What Have I Done to Deserve This (Oct. 22nd, 2-6 pm)

Exhibitions

What Have I Done to Deserve This

Karen Adelman | John Burtle | Alexis Disselkoen | Paul Pescador | Christa von Sydow

Saturday, October 22nd
2-6 pm

Workspace is pleased to present What Have I Done to Deserve This, an event featuring performances by Karen Adelman, John Burtle, Alexis Disselkoen, Paul Pescador and Christa von Sydow. For four hours the artists will perform simultaneously, examining how both duration and the sharing of space affect performance work.

Ranging from site-specific to interactive, the works will test (physical) endurance and create an emotional buildup as the event unfolds. By the end of the evening, performers, objects, and audience will begin to blur into each other.

What Have I Done to Deserve This is the fourth iteration of Situating, a series of events involving simultaneous performances that are organized by Paul Pescador.

Karen Adelman uses performance and painting as sites for the production and reception of voice and body. Though the former may be inclined to speak and the latter do, a voice can be a conduit and a body can resound.

John Burtle creates variations on the ways we exist and interact to give new perspectives on how our behaviors effect us as individuals and as a social whole. Synergy, atoms and language are used to spurt free-thought and spontaneity. Burtle also enjoys the sight of pea blossoms fluttering in the breeze, long walks on the beach and a fresh cup of mamey ice cream from the local parlor.

For Alexis Disselkoen, participation and the negotiation of obstacles become the atmosphere and space that viewers navigate to experience her work. Disselkoen is a Los Angeles native who works with people, objects and spaces.

Paul Pescador is interested in small-scale actions and gestures that manifest in the form of photographic objects, performance events, and curated exhibitions. Whether these events occur in front of an audience, in a gallery, or in a private location, they are documented with a camera. These photographic documents are then used as the source material for the creation of new social interventions. Performances become images. Images become performances. They are linked and rely on one another to exist.

Christa von Sydow investigates contemporary gender issues. She expels the dichotomy of gendering a human body, and instigates the need for ambiguity. With the idea of being the “other,” she re-examines the concept of a fixed biological “nature,” and imposes underlying flaws within this hierarchical system.