The Edmonton-born performer, established in Montreal since 2005, talks about the exhibition “proximity · pleasure · plasticity”. A look at her performance as curator.
The exhibition proximity · pleasure · plasticity. Look at performance speaks of a “virtual me”, but paradoxically, works show individuals also exposing their very real intimacy… How are these two worlds articulated?
The virtual self is not only active in a virtual environment. In Identity Templates for a Disordered Body (2022), Francisco Gonzáles-Rosas embodies a kind of Internet syntax through his costume and his speech. Alone With the Cat in the Room (2018), by Wan Yi Leung, documents a body-to-body contact, but the artist met his participant on the SugarDaddies platform. It is the interaction of their “profile” that gave rise to the work. Many of the works presented approach the Internet as a means of forming real relationships. Brown Shades of Black (2021) by NIC Kay highlights how the Internet is a real space that allows the sharing of dance practices between black creators.
You write that current performance no longer corresponds to the approaches with which it was associated — minimalist or in search of authenticity. When and why did performance change?
The minimalism in performance art that arose, among others with Fluxus and Judson Dance Theatre, has never gone away and maximalism is part of the history of performance. However, many artists reject these clean, minimal aesthetics. Lisa Smolkin’s tongue-in-cheek speech in Life’s lil Bitch (2019) is heartfelt and important. Many artists, in a hurry, can no longer afford this distance supported by a minimalist approach. Many feel it’s time to say what they have to say, to enter into audacious versions of themselves, and this often involves being ostentatious. The word “version” is essential, because the self is fluid. Idealizing authenticity, as well as naturalness, can be problematic since there is no one right way to be. Not only do these ideals oppress difference, they limit possibilities. Many queer, BIPOC and Indigenous artists rely on a whimsical aesthetic to shape hoped-for futures. To project, to imagine thanks to the theatricality: these are their tools.
Can we associate the notion of performativity evoked with the ideas of Judith Butler on gender?
Performativity is omnipresent in daily life as well as through artistic practices integrating the image. Power can be decentralized by reorienting or complicating the definitions of identity expected and imposed by society. It goes without saying that the different versions of the self, the permeability between the virtual world and “real” life are great agents of change!