Theo Pelmus: Immaculate Abjection
By Alison Cooley The floor is littered with objects in Theo Pelmus's performance. Part installation, part stage set, the scene includes two projections on opposing walls of a small kitsch Pieta sculpture (bits of gold ...
Terrance Houle and the Violence of Complicity
By Alison Cooley Terrance Houle beckons his audience closer, drawing a square around himself. I'll admit to having let my curiosity get the better of me ahead of time—I know he's enlisted some others to ...
Unruly Foodstuffs
By Alison Cooley Basil AlZeri, clad in a white dress shirt, hands neatly folded across a pristine white-clothed table, announces that his performance will be called "The Death of Performance Art." It seems absurd to ...
Sky is the Limit: Aidana’s Uncommon Intimacies
By Jenn Snider Aidana Maria Rico Chavez enters the room whistling a happy tune. Hands clasped behind her back, she casts her eyes across the crowd. All facing toward the center scene where a blue ...
A game About Thoughts: they have knees, they move
By Jenn Snider Kurt Johannessen is at it again. This time he’s ready to play a game: a game about framing, a game about language, a game about experimentation. A game About Thoughts. “But, this ...
Serena Lee: Re-Tuning Cartography
By Alison Cooley Serena Lee begins Layers Channels Paths History by dividing the audience into sections of green, brown and "nothing." The unexplained designation recalls Jane Elliot's "Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise," sets a political ...
An edible experiment: Fausto Méndez Luna’s generosity and symbolic etiquette
By Jenn Snider There is a strong tradition of using the preparation and service of food in art as a method of connecting and enacting the power of social ritual and politics (think, for example ...
Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro: History’s Yearning
By Alison Cooley I can hear a whip. I'm unsure if it's against the floor, or against a body, but I hear guttural reactions to it from outside the studio. When I first enter Nathalie ...
Berenicci Hershorn is watching time
By Jenn Snider Éminence Grise Pulling back the grey curtain I step into the viewing area and find I am just a few feet away from her. Tucked into a small closet separated from the ...
When performing private architectures, he prefers to linger, but not too long
By Jenn Snider I’m looking for Christian Bujold. It’s after 3 pm, and he’s scheduled to be performing but I can’t find him anywhere. Popping my head into rooms and looking down hallways, I turn ...
