Narcissister’s new show expands on her subversive brand of magic

Narcissister is a grasp of disguise. The pseudonymous New York artist by no means seems with out her distinctive masks, impressed by a wig show from the Nineteen Sixties, however she can be perennially donning and shedding bespoke costumes that upend acquainted conventions of gender, age, race, class and sexuality. Generally she even upends gravity: certainly one of her many sleight-of-hand performances entails doing a handstand in a dressing up during which her arms are lined by trouser legs or a skirt, her legs contort via the arms of a shirt and a model head positioned between her legs completes the upside-down phantasm. (Unsurprisingly, this was a success when she appeared on America’s Received Expertise in 2011.)

For her new undertaking at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, Voyage Into Infinity (14-15 September), the artist is working with an ensemble of collaborators (all of whom will put on the trademark Narcissister masks) on a theatrical tableau and efficiency, which might be accompanied by a reside rating by Holland Andrews. Titled after a music by the pioneering punk band Unhealthy Brains, the piece could have a distinctly punk aesthetic, unfolding on and round a sculptural set made nearly completely from discovered and salvaged supplies. Voyage Into Infinity may also reinterpret and reframe Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s canonical movie The Method Issues Go (1987), which follows the chain reactions of a low-tech Rube Goldberg contraption.

Forward of the piece’s debut, Narcissister mentioned the undertaking’s genesis and execution with The Artwork Newspaper.

The Artwork Newspaper: Why did you title this piece after the Unhealthy Brains music? How do you see the undertaking referring to that music?Narcissister: The music got here to me unpredictably, as occurs usually with my work. I’ve a bunch of music loaded onto my laptop computer, and I used to be working in my studio with the music on shuffle and that music got here up. I used to be reminded of how epic the intro and the outro are. It struck me as one thing that will be a very robust factor for the work, and I used to be impressed to include the music. Once I was considering of a title for the piece, the title of that music began to turn out to be an increasing number of an anchor for the work.

A pair extra signifiers have emerged within the course of of constructing the work. One is that, in preliminary analysis about this music, I realized that the singer of Unhealthy Brains has made some homophobic statements, and as I’ve been taking part in the music and incorporating it into the piece, folks have shared totally different tales that backed that up. I’m concerned about that, as a result of we even have a statue within the piece that I discovered in a backyard centre on Lengthy Island as a result of I preferred the pose. Once I began to analysis the statue, I found that it’s a reproduction of a statue that Hitler owned and stored as some type of image of the wonder and the potential of the Aryan race. There are additionally pyrotechnics within the present, and we’re incorporating one thing referred to as the Catherine wheel. Traditionally, these wheels have been used to torture ladies. I’ve simply picked issues that I’ve preferred, whether or not it is the Unhealthy Brains music, the statue or the visible of a pyrotechnic Catherine wheel, after which these different layers of that means have emerged. We’re reframing these symbols or signifiers via their inclusion within the work.

So far as the title goes, the piece is about many issues and incorporates lots of the themes that Narcissister has achieved for a very long time, round problems with race, id, femininity, feminism, sexual expression and free, self-loving eroticism. One thing that my undertaking has began to include are questions round ageing for girls—loving, accepting and honouring that passage. In a delicate manner, and within the combine with all the opposite points I simply talked about, Voyage Into Infinity appears an apt title for a chunk that features an exploration of ageing.

You might be additionally referencing Fischli & Weiss’s The Method Issues Go. What attracted you to that video specifically?I encountered that work as a youthful artist, nonetheless dreaming of what my singular imaginative and prescient may be. I bear in mind seeing that piece and being struck by it—that that could possibly be thought of artwork—and fascinated and charmed by it, and simply excited by the virtuosity of it. It stayed with me and expanded, in my thoughts, what could possibly be thought of artwork or framed as a murals.

Since I used to be a toddler, I’ve been very interested by the best way issues work. I’d climb on high of the washer and dryer in our home to succeed in my dad’s software cabinets and simply beloved poking round and seeing what was there, pulling instruments out and constructing issues. And my costumes have emerged from these pursuits. I realized to stitch at a really younger age, and my costumes are lo-fi feats of engineering, the place I’ve needed to learn to make one factor segue in a short time into one other factor after which one other factor. All of it looks as if the same observe to a Rube Goldberg machine, or to what was created in The Method Issues Go.

Extra just lately, I’ve been reframing the theatrical props that I’ve been making for a very long time for my solo performances as participatory sculptures. Making a monumental Rube Goldberg machine—set up, participatory sculpture, spectacle and efficiency stayed with me as a very juicy thought. So when this chance to current one thing at Pioneer Works got here up, I simply knew this may be such an exquisite area to current it.

Your performances all the time contain components of sleight-of-hand, magic and spectacle, from the masks and elaborate costumes to doubled figures and extra. How do you consider the veracity of the phantasm? Is it necessary for viewers to be stunned or deceived indirectly, or would you like them to additionally pay attention to the artifice of what they’re seeing?Virtually all of the works I’ve made incorporate some side of lo-fi phantasm or a DIY magic trick. That’s one thing that’s all the time been fascinating to me. It appears to be like unbelievable, however anyone has discovered the right way to idiot us, to create this suspension of disbelief, and there’s a virtuosity and unimaginable ability in that. It’s this mind-set that I’ve been enthusiastic about since I used to be very younger, and have achieved my finest to include in my work: believing that we will shift folks’s perceptions of one thing. We expect we all know what it’s, nevertheless it’s actually in no way what we thought.

That destabilising expertise of the reveal—I am excited in regards to the ability required to tug this stuff off and the virtuosity of it. I in some way have the type of mind that may take into consideration the right way to create these magic results, or these illusions. One in every of my favorite issues to observe is that TV present Magic’s Greatest Secrets and techniques Lastly Revealed. Even once they present you ways they did it, it’s nonetheless unimaginable.

And if you layer onto this sleight of hand and this destabilising creation of a world that is not actually the world that you simply assume it’s, the opposite points in my work—round womanhood, race, ageing or simply normal questions of id—it turns into very wealthy for me and really true to what our experiences are. I’m making it extra literal by creating this sense of phantasm or magic or instability via the visuals. And doing it in a manner that’s a bit bit tough and reveals the seams, and the work behind it provides much more to that complexity.

You might be working with a gaggle of fellow performers for this piece. How do you strategy that course of? Do you might have a script for them to comply with, or is the efficiency developed collaboratively?I’ve included additional Narcissisters in my work nearly because the starting, so the performers who’re on this piece with me have been in different works of mine, a few of them for fairly a very long time. I’ve been creating the work with the builders right here at Pioneer Works. We have been setting lots of the moments that incorporate performers on me. After which comparatively just lately, the performers joined, and I have been instructing them the right way to work together with the machine. And now that the machine is mainly completed, now could be the time when the performers are right here extra intensively and we’re discovering not solely the issues that I discovered interacting with the machine, however what are issues that the opposite performers can discover in interacting with it, what photos can we create as a gaggle, what’s our relationship with the machine as a gaggle? That course of is unfolding now. There’s a script—I believe most Rube Goldberg machines have a script, or the listing of steps. After which there’s a rating that’s been created, which is what the performer involvement is about.

What sort of areas are you drawing inspiration from for the setting you’re creating? Are you considering of it extra as a set, an set up or a sculpture?It’s an set up, a chain-reaction machine and in addition the set piece for this efficiency and for the performers to work together with. There are some little nods to things and moments from The Method Issues Go. There are items taken from large-scale sculptures which can be within the artwork canon, particularly outside and kinetic sculptures. And there are some extra direct, art-historical references when it comes to how the statue that I discussed is positioned within the area. I’ve additionally taken some inspiration from the circus. After which there are some visible themes, concepts, kinds and vibes which can be a part of my world as Narcissister.

This piece has so many components—the sculptural set up, the efficiency, the video that might be shot of the efficiency. Do you contemplate certainly one of these components the first a part of the piece, or are all of them equally necessary? The video is thrilling for me as a result of The Method Issues Go, the primary level of inspiration for this work, is thought solely as a video. So I am enthusiastic about having a video that may have a lifetime of its personal and be circulated and introduced in artwork areas and maybe movie festivals. The video goes to be direct documentation; I am not concerned about incorporating any poetry, so to talk, within the fashion of the video. I’d like to carry out this work once more somewhere else. I do not know if it will likely be with these identical actual components, however clearly, this video will seize this iteration.

All the things within the undertaking has been discovered—both on the road, at Supplies for the Arts or issues that I’ve in my assortment of objects. There are only a few issues which have been bought for this piece, and for me that is necessary. I’ve achieved my finest to stay trustworthy to that, with one or two exceptions, just like the statue I wanted to buy from the backyard centre on Lengthy Island. So if or when the work is introduced once more somewhere else, I’d be excited to seek out new issues sourced from wherever that location is.

Narcissister: Voyage Into Infinity, 14-15 September, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn