How archives perform and live performance is archived.
Emerging from the first retrospective exhibition of performance art icon Jess Dobkin, this book reflects on the internationally acclaimed artist's playful and provocative practice as a performer, curator, and community activist. At the same time, it grapples with a vital question for art and performance studies: How do archives perform?
More than a discrete showing of a single artist's work, the exhibition, including its new staging in book form, is a large-scale research experiment in performance curation that investigates how art institutions can address the embodied and communal nature of performance art in their practices of archiving and museological display. In Jess Dobkin's Wetrospective, copublished with the Art Gallery of York University, renowned international performance scholars and artists dive into this exploration alongside exhibition curator Emelie Chhangur, performance theorist and dramaturg Laura Levin, and Dobkin herself. These contributions are visually aided by a riot of full-color photographs, providing unparalleled access to Dobkin's celebrated artistic productions from the last thirty years.
By:
Laura Levin
Imprint: Intellect Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 349mm,
Width: 260mm,
ISBN: 9781835950449
ISBN 10: 1835950442
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 04 December 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Emelie Chhangur, In and of an Archive Laura Levin, Performance and the Making of Liberatory Archives Shalon T. Webber-Heffernan, Wetrospective Audio Descriptions The Lobby A room that performs as ‘Lobby’ and re-frames the frame of the gallery. Moynan King, Inside the Exhibition Hurmat Ain, Lobby of Hospitality Moe Angelos, A Woman Iis Her Own Ocean Maria Hupfield, Post Performance / Conversation Action Benjamin Gillespie and Jess Dobkin, Power to the Pause: A Pandemic Conversation Jess Dobkin, Interlude: excerpt from The Magic Hour Gallery Room One A room where performance ephemera (props, costumes, puppets) perform for the gallery audience – and for each other – in latrine vitrines, rather than trying to capture time past. Alex Tigchelaar, I’ve Got Your Hole Dany Lyne, Congruence Thalia Godbout, Porta-Jane Drawings Roberta Mock, Jess Dobkin’s Vaginal Archive Dayna McLeod, Queerly Touching Tamyka Bullen, Waves Jess Dobkin, Interludes: excerpts from The Magic Hour, Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar, and M*THERFUCK#R Gallery Room Two One Hundred documenters (re)perform Dobkin’s iconic work, How Many Performance Artists Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb (For Martha Wilson), creating a new artwork out of its traces. Amy Fung, Evidence Toward a Hungry Room Laine Halpern Zisman, Renovated Memories and the Stories They Tell Andrew Zealley, Music in Eight Parts Jess Dobkin, Interludes: excerpts from The Magic Hour and ‘Notes on Bendy Time’ Gallery Room Three An archive reading room, where spectators are invited to sift through Jess’s ‘stuff’ performing in poetically labelled boxes and through an AR interface. Ann Cvetkovich, The Healing Magic of the Archival Box Jehan Roberson, On Touching the Intangible Joyce LeeAnn, (re)Defining ‘Archivist’ Clayton Lee, 32 Things about the Wetrospective on Tour Jess Dobkin, Interludes: excerpts from The Magic Hour and Everything I’ve Got Jess Dobkin: Performance Chronology Contributor Bios
Laura Levin is associate professor of theatre and performance at York University (Toronto) and York research chair in art, technology, and global activism. She is director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology and the Hemispheric Encounters Network, and author of Performing Ground: Space, Camouflage, and the Art of Blending In.
Reviews for Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective: Constellating performance archives
'Wetrospective celebrates over thirty years of Dobkin's compelling practice, from cabaret performances to unannounced interventions. [Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective] restages the exhibition in print. Designed by Lisa Kiss, the oversized volume features full-bleed colour images on almost every page, as well as writings by Chhangur, editor Laura Levin and a large cast of colleagues. It also includes illuminating drawings and writings by the artist. Jess Dobkin is hands-down my favourite Canadian Performance Artist. Her work is bold, thoughtful, resonant, and accessible - deftly balancing confrontation with comedy. Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective: Constellating performance archives is the first comprehensive survey of her work, clearly produced by all involved as a labour of love.' -- Dave Dyment, Artists' Books and Multiples
