Performance Archiving Performance
06 Nov 2013 - 12 Jan 2014
Cover Image: Left to Right: reDANCE, founded by Sara Wookey; Photo: Antoinette Mooy. Julie Tolentino, THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME: Ron Athey’s Self Obliteration # 1, 2011; Performance; Photo: Thomas Qualmann. Simon Courchel in a canary torsi’s “The People to Come,” 2012; Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Jennifer Monson, Live Dancing Archive, 2013; Photo: Courtesy the artist
PERFORMANCE ARCHIVING PERFORMANCE
6 November 2013 – 12 January 2014
A multi-platform presentation of performance projects that engage archive as medium, “Performance Archiving Performance” offers the opportunity to reassess the role of archives and the museum’s responsibility for their evolving forms.
Performance archives seek to preserve a legible record of live art for future study; however, many argue that archived representations of performance cannot fully capture the nuances of ephemeral experience. Projects by a canary torsi, Jennifer Monson, Julie Tolentino, and Sara Wookey acknowledge these concerns by conceiving of the relationship between performance and archives as a unique system. Within these projects, the acts of recording, storing, indexing, and redistributing are as much a part of the work as the performance itself. As a result, the site of performance—its position in time, space, and form—is placed in question so that the actual process of archiving may be interpreted as its own mode of performance, its own singular event.
“Performance Archiving Performance,” a presentation of projects that engage archive as medium, is organized by Travis Chamberlain, Associate Curator of Performance, and on view in the Fifth Floor Resource Center from November 6–January 12.
6 November 2013 – 12 January 2014
A multi-platform presentation of performance projects that engage archive as medium, “Performance Archiving Performance” offers the opportunity to reassess the role of archives and the museum’s responsibility for their evolving forms.
Performance archives seek to preserve a legible record of live art for future study; however, many argue that archived representations of performance cannot fully capture the nuances of ephemeral experience. Projects by a canary torsi, Jennifer Monson, Julie Tolentino, and Sara Wookey acknowledge these concerns by conceiving of the relationship between performance and archives as a unique system. Within these projects, the acts of recording, storing, indexing, and redistributing are as much a part of the work as the performance itself. As a result, the site of performance—its position in time, space, and form—is placed in question so that the actual process of archiving may be interpreted as its own mode of performance, its own singular event.
“Performance Archiving Performance,” a presentation of projects that engage archive as medium, is organized by Travis Chamberlain, Associate Curator of Performance, and on view in the Fifth Floor Resource Center from November 6–January 12.