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990 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia
August First Friday
Reception August 4th, 6-10pm
Anya Liftig: Face Ballet © The Artist
Anya Liftig: Face Ballet © The Artist

On August 4th from 6-10 PM Vox Populi invites the public to a First Friday Reception to celebrate its annual Juried Show “VOX XIII: Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”.

WITH SPECIAL GUEST

Anya Liftig performs “Face Ballet”, a non-linear story for her face and miniature objects.

Anya Liftig’s first “face ballet” was a non-linear story, commissioned by the New Museum in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, in which Anya Liftig explored the potential of the face as a terrain for choreography. Her initial inspiration for this work came from an impulse to work on a smaller scale. She has always been fascinated by the world of miniatures and practically obsessed with any cultural exploration of tiny. The “small” and the “micro” have also come out of a very practical problem. Since she could not afford studio space in New York, she started to create works in the bathroom of her 375sq ft apartment. Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames film, “Powers of Ten,” she resolved that her understanding of movement and space was only limited by her imagination and not by her physical surroundings. Until the current day, she animates in her live performances of the “face ballet” miniature objects of daily life. For instance, she births a baby out of her mouth, uses a tampon to erupt her bloody nose, and takes a tiny turkey on a flight.

Anya Liftig is a writer and performer. Her work has been featured at TATE Modern, MOMA, CPR, Highways Performance Space, Lapsody4 Finland, Fado Toronto, Performance Art Institute-San Francisco, Queens Museum, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, The Kitchen at the Independent Art Fair, Performer Stammtisch Berlin, OVADA, Joyce Soho and many other venues. In “The Anxiety of Influence” she dressed exactly like Marina Abramovic and sat across from her all day during “The Artist is Present” exhibition. Her work has been published and written about in The New York Times Magazine, BOMB, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Italia, Next Magazine, Now and Then, Stay Thirsty, New York Magazine, Gothamist, Jezebel, Hyperallergic, Bad at Sports, The Other Journal, and many others. She is a graduate of Yale University and Georgia State University and has received grant and residency support from The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Franklin Furnace Fund, Atlantic Center for the Arts, The New Museum, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Flux Projects, University of Antioquia and Casa Tres Patios-Medellin, Colombia.
www.anyaliftig.com

THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition Are ‘Friends’ Electric? investigates various forms of alienation. Many of the works take alienation as their subject, exploring a growing sense of removal from oneself and others at the hands of technology ― in the common sense as digital technology continues to grow as a mediating force, as well as in regard to the more abstract political and economic technologies that undergird these relations. Likewise, much of the work exemplifies varying approaches to and degrees of alienation in artistic production.

THE SPACE

After a fire in the building on 319 N 11th Street in June, Vox Populi temporarily re-opened at 990 Spring Garden Street to present VOX XIII: Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, juried by Aria Dean and David Hartt. An adjacent space also features the collective galleries Marginal Utility, Practice Gallery, Napoleon and Automat. We would especially like to thank Arts + Crafts Holdings for graciously making exhibition space available to Vox Populi and the occupants of the 319 Building during this transitional period.


posted: August 2, 2017 topics:
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