Slow Dance

Six performance artists mine the latent potential of fatigue as a form of resistance against the imperative to ceaselessly optimize.

Published with Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Considering recent developments in performance art, Slow Dance presents six artists―Cally Spooner, Melanie McLain, Gordon Hall, Geumhyung Jeong, Brendan Fernandes and Carolyn Lazard―who mobilize fatigue in their work, often as a way of pointing to the political conditions of the body’s labor, maintenance and care. Taking the ongoing economization of performance in contemporary life as a point of departure, the artists focus on how bodies wear away and endure. Amid this exhaustion, they model new modes of reciprocity, intimacy and connection. This fully illustrated book features in-depth explorations of each artist, including engaging essays, documentation of live performance and reproductions of paintings, sculptures and video works. In addition to these comprehensive studies, the publication contextualizes each artist within the larger history of in-gallery performance.