Alex Tatarsky: UNTITLED FREAKOUT (TELL ME WHAT TO DO)

In Residence at The Kitchen: October 20–November 22, 2021

Public Studio Visits at 512 West 19th Street: Wednesdays, October 27, November 3, November 10, and November 17 at 7pm

FREE with RSVP (RSVPs are full, but an in-person waitlist will begin 30 minutes before each event)

Alex Tatarsky is in residence at The Kitchen to create a laboratory for performance research, thinking through the opportunity of a residency as a home—a “residence”—to revisit latent ideas and cultivate unhinged processes. Within the framework of an institution, a context that can often inhibit individual values and experimentation, Tatarsky will test different modes of thinking and making. Research methods will include rage at landlords, trash as divination, and tenderness for the scraps. 

Visitors will be invited into the space of Tatarsky’s research for weekly studio visits on Wednesday evenings, October 27, November 3, November 10, and November 17 at 7pm (click here to RSVP). On October 27, the performance will be livestreamed as part of the PRELUDE Festival. During these encounters, Tatarsky will offer peeks into various works-in-process, careening in-between tightly scripted sequences and wildly improvised experiments.

Throughout this project, Tatarsky will take inspiration from the Palace of Depression, a mansion constructed of detritus in Depression-era New Jersey, to imagine constructing an opulent home for one’s darkest feelings. Principles of assemblage will shape improvisations guided by discarded objects and materials to probe our relationship to decay, and the things we push out of sight. In lieu of the torment that typically accompanies Tatarsky’s creative practice, their process will look towards generative models that find creative ferment in falling apart, such as compost and the traditional checkered harlequin costume made from patches. 

Revisiting scrapped projects from the “before times,” which the artist thinks of as “dead babies,” Tatarsky will solicit performance prompts from a group of collaborators to act as process doulas to help birth these babies into a world that is different from the one they were conceived in, or to have a proper funeral for them. 

From Tatarsky: “All the objects in my house keep talking to me and they’re clearly not doing well. Are anxiety and depression products of capitalism or were humans always this anxious and depressed? In an online erotica workshop once I couldn’t stop writing about bees. I picture myself these days as an unemployed court jester, or an ornamental hermit, or a gnome with a buttplug in the center of town. These things all feel connected. I don’t know quite how yet. I will try to find out. I am hoping this research results in a piece—a piece of pieces. I think that piece would be called GARBAGE QUEEN AND THE COMPLETE VIOLENCE, a mourning play. But I can’t be sure, because it doesn’t exist yet.”

Alex Tatarsky makes performances in the uncomfortable in-between zone of comedy, dance-theater, performance art, and deluded rant—sometimes with songs. Called “a hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” (Theatre Jones) and “an East Village relic” (Vogue), Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. Venues include La MaMa, MoMA PS1, Gibney, Abrons Arts Center, Judson Church, PSNY, JACK, and many bars and basements. Writings on counterfeit poetics and grotesque politics have appeared in publications including The New Inquiry, Hypocrite Reader, ArtReview Asia, Folder, Viscose, and Vulture. They teach workshops on masks, rot, and mistranslation and are honored to have been a Movement Research Artist in Residence, Abrons Artist in Residence, Poetry Project Curatorial Fellow, Independence Fellow, and Pew Fellow. Together with Ming Lin they form one half of Shanzhai Lyric, and recently founded the fictional entity Canal Street Research Association. Recent research interests include bootlegs, hellscapes, and compost. @tartar.biz

Credits

Conceived and Performed by Alex Tatarsky

Sound by Shane Riley

Design by Andreea Mincic

Process Doulas: Magda San Millan, Nile Harris, Iris McCloughan, Lisa Fagan, Anh Vo

Additional Prompts from: Kris Pourzal, Alex Schmidt

Image: Alex Tatarsky. Photo by Sarah Amores. Courtesy of the artist.

Alex Tatarsky: UNTITLED FREAKOUT (TELL ME WHAT TO DO) is made possible with commissioning support from NYSCA Restart NY: Rapid Live Performance Grant program and Marta Heflin Foundation; annual grants from Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation, and The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Season programming is made possible in part with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors and The Kitchen Leadership Fund. To learn more about the Leadership Fund, click here.