Portrait of the Artist as a Young Performative Man Jeff Ayars heads video at Blackbird, produces independent films, and formerly field-produced stories for MSNBC and NBC News. On a sweaty night last July, I went restaurant-hopping with wunderkind chef Marcin Król in anticipation of his pop-up collaboration with Blackbird. I had recently acquired the go-to camera of the performative male community, and was duty-bound to document every morsel that hit the table.