Artists Space

Guilt For Shame

Performance
August 22, 2013, 7pm

Wu Tsang and Alexandro Segade present a live performance culminating from two days of intensive, private rehearsal at Artists Space Books & Talks.

A man stands, motioning towards at an LED light sculpture hung on the wall. A woman sits on one of three benches circling the man, and the audience is seated on the floor behind them.
Guilt for Shame. Performance documentation, August 22, 2013, Artists Space. Photo: Lyndsy Welgos. [A man stands, motioning towards at an LED light sculpture hung on the wall. A woman sits on one of three benches circling the man, and the audience is seated on the floor behind them.]

Guilt For Shame is a series of short scenes with 2-4 performers (including Tsang and Segade), which explores the subject of collaborative relationships (between artists, writers/directors, and other creative partnerships), and the inherent drama that ensues from working together. Themes of desire, jealousy, betrayal, and concealment are central to the story, which is told in a humorous and intimate style.

Their approach is based on the exhibition's premise: Fassbinder's 1970 film Beware of a Holy Whore, a backstage comedy about a film cast and crew who are cooped up in a hotel waiting for funding to come through to make their movie. Similarly, the performers will sequester themselves in the gallery for 48 hours of rehearsal—from the evening of Tuesday, August 20, until Thursday, August 22's evening performance. Rather than romanticize the drug/sex-induced work environment of Fassbinder's film, the artists are more interested in the effects of intentional endurance and intimacy. The final presentation will be a series of scenes from a screenplay in development by Tsang and Segade.

Wu Tsang is a Los Angeles based filmmaker and performer. His projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London); 2012 Whitney Biennial, Museum of Modern Art, and New Museum Triennial, Performa 11 (New York); Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles); 2012 Gwangju Biennial (South Korea); 2012 Liverpool Biennial (UK). His first feature Wildness won awards including the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Documentary at Outfest 2012.

Alexandro Segade is an artist and performer based in Brooklyn and LA. Segade's collaborative work has been presented in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Moden Art, the New Museum and The Kitchen (New York); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angelese County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum, Susanne Vielmetter Gallery (Los Angeles); and internationally, including, most recently Yaffa 23 in Jerusalem, Israel. Segade's work with the group My Barbarian received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in 2013 and a 2012 Creative Capital Grant.

Tsang and Segade's recent film collaboration Mishima in Mexico premiered at the Gwangju Biennial (South Korea) and in New York at the Blues for Smoke exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Wu Tsang & Alexandro Segade: Guilt For Shame. Performance documentation, August 22, 2013, Artists Space. [Two performeres surrounded by audience members in an intimate space.]