Tomorrow night at the Corcoran, PRESENT: A discussion on live performance and contemporary art

Co-presented by Washington Project for the Arts and The Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design

Thursday, October 11, 2012 7pm
Admission is free but registration is encouraged. Register Online: https://getinvolved.corcoran.org/PRESENT

Participating Artists: Kathryn Cornelius, Chajana denHarder, Sarah Levitt, Carolina Mayorga, and Maida Withers. Moderated by Sarah Newman, Curator of Contemporary Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art

Five artists who executed performances as part of Take It to the Bridge discuss the development and execution of their Bridge performances, in addition to the challenges and rewards of working in live performance. Featuring artists with backgrounds in visual art, performance, and dance discussing widely varied projects, PRESENT will contribute to the groundswell of dialogue about and presentation of live performance in the DC area.

At 9AM on Saturday, the day I married Kathryn Cornelius, my big sister came to pick me up from my apartment.  Flustered, nervous, I wasn’t dressed yet, she came in to help get me together.  A few days before she called to demand why I hadn’t told her about my wedding.  She heard about the performance on the radio, saw my changed relationship status (“engaged”) on Facebook, and wanted to be there for me on my big day.  She’s not my real sister, but we’ve maintained those roles since we met when I was a confused rising 9th grader.  Who could possibly be a better unofficial maid-of-honor at my performance wedding than my pretend big sister? 

We arrived at the Corcoran just a few minutes before 10, just in time to see the first wedding of Save the Date, Kathryn Cornelius’s performance for the Take it to the Bridge series at the Corcoran, co-presented by the Washington Project for the Arts.  I felt a little weird about being in the other ceremonies in my outfit, but was glad to see one go through before it was my turn at noon.  Incidentally, the second husband Stephen Mack is a friend of mine, I think we met first at Carolina Mayorga’s Soapbox.  I stayed “back-stage” for most of his wedding, fixing my hair and make-up, going over my lines, getting encouraged by and maybe passing a flask with my bridal entourage.  As the hour drew to a close, Adrian Parsons wired me up with my mic, I took my bouquet of peach-colored roses, wrapped up in white ribbon by Kathryn’s mom, and took position outside on the horrendously bright and hot sidewalk.  

I saw my mom and brother standing in the crowd around the Corcoran steps.  At the rehearsal the night before, so many of the suitors mentioned that their family was coming, I felt a little guilty and invited them last-minute.  Andrew Bucket said he invited his whole family, because this might be the only chance they get to see him get married.

Seeing Kathryn at the other end of the block, my nerves totally dissipated.  Sweaty, squinting, but I can’t remember ever feeling prettier, I was glowing.  I’m no actress, I’m not used to performing in front of an audience.  Kathryn told us before to be ourselves, not to act the role but to really do it.  We met in front of the steps and I was so happy to realize this performance with her.  We said vows, the minister is a real ordained minister, and happens to also be the director of the DC Arts Center in Adam’s Morgan.  Everyone present was invited to participate in the group picture, we got artist Linda Hesh to our right and my big sister on the left.  We signed the document, Kathryn suggested that we sign it at the same time.  Leading up to this, I was so surprised by how many people asked me about the legal implications of this performance.  “Like, is this going to go on your record?”  Interesting how so many didn’t understand how marriage works, legally- as if she actually could marry and divorce seven people in a day.  To this I repeat Kathryn’s explanation to me, “it’s as real as it needs to be.”

Then the crowd was ushered inside, and Kathryn and I ascend into the performance bridge, the starting point for developing this performance.  The glare from the sun on the glass inside was such that I could only see into the Corcoran’s atrium through my own reflection.  My mom and brother were straight ahead, my dad kind of wandering behind them.  Kathryn and I held hands tightly, thinking of same-sex couples who can’t yet experience some version of what we represented.  She told me I looked beautiful, and at the time cue from below, she said we were going to stay for two more minutes.  While each marriage was unique, our marriage had greatly different implications than her five husbands.  The inter-racial component to her wedding with Holly Bass was different still.  We tried not to talk, to be still, meditative wedding cake-toppers.  I whispered that my family had come, there she is- the small woman in black is my mom, and my (real) little brother in shorts next to her.  That my family was present significantly altered the way that I saw myself within the context of the piece, though so fully enmeshed in the work, a very real and unexpected frame for understanding the work emerged as I watched my them watching me.  They were really there, celebrating and supporting me.

I went to my first wedding, ever, just three weeks before.  A friend from high school.  I got a little teary during the ceremony, got drunk quickly, and danced poorly to the worst music imaginable.  I didn’t know anyone else there besides the bride’s immediate family and my date, and it was exactly what I expected a kind of small wedding to be like.  The day before my wedding, I took myself to get a mani/pedi, not something I do often, but I figured it would be an appropriate treat.  There happened to be a whole wedding ensemble there, and the bride-to-be was clearly the later 20-something yelling into her phone, at her mom, at the manicurist.  Apparently, they were going to be late to the rehearsal dinner and would her fiancé bring her fucking hair straightener, even though she probably wouldn’t fucking have time to do her hair.  In Kathryn’s wedding, the aspect of pre-performance, all the preparation and the use of social media to share that publicly was really fitting to the content of the piece.  We did a rehearsal, we took engagement photos, we went on a first date.  The question as to what is and what isn’t being performed was constantly at the forefront of our activities, and resonated perfectly with questions that the piece sought to raise.

I stayed through the end of the performance, if not participating in or watching all of the other ones.  Over the rest of the day I chatted with friends and acquaintances, whether they were there to see me or happened to come.  Something like an extended receiving line, I enjoyed my relaxed social role after my wedding was over.  It’s impossible for me to consider the piece, especially so soon after, with any analytical distance.  I don’t feel that my understanding of or position towards or against marriage has changed at all, but I entered the situation with what I think is a pretty open mind.  I hope that my participation in the work can at least continue the important conversation regarding marriage equality.  

The performance engages with a familiar and standardized ritual, and breaks it down by repeating it, dragging it out, complicating it.  Audience participation was logical in the work, unlike some more forced interactions motivated maybe by some kind of collective production theory.  I’m struck with how fully each “suitor” (as she called us) entered their role with this woman who was practically a perfect stranger to all of us.  The performance began for me the moment I read that she was putting out a call to proposals, and each suitor entered the piece as performers when they proposed.  The answer to whether or not audience were implicated as performers or not, or when that occurred, or how, or why, is not so important as the fact that the question is posed.  I’d rather be unclear about what is or isn’t part of the performance.  Finally, to end the very long day in a fabulous turn of events, and unfortunately there is no documentation, I rode off from the Corcoran on the back of a motorcycle, with the divorce attorney.  

…”The artwork, titled “Save the Date,” was described to the viewing public as an attempt to comment fruitfully on the institution of state-sanctioned marriage and the ritual’s “complex mix of private emotion [and] public spectacle.” In preparation, Cornelius bought a dress, hired a DJ, composed invitations, and arranged for a first date with each of her seven suitors, two women and five men. “We talked about their relationship history, and their feelings and thoughts on marriage and divorce,” Cornelius told ARTINFO on Monday. “What sort of things had been said to them over the years, or what they wished they said to someone who maybe broke their heart.”…

DCist: Save the Date: Artist Gets Married and Divorced Seven Times In One Day

“Going to the art gallery and we’re gonna get married … and then get divorced.”

Huffington Post: Kathryn Cornelius’s ‘Save The Date’ At The Corcoran Gallery: Seven Weddings For One Bride (PHOTOS)

“Largely, I have an interest in exploring marriage as an institution,” Cornelius says. “There’s a lot of rhetoric that you have to get married to be okay by society’s standards and to validate that you’re okay through that public recognition.” 

Brightest Young Things: Photos: Save the Date @ Corcoran Gallery of Art

“During the wedding ceremony, officiated by ordained minister B Stanley (of DCAC), individuals from the audience were asked to serve as members of the wedding party and witnesses to the marriage.  After the obligatory kiss, the wedding party had their photograph taken to memorialize the event.”

Pink Line Project: Here I Go Again: Save the Date Highlights Wedding Folly

“Save the Date highlighted what what we all expect in a wedding, as it mocked the conventions of the form. Seven weddings, all the same except for the groom, demonstrated how rote the ceremony has become. “

City Paper: Take It to the Bridge, Week 4: Kathryn Cornelius

“It will be the sound of wedding bells Saturday at the Corcoran during this weekend’s installment of “Take It to the Bridge,” the series co-presented by the Washington Project for the Arts: Performance artist Kathryn Cornelius plans to marry (and divorce) seven suitors. It’s a timely piece given all the recent hubbub regarding the sanctity of marriage and whether conservative Christians will ever accept homosexual matrimony (chicken with a pickle on a bun, anyone?). Cornelius’ performance will kick that sanctity crap in the knees. Let’s put aside that she’s getting married to, and divorced from, men and women (not at the same time—let’s be sensible!); her marriages will last about as long as Britney’s first, and before the day is over she’ll have been married as many times as Larry King.”

Slide Show: Photos by Matt Dunn

WJLA: Performance artist gets married, divorced seven times - in the same day

Photos by Josh Yospyn

…. “Cornelius looks ordinary enough, with dark brown bangs and brown eyes. She certainly doesn’t look like someone who might be getting divorced seven times in a single day—but then, who does? Her girl-next-door appearance seems to fall in line with what she’s exploring: all the different stereotypes that exist when it comes to marriage and divorce.

“The work is calling into question just how important that piece of paper is,” she says, referring to a marriage license. “This country does not recognize the right of everyone to have that piece of paper.” Though this fact motivates her, she doesn’t want the performance to be propelled by an agenda. Instead, she hopes the semi-scripted piece will take a private event and place it on a public pedestal. “I’m just hoping the piece starts a conversation,” she says.”

… follow link for the rest of the article

Aptly-titled article about Kathryn Cornelius from a bunch of years ago.

“There are many inherent dangers to being a performance artist. You’re not likely to make much money selling your ephemeral gestures. You might open yourself to incomprehension or ridicule. And, if you follow the example of Kathryn Cornelius, you might have to handle some human feces.” 

“At 10 a.m. on Aug. 11, Kathryn Cornelius will wear a white gown and walk toward her betrothed to exchange vows before a crowd of assembled guests. An ordained minister will officiate, then the pair will drink champagne, cut the cake and gaze into each other’s eyes as they dance their first dance. And then they will divorce.

At 11 a.m. she’ll do it all over again with someone new. And at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and every hour on the hour until she has wed and divorced seven people.”

_____________________________

“The “Bridge” was originally constructed for Holly Bass, a local performance artist who danced for seven hours in a piece called “Moneymaker.” In March, six men led by artist Jefferson Pinder rowed themselves to exhaustion at the Corcoran. Both performances were hugely well received, says Sarah Newman, the museum’s curator of contemporary art.

“We’re making [performance art] a much bigger priority in the future, and we are going to launch a major performance series later this year,” she adds.”

Click to read the rest of the article

Meet The Suitors

The proposals are in!

Kathryn has picked 6 suitors herself, and the 7th will be chosen by public vote on the Save The Date Facebook event page. 

Voting will take place from August 2nd to August 3rd. The polls must close at 5pm on Friday, August 3rd - Be sure to get your vote in!

To assist in Kathryn’s (and your) decision-making, suitors have been requested to complete a short questionnaire and submit a photograph of themselves.

And now for the suitors…

Here are the fine men and women that will potentially become Kathryn’s partner for an hour on August 11, 2012 - But only if you make their dreams come true and vote for your favorite!

Before deciding to get involved, I was interested in how expanded this performance is- really beginning with opening up the call to proposals and existing primarily through social media.  All the suitors have been asked to be available for a photo-shoot prior to the performance, mirroring actual overextended wedding pageantry.  The shoot is connected with some major press Cornelius is expecting, really going all-out on the public spectacle of the piece.  Positioning this as very much a spectacle is obviously part of the point, all the proposals and hype are pushed around through tumblr, twitter, facebook, etc- in the same way that most events, exhibitions and performances trudge around promoting themselves.  She friended me on facebook after my proposal, further complicating it for me, I was going to wait to accept until after this thing, we aren’t friends, we’ve never met, but my iphone finger slipped. ha.  

I wasn’t chosen as one of Kathryn’s favorites, so now I am put to a public vote as the seventh possible suitor.  This is the part I’m still most lost on, dividing up authorship in a heavy-sided way, she picks six, audience picks one.  I don’t really understand opening up one slot in mimicry of audience-participatory reality TV, and choosing the rest herself.  I get that marriage is complex but the intention in this feels convoluted- hoping that as the piece evolves a purpose will become clear.  That said, I’m drawn to playing with suspense in extending performance to have a long life in distinct stages.  The risk in drawing out a public display of the production of the piece is that audience has the opportunity to dissect and interpret it before the actual piece is performed, and in that I think this whole performance could be either intrepid in its openness or too concerned with hype and reach.

I’m also totally drawn to the distinctly humiliating aspect of the whole process, the embarrassment of making public the proposals and trite dating profile kind of responses to her questions, and her total disengagement (get it?) by writing herself as this blank narcissistic character, asking for adoration and participation without foreseeable return, speaking in endless cliches.  She’s putting herself out to be courted in a way that really evades revealing of herself by exposing others, differing judgement away from herself to participants.  A dating show with de Sade?  I’d watch that.

Cornelius is successfully constructing a metaphor for a relationship I really don’t want to be in, is that the point?  Stay posted as I keep posting about this.

I answered the questions in much the same way that I’ve played with OKcupid, vague and terse- uncomfortable, so guardedly I play disinterested.  I’m not good at relationships, and particularly ones that start in trying to sell myself through language.

I’m voting for Perth O’Duibhdiorma! 

Question #1 - What is your horoscope sign? I do not submit to heathen superstitions, thank you very much. 
Question #2 - What is your hometown? Centralia, PA
Question #3 - What is your occupation? Marketing Director of the Santorum Presidential Campaign
Question #4 - What is your favorite sport activity? Dressage
Question #5 - What is your favorite ice cream flavor? No Icecream. Vanilla FroYo (don’t wanna turn into a Tubby-wad)
Question #6 - What is your favorite movie of all time? Mrs. Doubtfire 2: Fire in the Hole
Question #7 - What is your favorite book (or author) of all time?Gargantua and Pantagruel
Question #8 - What is your favorite band of all time? Gogol Bordello
Question #9 - Who is your favorite artist of all time? Erwin Wurm
Question #10 - If you could be anywhere doing anything right now besides this, where and what would it be? The past, present and future are written in braille upon God’s beard, if I were not here, I would be in heaven, stroking his every strand.

Kathryn Cornelius is seeking proposals for her Take it to the Bridge performance at Corcoran, taking place on Saturday, August 11, 2012.  ”Save the Date is a performance by Kathryn Cornelius that explores the life cycle of marriage and divorce and the wedding ceremony’s complex mix of private emotion, public spectacle, social expectation, and state power.” From her tumblr, click for more.

I submit to her piece, my proposal::

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is “I desire you,” and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure. ” -Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments

Kathryn, I don’t know you. But, I do want to marry you. Here we are, meeting over language. And I am supposed to convince you that I’m a worthwhile performance-suitor. The best that I can do is to be honest. I quote above because I rely primarily on external references to talk about what I don’t know how to talk about, and hopefully to show off my literary knowledge-base and art-historical foundation in a way that impresses you. For some time, I’ve been following your work digitally. I have this little blog wherein I try to document performance art in DC, and have had every intention to attend your multiple weddings. Kathryn, I know I missed your deadline, and I apologize. To be honest, I was feeling too shy to propose to you before- but today I received a prompt from a friend, encouraging me to go for it despite, and I give in to peer pressure easily. So Kathryn, I admit that I am hesitant, nervous, skeptical. Regardless of the duration of our hypothetical actual marriage, my participation in even sending this proposal is something of a commitment. But here I am, sending anyway. I admit that a serious motive in my wanting to engage (literally) comes from my desire to document, to promulgate performance in the area especially through personal account. So you should know that I honestly want to marry you, but I have very human and selfish desires as well- I’m sorry. Yet, I’m not sorry, I’m trying to be honest as I hope you will be with me in our hour if you accept this proposal. Kathryn, I want to get to know you. Honestly, I want to know you and your piece intimately, and the closest I can get is deep in it, wedding you. I want to share in your innermost desires and intentions, and totally complicate my objectivity in documenting Save the Date by getting in on one of those dates. So Kathryn, if I need to apologize for lacking in romance, I’m not sorry, I’m not really that kind of a girl. The best that I can do is appropriate a sexy quote on linguistics with hopes that somehow it describes my personality and objectives.

xo,

Eames Armstrong