COLLECTION ONE

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STUFF THAT'S LIKE PERFORMANCE ART

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COLLECTION ONE | STUFF THAT'S LIKE PERFORMANCE ART |

Untitled (Personal Performance Piece)

This is documentation from a one-hour durational performance where I complete mundane tasks—such as administering my estrogen injection, calling my doctor, and eating a meal—inside of an enclosure made from shrink-wrap, steal, MDF, and foam. My artistic practice centers around my changing, transexual body, and my work blurs the line between body and art. With everything I make, I explore trans ontology through raw imagery, humor, and a skepticism about the value of subtlety. Untitled was made in conversation with works by artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cassils, and Doreen Garner, and it explores—and makes fun of—the commodification of queer bodies.

Status: Charlie’s Puke Performance

This lighthearted piece consists of me making myself vomit in a formal gown. In popular culture, transgender women are seen as gross. There is a seemingly self replicating scene in TV and movies, as seen in Ace Ventura and Family Guy, where cis characters vomit when they realize a beautiful woman is transgender. Well, with this piece, I am taking back control and making MYSELF vomit. Take that, cis establishment! Of course, I made this performance in front of a cultural backdrop that insists women, cis or trans, be simultaneously in control of and subject to our bodies. It owes a lot to Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather.

My Time in New York

This short film consists of clips documenting my preparation for and recovery from gender-affirming vaginoplasty. The Montage, which exists on a VHS tape, is set to a score of church bells from The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which I had my medical team play as I was anesthetized for surgery. When I was born in 2001, my mother played the same music in the delivery room. This video starts with edited audio from a speech by Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man elected in California. Milk’s political philosophy was rooted in the idea that queer liberation would only be possible if LGBTQ+ people lived openly, out of the closet—he was assassinated in 1978.