Fox Whitney: MELTED RIOT

The Henry is pleased to announce MELTED RIOT, Fox Whitney’s ongoing interdisciplinary performance and research project, moving from its latest iteration, Chromatic, presented at On the Boards, into the online photography and print collection of the Henry Art Gallery. Interacting with the museum’s collection in private and public ways, Fox and his Gender Tender collaborators will approach this research with the intent of unearthing and/or highlighting the queer and transitional qualities they discover as they zoom in and out of the artwork, and the queer and transitional qualities in their bodies, minds, and spirits.

MELTED RIOT performances

Saturday, September 12, 7pm
RGB
RGB is the the culmination of a weeklong investigation into works in the Henry’s collection, and the first of three live-streamed MELTED RIOT performances with the Henry. RGB is modeled after the RGB color process, by which colors are rendered on screen using combinations of red, blue, and green. The artworks selected for investigation and dialogue are inspired by this process, which will be actively contemplated during the event. Register via Zoom Webinar. 

Saturday, September 19, 7pm
CMYK
CMYK is the culmination of a weeklong investigation into works in the Henry’s collection, and the second of three live-streamed MELTED RIOT performances with the Henry. CMYK makes reference to the four-color printmaking process. It’s a method that uses a combination of tiny translucent dots in four ink colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. CMYK dots overlap each other in different combinations to create an image within the full spectrum of color. The artworks selected for investigation and dialogue are inspired by the CMYK color process, which will be actively contemplated during the event. Register via Zoom Webinar.

Saturday, September 26, 12am–Sunday, September 27, 12am
SATURATION
For the third and final live-streamed MELTED RIOT performance with the Henry, Gender Tender and friends will rest and riot for 24 hours of SATURATION. Synthesizing the previous three weeks of research and dialogue with artworks from the Henry’s photography and print collection, this durational performance will feature a cohort of artists spread across time zones, rotating throughout the day to engage with prompts generated by Fox Whitney. Aptly marking the nature of this durational work, saturation also refers to the intensity of color in an image. In the realm of color, saturation plays with ideas of presence and distance, over and under, investigating the possibilities of too little and too much and what is seen and unseen. Streamed via the Henry’s YouTube channel. 

About MELTED RIOT
MELTED RIOT uses tactics rooted in dance, durational performance, and visual art to investigate the effects peaceful and violent forms of support and sabotage have on the bodies, minds, and spirits of the transgender and queer community. MELTED RIOT softens the word riot (a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd) replacing the word VIOLENT with: somatic, satirical, surreal, psychedelic. Inspired by the Stonewall Riots, this performance research project will use an isolated crowd of socially distant voices, bodies, and sculptural interventions to investigate radical extremes inspired by the Henry’s collection and the QTBIPOC viewpoint of artist Fox Whitney. MELTED RIOT is a surreal protest song, a queer meditation, a psychedelic research project, a punk prayer.

Abour the artist
Fox Whitney is the architect/choreographer behind Gender Tender, an interdisciplinary performance project based in Seattle, WA. He creates experiences that investigate the nature of queer relationships, trans histories, and the surreal nature of transformation, and center his queer black mixed transgender point of view. Gender Tender engages a team of artists trained in Fox’s unique methods modeled on sports teams, cults, sitcoms, and riots. He has performed in work by Morgan Thorson, Gabrielle Civil, Vladimir Kremenović, Keyon Gaskin, and Malic Amalya. His most recent project, MELTED RIOT, a queer meditation inspired by the Stonewall Riots of 1969, was presented by Velocity Dance Center on the 50th anniversary of the riots in 2019. He is currently an Artist in Residence at On the Boards in Seattle.