Photograph of Alix Pearlstein's performance at Esopus Space
taken by an audience member
Esopus 16 (Spring 2011)
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Artist’s Project: Alix Pearlstein
By Alix Pearlstein
In November 2010, New York–based artist Alix Pearlstein staged “Shoot: Moving Paper Fantasy,” a photo and video shoot staged as a participatory open rehearsal/performance at Esopus Space. Observing Godard’s dictum, “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun,” a group of actors performed a series of scenes based on the action of shooting, while the audience shot the actors with still and video cameras. The resulting images were uploaded to a Twitter account and ultimately utilized by Pearlstein for her project here, which highlights the shifting roles between performer and audience, protagonist and adversary.
New York–based artist Alix Pearlstein’s work in video, installation, and performance has been exhibited widely. She has had solo exhibitions at On Stellar Rays, New York; the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; The Kitchen, New York; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York; Lugar Commun, Lisbon; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Postmasters Gallery, New York. Pearlstein’s selected group exhibitions include MoBY, Tel Aviv; Internationale D’Art De Quebec; EV+A, Ireland; BAM/PFA, Berkeley; SMAK in Ghent, Belgium; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Biennale de Lyon, France; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Pearlstein is the recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2011 Grants to Artists Award and is currently on the faculty of the M.F.A. programs at the School of Visual Arts and Bard College; she also serves on the board of governors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Pearlstein has staged performances in New York at I.C.I.’s 35th Anniversary Benefit at The Park Avenue Armory, at Salon 94, and at Esopus Space.