http://www.strimoo.com/video/12535277/Dorian-Vimeo.htmlThank you to all of the lovely people who worked so hard on this project. .. and the darlings who came to the opening, we appreciate all the support.
PHOTOS: Laure Leber Marti Wilkerson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 5 April 2008
Contact: Lia Gangitano, 212 254 4334
Michelle Handelman
DORIAN
April 26 – May 31, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 7-9pm:
Opening reception and performance by Armen Ra and Sequinette
From April 26 through May 31, 2009, PARTICIPANT INC premieresDORIAN, a multi-
channel video installation by Michelle Handelman. DORIAN is an adaptation of
Oscar Wilde’s 19th century novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray: “It is the
spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Presented as a non-linear
narrative on four screens, Handelman’s DORIAN employs the queer undertones of the
original novel as a starting point for a feminist reworking of the tale through a
new queer identity. Told by means of fragmented dialogue and music, each
character utilizes their own instrument: Theremin, synthesizer, viola, voice.
Inspired by Wilde’s themes of decadence, beauty, and the meaning of art,
Handelman’s Dorian is a young woman discovered by a fashion photographer, then
catapulted into a world of high celebrity. Falling under the tutelage of a
renowned drag queen, she becomes a downtown nightclub luminary, constantly
followed by the paparazzi. Media images become the infamous portrait,
grotesquely mutating as she grows more beautiful and famous, culminating in
her own narcissistic destruction. Dorian exists as a contemporary superstar, a
mirror to our own narcissism--desirable, unknowable, destroyed by vacant
ambition.
Like films of Warhol and Godard that blur the line between performance and
reality, all of the performers in DORIAN are playing some version of
themselves: Wren Kistler aka Sequinette (Dorian) is a gender-bending drag
impresario; Armen Ra (Lord H) is a drag queen and renowned Theremin player;
Quin Charity (Basil) is a media artist; and K8 Hardy (Sybl Vain) is a
performance artist and co-creator of the queer art collective LTTR.
253 East Houston Street NY NY 10002
Handelman makes confrontational works that explore the sublime in its various
forms of excess and nothingness. Her background is a study in opposites--raised
during the late 60s-early 70s, Handelman split her time between Chicago, where
her mother was a fixture in the art world, and Los Angeles, where her father was
a player in the sex industry. Over the years, Handelman has traversed both these
worlds, developing a body of work that incorporates video, performance,
photography, and various forms of digital media. She has noted, “My work can be
best described by theorist Helene Cixous’ ideas of Visceral Feminism:
aggressively traversing the corporeal landscape in its various forms of excess
and undress, while simultaneously giving it up for the viewer in an overflow of
visual and psychological sensations.”
DORIAN is created as a living project that transforms every time it is exhibited.
Its premiere at PARTICIPANT INC will be presented as a four-channel experimental
narrative. Future incarnations may includea single-channel film with live musi
and performance; an installation of ambient/abstracted moments representing each
character; viral videos of Dorian's portrait released online.
Music by Armen Ra, Stefan Tcherepnin, Vincent Baker, Lustmord, and Nadia
Sirota. Cinematography by Ed David.
Michelle Handelman lives and works in New York. Her video work has shown
worldwide, including the Palm Beach ICA; Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris; ICA
London; and SF MOMA. Her performance spectacles have been presented by
Performa05, Biennial of Visual Art Performance, NY; Cristinerose Gallery, NY;
Exit Art, NY; and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, CT. She is the director
of the 1998 documentary, BloodSisters (Bravo Award), and has collaborated with
Monte Cazazza, pioneer of the Industrial Music scene; Eric Werner, co-founder of
Survival Research Laboratories; Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky; and media artist Lynn
Hershman-Leeson. Handelman has contributed to the cultural anthologies Apocalypse
Culture (Feral House Press) and Inappropriate Behaviour (Serpents Tail), and is
an assistant professor in the department of media and performing arts at the
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. She received her M.F.A. at Bard
College, and B.F.A. at the SF Art Institute.
PARTICIPANT INC's exhibitions are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on
the Arts, a state agency.
This program is supported, in part, by funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
PARTICIPANT INC receives generous support from the Harriett Ames Charitable Trust, Bloomberg, The
Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, Foundation 20 21, Peter Norton Family Foundation, The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, and numerous individuals.
PARTICIPANT INC is located at 253 East Houston Street, between Norfolk and Suffolk Streets on the
Lower East Side. Subway: F/V to Second Avenue, Allen Street exit.
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, noon-7pm. participantinc.org
PHOTOS;/Laure Leber Marti Wilkerson
