Art in Odd Places: Taking Shelter in Body at Westbeth Gallery By Alexandra Hammond

My Time is Valuable, 2017-ongoing by Jody Servonn | Photo by Alexandra Hammond

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Dispatch from the opening of AiOP in rainy Manhattan 
Thursday, October 11th, 2018
By Alexandra Hammond
@walliealie

Today I quite literally took shelter from the remnants of global-warming-fueled Hurricane Michael in Westbeth Gallery, the indoor extension of BODY, this year’s manifestation of the Art in Odd Places festival. Most performances, which would have taken place outdoors at various locations from Avenue C to the Hudson River, were postponed due to intermittent warm downpours. As I leapt over the curbside reservoirs in the Meatpacking District, I contemplated the effects of the rising sea level on the newly-restored cobblestone streets of this high-gloss neighborhood and headed southwest to the gallery.

My Time is Valuable, 2017-ongoing by Jody Servon | Selfie by Alexandra Hammond

MY TIME IS VALUABLE, 2017-ONGOING BY JODY SERVON | PHOTO BY ALEXANDRA HAMMOND

Entering the portico of the Westbeth Home for the Arts complex, I encountered the Dutch group Questions Collective rehearsing for their performance Foundation, each wearing a candy-colored jumpsuit. One member wielded a giant-sized mascara wand from the group’s collection of larger-than-life beauty tools, which they use to draw metaphorical connections between the “beautification” of womens’ bodies using cosmetics and neighborhood gentrification. The collective addresses the role of artists, often cited by real estate speculators as “tastemakers” and “early-adopters”, in the transformation of cities into economically exclusive playgrounds for the bourgeoisie.  ​

For most of October, Westbeth gallery will be chalk full of such timely and topical artworks. Many involve performance props or documentation. Most notably, all works are made by women, female identifying and non binary artists. The same goes for the public performances on which the festival is based. Since the Enlightenment schema that structures Western society has cast the body as the leaky, mortal, fecund zone of the woman, artist-curator Katya Grokhovsky decided to do a full takeback -- fighting persistent inequality, under representation and devaluation of women by staging an all-female festival. While the past few weeks in politics (and the politicized judiciary) have been a grim reminder that American patriarchy is willing to put all institutions on the line to maintain its death-grip on power, the resistance marches on, even joyfully, in spite of collective pain and trauma.

Hell Hath No Fury, 2018 by Donna Cleary and Kathy Halfin | Photo by Alexandra Hammond

Jody Servon’s free posters state: “MY TIME IS VALUABLE”. They are sized to be easily captured in a selfie as a proclamation of the value of labor, and the persistent undervaluation of women’s work. Rose Nestler reimagines Etruscan vessels, fitness gear and excertize culture’s ongoing attempts to regulate the unruly (read feminine) body in her choreographed video Gymnasia Hysteria. Donna Cleary and Kathy Halfin’s altered mannequins model the dirt and moss skins and the tentacled, knitted headdresses of an urban earth goddess. Inviting introspection, Daniela Mekler’s participatory work My Body Is Not In Question offers open-ended worksheets where viewers can reflect on where they feel particular emotions in their bodies and share knowledge about self-care and women's health resources.

Flower Kart: No Wave Performance Task Force, 2018 by Amy Finkbeiner and Christen Clifford | Photo by Alexandra Hammond

Shock Corridor, 2018 by Joanna Leah | Photo by Alexandra Hammond

Amy Finkbeiner and Cristen Clifford’s Flower Kart: No Wave Performance Task Force features a push-cart stocked with pamphlets, flowers and herbs that aid women's “reproductive agency”, including a stock of “morning after” pills. Accompanying this performance prop, a collection of dried bloody tampons in a glass bell jar, vials of menstrual blood, and dried blood-soaked tissues are arrayed as objects of visible material culture. The display feels just as strident and relevant as, I imagine, Mary Kelly’s Post Partum Document would have in the 1970s. The backdrop for all this is Joanne Leah’s Shock Corridor, vibrant photographs of bodies clad, bound and slathered in unexpected materials from gold leaf to glitter-sprinkled egg yolk. This work is as serious as it is seductive and comical -- archly erotic.

Though I only got a taste of the performative energy of Art in Odd Places: Body, I predict that it will bring all the generative joy, rage and bounty that is said to be encompassed by Goddess power. I look forward to what this broad roster of artists will bring to 14th street as they take on the courageous work of relating to the public with their own bodies and expression: modelling powerful qualities such as vulnerability, bold conversation, resilience and physical presence.

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AIOP BODY Website

Art in Odd Places Festival Schedule

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Alexandra Hammond (born in California, U.S.A.) completed her MFA at the School of Visual arts in 2015, winning the 2015 Thesis Award. She also holds a BS in Studio Art from New York University. Over the past year, her work has been exhibited in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Bangkok. Hammond positions her art practice as that of an ambivalent utopian. Her work fosters interactions among images, people, and stories, reflecting a conviction that reality is not a fixed collection of facts but a real-time co-creation.