They say good things come to those who wait, but what if waiting is part of the idea in the first place?
"The Paradox of Stillness," an exhibition that was set to open 13 months ago but was delayed by the pandemic, finally made its debut last weekend at Walker Art Center. Balancing themes of stillness and motion, mortality and aliveness, still life and the tableau vivant, or living picture, the show features 14 live performances across four galleries filled with work by 60 artists.
So how does the motion-focused practice of performance and the still nature of visual art come together for this hybrid show? The Star Tribune's visual art critic, Alicia Eler, and freelance performing arts critic Sheila Regan sat down to tease out all the paradoxes involved.
Eler: As an art critic I am always interested in the historical connections that exhibitions make as a way to tie things together. This one begins with Giorgio de Chirico's "The Duo," a 1914 painting of two futuristic-looking characters, juxtaposed with Laurie Simmons' 1990s work "Clothes Make the Man" — four marionettes frozen in time — as a way to look at early examples of mechanization. It made me think how there's this unnecessary divide between visual art and performance. I always think of them as intertwining.
Regan: The distinctions often feel arbitrary. And then you have the question of hierarchy. The show's curator, Vincenzo de Bellis, talked about the performers animating the artworks, as opposed to being part of a "performance." But I was more interested in, say, performer Scott Edward Stafford doing a go-go dance on Felix González-Torres' lit platform than in the platform itself. If that work happened in a theater, the dancer would be the main event, not the object.
Eler: But if you're thinking of performance in the context of art, I do see the curator's point. I wonder, though, what the performer adds to a work like "Sonic Intermediates — Triad Walker Trinity" by Haegue Yang, three bulbous, decorated, life-size sculptures that visually reference several of the early-20th-century artworks in the gallery. Movement artist Laura Levinson activated the piece, but just by kind of walking around it, making parts spin or move. They almost could have been just another visitor in the gallery.
Regan: Levinson had a certain ritualistic presence that I felt drawn into. Also, maybe the Walker or the artist would be worried for viewers to touch the piece. I was a performer, so I see it through that lens. I bristle at the idea of the performer as utilitarian or, you know, that they are just kind of an object themselves. When I see somebody in space, they are the most important. Somebody who is living and breathing — your eye moves to them.
Eler: I felt like I had all these weird moments of making eye contact with the performers.