Michelle
Handelman's Dorian +
live performance by Flawless
Sabrina
Friday, November
20
Admission: $7, $10 minimum
Showtime: 8pm
reservations are recommended
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
_oscar
wilde
++Tonight features a special one time
only performance by the legendary drag icon Flawless Sabrina++
++Magical elixirs of violet and absinth created by Michelle and
Monkey Town's own mixologist Martim++
Michelle Handelman's Dorian is an adaptation of Oscar
Wilde’s 19th century novel, The Picture of Dorian
Gray. 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.
Handelman’s Dorian is a young woman discovered
by a fashion photographer. 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:
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. After Monkey Town, Dorian will travel to the MIT List
Visual Art Center (Winter 2010) for the exhibition Virtuoso Illusion:
Cross Dressing and the New Media Avant-Garde curated by Michael
Rush.
Original Music by Vincent Baker, Lustmord, Armen Ra, Nadia
Sirota and Stefan Tcherepnin
Credits:
Featuring: Quin Charity, K8 Hardy, Armen Ra, Sequinette and
Flawless Sabrina.
Cinematography by: Edward C.R. David.
Costumes by: Garo Sparo.
Still photography by: Laure Leber
Artwork by: Amelie Chabannes (drawings for animation) and
Daniella Dooling (wall sculptures.)
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 for many years collaborated with
Monte Cazazza, pioneer of the Industrial Music scene. Her work
is in sevral collections and her writing appears in several counterculture
anthologies including Apocalypse Culture (Feral House Press)
and Inappropriate Behaviour (Serpents Tail).
Made with
support from: Experimental Television Center’s Finishing
Funds Program supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program
at the New York State Council of the Arts. Special thanks: Garo
Sparo; Nathalie Angles and Drazen Pantic at Open-player.com;
Quentin Chiapetta at Media Noise, Brooklyn; Stefan Stoyanov Gallery,
NYC; Suzanne Fiol at Issue Project Room, Brooklyn; Erik Foss
at Lit Lounge, NYC; Oliver Pihlar at Happy Ending Lounge, NYC;
Bloomingdale’s, NYC; scientific electric, Los Angeles.
For more information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/arts/design/22gall.html?_r=1&ref=design/
http://www.velvetparkmedia.com/2009/04/28/an-installation-of-dorian-grey
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/kley/kley5-20-09.asp
http://www.michellehandelman.com
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