Maria Hassabi Glances

1 MARIA HASSABI GLANCES

Thomas J. Lax Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art

You’re confronted with someone lying exhibition. Taking place underfoot in in front of you as you walk up a stair- the transitional spaces of a museum case on your way to the galleries at The known for its crowds, the work can be Museum of Modern Art. Is she asleep? seen from multiple vantage points and Is she unconscious? She moves but inverts the typical relationship between remains prone and in your way. Do you performer and viewer so that it is help? Turn away? Stop and keep looking? the dancer who appears static and the Over the past decade, choreographer onlooker who moves. and artist Maria Hassabi has developed Since 1999, Hassabi’s choreography a distinct movement language she has explored the experience of intense calls the “velocity of deceleration.”1 In looking: its limits and possibilities. In PLASTIC (2015), Hassabi and her cast PREMIERE (2013), upon entering the of more than a dozen dancers move theater, viewers were confronted by five at a barely perceptible pace down two performers in distinct poses, situated of MoMA’s most visible staircases and between two bright walls constructed of across its iconic Marron Atrium, where dozens of theatrical lights. Without the artist has placed seating borrowed the performers’ entrance, the dance from across the Museum’s public seemed to be already in progress, but spaces. Shifting from one position to in fact it began—indeed, premiered— another, the performers recall images with the audience’s arrival. Likewise, of repose, collapse, and transition. A INTERMISSION (2013), developed for a sound score designed by Morten Norbye former gymnasium that housed the Halvorsen, with song fragments by Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion at the Marina Rosenfeld, accompanies their 2013 Venice Biennale, reflected its title movements. The live installation— as the dancers stood and stretched a term Hassabi coined—is performed according to set choreography, provid- continuously during opening hours, ing pause from the main exhibition’s Maria Hassabi. INTERMISSION. 2013. Performed at the Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale, May 28– reformatting the duration of a theatrical frenetic energy. Like PLASTIC, Hassabi’s June 4, 2013. With Phanos Kyriacou’s installation, Eleven hosts, twenty-one guests, performance as a month-long museum earlier works toy with or erase the nine ghosts (2013). Courtesy the artist. Photo by Robertas Narkus

2 3 stillness, giving us time to consider he dubbed a “photographic score-cata- them as pictures flooded with multiple logue,”3 a solo male performer takes references. For example, the dancers’ on everyday poses, often holding them rounded torsos and twisted limbs at for up to fifteen seconds. He walks, once resemble images of falling sits down, gets up, puts on a series bodies, made readily accessible in a of outfits, standing still throughout, culture saturated by documentation of and in the process calls into question war, and nineteenth-century paintings what constitutes a dance.4 In Yvonne of odalisques, Orientalist fantasies of Rainer’s Performance Documentation concubines lying on erotic display. (1968), three slide carousels project Oscillating between these references, documentation of her dance Stairs. the dancers embody power and submis- In a series of photographs, performers sion, using banal movement to create are shown climbing and descending spectacular scenes. Like photographs a short staircase and interacting with without captions, the performers seem foam props, their bodies resembling to inhabit shots captured by someone the materials with which they inter- else and projected onto them by the act; they become, in Rainer’s words, 5 Maria Hassabi. PREMIERE. 2013. viewer’s gaze. “theater-objects.” Used in this way, Performed at The Kitchen, New York, as part of Performa 13, November 6–9, 2013. Hassabi’s interest in images builds photography becomes a structuring Performers (left to right): Maria Hassabi, Andros Zins-Browne, Hristoula Harakas, on a history of choreography, partic- paradox, art historian Carrie Lambert- Biba Bell, and Robert Steijn. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Paula Court ularly in the United States since the Beatty has argued, in which “the felt 1960s, that is self-conscious about its body of the dancer is both intensely viewing conventions of their sites, the performers, apparently finding “the relationship to photography. In Steve present and . . . already a trace.”6 The encouraging viewers to become more ladies” either alluring or disconcerting. Paxton’s Flat (1964), for example, which interface of photography and dance aware of their own experience of looking What exactly is threatening about and the ways in which that act individu- Hassabi’s stilled movement? alizes every performance. Hassabi’s practice deals with, in In 2012, Hassabi made The Ladies, her words, “the relationship of a body a short video derived from footage of to images,”2 and she often composes guerrilla performances that took place her work as a pictorial sequence. To over two months across Manhattan. make SoloShow (2009), for example, Duos of female performers dressed in she selected over three hundred iconic black clothing, sunglasses, and bright images of the female figure from across red lipstick—the routine fashion of history and mediums—from ancient New York’s art scene—showed up on sculpture to contemporary hip-hop pub- subway platforms and street corners, in licity photos—which she then embodied, galleries, and at cafés and demonstra- shifting from one pose to another tions to stand still, look, and be looked for an hour on a large black pedestal at. When they arrived at The Museum surrounded with bright white lights. of Modern Art, they were asked to leave Similarly, in PLASTIC, Hassabi and her because their action was interpreted dancers don’t simply move slowly Maria Hassabi. The Ladies. 2012. as disruptive. Hassabi’s video records from one pose to the next. Rather, they Performers (left to right): Biba Bell and Sarah Beth Percival. the public both ignoring and staring at juxtapose movement with prolonged Still from video, color, sound, 10 min. Courtesy the artist

6 7 creates tension between the performing the figure fused with its ground as Hassabi, however, sequences her move- subject and his treatment as an object, “nomadic” or “homeless” because it ment on a loop that each performer between the actual physical form of a carries its own context.8 Like Adèle, dances over several hours, making the live body and her photographic mediation. Hassabi and her dancers stay close to repetitions nearly unrecognizable. While PLASTIC’s performers extend two- the ground, appearing to be absorbed the choreography is set and reproduced dimensional photographic images into by the floor as their heads are obscured multiple times a day for more than three-dimensional space. Many of their and their limbs often remain out of thirty days, at any given moment the poses can be described using the sight. Rodin’s fragmenting of the body Auguste Rodin. Torso of Adèle. dancers nevertheless appear to be language of classical Western sculpture, was informed by his collection of Greek Before 1884. Terracotta, 4 5 16 × 14 3 4 × distinct from one another. PLASTIC beginning with the figure who stands and Roman figurative sculptures, which 6 7 16" (11 × 37.5 × 16.4 cm). Photo by thus sits uncannily between multiple Christian Baraja. Courtesy Musée Rodin contrapposto with his weight on one foot, were often without their original limbs. mediums—photography, sculpture, the suggesting past and future movement Hassabi’s work bears a similarly trun- digital loop—as it circulates charged and fusing equipoise with tension. cated relationship to ancient mythology, a manufacturing chain. But just as and associative images inspired by the But in its use of space, PLASTIC bears in which artists everywhere bring their apparent stillness is an illusion, world. Without any contextual informa- the hallmark of modern sculpture: it statues to life. In Ovid’s Pygmalion, for so is that of PLASTIC’s dancers— tion, the meaning of the performers’ is meant to be seen from all sides as example, the celibate sculptor carves a their seeming passivity is actually the bodily contortions is plastic. The per- opposed to frontally, the way it would woman out of ivory. He is so enamored result of physical attention and formers at once embody real scenarios be in a traditional proscenium theater. with his own skill that he falls for her virtuosity. PLASTIC is animated by this and their representations, making it In this regard, it is illuminating to and asks the goddess Venus to turn kind of artifice. The work’s staginess difficult to distinguish whether they are consider Hassabi’s work in relation her into a real woman. Ovid writes that is self-conscious, inviting spectacle in unconscious or resting, self-sufficient or to Auguste Rodin’s7 sculpture Torso of Pygmalion “speaking love, caresses it order to exhaust it. For example, the in a state of crisis. As they move across Adèle. The artist molded this sensu- with loving hands that seem to make performers’ costumes of gray blouses the floor and down the stairs’ vertical ous headless female figure from clay, an impress, on the parts they touch, so and jeans, to which the collective pathways, they recall recognizable but by hand, in front of his model, Adèle real that he fears he then may bruise threeASFOUR applied rhinestones, are absent figures. Abbruzzesi, and then joined her likeness her by his eager pressing.”9 As “it” both neutral and decorated, giving their He breathes and his muscles tremble. to a wooden base so that the pedestal becomes “she,” the line between affec- glamour an evacuated feel. Likewise, You see tears well up in his left eye became part of the artwork. Art his- tion and harm is as thin as the one the work neither embraces nor refuses as his muscles quiver. He squints. The torian Rosalind Krauss has described between the inanimate and the living. narrative, instead prolonging the view- tremors and quakes are not signs For Hassabi, who is choreographer and er’s perception of it.11 It is impossible of weakness or vulnerability; they are dancer, artist and model, the intimacy to anticipate where it is going; instead nonverbal, involuntary surface messages between human subject and artistic you experience it as an accumulation about the physical effects of time and object is ground zero. of the here and now. arduous activity on the body. While these Hassabi’s work is filled with the Dispersed to the periphery of the gestures may look like pain, they are tension between abjection and exalta- Museum’s Marron Atrium and stair- the dancer’s nervous system commu- tion. She describes her references in cases—the frame of the building—the nicating the physical effects of the a string of incongruous associations: performers repeat the same choreog- duration of gravity and downward motion “junkies in the middle of the street . . . raphy like automatons unaware of one to anyone who might look long enough luxurious figures at rest . . . a person another. Choreography has long been to see them.12 Perhaps you’ll have forgotten in a corner of the city . . . structured as a series of dance phrases an encounter with the performer; maybe Yvonne Rainer. Stairs. 1968. people simply staring, sitting, standing.”10 that are performed simultaneously by you’ll disregard him. But if you glance From The Mind Is a Muscle. Photo What unifies these figures is their a group of dancers or repeated over the at the dance, if you become part of it, by Peter Moore. © Barbara Moore/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. unproductiveness: they are avatars of course of a performance so that they you might see something made familiar Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, NY what appears to be a breakdown in achieve symbolic and dramatic effect. within its loop.

8 9 1 See conversation between Maria Hassabi and 9 Publius Ovidius Naso, “Pygmalion and the Victoria Marks, The Herb Alpert Awards in Statue,” in Metamorphoses, trans. Brookes the Arts, http://herbalpertawards.org/artist/ More (Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922), chapter-one-0. p. 243.

2 See Maria Hassabi and Scott Lyall, interview 10 Maria Hassabi, e-mail message to author, by Lauren Bakst, BOMB, February 11, 2014, January 21, 2016. http://bombmagazine.org/article/1000022/ scott-lyall-and-maria-hassabi. 11 The author thanks Will Rawls for drawing his attention to this point. 3 Steve Paxton with Liza Béar, “Like the Famous Tree . . .,” Avalanche 11 (Summer 1975): 26. 12 Victoria Gray makes a similar argument in her article “The Choreography of Anticipation in 4 Sally Banes, “Vital Signs: Steve Paxton’s Maria Hassabi’s PREMIERE,” TDR: The Drama Flat in Perspective,” in Writing Dancing in the Review 59, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 150–57. Age of Postmodernism (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), pp. 227–239.

5 Yvonne Rainer, “Don’t Give the Game Away,” Thanks to Stuart Comer, Kathy Halbreich, Arts Magazine 41, no. 6 (April 1967): 47. Maria Hassabi, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Ana Janevski, Martha Joseph, and Will Rawls for their feedback 6 Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Being Watched: Yvonne on earlier versions of this essay, and to Sara Rainer and the 1960s (Cambridge, MIT Press: Bodinson, Jenna Madison, and Maria Marchenkova 2008), pp. 158, 160. for editing it; to Eva Bochem-Shur, Claire Corey, and Tony Lee for designing this brochure and 7 It is particularly fitting that Rodin’sMonument the exhibition’s graphic identity; to Mack Cole- to Balzac (1898), which is in MoMA’s collec- Edelsack for overseeing the exhibition design; and tion, is often installed on the platform at the to Cara Manes and Ann Temkin for their support. bottom of the staircase on which PLASTIC takes place. The artist gratefully acknowledges the Jerome Foundation, Abrons Arts Center, collective address, 8 See Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), Expanded Field,” October 8 (Spring 1979): 34. Kaaitheater, and MoMA PS1.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Maria Hassabi is in conversation Please see moma.org/mariahassabi with Philip Bither, William and Nadine for a commissioned essay by Tim Griffin, McGuire Director and Senior Curator, Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Performing Arts, Walker Art Center, Kitchen, and for the performers’ bios. on February 24 at 7pm in the Marron Atrium. Please visit moma.org/ mariahassabi for video documentation.

Maria Hassabi. SHOW. 2011. Performed at Le Mouvement: Performing the City, Biel, Switzerland, Cover Image: Maria Hassabi. PLASTIC. 2015. August 26–31, 2014. Performers (left to right): Hristoula Harakas Rehearsal at MoMA, October 30, 2015. Performer: Maria Hassabi. and Maria Hassabi. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Alex Safari Kangangi Photo by James Fair. © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

10 11 PERFORMANCE LOCATIONS

PLASTIC is on view in The Agnes Gund the wooden staircase between the fourth- Garden Lobby staircase, The Donald B. and fifth-floor galleries. On Fridays,PLASTIC and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, and is performed only in the Marron Atrium.

Staircase between 5th Floor the fourth- and fifth-floor galleries

The Donald B. The Agnes and Catherine C. Gund Garden Marron Atrium Lobby

Garden Lobby staircase

PERFORMERS: Maria Hassabi: PLASTIC is co-commissioned by The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the and The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby staircase: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Stedelijk Hristoula Harakas, Maria Hassabi, Molly Lieber, Museum, Amsterdam. Paige Martin, and Oisín Monaghan At MoMA the exhibition is organized by Staircase between fourth- and fifth-floor galleries: Thomas J. Lax, Associate Curator, with Martha Michael Hell, Niall Jones, Tara Lorenzen, and Joseph, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media Mickey Mahar and Performance Art, and is produced by Lizzie The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium: Gorfaine, Performance Producer, with Kate Scherer, Simon Courchel, Jessie Gold, Neil Greenberg, Assistant Performance Coordinator. Elizabeth Hart, Kennis Hawkins, Niall Jones, Shelley Senter, RoseAnne Spradlin, and David Thomson Major support for the MoMA presentation is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for SOUND DESIGN: Morten Norbye Halvorsen Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation and by The Jill and Peter SONG FRAGMENTS: Marina Rosenfeld Kraus Endowed Fund for Contemporary Exhibitions. STYLING: threeASFOUR Generous funding is provided by The Junior PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE: Anton Bulayev Associates of The Museum of Modern Art and The Modern Women’s Fund. ARTIST ASSISTANT: Kate Ryan