![]() MB: When we met recently with one of your dancers and collaborators Lizzie Feidelson, you were carrying your notebooks that detailed the beginnings of Be My Muse. I ask the muse if they are okay to be in charge of the timer because I want them to feel both control over and responsibility towards me and the situation. We're always inside of relational habits and systems of understanding. An attempt because I don't believe a solo is a possible project-art is always made inter-subjectively, meaning is made inter-subjectively. Also, the instruction-based title is significant because the piece was also an attempt to make a solo. For example, the most intimate part of the piece is the longest-21 minutes-and it happens 21 minutes into the piece. The rhythm of the sections and what happens when and for how long were constructed as an accumulation of getting to know someone. It's kind of an A-B-C-A structure if you think of the units of time on a formal level. In Be My Muse, it functions as this very mechanical formal structure of seven minutes, 14 minutes, 21 minutes, and seven minutes, which totals 49 minutes. When I'm working with new ideas, I often use the time element of seven minutes and multiples of seven minutes as a timestamp to try out an idea, for it to expire, and to see if I want to keep going or change direction. ME: The time structure is really an artifact from my practice. What was your reasoning for the structure and how did you want it to operate on your muse? Is it defined more for your control or for the ability of the muse to offer information? Read More People's responses to it-and I've seen it in a museum and then at Pace-have been broad. It's broken down into timed sections that the muse is placed in control of, using an iPhone stopwatch and checking off every seven minutes, or multiples of seven, one section lasting twenty-one minutes. They know the venue, but they don't know the format. You don't know who they are in advance, and the invitation is to spend-I think they’re told the time-always 49 minutes, but they're not told much else other than that. But first let's discuss the general structure of the piece.īe My Muse-it's you and an invited other. I'm very interested in what sets this apart, perhaps, from that generation, or how it kind of engages those former conversations around socially engaged practice. MB: And then, of course, it was presented at the Hirshhorn, when I was a curator there, as part of a group exhibition in 2018-ultimately, the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian went on to purchase Be My Muse, which was the second work of performance that the Smithsonian had purchased, the first being a piece by Tino Sehgal. In that version of the work, I performed in a gallery that was closed off, so the performance was only the muse and myself-no one else could watch it. ![]() I performed it at an artist-run collective called Yeah Maybe. I believe in 2017, related to a Walker Art Center exhibition, it was in FD13 -is that an artist-run not-for-profit? MB: It seems of interest that Be My Muse has passed through many different types of spaces. In some sense, these works became the set in which I performed. ![]() As a resident at the Villa, I performed inside of the exhibition, within and amongst the various installations. Each artist took a room of the Villa and created work with the notion of decoration in mind. Asad Raza, Tino Sehgal, and Dorothea von Hantelmann curated an exhibition called Decor with works by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, and Daniel Buren, among others. Moriah Evans: Yes, it was at the Villa Empain in Brussels in 2016. ![]() It's been presented in very different spaces, from gallery to museum, and to different audiences-was it first presented at the Villa Empain in Brussels? This was its fourth presentation and its first time in New York. As I understand it, it has been presented three times before. Mark Beasley: We are here to discuss your presentation of Be My Muse at Pace Gallery in 2021. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity. During their wide-ranging conversation, Beasley and Evans parse the origins and structure of the work, examine the performance’s disruptive qualities, and more. In a recent interview, Mark Beasley, curatorial director of Pace Live, and choreographer and artist Moriah Evans discussed the performances of Be My Muse at Pace Gallery in New York this fall. ![]()
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