and satire.
Georgia Gardner Gray (b. 1988, New York, New York) lives and works in Palma, Spain, and in New York. She has had solo exhibitions at prominent institutions around the world including Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria (2026); Longlati Foundation, Shanghai, China (2025); Kunsthalle Lingen, Lingen, Germany (2018); and UKS/Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway (2017). She has participated in major international group exhibitions including Before Tomorrow, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway (2023); Lose Enden, Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland (2021); Mercury, Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn, Estonia (2019); Disappearing Berlin, by Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany (2019); HERE HERE – DAS ICH UND ALLES ANDERE, Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne, Germany (2018); New Theater: Selected Plays, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2015); and The People’s Biennial, New York, New York (2015). Her work is featured in the collections of major institutions around the world, including Kunstsammlung der Stadt Lingen, Lingen, Germany; and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway. She is the recipient of the 2018 Lingen Art Prize.
Photo Consent:
By attending this event, you agree that photos and/or video footage of you may be taken, and you grant your permission to Friends of the High Line and its agents/licensees to use such photos/footage for promotional and other purposes.
Accessibility:
We encourage all persons with disabilities to attend. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at a program, please contact [email protected]. Program venues are accessible via wheelchair, and ASL interpretation can be arranged two weeks in advance. For live elevator updates, see our elevator status page.
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What happens if it rains?
In the case of inclement weather, the event will be moved to the rain date of October 4. We will add a note to the website by noon on the day of the original event and email all registered participants.
Support
Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston and Charina Endowment Fund, and Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons. Major support of High Line Art’s digital infrastructure is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Program support for High Line Art is provided by Sarah Arison, Suzanne Deal Booth, Charlotte Ford, Joyce F. Menschel and Stardust Arts. Additional support is provided by Agnes Gund and Shane Akeroyd.
High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Julie Menin.
Event venue & nearby stays
By 826 Washington Street, beneath the High Line in the former Weichsel Beef parking lot, 826 Washington Street, New York, United States
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