In Garrett Nelson’s new performance Blind Audition the New York-based performer, model, muse, and activist Richie Shazam will perform concealed from the audience on Fri, February 2, 2018, 1 – 6 pm and on Sat, February 3, 2018, 1 – 5 pm.
A “blind audition” is a method of judging a skill without seeing the performer. It is a physical separation of the jury or audience and the performer. It allows some information to pass through while leaving out visual cues of gender, race, physical appearance, and style of clothing. It is a method used by orchestras for hiring musicians as well as art academies for admission of music students. The separation in practice is usually a makeshift black curtain or a screen. In the case of Blind Audition, a new curtain installation is designed especially for the performance.
Richie Shazam shares texts, transformations, intimate fears, life narratives, choreographies, and monologues to enunciate and reveal the fears and hopes of the performer and challenge the expectations of the viewer. How much can we see if we can only hear? What do we see when a body is finally revealed?
Florence Jung’s work Jung59 takes place at the same time.
Daily and over the whole duration of the exhibition Marta Margnetti presents her new work Dispositivo di protezione (protective device), 2018, and every Thursday to Sunday Jérôme Leuba presents battlefield #132. An overview of all performance times of the exhibition can be found here.