PERFORMANCE | "Incontrovertible Being" (working title)

Using a large piece of heavy glass and a single beam of slowly intensifying light Cassils invokes the biological specimen, the surveying gaze and the ghosts of Ana Mendieta and Chris Burden. Playing with voyeurism, the frame, pressure, and resistance; this new work explores the pressures of visibility and tactics of refusal.  

This work-in-progress performance is part of a guest visit by Cassils to TAPS 160P/260P: Performance Art (ARTSTUDI 160M/260M).

Content Advisory: This piece involves nudity and will make use of water-based haze and strobe-lighting effects.

ABOUT CASSILS

Cassils (b. 1975, Canada) is a Guggenheim award winning visual and performance artist who makes their transgender body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils's art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, survival and empowerment. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’s work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.  

Cassils currently has a solo exhibition at SITE Santa Fe, NM. They have recent exhibitions and performances at the Banff Center for Art and Creativity, HOME Manchester, National Theater, Southbank Center,  Victoria Albert Museum, Barbican; UK,  Perth, Institute for Contemporary Arts; AU, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC and  MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.   

They are the recipient of the National Creation Fund, a Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist, a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a United States Artist Fellowship and a Creative Capital Award.

Cassils is an Associate Professor in Sculpture and Integrated Practices at PRATT Institute.

Sponsors: This performance was made possible in part by: Stanford TAPS, Department of Art & Art History; Stanford H&S Dean’s Office; Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Stanford Arts via an artsCatalyst grant