“Suzanne Bocanegra’s art is an antidote to the history-free, prepackaged world that threatens every day to overwhelm us. Her work is also beautiful.” – The New Yorker
“An illuminating theatrical portrait of the mind of an artist at work.” –The New York Times
A lecture? A performance? An idiosyncratic conjoining of both? Visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra uses theater to interrogate the history and practice of the visual arts. Part performance, part memoir, and part gleefully rambling cultural essay, her “Artist Performance Lectures” are intensely personal, exhaustively researched, and kaleidoscopically wide-ranging. With the assistance of a series of mirthful “guests,” she explains the hows and whys of being an artist, while offering elucidating meditations on art-making, history, popular culture and our shifting ideals of human beauty.
The third lecture in a four-part series taking the stage at NYU Skirball this season, Bodycast is inspired by the two teenage years Bocanegra spent in a body cast due to scoliosis. Exploring topics as disparate as Roman art, Rose Queens, and Texas drill teams, Bodycast mines specific details of Bocanegra’s life to create a more general meditation on art-making and shifting ideals of feminine beauty.
Starring Ruth Negga (Oscar, Golden Globe, and Tony nominee) and directed by Paul Lazar.