Joseph Keckler is a musical artist, writer, and multifaceted creator who has been presented by NPR Tiny Desk, Lincoln Center, Miami Art Basel, Centre Pompidou (with Cabinet Magazine), BAM, Rooftop Films, and other venues. His music has been featured on WNYC and BBC America and he is the recipient of awards from Creative Capital, Franklin Furnace, and New York Foundation for the Arts. He is the author of several theater and performance pieces as well as videos and many songs, and his personal essays and writing on visual art has appeared in Literary Hub, VICE, and other publications.
He was described as a "major vocal talent [who] shatters the conventional boundaries" by The New York Times and was once named the "Best downtown performance artist [in New York]" by The Village Voice. He has had commissions from Prototype Festival/HERE and Opera Philadelphia/FringeArts, and others. His critically-acclaimed show Train With No Midnight was commissioned by Beth Morrison. His book of essays and stories, Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World was published by Turtle Point Press. In 2024, he toured Australia and the U.S. with Lydia Lunch and curated a performance series at ArtYard in New Jersey.
While at MacDowell in 2011, Keckler finished writing a performance piece to be presented at Performance Space 122. During his 2014 residency, he developed music, video, and text that would be part of a new project at The New Museum in their next season. In 2019, he composed music and wrote the script for Let Me Die, a performance piece involving various death scenes from the tragic opera canon that premiered with Opera Philadelphia and FringeArts. In 2024, he developed A Good Night in the Trauma Garden, a performance commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
