1. Introduction
      2. Trajectory
      3. Texts
      4. Documentation
      Performance in Residence

      Introduction

      ×
    1. Since his very first performance in the Kitchen in New York in 1978, Mullican has worked with hypnosis. Over the years Mullican has developed a practice of being hypnotized in public, which has lead to the formation of a character with specific gestures and traits. This character is referred to as “That Person”, and in every performance displays recurring behaviour such as singing, crying, making coffee and drawing on walls.

        Matt Mullican (Santa Monica, CA, 1951) lives and works in Berlin. Since the beginning of his artistic career in the early 1970s Mullican’s work deals with questions of perception of reality, fiction and the imaginary and the possibilities of its representation. It is the rich world of experiences and visual information which Mullican aims to structurize and categorize encyclopaedically in a huge arsenal of images and signs – however conscious he is about the inevitable incompleteness of his project. For this he uses as diverse media as drawings, photographs, flags, glass- and stone sculptures, light boxes, bulletins, computer generated city scapes, and video. Mullican’s work has been exhibited internationally, a.o. in Hedah (Maastricht, 2010), Haus der Kunst (Munchen, 2009), Ludwig Museum (Keulen, 2005), Anton Kern Gallery (New York, 2002), Stedelijk Museum (Schiedam, 1998) and Documenta (Kassel, 1982, 1993 en 1997). His performances took place in a.o. the Kitchen (New York, 1978 and 1979), ICA (Boston, 1983), Festival a/d Werf (Utrecht, 1998) and Tate Modern (London, 2007).

        Vanessa Desclaux is an independent curator based in Paris. She is currently a practice-based researcher at Goldsmiths College in London on the MPhil/PhD programme in Art. She is currently a researcher in Theory at the Jan Van Eyck academie in Maastricht. Between July 2009 and January 2011, she was co-curating the exhibitions programme at Bloomberg SPACE, London. Between 2006 and 2009, she was assistant curator at Tate Modern, working on the programme of performances. She curated the exhibitions Here We Dance, Tate Modern, 2008; The artist is a mysterious entertainer, de Appel, 2008; Stutter, Tate Modern, 2009; and le Chant de la carpe, centre d’art Parc Saint Léger, 2009. Selected writing includes Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Out of Place, Art Press 2, Aout-Septembre 2007; To fabulate is to fabricate giants, in Geoffrey Farmer, Source Book 5, Witte de With, 2008; Historical facts are as mythic as literary constructs. Essay on the work of Olivia Plender, A Prior magazine issue 19, 2010; Script for a Stuttering exhibition, in Život umjetnosti, Summer 2010; Step Into Tangram Rule, Volume issue 2, January 2011.

      1. Artist Matt Mullican and curator Vanessa Desclaux have been invited to conduct a research into the hypnosis performances of Mullican.

        Vanessa Desclaux’s contribution to Performance in Residence is connected to the research she is doing at the Jan van Eyck Academy into fiction, fabulation and self-reflection in the work of Mullican. For If I Can’t Dance she will focus on a specific case from Mullican’s oeuvre. Following a yearlong archiving project at Hedah in Maastricht titled Work in Residence (2010–2011), Mullican’s performances have been inventoried and form the basis for a research that will result in a new work.

        The final installment of Work in Residence takes place from Thursday 26 May until Sunday 29 May 2011. On Sunday Vanessa Desclaux will give a lecture in the project space of Hedah (Sint Nicolaasstraat 2, Maastricht). Work in Residence consists of the collection of all Mullican’s video’s with documentation and the stock-taking of all ‘actions’ – singing, sleeping, drinking, etc. – during the performances. Based on diverse criteria these compilation video’s will be made and will be shown in the exhibition. 

        A solo exhibition, titled Organizing the World opens on June 10 at Haus der Kunst in Munich.

      Editions
        If I Can't Dance,
        I Don't Want to Be Part of
        Your Revolution
          Publications
            Agenda