Movements for Monoliths

Storm King Art Center

May-June 2015

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Presented by Storm King Art Center and Shandanken Projects
Performed by Jonathan VanDyke & Bethany Ides
Each performance, 3 hours
Photos by Nicholas Weist and Daniel Carroll

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"In a new durational work created for Storm King, Jonathan VanDyke uses the expansive and multi-faceted terrain of the Art Center to explore the intersection of painting and performance, color and movement. The land of Storm King is re-imagined as setting and stage while the sculptures become “characters.” The two performers carry paint-stained tarps and signs, folding, manipulating, and interacting with these painterly objects. At times their movements suggest the rhythmic marching of a street protest, while in other segments they playfully suggest a high school color guard troop inventing a new political language, or a pair of street performers who have wandered off path. The canvases might serve as ground covering, tent, backdrop, dance floor, uniform, flag. As they move erratically across the Storm King grounds, they ask the viewer to contemplate, whether from at close hand or afar, how the thin membrane of a monochrome or minimalist “painting” might also appear like a sign or a gesture of resistance, how an art object might be mobile rather than stationary, and how monumental sculptural works stand in contrast to their painterly cousins. Here, the painted surface engenders a theatrical dialogue, and the sculpture figures as both foil and audience."

 

 ☞ view video excerpt of performance below