Tag Archives: Performance

34 Hamilton Poe

 

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Born Raleigh, North Carolina, 1986 / BA Bennington College / Lives in Detroit MI

Hamilton Poe’s artist statement is a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation in which he, the patient, a “27-year-old right handed male,” is characterized in modern scientific terms. It details everything from his previous diagnoses of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia to his superior “non-verbal concept formation and reasoning skills.” Continue reading

05 Tzarinas of the Plane

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Faina Lerman, born Riga, Latvia, 1975 / BFA, College for Creative Studies / Lives in Hamtramck, Michigan

Bridget Michael, born Detroit, 1977 / Certified Massage Therapist, Irene’s Myomassology Institute  /Lives in Hamtramck, Michigan

Is it possible to be deadly seri- ous and exceptionally playful at the same time? The work of the two-woman performance art duo Tzarinas of the Plane demon- strates the compelling outcome of total commitment to impulse and fun. Their body of work is a tour de force in performance art, managing to eschew all hint of pretension with their joyful energy and inclusive, open-ended narratives. Viewing one of their performances, the audience is imbued with a feeling of wonderment in the truest sense: the potential of untold outcomes, the complete inability to predict what will happen next, and the realization that anything is truly possible when the Tzarinas are writing the rules.

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03 Melanie Manos

cabinet thinker

Born Detroit, 1964 / BA, University of California at Los Angeles / MFA, University of Michigan / Lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan

To date, Melanie Manos has scrunched into the upper shelves of walk-in closets; inserted her body between exposed wall studs; inhabited the interiors of defunct, doorless refrigerators; squeezed into rolling metal utility cabinets; ducked into niches and crevasses of attics; walked the rafters; clambered up, over, and down interior walls; climbed the exteriors of multistoried buildings; and, most recently, shinnied into the upper reaches of gigundo, sequoia-sized tree trunks. A number of Manos’s intrepid feats have been achieved digitally or on video and, surprisingly perhaps, beget as potent a reflexive audience reaction—fear, unease, release—as her literal, physical performances. She is indeed the consummate interdisciplinary artist who works in performance, digital media, and installation, exhibiting not only nationally but internationally.

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