Tyler Matthew Oyer Shimmy Shake Earthquake
cover ima
Cirrus 2013
Tyler Matthew Oyer Shimmy Shake Earthquake
September 7 - October 26, 2013 Shimmy Shake Earthquake performances: Sept 14th & 28th at 5pm 542 S. Alameda St. Los Angeles CA 90013
Cirrus 2013
Tyler Matthew Oyer: Shimmy Shake Earthquake by Geir Haraldseth How can you change the world? With glitter? A certain shift in perception guides us to a sculpture. Or let’s call it an installation. It’s a replica of a domestic interior. Covered in glitter. It’s covered in glitter. The ordinary covered with glitter. In a gallery. In Los Angeles. That certainly adds some dazzling zest to the representation of the everyday. But, let us not forget that this installation was the site for changing the world. Songs were sung. Or let’s call it a performance. A golden man is there and sings of golden children. Children who, at six, seven or eight, are taking part in a world we know from films and perhaps what we could pretend to be reality, like we could construct a private living space in a gallery. It’s a set. An unfortunate casting for this little girl. Under glitter and through lamentation we are presented with a society that has preordained roles and stereotypes for us to wear, like robes to cover a slumbering body, not yet awake, not still sleeping. These children are striving for the good life. The good life involves money. The good life involves power. The golden man sings a good song in the key of power. A good song is not art. A good song is art.
How can you change the world? With knowledge? A certain shift in perception guides us to a song. Or let’s call it a lecture. This is the way the children learn. This is the way that the children learn of the world. This is the way that the children learn of the preordained roles they will have to play and rules they will have to obey by. To take what we’re given isn’t very well living. Girl do this. Boy take that. Man be Him. Woman be good. Accountant be trustworthy. Carpenter be cheap. Artist be transgressive, and trust in yourself. This is no knowledge. This is system. Do you think the system might break if we talk about it? Do not shush; do not try to hide it. Look into the image. Look at its construction. Look at its language. I think the system might even like it. The world is tickled by questions of validity and purpose. The institutions of education, of family, of society and of the world are harbingers of power. Just ask Bourdieu. Bourdieu was teaching and writing. Teaching us about how we talk about how we talk about how we behave. How do you challenge open arms? Do you become the ignorant schoolmaster? Have you found
Part I: The Omnipotence of the Beast “Golden Lips” Performance still
The Omnipotence of the Beast 2013, various objects, wood, glue and glitter Dimensions variable
How can you change the world? With your body? A certain shift in perception guides us to a potential. Or let’s call it a dance. Move your body to a new refrain. As the golden man moves alone through this world, like we all move alone through this world, he wants to sing. And now you will see, possibilities. You might see images of faces and places and things. He will sing a song to show us how he works. Slightly, with a shift in movement, a thrust of the hips, a larynx in love. Anything can be art. True or false. Anyone can be an artist. True or false. Can a gospel singer be an artist? Can a performer be a performance artist? Can a human even fathom change? The change in this instance is the
change. Intellectual emancipation is just another key in the refrain of freedom seeking. Not of justice and civil liberties, but of perception and systems of perception. Why would you want to change the world? When you grow up, you learn, and when you are a mature human being you have learnt. You are familiar with the rules and constraints that go along with life. Even concepts of freedom and emancipation are ruled by rules. A desire to change the world does not necessarily equate to saving the world, feeding the hungry or fighting censorship. All noble gestures, perchance, but all well within the realms of our understanding. Is there not a chance that there is a whole world of experiences and ways of living that we do not now know about, that we can now not see, that we can now not touch, that we can now not comprehend, just because we are so adept at learning and procreating the rules in order to maintain. What is change?
movement through three different scenarios, three different sets, three different environments, three different installations, and three different differents. Yet, they are the same, a piece, a work, a trilogy. Of stating and singing of the world, of presenting, of representing, and perchance to
These words on a page in a publication to explain? These words on a page in a publication to disdain? Rhyme and no reason? I am still making sense in ways you will understand, and the golden man will sing you a song and teach you a new refrain. A shimmy and a shake. Making your body a site for knowledge, for learning with your hips, expressing with your toe, discussing with your dick. With or without glitter. With or without shimmying or shaking. They moved along in a manner one shouldn’t move along – the way children move, blindly, figuring out riddles.1 To replace one with another. 1 Jacque Rancière, An Intellectual Adventure in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Five Lessons in Intellectual Emanicipation, p 10.
Part I: The Omnipotence of the Beast “Golden Lips” Performance still
Part III: Images of Possible Pleasure “Find the Refrain” Performance still
A lecture with a song, a sculpture with a set, gold with an artist. Maybe it’s one for another, one in relation to more, one in relation to less; the ratio might not make sense, but why make sense all the time? The pieces of the puzzle lie in the way you move, the way you put together the pieces. You might not know everything. You might not know how big the puzzle is. You might not know that the pieces fit, but you are intrigued, you want to know. You want to know something, but you don’t know how now. You ask a question and respond with a dance. You read a book and dream. “And so on I Walk! They throw glances because perchance no one has ever Walked in such a way at a Reception… ergo, there by the walls as squirrels they crouched; this one or that crept under Upholstery, or guarded himself with a piece of
furniture… and now on I Walk, Walk, and not just Walk but Walking the Devil of a Walk so that haply I’ll Crack all… oh Jesus Maria! So now My Own not mine, tail between legs, pack up their drums; they look and I Walk, Walk still, Walk on, whereupon that Walk of mine drums as on a bridge. The Devil, the Devil, and I know not what to do with this Walking of mine, for such a Walk, such a Walk, and if I as is uphill Walk, am Walking, and hard, hard, uphill, uphill, oh what a Walk! Oh, what am I doing? Oh, now haply as a Madman I Walk and Walk and Walk, but they will think me a Lunatic… yet I Walk, Walk… and the Devil, the Devil, Walk, Walk…” 2 The figure in this passage above is taken from the book Trans-Atlantyk 2 Witold Gombrowicz, Trans-Atlantyk, 1994, p 35.
by Polish author Witold Gombrowicz. The book tells the story of a man, a writer much like Gombrowicz, who even shares his name, who enters into a new society in Argentina. In this specific excerpt, he enters into a new discussion. During a simple chitchat of this and that at a party he enters into a verbal battle with a member of high society, of the establishment, of the ruling class. Our protagonist’s verbal responses are his own, or so he thinks. However, his words have already been spoken before and his retorts and explanations have already been said by others. So, he instinctively walks, and counters a verbally cognitive sphere with a physical movement. This pacing back and forth in the space of privilege favors the walker, by giving an unexpected answer in a disconnected language. By ditching convention and logic as we know it, the ways in which we cognize how to interact and submit, the character takes the conversation to a physical sphere, still with a sound mind, even though his actions suggests the transgressive characteristics of a mad-man. This action from Argentina draws parallels to some of the writing of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, who in his book “Critique of Cynical Reason,” writes that through our education and systems of power and knowledge we are through and through cynical. “We live from day to day, from vacation to vacation, from news show to news show, from problem to problem, from orgasm to orgasm, in private turbulences and medium-term affairs, tense, relaxed. With some things we feel dismay but with most things we can’t really give a damn.”3 Sloterdijk does not mention Witold, the walker, but goes back to the figure of the kynic, a concept from 3 Peter Sloterjijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, 1987, p. 98 - 99
Greek philosophy. The kynic puts forth arguments that have no place in platonic dialog and rather uses the body, the odors emanating from below, or the gullible genitals to make a point. Can this be a dance? Can this be a song? Shimmy Shake Earthquake is not going to change the world, but it is introducing a difference. It is not just the music, the score, the shape or the form, but a revelation of the moment, which is different. The artist, through his means as a performer, writer, singer, thinker, and maker, points to the blind spots affecting us all, our cynical notion of the world. He points to the way we learn about the world and to the lack of diversity, not necessarily of race, color, gender or glitter, but perhaps of intellect, or how we view the brain and how the brain is considered the center of our puny and bodily world, how we receive and acknowledge knowledge, how our role in the world is constructed or acted out. Shimmy Shake Earthquake reviews some of the limitations. The glaringly obvious limitations are covered in glitter, soaked in substances so seductive, like the lives we would like to lead. The not so obvious and subtle shifts that occur in this delight of song and shape, a journey through the gallery space that leads to a realization not so far from Witold and his Walk. Maybe we need a physical dialog, a need to converse not just in words, but with a presence, of letting go of and rediscovering, whether it be Jacques Rancière’s ideas of equal footing and not knowing, of collective learning and teaching ourselves what we need to know. Tyler Matthew Oyer is staking his own course and learning as he goes along.
Geir Haraldseth (b. 1977, Norway) is the director of Rogaland Kunstsenter in Stavanger, Norway. Haraldseth holds a BA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College. Previous positions include curator at the National Museum of Art, Design and Architecture, Oslo and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo. Haraldseth has contributed to several journals and magazines including the Exhibitionist, Kunstkritikk, Acne Paper, Fukt, and Landings Journal. He recently published «Great! I’ve written something stupid» featuring a selection of his curated projects and writings, published by Torpedo Press.
Images of Possible Pleasure Installation shot 2013, disco ball, mylar, black paint, lights Dimensions variable
Script for an Operetta: What Will Come Before By Malene Dam Shimmy Shake Earthquake is an operetta by Tyler Matthew Oyer at Cirrus Gallery in Los Angeles, September 2013. The operetta is constructed as a live performance and installation devised over three stages of the American dream throughout history. The gallery is a landscape of gold, glitter and pyramids yet anchored in familiar Americana imagery. The operetta is a one-man show; starring Oyer dressed in a black buttondown shirt with large golden shimmery dots. His character/s take/s us through each tableau, weaving a complex allegory of the often destructive endgames of attachments, expectations and promises we make to ourselves. We begin in Shimmy: a living room installation of suburban mid-century modern USA–– Eames rockers, houseplants, rugs––every inch covered in golden glitter. Oyer announces the scene for us to imagine. Young boy and girl playing an old married couple dwelling in their riches accumulated over time. The innocence of childhood play is revisited here as to suggest how we play, practice, and embody the ideologies of our surroundings. The child becomes an uncanny
reminder of how we mimic and learn from the people closest to us. In the young male body of Oyer a family tree is cast. Could this be his parents in the 1960s mimicking their parents, Oyer’s grandparents? The inheritance of the good life, the American dream is traced via family lines, suggesting how ideologies assert themselves as hidden shimmies in the everyday throughout generations. Moving to the next act, Shake, a scene of more intensity, we are met by iconic images on a reflective inverted golden pyramid on the wall. Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Mickey Mouse, and a horrific image of a Native American scalping a British colonizer. The images are summoned to call for American self-understanding. Oyer’s character changes as he leads us into this new scene, embodying the teacher. In verse he recites how yet another ideological state apparatus, the U.S. educational system, programs its history into the body of every student. In a reciting mode his character reminds us of the pledge of allegiance performed every morning in schools all over the U.S.
In the third and final room we are met by a large golden pyramid sculpture surrounded by a discothèque. Oyer embodies his last character, the nightclub entertainer, with a sense of counter-cultural potential. As a diva leading her choir, Oyer calls out the fallacies of Americana begging us to create a space built on our own desires––desires that allow us to flourish, rather than those that lead us into spirals of self-oppression. Can he ignite enough energy in all of us to send an earthquake through the entire pyramid, to invert the damn thing, so we can all enjoy our lives together? What you read above is pure speculation. A fantasy of how the show might be. Following a colleague’s work for a number of years gives a viewpoint into a practice bound by continuous conversations. This perspective forms my essay, which is a way of continuing our dialogue. It will falter in its ability to speak to the event, the show, and the atmosphere in any real sense, but instead should be read as an informed fantasy. I speak from what collegiality and community might offer. Having sat, danced, eaten and argued next to each other for three years, we built our practices alongside one another. Oyer and I both graduated from the same class of the MFA art program at CalArts in spring of 2012. You might just have seen the live show, or entered the gallery in the middle of the week, with the empty leftover promises of what just happened or what will come. Maybe you missed the show altogether. No matter what your approach, the suspended time of the essay holds the space open for other impressions and thoughts. This is how I’m thinking of our space of collegiality, conjuring up plans together, analyzing, strategizing
and supporting. Why preface this text with collegiality and speculation? Sometimes collegiality is a space through which a certain amount of courage can be mustered, in order for a fierce diva like Oyer to continue. Let me unpack this a little more. I read part of the script for the operetta and have seen some of the objects for the installation in their finished states. Through this I formed my understanding of what Shimmy Shake Earthquake might become. Not too off-base from Oyer’s previous to-date oeuvre. Singing, music, props, show. He is a born entertainer. But as he and I move from the social spaces of seminars and studios into the anxiety of the first year out of grad school, collegiality changes. From the competitive yet safe experimental confines of the school, his practice now needs to be proven economically viable. Rent, debt, getting a studio and a job: all are very real things. Yet so are the exciting prospects of his first upcoming solo show at a gallery that will represent him––one which has worked with some of his all-time favorite artists. Yeah! Support! The collegial space is where we together analyze and strategize how to navigate and hold on to the practices we developed in school. But precisely how we hold on to them while also making them viable will be different for all of us. Oyer’s practice is performance; it’s bold, demanding and direct. Even at school he was too much. This is where the support of his community is vital, when working against the grain of what is viewed as cool, distanced and subtly critical. There is nothing cool about
Part II: Fabulous Fallacies “Inside You & Me” Performance stills
Part III: Images of Possible Pleasure “Find the Refrain” Performance still
his work. His sculptures and prints are practical––handmade stage props made for necessary visual effect. This will inevitably create a tension with the profit-minded focus of any commercial gallery. The contemporary US capitalist society makes the challenge even graver. This is where Oyer strategically looks back at his co-conspirators of the past to understand how to secure his footing. Looking to the world of camp, exaggeration and artifice are manifested in a vulgar extravaganza. But where pop art’s underpinnings are flat, serious and at the end of day nihilistic, camp emerges from another place. Camp places us right in the middle of our desires as Oyer entertains, giving us a moment of distance to look at it all: the good life, Americana, again. He points to the passion, the enjoyment, and the desires through which these ideological maneuverings fail us so devastatingly. The golden extravaganza puts us at a safe enough distance to enjoy the entertainment. The awkwardness, the sting is produced through what comes across as earnestness - he is serious. It is not calculated and cold, but rather made into artifice because this is the only option left to make all of this bearable. How can we make new desires, an Americana that does not end up hurting us?
is no outside of anything, only being in the very thick of it. Oyer never proposes to be on the other side; it is not a distanced judgment. He examines desires reflexively––seeking to understand how they have hurt him and all of us in their unfulfilled promises––and asks if we can make up new desires together.
Oyer draws these desires out with a metonymic chain of events. He investigates the structures on which we stand. The pyramid and the excess of gold function as stand-ins for a US propagated notion of the good life, of Americana. Similarly is each tableau uncanny. Nothing is real gold, but rather cheap glitter-gold-shimmer, pointing to the fallacy of material desires. It’s mass culture Oyer is after, not a snarky entitled address to an elite, but rather to each and every one of us, himself included. How do we desire? How do these desires fail us? And what should be done? The metonymic unpacking is important in this respect. Oyer situates our current moment in the past, performatively investigating how shared histories and environments have been constructed and invested with power over time. I cannot help but understand the old-fashionedness of Oyer’s 1950s and 60s suburban tableaus within the context of our current recession. Post-2008, now in already 2013, we are in a dragged out time: knowing we are moving forward, not knowing what As we stand in the golden the future holds, and acutely anxious discothèque at the end of the operetta about it—as if past notions of futurity and the music dies down, the contours were marked by more security and of the gallery space––and Little Tokyo certainty (a particularly gnarly myth). outside––seeps in. It is the potential The desperate visions of old suburbia of this very moment, in the silence seems to be propagated from all after the show, where the real critique sides. We expect it from Fox News, makes itself felt in full force. What as a patriotic call for protectionist we just experienced is dependent on politics, but we also find it in the the outside structures that support recent debate on marriage equality, and hold up this experience. There where gay liberalism propagates an
image of the gay middle-class nuclear family. We have seen campaigns for many different white picket fences. What is traditionally on the left or the right side of the fence is now skewed by the realities of our neoliberal recession. As we see our reflection in the shimmer of Oyer’s mid-century-modern living room, we begin to understand how we are all supporting inherited ideas of the good life. This notion of life feels safe and tangible. We know that things have forever changed, in a globalized world in which whole economies are being reshuffled. Oyer does not explicitly address this aspect overtly in either the script or the installations, but it is there. And it is this aspect that we will sit with, hopefully, as the most uncanny, the most present, and the most urgent. Get me out of here. Shit, I guess there is no out.
Malene Dam (b. 1983, Denmark) is an artist and curator currently at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She engages in an array of issues related to contemporary society, with a strong focus on queer temporality, histories of feminism, education, and war. Her researchbased practice addresses temporal and spatial notions of cultural collectivizations, inquiring how discourses situate themselves as knowledge. She holds a BFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and a MFA in Photography and Media from CalArts. Many thanks to Andrew Kachel for all of his challenging inputs and thoughtful edits of this text.
Part III: Images of Possible Pleasure “Find the Refrain” Performance still
Part I: The Omnipotence of the Beast “Golden Lips” Performance still
Fabulous Fallacies 2013, screenprint on acrylic mirror and frame, ed. 5 39.5” x 34.5” x 34.5”
Study for Images of Possible Pleasure I 2013, acrylic on mylar, framed 37” x 27.5”
Study for Images of Possible Pleasure II 2013, acrylic on mylar, framed 37” x 27.5”
Study for Images of Possible Pleasure 2013, screenprint on cotton T-shirt, numbered and signed by the artist Edition of 100
Untitled (flower in a box) 2013, artificial flower, glue, glitter, and acrylic box 10.5” x 11.5” x 18.5”
Untitled (vase in a box) 2013, vase, glue, glitter, and acrylic box 9.5” x 7.5” x 14”
Untitled (bonsai in a box) 2013, bonsai, glue, glitter, and acrylic box 14.5” x 11” x 11.24”
SHIMMY SHAKE EARTHQUAKE Libretto by Tyler Matthew Oyer TMOSTUDIO
Shimmy, Shake, Earthquake an operetta by Tyler Matthew Oyer I. The Omnipotence of the Beast “Golden Lips” Upon this golden stage two children of young age six, seven or eight unaffected by hate On this chair, sits a little girl dressed as a rich old hen and there, a little boy her partner, husband-friend a little girl who speaks of diamonds and pearls her lips painted bright red her hair done up in curls she speaks of vacations train stations London or Paris she couldn’t care less spoken: A chauffer called Marlo on the streets of Monte Carlo Her stories of cafes and shashays are reflections on golden days Her passion for fashion all the designers, she’s got them Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent Chanel… plenty she’s got.
singing: She smiles and says her lines her glamour all the time Lipstick on her teeth a story deep beneath She is a natural beauty, a stunning human being her soul is only made of material things An unfortunate casting for this little girl And there sits her man he lives by a strict plan: conservatively conquer capitalize on thy worker never stop working cash, checks and smirking and from his riches he has fancy britches from his dollar bills a castle on a hill he loves buying cars the attention at clubs and bars and from his golden lips flow stories of grand trips an old man’s tongue in the mouth of a boy so young spoken: But what will they become? their future’s bright and young Their role is already wrote from someone else’s quotes
the gold it sparkles true it blinds me and you II. Fabulous Fallacies “Inside You and Me” These fabulous fallacies inside you and me that nobody sees will continue to be Their truth seems so strong the stories so long lasting for years from their mouths to our ears The images of faces and places and things maintain order and bind us like rings their perverse powers can cause folks to scour Very few know the meaning below… These things are things just like me and like you they change over time, like the black sky to blue To take what we’re given isn’t very well living look into the image see its construction Cast into molds always so bold look beyond the controlled the new and the old These shapes of gold portray the untold these shapes of gold portray the untold…
III. Images of Possible Pleasure “Find the Refrain” spoken: Part one was a shimmy part two was a shake now it’s time for an earthquake! singingAnd now you will see, possibility these images of faces and places and things An anti sovereign tune that comes with a boom Overcome the apparatus the objects that separate us We got lost in the metaphor that’s what it’s there for No night in the tunnel, it’s all turned to rubble no platform for power, all left to stumble take back the refrain, the spell that it contains take back the refrain, the spell it contains oooooooooo, ooooooooooo oooooooooo, ooooooooooo Re-imagine the culture, the weak and the vulture Ignore their names and end their fame imagine the change, like a storm on the range The symbols of freedom will no longer be numb A crisp golden light
brings day after night From darkness to bright an eternal fight A fight or a dance? supernatural trance Earth’s spinning stance Man’s trust is chance take back the refrain, the spell that it contains take back the refrain, the spell it contains oooooooooo, ooooooooooo oooooooooo, ooooooooooo spoken: A spectacle uncontained by man’s greedy reign To meditate on rocks seems all that we got The sovereign views are old fashioned, abused But look to the bird high on her wings observe how she changes things These dots on the wall are not dots at all They are many hidden moons, covered by sulfur clouds difficult to see, told we’re not allowed Feel the caresses in all these spaces these dots are thoughts, people, and places Imagine the vertigo when highs become low Where and how long? it’s found in the song
and the bilateral sight will turn to radial light! singing: take back the refrain, the spell that it contains take back the refrain, the spell it contains oooooooooo, ooooooooooo oooooooooo, ooooooooooo (x2)
Copyright Š 2013
CIRRUS TYLER MATTHEW OYER SHIMMY SHAKE EARTHQUAKE with music by Alex Black
September 7th - October 26, 2013 Opening reception: September 7th, 7pm - 9pm “Shimmy Shake Earthquake” performances: September 14th, 5pm September 28th, 5pm Reception to follow both performances at 7pm Please note that seating for the performances will be limited. To RSVP, please contact salomeh@cirrusgallery.com with your name, contact details, and the date you would like to attend.
As part of the gallery’s continued interest in performance and new media, Cirrus is pleased to announce the representation of Tyler Matthew Oyer. For his first solo show at Cirrus, Oyer will stage an operetta entitled “Shimmy Shake Earthquake.” Performing alongside sculptures, images, and installation Oyer sets an original libretto amongst twisted tropes of Americana; a glittered mid-century modern living room, allegorical tales of faulty nationalism, and an abstracted discotheque of possibility. Leading his audience through a series of acts, Oyer adopts the caricatured roles of hypnotist, lecturer, and nightclub performer. By manipulating forms of popular entertainment, Oyer allegorically presents a diverse audience with the complexities of material and immaterial value and their relation to the sociopolitical landscape. Called an “interdisciplinary gospel immortalist” by Kembra Pfahler of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Tyler Matthew Oyer was born in Pennsylvania and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2012. His work has been presented in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Miami, Berlin, Copenhagen, Kassel, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Varna, Bulgaria. His one-man performance “Hello, Dolly!” was part of Andrea Zittel’s 2011 High Desert Test Sites event. In August of 2013 he presented “100 Years of Noise: Beyoncé is ready to receive you now” at REDCAT. Marta Becket of the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction once said, “Tyler looks like a performer”.
Tyler Matthew Oyer 2012 MFA / California Institute of the Arts 2009 BFA / The Pennsylvania State University PERFORMANCES 2013 Shimmy Shake Earthquake (solo exhibition) / Cirrus Gallery / Los Angeles 2013 100 Years of Noise: Beyoncé is ready to receive you now / New Original Works Festival / REDCAT / Los Angeles 2013 “Gone for Gold” / Time Share / AUNTS / Brooklyn, NY 2013 “Gone for Gold” / Cutlog / New York 2013 Calling All Divas / After School Special / Bergen Kunstall / Bergen 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Rogaland Kunstsenter / Stavanger 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Fredensborgveien 29 / Oslo 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Liebig12 / Berlin 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Royal Vauxhall Tavern / London 2012 “Gone for Gold” / BARRY / W139 / Amsterdam 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Toves Galleri / Copenhagen 2012 “Gone for Gold” / 12 Ballads for Huguenot House / dOCUMENTA (13) / Kassel 2012 “Gone for Gold” / Artists as Travellers / Galarie der Hochschule / Braunschweig 2012 “Gone for Gold” / MMXII / LA Mart / Los Angeles 2012 STAGED: Three Crimes in Three Acts (solo) / The Sharon Disney Lund Theater / CalArts / Valencia, CA 2012 SOMEWHEREOVER / 00:00 Reset / Human Resources / Pacific Standard Time / Los Angeles 2011 The Gates of El Dorado / Voyeuristic Exhibitionism / CONCORD / Los Angeles 2011 “Hello, Dolly!” / High Desert Test Sites / Wonder Valley, CA 2011 A House is Not a Home / SWAG THE FUCK OUT / Freak City / Los Angeles 2011 Dress Rehearsal for Tea for Two / Carmichael Gallery / Los Angeles 2011 Blackout + TMO LIVE (solo) / Main Gallery / CalArts / Valencia, CA 2010 Glitter Gut / SITE FEST / 3rd Ward & Chez Bushwick / Brooklyn, NY 2010 Glitter Gut / Pavilion Theatre / University Park, PA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 Gesturing into Consciousness / Penn State Alumni Exhibition / Zoller Gallery / University Park, PA 2012 Miami Project / Cirrus Gallery / Miami 2012 Queer Pile Up 3 / ForYourArt / Los Angeles 2012 Art in the Parking Space / Pacific Standard Time / The Standard Hotel / Hollywood, CA 2011 We Got Next / Untitled Art Projects / Los Angeles
2011 Mid Res / CalArts / Valencia, CA 2011 Open Ending / The Farley Building / Los Angeles 2011 PERFORM NOW! CHINATOWN / Los Angeles 2011 Fast-Forward II / Contemporary Arts Forum / Santa Barbara, CA 2011 Cabin Fever / Mixed Greens / New York 2011 The White Woman with the Brown Skin with a White Name with a Gun on Horse / Human Resources / Los Angeles 2011 Queer Pile Up 2 / 1296 Sunset Blvd / Los Angeles 2010 AQUA Art Fair / Horse Trader Projects / Miami 2010 VIDEOHOLICA / Varna, Bulgaria 2010 Younger than Moses: Idle Worship / Benrimon Contemporary / New York 2010 Bambi Biennial / Bambi Gallery / Philadelphia 2010 Un-wearable Fashion / VisArts / Rockville, MD 2010 G40: The Summit / ArtWhino / Arlington, VA 2010 Transitions / MIAD Gallery / Milwaukee, WI 2009 5th After the Pedestal / The Sculpture Center / Cleveland, OH 2009 Fabulous at Forty / Patterson Gallery / University Park, PA 2009 Black & White / ArtWhino / Nation Harbor, MD 2009 Misdirection / Zoller Gallery / University Park, PA 2008 GALORE / Patterson Gallery / University Park, PA 2008 Hey Joe! The Show! / Zoller Alcove / University Park, PA 2008 HARM / Asymmetrick Arts / Rockland, ME 2007 ANNUNCIATION; with Betsy Morningstar / 106 West Main / Waynesboro, PA 2007 CORE / Zoller Gallery / University Park, PA 2006 Zips / Woskob Gallery / State College, PA ARTIST BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS 2013 Meditations on Gold Things / Proof of Addiction(?) / A Book of Images 2013 100 Years of Noise: Beyoncé is ready to receive you now 2013 “Gone for Gold” 2012 STAGED: Three Crimes in Three Acts 2011 COVERED 2011 Blackout 2010 Fractured Fabulist Façade Face AWARDS & RESIDENCIES 2012 Performing Arts Forum (PAF) / Summer University / St. Erme, France 2012 DAAD / German Academic Research Grant 2010 Diversity Grant / CalArts 2009 The Kara D. Berggren Award / Pennsylvania State University 2008 Brian Betzler Memorial Scholarship / Pennsylvania State University 2008 School of Visual Arts Summer Residency / New York, NY PARTICIPANT Fabrik Magazine / issue 21
Holo Library / by Alexandro Segade / University of California Riverside itch journal / issue 15 odds / text compilation / Odda, Norway visiting artist / Advanced Sculpture / Pennsylvania State University Staged “Action” Events / performances by Monica Rodriguez / Flux Factory Camp Is A Tender Feeling / video by Harry Dodge art direction / Chapter 15 / VALENCIA by Michelle Tea / video by Cary Cronenwett Carmen San Diego: Out of Work and on the Run / movie by Sean Grattan Tragelous / video collaboration with Cary Cronenwett Fallen / film by Cary Cronenwett After Warhol (15 Most Beautiful People) / video by James Benning Cassandra / video by My Barbarian Sit Down, Child / video by Kalup Linzy Silent March / performance by Terence Koh / Performa 2009
Cirrus would like to thank Tyler Matthew Oyer, Alex Black, Lino Martinez, Emmett Walsh, Malene Dam, Geir Haraldseth, Ania Diakoff, Mette Hersoug, Jmy James Kidd, Michael Haight, Michael Mouris, Jonas Becker, Johanna Breiding and Calvin Lee for their help and support in the production and documention of “Shimmy Shake Earthquake.�
Copyright Cirrus Editions ltd. Š 2013
Cirrus 2013
cirrus editions ltd Š 2013