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Praxis Studio’s exhibit "Dreams and Possibilities" opened in spring 2007 at The Whitney Altria in NYC. |
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Performance and Dreams – Leah Oates
Praxis Studio’s exhibit "Dreams and Possibilities" opened in spring 2007 at The Whitney Altria in NYC.
Leah Oates: Your show at The Whitney Altria draws people into a virtual environment that opens up dreams and possibilities for each individual. You use a film set and a movie environment where participants can pretend to be someone else or where they can leave behind the ideas they have about their everyday life. What is interesting and sweet about this is that you have created a very humane and giving environment that shows that anything is possible within the context of a museum. Please speak about what you where thinking for this show?
Praxis: As in almost all of the work we have done, beginning with the hugs and foot washings we were giving away, there is a feeling that this is not exactly art, and that this is not exactly a performance where there is an audience and a stage. A hug makes it impossible to have aesthetic distance between the experience and the viewer. So it goes with this show, only on a much more complex basis.
As people walk into the Whitney Museum, they see what looks like a film shoot that you might see on a New York street, only we have also built elaborate, towering sets. At first you might think you are in this museum on the wrong day, but then you realize that this is the right day, and that a film is being made into which you can enter. As in a dream, you walk through a projection of a film and, suddenly, non-fiction meets fiction because, as you pass through this moving image you become part of the production, literally, and you are instructed to put on clothes, makeup and are then directed into a scene.
Our idea for this was to reverse the entire film process. The museum experience is about the making of the film, it is about the collaborative energy that is produced in such an environment, the smiles and the energy of a group of people working together.
LO: Please explain Metalobe.
P: Metalobe is a way of explaining a process through which traditional film techniques, which are used in Hollywood and elsewhere, are blended with YouTube technology to create a marriage between user-generated content and director-generated content. Expanding this further, we have user-edited content as well, which begins to steer the narrative of this film.
LO: Please explain how Wikepedia, YouTube and Google inspired this show?
P: Wikepedia and YouTube are both user-generated and edited. In this type of production, we have actors and artists uploading their auditions, which, by the way, you can still do at http://www.twobodies.com/metalobe/ , since this production is still traveling to other museums besides The Whitney Altria.
Just as in other open source models (Wikipedia, YouTube), we are creating an environment where anyone can enter into the production process and potentially steer it in an entirely new direction. This is very different than in a Hollywood style or independent film. Yet, since we are also directing inside of the museum, and with a traditional crew using 16mm film, the process also uses those traditional techniques. In the end, both media will be combined and a theatrical release will be forthcoming. We will also make a DVD that will have all the actors’ auditions and more. So, on a DVD, the performance at the Whitney would be the “making of” the movie, the auditions would be deleted scenes and the film itself is like a “behind the scenes” experimental.
LO: You have been creating performances for many years as a couple. Please speak about what your working process is like together?
P: It is simple really, in that we are in love and respect each other enough to not act egotistic or selfish. Neither of us is the primary artist, and this is a relief and a blessing to us. We do not argue when we create, we discuss different options and, by working together, we gain a greater perspective. In this show, we have created Praxis Studio, which is an extended collaborative. We are working with Emily Dow and Christopher Corbett, both of whom have architectural backgrounds. We love this fact because that means that there is an even greater perspective and more possibilities. There is also a professional film crew and a theatrical director, and all these people provide invaluable input into making this a studio project rather than a two-person project.
LO: I find that your performances are very kind and humane yet transgressive and innovative. These are qualities one does not find much in contemporary art, with the exception of performance art. Are kindness and humanness transgressive and why do you think that these qualities are found more in performance art?
P: You know, in a way, we are all what we say and do and, even more, we are what other people perceive us as. So, yes, kindness may be trangressive in the art world because it tends to be a competitive and territorial place, and artists like to carve out spots for themselves and to feel heroic. And, that kind of power is often abused and ends up abusing the person trying to create it since we all want attention in order to be close to and kind to another human being. We should not seek attention in terms of being a hero because that kind of attention is flat and unloving. But, unfortunately, this is often misunderstood by artists and so they end up traveling on a lonely path that seems careerist to the point of heartlessness. In the end, bitterness sets in because one’s ultimate goals are not achieved, which is simply to be cared for by another person and, in turn, care for them.
LO: How does an audience affect each performance?
P: The audience determines each performance entirely because there is no stage and in this case, the audience is the cast and what would we do without them! The New York audience is always special in that New Yorkers seem very open to us, very fun-loving somehow. The audience gives us great energy, we have never had a bad one.
LO: What has been your progression as artists? Did you begin as performance artists? Please elaborate.
P: We met in 1999 when we were each working in a fashion shoot and ended up performing nude together as Adam and Eve on a runway. After a short seduction of two months we got married. Then in 2000 we created Praxis, our collaborative name. We chose Praxis because it meant practice, in an ongoing sense. So when we used our east village storefront on 10th street to give away hugs, foot washings and dollar bills, we wanted to practice this activity in an ongoing almost devotional way. It was not about a scheduled performance or happening but a way of being, a way of meeting people that had no middle or end.
We did not reach out to museums or galleries at all with that 10th street work, and ironically it gave us wings to the art world. We performed at PS1/MOMA in our first show at The Greater New York exhibit in 2000. Then Karen Finley came by to have her feet washed and we gained support from people like Christo and Jenny Holzer! We were amazed really, but of course were familiar with the art world and loved being a part of it. Then when the Whitney Museum wanted us to be part of the 2002 Biennial, we progressed in a way that began lending itself to the art world proper. Museums like the Reina Sofia and other galleries and venues wanted us to do something there and we began creating things that were site specific for those institutions.
We did not begin as performance artists but we both had a background of doing some dancing and performance. Mostly we both experimented in many mediums and really that is what we are still doing. In 2005 we opened the new season of PS122 in their large theatre. We never did any kind of theatre performance before and we liked that challenge to experiment with. And now, making a feature film and directing a team is entirely new to us, and we like that challenge and the experiments it brings.
LO: Who are you favorite artists? Why?
P: Vito Acconci, because of the way he progressed through mediums and because of the raw emotional power of some of his works. Joseph Beuys of course because he is the granddaddy of all of us, though it might be good to temper that by saying Beuys also carefully cultivated his heroic image! We also like many lesser know contemporary artists like Geoff Lupo who was putting signs around Chelsea selling an old cracker or a useless computer and he would have conversations with people on the phone that bordered on the absurd. There are many more artists on youtube and other places whose work will most likely never enter the marketplace like Geoff and their spirit is very inspiring to us. There seems to be a golden age for art making now, because anything is possible and there are wonderful things happening all the time that are very, very subtle.
LO: What advice would you give to other artists who are emerging?
P: Decide that you will not let the art system tell when you have made it or not. Look at Christo, who refuses to be represented by a gallery, he negotiates with building owners and others to get massive public projects done on his own terms without compromise. Do not compromise! Find a way to get work out there in a bold way that will keep your spirits high, otherwise you will be fighting bitterness and will be no fun to hang out with!
Break the rules, send letters to the Whitney and propose something for the next biennial—remember this—we got into the Whitney biennial with no resume at all, and we sent an unsolicited letter asking to be in, and that’s how it happened. If you want to know all the details and exactly what we wrote in that letter, you can see it in the brief story we made for NYFA here: http://www.twobodies.com/fairytale/index.html
LO: What projects are you working on now and have coming up in the future in terms of shows/projects etc?
P: We are working on this current project at The Whitney and this will travel to other museums and countries, so that will keep us busy for the next few years! We are also writing a book about navigating the art world and have a few other writing projects. We are also building a center in upstate New York where we want to live and host ongoing events that will be like gatherings in a palatial atmosphere that will be similar to sleep-over parties crossed with an artist’s salon.
