Wu Tsang
Moved by the Motion
March 15–May 3, 2014
Performance: Saturday, April 12, 9pm
Moved by the Motion (featuring boychild)
DiverseWorks
4102 Fannin Street, #200
Houston, TX 77004
Hours: Wednesday noon–8pm,
Thursday–Saturday noon–6pm
DiverseWorks has commissioned Los Angeles-based artist Wu Tsang to create a video installation and performance, Moved by the Motion, that inhabits a space between fiction and documentary. Tsang is an award-winning filmmaker, artist, and performer who explores the relationship between self, identity, and the narratives that construct them.
Moved by the Motion is the first in a series of performances and works to premiere in Houston by Wu Tsang. Over the course of 2014–15, several related projects will be presented, including a live performance on April 12 at DiverseWorks as part of CounterCurrent 14, in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, and a video installation in the exhibition Double Life at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (December 19, 2014–March 13, 2015).
Moved by the Motion features an ongoing collaboration with the performer boychild, whose visceral and vivid performances bring a sense of other-worldliness to the body. Central to the exhibition is a two-channel film titled A day in the life of bliss, which simultaneously explores cinematic and performative narrative. The film follows Blis (played by boychild), who inhabits a “near future” world in which our social media avatars and online personas develop their own hive-minded consciousness called Looks. Blis, a celebrity-collaborator by day and underground performer by night, discovers her ability to challenge the Looks. Utilizing sci-fi genre tropes and melodrama, the film evokes a classic “outsider” narrative that is complicated by affect, movement, and body politics.
About Wu Tsang
Wu Tsang is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, artist, and performer. His projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London); the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum (New York); ICA (Philadelphia); and MOCA and REDCAT (Los Angeles). In 2012, he participated in the Whitney Biennial and New Museum Triennial (New York), Gwangju Biennial (South Korea), and Liverpool Biennial (UK). Tsang’s first feature WILDNESS won multiple awards, including the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Documentary at Outfest 2012. WILDNESS had its world premiere at MoMA Documentary Fortnight (New York), and was screened at SXSW (Austin, Texas), Hot Docs (Toronto, Canada), and SANFIC8 (Santiago, Chile), among other festivals. Tsang was recently selected as one of 35 artists included in the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2014 biennial.
About boychild
boychild is a Los Angeles-based performer and artist. Her performances have been presented at MoMA PS1 (New York), MOCA (Los Angeles), SFMOMA, Kulturhuset (Stockholm), and upcoming at Fundación Proa (Buenos Aires), and the MCA Chicago. She has toured internationally with Mykki Blanco and works collaboratively with the designer Hood by Air and visual artists Wu Tsang and Korakrit Arunanondchai.
About DiverseWorks
DiverseWorks is a non-profit art center in Houston, Texas dedicated to commissioning and presenting new visual, performing, and literary art. DiverseWorks values the artistic process and encourages artists to test new ideas in the public arena. By investigating the social, cultural, and artistic issues of our time, DiverseWorks builds, educates, and sustains audiences for contemporary art.
About CounterCurrent
CounterCurrent is a five-day festival of bold experimental art that occupies a range of unexpected sites in the city of Houston. Presented by the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, CounterCurrent includes audio and visual installation, live performance, and participatory events by artists from around the world.
Support
Moved by the Motion was commissioned and developed by DiverseWorks in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
This project is supported in part by an award from Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and foundations, corporations, and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas; the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, the National Performance Network’s Visual Artists Network, and The Hollyfield Foundation.
DiverseWorks Season Sponsors: The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, The Houston Endowment, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
