Slow Dance

About the Exhibition

Slow Dance features six artists who use performance to reclaim forms of slowness that resist the contemporary demand to constantly perform, whether in the public sphere, on social media, or in the workplace.

The exhibition approaches performance in two registers: as an artistic medium rooted in the live presence of bodies, and as an economic imperative characterized by the pervasive demand for productivity, speed, and efficiency. At any given moment, we might respond to this imperative differently—it may inspire and motivate us, spur optimism or provoke anxiety, induce fatigue or provide fuel to keep going in spite of it all. Through gestures of suspension, inaction, and stillness, the artists in Slow Dance investigate the politics of the body’s labor and maintenance in the face of such incessant pressure.

Featuring works by Brendan Fernandes, Gordon Hall, Geumhyung Jeong, Carolyn Lazard, Melanie McLain, and Cally Spooner, this multidisciplinary exhibition includes painting, sculpture, video, and live performance. Focused on how bodies wear away and how they endure, these artists contend with the protracted economies of waiting, the near-constant obligation to compete in labor markets, and fatigue’s latent potential as a form of resistance. While exploring conditions of failure, breakdown, or exhaustion, these artists model new modes of reciprocity, intimacy, and connection that challenge the weathering effects of our contemporary imperative to perform.

The exhibition includes in-gallery performance activations throughout the run of the show.

Slow Dance is curated by Jadine Collingwood, Pamela Alper Associate Curator, with Korina Hernandez, Curatorial Assistant. It is presented in the Sylvia Neil & Daniel Fischel Galleries on the museum’s second floor.