Jill Kroesen: Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering
Wed, July 27, 2016
10:30 am–3 pm
Jill Kroesen, set and character schematic for Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering, 2016
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Floor Three, Susan and John Hess Family Theater
As part of the exhibition Jill Kroesen: Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering, the theatrical installation is on view in the theater during Museum Hours, July 27–31. Featuring set design by artist Jared Bark and costumes designed by Mary Kay Stolz, this mis-en-scene portrays an imagined small town on which Kroesen inscribes her allegorical work, manifesting the structures of parenting, socialization, and control that shape individual lives and collective society.
Artist, composer, and singer Jill Kroesen was an essential figure in the 1970s downtown New York performance milieu, working at the intersection of experimental music and then-emerging performance art. In the words of performance critic Sally Banes, “condensing political events with soap opera plots and infantile rationalizations about the way the world works,” Kroesen’s “systems portraits,” as she came to call her works, depicting socioeconomic, sexual, and gender politics through funny, ramshackle, and chaotic performances. Coinciding with the Whitney’s collection exhibition Human Interest, Kroesen’s performance employs portraiture as a means of exploring power dynamics. After an artistic hiatus of over thirty years, she returns this summer with a new show at the Whitney, Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering.
July 27–28
10:30 am–3 pm
July 29–31
10:30 am–4 pm
Free with Museum admission.
