 moment where that clicked for you and sort of served as an entry and I'm also curious because When you talk about sort of your work being collected is your performance work collected or is it object-based work collected? What is the relation between I never mentioned? Collected in your bio it talks about like your your work is in the life of your videos or videos or okay? So so the performance work is not collected per se well I I'm in the video so I perform in the videos Okay, I I Don't distinguish between I I mean my live performances. No Right, but the art world for the last number of years has figured out how to commodify those anyways So well, that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to I'm trying to I'm waiting a little what you're waiting. Yeah, okay But because yeah, like you know, that's that's something that very much interests me and we'll have to see how that unfolds collecting ephemeral performance So can you okay? Can you just talk a little bit? I'm like stand up to me is fascinating because of like the very rigid structure and the very like It's actually a very difficult performative discipline that gets undervalued because there's so much bad comedy out there. Well, I I Don't know how good I was and I don't know if I ever did it I I mean I I worked with this guy. It was my manager for a while and he He told me I never had five minutes. So I Don't know I I mean discovered comedy I mean television when I was a kid and a lot of the I mean television had a lot of The Ed Sullivan show you get people that had to do five minutes Right and then back then they didn't have the internet so people could travel for a couple years with those five minutes and do that Act over and over again At the time it was I had a lot of time on my hands when I went to this the club the stand-up club And it was also It was kind of interesting because it was not the setup or the situation was not that foreign from what it was in The gallery situation you had a lone performer standing up there and you had an audience and there was like trying to get some sort of Reaction a lot of times to be playing off the moment even though a lot of it was rehearsed and staged and A lot of or scripted and then a lot of it was like at the moment so I Don't know if I quite understood that then but it also sounded kind of interesting because the tenor of the art world was very serious So it sounded kind of you know made for interesting conversation at cocktail party. What do you do on the comic? It was bullshit, but it sounded good Okay, so Laura I wanted to ask I unfortunately I haven't seen your work So it's a little naive But you say that a lot of it you started in photography in that world and then sort of found that the body was very important I'm just curious what I'm trying to figure How does the body like tell me a little bit about that and do you work have you done Subsequently do you need to do training to for your body to do what you need it to do performatively or yes And no, I mean I'm a pretty athletic person, but if you're are you asking about artistic training? Yeah, like have you done choreography or like movement training or anything like that? I haven't until pretty recently. I did some viewpoints training, which is the Anne Bogart's theater Exercises paradigm So so in terms of you know, that's my main I mean, that's kind of the only formal theater training I have if you can call it that and other than that, I mean my My relationship to the physical my own physicality has been the way I've Been in been connected to performance though I would say that I I think for many creative people the body is really and The sensual is at the root of how we make things So it doesn't necessarily happen always happen in front of an audience, but there's something you know Visceral about most parts of the process though. I suppose you could argue that sitting in front of the computer Isn't very visceral I think most art forms, you know have that kind of Engagement Yeah, yeah, I'm just I'm just I'm trying to unpack it a little because one of the you know Interesting things that that I think is is happening at the moment is as artists move between disciplines or Across disciplines is that is this sort of idea of like what skills are required in different Media, right? I know and you you wrote about that and and And I wonder, you know, you have this you have this question about Like dancers choreographers people in the theater are have gone through this rigorous training and So for the visual artists who hasn't had that same Well theoretically that same physical training. They're somehow not Kind of prepared or maybe they don't have the discipline for the they can just do performance art And they don't have kind of the The integrity right to do it. That's what you suggested in your article Not so much but but but I but I'm but I'm curious about what it means like to you When you're putting your own body out there as part of the art process, you know in a very Just like what's the difference between sort of one and the other? between This my situation is very frustrating for me. Okay between Here All right Between performing and visual art or no, I'm saying I'm saying my question is is Yeah, I'm you're right like what I wrote in my essay is like it's like I want I wonder about that like, you know People who's trained artists whose training is body-based What they're what their presence is in front and engagement what that dynamic is versus an artist who is primarily visual-based And then using their body as a canvas if you will or a locus for aesthetic engagement You know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think that that That binary can exist, but I think the question is more for me. Anyway, the way I think about it is more about Presence, you know and and there's something about You know someone who who hasn't has no experience drawing that the way they come to the paper is Can be really amazing if they if they are present and observing and I think that that happens You know with inexperienced performers in the way of performance art as well, you know, there there are different ways we embody ideas or Feelings or you know, whatever and and I don't know if it's necessarily the discipline that determines the virtuosity Okay, great Bill do you want to talk a little bit about? Well, we're a race of great things about sort of presence and your piece currently deals with presence very much because you have the The physical actor and then you have the virtual Captain Kirk Yeah, Captain Kirk and then also other pieces. I've seen of yours. Definitely deal with sort of people as sort of you know Well sit stand walk lie down definitely had presence in a totally different and in that you worked with a bunch of people the Variety of different skill levels in terms of physical Embodiment so could you talk a little bit about that? I think The issue well presence has been at the center of my work Since I began working on it, but I have found that it takes a tremendous amount of work to To empty the container so to speak That it is not I find that there is something that an amateur And I'll just I don't mean that in a pejorative sense I mean that in a person who has little to no experience as the people In sit stand walk lie down many of them were ranked amateurs and I never done any performing whatsoever When they first encounter something new Some exercises I might be doing there is a spark and that spark by accident can create some present fire But it is very short lived and so the practice of presence has become Something quite Compelling to me and difficult not that I know what it is, but I find I'm practicing it all the time sort of to how the I Think I would call it a consciousness about it, and I think the practice of making the work that I make is of developing a consciousness Consciousness about the act of doing what you're doing, which leads to some sort of presence So the I discovered in sit stand walk lie down that there was a moat on this island and People had walked by the moat. I had walked by the moat a million times, but to somehow Notice the presence of that moat became Something interesting to me and the moat took on the quality of a line seen sideways very painterly thing and By calling I could call attention to that moat its moatness by the placement or taking away of hands and Since you didn't know where the hands would appear Disappear the moat became very interesting. So the performance became a way of pointing at the presence of the physical Properties of the architecture and I think my directing skills also led to it knowing that the the presence of the hands became part of that dance, but Not the central part of that dance that makes any sense, you know, I Think directing is about figuring out what things go in front of what things when so I Don't know if I'm answering the question. I'm sort of talking about my practice a little and this these are the things I engage with Obsessively And whether I get paid or not No, I think no, I think it's I mean I actually think there's a wonderful Consonance between what the artists are saying because I think we're everyone everyone is talking that there is a visual element It's a sort of creating a visual environment and or a visual experience This question of presence it You know, I think it's it's not a valued of judgment. I think for me it's sort of and I think for the Field in general it's sort of how do we develop a framework that talks about the different modes of performance in these different contexts? It isn't that honors the different practices that lead to what happens in that ephemeral Moment and I want to talk to Hillary does okay. I want to talk to Hillary a little bit about how did you? like come to curate primarily performance art and sort of what do you You know, what have you seen over the past? I guess ten years that you've been curating and or however Five years, but talk a little bit about what you know Yeah, I was really lucky to work at the box gallery in Los Angeles that is the owner and is Mara McCarthy who is Paul McCarthy's daughter and so it was a good place to be and So the the premise of the gallery when they started it was that there would be they would show artists that Mainly performance artists and Older who had been around who didn't really get their dues and usually it was because their work was very sexual political they Intentionally took themselves out of the art world because they didn't want to be in it So I Was lucky to work with people like Barbara T. Smith Simone Forte People also with the states like Stan Van der Beek and others so that's sort of how I got my start and it was Also being in Los Angeles. I was there a lot of the artists that were still living But I mean we would interact with all the time and And so that's where my interest was struck. Also. I have an arts background I went to Cal Arts for studio art and so I've always had an interest in performance work Because it's harder to commodify even though We do So great. Well, I think yeah, I mean I think all of us at this table You know Michael talked about it. You just mentioned it You know is and this is this is if you know almost like an entire other discussion, which is that you know Theater performance has not done a very good job Especially in the new in new era of commodity commodifying itself and dance even less so You know, I think you know at one point, you know You would go see a play and then you could the author could sell the script and so you could have some sort of there would be an object that was sort of Referencing what happened on the stage and someone could make some money that way that sort of gone away now Because people don't make that kind of work so much and not so many you know, and that's as an income thing That on the streets all the time. They're selling scripts all the time where it's a cottage industry in New York Oh, yeah, yeah like those Yeah, but um, it's interesting. I mean you were like it's like Tino Saga all I guess, you know gets paid a lot of money to Sell, I don't know whispered instructions, which is sort of amazing and brilliant I Don't know I don't Michael just scoffs. Oh, okay Well, I mean it is so it's an interesting it's an interesting moment I think So actually I hi I feel like we've been having a very nice conversation up here. Can you guys have questions? Thoughts Yeah, Wayne Can you can you um? Yeah, come come come to the Yeah So so for those of you who can't hear and for those of you watching on the internet hi Wayne Ashley wanted to I was asking had we have we foregrounded this conversation in a discussion about sort of the market and capitalism and and consumption I Think there's various factors that Lead to that in terms of museums doing it I think a lot of it has to do with funding some of it has to do with funding education programs bringing in a public Trying to attract them so you have fly of events you bring people in you bring ticket holders You can get funding from that I also think it has to do with the economy and reaction to the economy in terms of artists and criticism Also, these things are circular and they're cyclical so these things come up over and over again It's every four years or three years. There's a there's a lifespan to these issues. So and then I In terms of like the people that are bringing these I Don't want to I mean not to get not getting personal or anything I just know that there's certain opportunities that are Attracting and when you're dealing with spectacle which a lot of the performance is which a lot of happens at Performa You're gonna get attention and attention doesn't necessarily You know lead to direct money, but it leads to influence. It's important. Yeah, I think To Wayne to address the sort of foreground. Yes, they're this whole chain of conversations started from an essay Series of essays one that I wrote one that Claire Bishop wrote And a bunch of stuff that came out of Performa where it was really where we're and I think that that's what We're trying to do over the next, you know ongoing is unpack these issues around commodification And and I agree like I'm I'm you know It's like the Whitney is building a performance venue in their new museum You know MoMA is like all these people are investing in something that I would imagine knowing the thought that world May be out of fashion in six years And I wonder what they're with these institutions are like are they and this is why the commodification is so interesting Or the collecting is so interesting because it's like they wouldn't be I wouldn't think that a major institution would invest in Building a performing Program a performance program unless they had a strategy for collecting the performance and creating value Or else to bring attention to it that they're doing it Who knows what that facility is gonna look like and how practical or how good it's gonna be right? Right gather a lot of you know generate a lot of interest and excitement around it And let's see how it sounds when you go in the room if you can actually understand what's being said in a video Yeah knows that well, that's a big that's a big and I actually want to talk to Phil about this a little because and this kind of gets to this like skill issue a little bit is that I You know, I know that you went to TCG to build this piece with Jim Finley Just so you can talk a little bit about that But it's about sort of are the places Building with the equipment to make the work that they're asking to make you know If you're gonna ask Sarah Mitchelson to create a dance piece is The Whitney building a facility that's going to allow her to actually build You know what she's or Richard Maxwell who was in the biennial, you know Are are are we creating a or are we creating a structure where the performing arts dedicated venues? We'll continue to be underfunded will serve as a sort of farm You know a petri dish to develop these artists that will then you know Move to the MoMA and get a claim for MoMA and not down the I'm sorry No, no, that's okay. Yeah Yeah, I I did spend upwards of two years at the center theater group These are very interesting questions you ask and I feel that I Will address Them through my own experience. It's probably the the the best way to do it. So I Did spend two years in a collaboration with Jim Finley at the center theater group in Los Angeles Which arguably is the flagship? regional theater in the country Billings this that would dwarf this room And I found the experience was locked in To certain preconceptions about how to build how to construct a piece that adversely Affected the creative process that Jim Finley and I were trying to engage him now You know, we're not Powerful guys, although I wouldn't mess with Jim. He's a big guy and you know beat the crap out of you, but So so Saying that well, you know, we're two irate personalities. We can't be written off that way Let me give an example the first Hurdle I had a jump was with playwriting. We were funneled within the institution into new play development The focus of the piece that we were building involved no written text No play You would think the conversation would end there and what are you working on and let's go to it but it didn't and it became the subject of a year's years worth of arguing to Make the people at the center theater group understand we weren't dealing with a play We were dealing with the experience of a performance so I come at theater from All the questions that you might ask about a play meaning The play as a map for Who are the characters? What's happening? What is the narrative? What is the set? But my solutions well, I should say that each of those What each of those areas became the subject of questions for me, which I then built a production around over many many years, so When I came to the center theater group I was not in a position to when I said I'm not going to work with play it wasn't To be a cool kid on the block. It was after years of work and research Enough said about that. So I Found that the institution could not it became a binary situation to quote myself that The institution could not handle the fact that we didn't have a play to work with Part one part two was that Jim Finley is known primarily as a video designer Jim and I met and talked and our We wanted to work with a very interesting question. What can we do with video that hasn't been done before? That's a really interesting question and then maybe an impossible one and a really difficult one So I think Jim and I decided well, let us start by we will light the entire space only with video light There will be no stage lighting only video light Great, let's start there. Let's start work Let's see how plastic is attracted to video light and all that Enter the center theater group video becomes within the institution becomes a Very problematic issue because you cannot videotape any actors who might enter Into the video frame while you're making something Because then you have to negotiate a contract with I think sag or aftra To a clear it to okay it so we had to go through this Probably nine month your long dance Contracts had to be signed In order to use video to do anything in the room so the creative energy went into bureaucratic nonsense in my opinion as opposed to The harder question of what can you do with this? I don't know So I found that The theater establishment What became an uphill battle all the way I'm not unfamiliar with those battles, and I don't think they're Unexpected or I Don't know what the word is it's hot But they're very familiar and Either you take them on or you don't But I think much too much energy gets wasted inside the theater establishment trying to make something exactly like the thing that was already made instead of there doesn't seem to be a Will inside of large institutions to do something that they don't know about and My interest is purely in doing something that you don't know about when you start and you keep your fingers crossed And you have faith that when you finish You will Make something that will be of interest I think were there another question Okay We're kind of getting up on it anyone closing remarks thoughts to share One last thing, you know you we started this part of the conversation with a question about commodification and I think that The example that you just spoke about is a really Good point about how about the I don't know if I could call it the commodification of theater But the reason that process exists is because for a long time people fought for unions and to do things in particular Ways so that all of those collaborators in the process could get paid right and it's the same thing that happens in museums There's a similar bureaucracy, so it's not I don't think that it's It's necessarily that the visual artists, you know can sell the painting and make money and that the theater person can't you know we're And when we're talking about the Whitney, we're talking about these number of artists We're not talking about all of these people who are doing lots of different kinds of work to you know to survive so it's And I think also and I'll give you this that the Whitney building a performance base Along with the economic Decisions that go behind that might also be a great sign of Genre crossing and breaking down that is really necessary and that has I think always been The experience of artists that you know we are asked to study study in a certain way, but there's a you know We're whole we do lots of things, you know, we listen to sound we feel the earth beneath our feet We draw even if I'm a theater artist, so It I think it's a good thing as well I just want to add that the Whitney was actually modeled after a series at the at the Whitney that happened 30 40 years ago and The curators are well aware of it And it's also was seen as a swan song to that building to you know sort of inhabit that building for a while I forgot what I was Also in terms of like, you know Organizing or unions, I mean a lot of the it's not about The discussion is not about money sometimes it is about money, but in terms of collaboration It's about credit, you know in term with artists, too And that's that becomes a talking point with them or a big part of it But they do have unions too. There's been unions in the trying to organize artists in terms of getting together It's not only in that world, but it's less. It's not as powerful Well, I think I think thank you. I mean, I think I wish we had like another hour Just because this is this is sort of I think that we're what you're talking about is I think it's exactly sort of like I'm looking at everyone here and looking at the program for this festival I'm like I'm seeing all these artists that are you know artists like fundamentally whether their primary in mode of engagement is choreography or Quote-unquote theater or visual or whatever and I mean and that's proud and that's always I think the way it's been to some extent But I think now more than ever That's always a horrible thing to say, but it feels like this moment embraces a multitude of creative expressions by self-identified artists and What I'm hearing from Philip and what I'm hearing also is that is that are the institutions a are the institutions sort of developing curatorial and production models that suit that mode of creativity and You know and and the issues you address around sort of labor and and equity and getting paid for your work I think are a huge issue regardless of discipline right now But when we did this in January, you know, it's interesting like I sort of feel like you know the the sort of Lord theater Model and the sort of like, you know, I think that the art is feels old And I think that you know the contemporary art center idea seems to be more relevant to this moment But you know where you have like, you know a performance program and a visual art program And it's all housed in one thing and you know, but even in those institutions, you know, I was talking to someone from a major contemporary art center who said, you know that you You know Even internally they have Communications issues between the people that create performance and the people that create the visual arts world and some of it's some of it's like just Logistics, it's like the prep time for an exhibit at a museum is like two years and the prep time for a performance is like, you know Six months nine months. So you have these so but I but um anyway Do you want to talk a little bit before we go just tell us about the show the artists that are here that we can come see at the gallery So tonight we're having two performances by math bass and dashel manly who are just want to wave so and Then and those will happen at seven o'clock tonight and tomorrow Barry McGregor Johnston, who's right there will be performing here at Seven and They're all very wonderful. I go on and on but you should really just come and see the performances Great. So I want to um, I want to thank all of the panelists. It's been a great discussion. Thank you guys for coming And continue it online. Yeah, send feedback. Thank you. Thank you run