Didact
Didact is a performance intervention for four people reading simultaneously all the wall labels in the exhibition "Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void 1949-1962," at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, moving from gallery to gallery. These labels -- which include not only the title of the work and the artist's name, dates and nationality, but also donor, acquisition, or loan information as well as interpretive text -- are the linguistic frame for every museum visitor's experience. Spoken quietly but insistently, the verbalized version of these labels transforms information into an undulating auditory atmosphere for the artworks and the viewers, calling attention to the institutional, educational, contemplative, social, historical, and architectural contexts of the museum experience.
At each of the four performances, I was accompanied by an art historian and two MCA docents.
Saturday February 16, 2013, 1PM, with Simon Anderson
Sunday March 10, 2013, 1PM, with David Getsy
Sunday April 7, 2013, 1PM, with Lisa Wainwright
Sunday June 2, 2013, 1PM, with Hannah Higgins
Participating MCA docents and staff: Raymond Vasiukevicius, Maureen Mizwicki, Eddie Urzua and Yolanda Cursach; guest performer Sandra Binion.