Catherine Sullivan: Nov 19

Wednesday, November 19, 6:30pm
The New School
John Tishman Auditorium / 66 West 12th Street

Catherine Sullivan's installations combine theater, dance, film, music and visual art; through these disciplines she scrutinzes collective audiences such as nostalgia, the sensations of history, and cultural acquiescence. The performers in her pieces often explore written texts, stylistic economies, gestural regimes, reenactments of history and conceptual orthodoxies. Her work is usually shot or performed within locations that are richly layered with social functions, and the elements of character, action and setting play off one another to produce an anxious and unresolved political sensibility. The topics touched upon in Sullivan's 2007 piece, Triangle of Need, are numerous and varied, including Neanderthal orphans, Nigerian email scams and even time travel. To create this piece, the artist collaborated with noted music, dance and film professionals, to create an ambitious and thought-provoking work that makes underlying comments on a broader set of issues. However, her true medium is the ensemble itself, and her works most often involve multiple collaborators. With The Chittendens (2005), for example, a six-channel sound and video piece produced in collaboration with composer Sean Griffin, Sullivan assigned sixteen actors different "attitudes" — each characterized by appointed movements and emotions that were performed according to a strict pattern. The name of the piece itself was derived from an insurance agency called "Chittenden Group" whose logo — a lighthouse — is a meaningful metaphor for self-possession.

http://www.publicartfund.org/pafweb/talks/talks_current.htm