Program
Grokhovsy presented artists from Philadelphia and New York City for the program Re-make/Re-build/Re-stage. Amalia Wilson, Tuo Wang, and Whitney V. Hunter were featured in this night of multi-narrative spectacle, hyper created physical spaces, and critical interrogations of African-American heritage and diasporic identity.
Artist Statements
“IF I CARE SO MUCH YOU DONT CARE”
In her newest piece Amalia Wilson tells as much truth as possible, performing for the artist she wanted to be, aiming for some self that possibly exists. It is horrifying and difficult, yet as kindly as possible. The audience will be steeped in a hyper-created space of sculpture, music and theater. Set pieces made in manic spurts early in the morning, infused with panic and elation, overwhelmed but thoughtful. Running at a breakneck pace but with painstaking CARE. We even say to each other, friend – it’s okay we don’t have to apologize, we can do what we want we own our time. But we can’t, aren’t you trapped?
Amalia Wilson Video Documentation
In Tuo Wang‘s performance ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’, Wang will present a semi-autobiographical monologue based on his personal life and his appropriation and adaptions of famous western literature, films and pop music. By constructing self-referential environments where lived experience and established cultural archive interweave, dramatic and often humorous as well as absurd aspects of society are exposed.
“lil runner boy” is a live performance in which Whitney V. Hunter investigates the notion of nationhood through territory and border construction. One of the important layers in Hunter’s artistic practice involves critically interrogating his African American history and diasporic identity. Additionally, his continued research through corporeal interactions functions as a way of decoding social structures.
Whitney Hunter Video Documentation
Bios
Amalia Wilson is an artist based in Philadelphia. Her work is multidisciplinary and spans performance, video, drawing, collage, photography and sculpture, as well as experimental music and sound. She has a BA in Art History from Arizona State University and has performed original pieces in twenty-one spaces across the USA and Canada, including California College of the Arts (San Francisco), Videofag (Toronto), Fjord (Philadelphia), Galerie RATS9 (Montreal), AS220 (Providence), Franklin Studios (Vancouver) and a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing a brutal simplification of reality to induce calm. Art has broken her heart and made her grind and break her teeth. She is relieved to remember she is already alone.
Born and raised in Changchun, China, Tuo Wang currently works and lives in New York. His practice is interdisciplinary and involves video, performance, photography, painting and drawing. He has an MFA (2014) from Boston University, an MA in painting (2012) from Tsinghua University, China and a BS in Biology (2007) from Northeast Normal University, China. Tuo Wang is a recipient of awards including NARS Foundation, NYC (2015), Residency Unlimited, NYC (2015), NYFA IAP Mentoring Program, NYC (2014), Award of Merit, The Accolade Global Film Competition, CA (2014), Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Prize, Boston (2013), the Constatin Alajalov Scholarship, Boston (2012, 2013) and Bronze Award “2012 Annual Nomination Exhibition for Young Contemporary Artists,” Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2012) amongst others.
Whitney V. Hunter works in performance, exhibition, curation, and education and is based in NYC. He creates and curates for the stage, gallery, and alternative spaces, and directs his performance-theater collective Whitney Hunter[MEDIUM]. His works have been presented at La Mama, Grace Exhibition Space, through Panoply Performance Laboratory, Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Itinerant Festival and the Lumen Festival. He has performed with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Reggie Wilson Fist and Heel Performance Group, Rioult Dance, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and in the works of John Jesurun, Fiona Templeton, Daria Faïn and Robert Kocik, and Martha Clarke. Whitney is a Movement Research Artist in Residence (2013-15), a founding member of Social Health Performance Club, and presently a David Driskell Ph.D. Fellow at Institute for the Doctoral Studies in the Visual Art.
