With and In Difference, A Performance Art Event curated by Autumn Hays Cover photo: Industry of the Ordinary
With And In Difference
A Performance Art Event On Instagram
Curated by Autumn Hays
Nov. 28th, 2016 - Jan. 8, 2017
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ON INSTAGRAM TO EXPERIENCE THE SHOW
Individual artists take up residency in Performance Art Houston’s Instagram account and facilitate performances and gestures as their works within the show. Every week, the account passes hands to a new artist who will then begin with their performances.
Featuring Work By:
Shawn Escarciga
Saul Aguirre
Industry of the Ordinary
Melissa Koziebrocki
Jessica E. Blinkhorn
Luis MejIco
Curated By Autumn Hays
Autumn is an artist, curator and arts administrator whose focus is on immersive and embodied art forms. Her interests surround the ideas of confronting otherization, personal narrative as a radical act of providing alternative histories, and the affective language of art. She currently resides in San Francisco.
Please visit her site for more information about her and her work.
Words from the curator:
This exhibition brings together a collection of artists, whose work deals with the ideas of encountering divergence. Whether exploring, confronting, or redefining, each of these artists create performances that work with and within the realities of difference. Each artist was picked to represent one of six main archetypes of difference: beauty, culture, normalization, body image, ability and queer identity.
Shawn Escarciga uses the exploration of beauty through the gauze of a narcissistic pop culture, exploring the dissonance between self-identity and projected persona. Saul Aguirre looks at the representation of cultural identity, ethics and it’s relationship to social issues. Industry of the Ordinary investigates social norms with meme-like performances that both embrace normalization and concurrently cause us to question its very definition. Melissa Koziebrocki's work addresses body image and the trauma of oppression, taking ownership of it through her projections of strength and intensity. Jessica E Blinkhorn gives her audience an up close and personal look at the definitions of ability and reality in her daily life. Luis Mejico’s work brings forward queer identity politics through the discussion of intimacy and personal contact.
Shawn Escarciga uses the exploration of beauty through the gauze of a narcissistic pop culture, exploring the dissonance between self-identity and projected persona. Saul Aguirre looks at the representation of cultural identity, ethics and it’s relationship to social issues. Industry of the Ordinary investigates social norms with meme-like performances that both embrace normalization and concurrently cause us to question its very definition. Melissa Koziebrocki's work addresses body image and the trauma of oppression, taking ownership of it through her projections of strength and intensity. Jessica E Blinkhorn gives her audience an up close and personal look at the definitions of ability and reality in her daily life. Luis Mejico’s work brings forward queer identity politics through the discussion of intimacy and personal contact.
Shawn Escarciga
Shawn Escarciga is Brooklyn based performance artist and dancer whose work is founded in Butoh and mundane task-based rituals, incorporating explorations of gender identity, narcissism, and the destruction of oppressive standards of art and beauty in contemporary society. Shawn’s work seeks to transmute the marginalization of current queer existence into something more palatable, and acts as a coping mechanism for surviving as a broke, sad, mixed race faggot. Practically it is an exploration of the external manifestations of these internal struggles, utilizing elements of formal dance and pop culture to juxtapose extreme reverence with unbridled faggotry. This exists somewhere between the destruction of sentimental objects and prancing to pop music in their underwear, though the expression remains fluid within an established ritual structure. Shawn’s solo work and choreography has been presented throughout New York City (Panoply Performance Lab, MIX NYC, Glasshouse [PERFORMEANDO], Triskelion, Queens Museum [LiveArt.us] ), Chicago, Boston, and abroad (Month of Performance Art - Berlin). Shawn has also collaborated and performed with artists and collectives throughout New York City, including Butoh company, Vangeline Theater, and the multidisciplinary social justice and performance group, Gender/Power.
Saul Aguirre
Saúl Aguirre is a Chicago based multidisciplinary artist/curator born in Mexico City. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Aguirre is has been a continuous contributor and collaborator with Antena and the now defunct Polvo art collective. Aguirre’s recent performances have captivated the viewers for the dramatic slow movements to portray his response to social issues; his paintings reflect the relationship we encounter with society and the problems we face manipulating images that are not to be expected. He has exhibited in Gallery 414 in Fort Worth, Texas; Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College, Chicago; Escuela Superior de Educacion Artistica, Huaraz, Peru; Casa Du Puopolo, Montreal, Canada;He has been considered a standout at NEXT 2010 Chicago by Pedro Velez who is an artist and critic living in Chicago. His artwork is part of these public collections: Casa de Cultura Calles y Sueños, Juchitan, Oaxaca, México; Escuela Superior de Formación Artística, ANCASH-Huarz Perú.
INDUSTRY OF THE ORDINARY
Industry of the Ordinary were formed in 2003. The two artists who make up this collaborative team, Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson, have long histories as visual and performative artists. They bring complementary sensibilities to their activities. Their projects exist in temporal terms but have also been conceived to function on the web site associated with the collaboration, http://www.industryoftheordinary.com. They have had solo shows at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and, most recently, a major mid-career survey at the Chicago Cultural Center that was received with much acclaim. Cultural Center exhibition reviews and articles They also performed at the opening of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, as well as making work for a wide variety of private, semi-private and public settings, nationally and internationally, both temporary and permanent.
MELISSA KOZIEBROCKI
Melissa Koziebrocki is a Feminist Performance Artist whose art practice focuses on the body as the physical site of trauma that broaches questions of queer identity and tackling systems of oppression. Born in Toronto, Canada, Melissa is currently a Graduate Fellow and Teaching Assistant at the San Francisco Art Institute. Most recently, Melissa has performed such work as Biting the Nipple that Feeds You, Guarded Tactics, To Cum and Not to Conceive, Your Ass is So Big It Could Block out the Sun, Too Much Testosterone , I'm Not Going and Salome’s Salami at such spaces as the Berkeley Art Museum, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Highways Performance Space, SAFEHouse for the Performing Arts, Gomez-Pena Performance Salon, Diego Rivera Gallery, ATA Gallery, Root Division, SOMArts, Artscape Gibraltar Point, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives and OCAD University. She has been a studio assistant for Nao Bustamante and Jess Dobkin.
JESSICA E. BLINKHORN
"But, what lies ahead for Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn? Blinkhorn purses her lips to the left and looks off in the distance relinquishing a sigh of warm nostalgia and thoughtful elation before she addresses that question:“I hope to one day be an associate professor of the arts at a university. I hope to still be able to draw and create with my hands. If not, my voice will remain, my mind will still formulate, and I will remain unafraid to give all of myself to a performance riddled with truths, lined with emotions, and that functions selflessly for a greater purpose...But, to answer your question ‘What lies ahead for Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn?’ with a simple and single word...” Jessica pauses to smile with contentment and looks with eyes of aspiration before replying, “Life.”"
LUIS MEJICO
Luis Mejico is multidisciplinary artist and independent curator. Xe has performed and exhibited work at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, Mana Contemporary Chicago, Links Hall, Zhou Brothers Art Center, Comfort Station, The Oak Park Art League, The Uptown Arts Center, and Jan Brandt Gallery, among others. Utilizing facets that form the basis for social bonds such as intimacy, empathy, and trust, Luis Mejico integrates structures of social relationships directly into the parameters of xis work. Mejico creates projects that carry out gestures and expectations of person-to-person engagements, therefore emulating social bonds when translated into artwork. Mejico restructures organic interpersonal connections into artworks that analyze and redefine social bonding through the formalizing of the very aspects that form relationships. By becoming the things that they examine, Mejico's works test the boundaries, expectations, and significance of archetypal human bonds by enacting their innate characteristics. Xe is seeking xis BFA at SAIC (2017).