ART :: OPENING MAY 31 :: AWESOME CREATOR CHLOË BASS's BUREAU OF SELF-RECOGNITION @ MOMENTA ART
We first introduced this project to you back in September of 2012, and went on to host a number of exchanges between Bass and BSR participants as part of our FIELD NOTES series.
You can also find currency from the Bank of the Bureau of Self-Recognition (seen above) available as a cut-out in PRINT! Vol. 2, and re/productions from the project on view / for sale as part of Exit Strata’s curated show, EXHIBIT A : RE/PRODUCTION AND RE/PRESENTATION, next month. We are sorry to have our events overlap on the 14th, but excited to share RE:CONVERSATIONS/feedback on the Bureau Artist’s Talk with Chloë and Jessalyn Wakefield (am i human Press) online after the fact — not in small part given the closely shared intention of both events.
Let us highly encourage you to attend these events and familiarize yourself with Bass’s work, Momenta, and the extensive Arts in Bushwick offerings! Our team will be in attendance on friday… see you there!
Chloë Bass
The Bureau of Self-Recognition
May 31 – June 30, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, May 31, 6 – 8pm
Events:
Friday, June 14, 7pm: Book Launch Party + Artist’s Talk
Friday, June 21, 7pm: Free Consultations Post Mortem
Sunday, June 23, hourly 3 – 6pm: Closing Performance
The Bureau of Self-Recognition is a single installation capturing the results of an long term conceptual project. From October 2011 through December 2012, Chloë Bass performed as the Bureau of Self-Recognition: a business designed to track self-recognition as a process. The project attempts to define the nature of the “daily” as either fully formed within us or as a social construct. Bass conducted various exercises (with herself, with single participants in one-on-one performances, and with larger groups) that used various standardized lenses (a therapist’s office, a bank, a restaurant) as strategies to identify and modify habitual behavior. Individual works within The Bureau of Self-Recognition include Practice of the Daily, Everyday Interiors, Free Consultations, The Bank of Self-Recognition, and Tea Will Be Served.
At Momenta, Bass will be presenting phase four of the project. Previous phases examined the theory, practice, and dissemination of the work. Phase four involves both an installation and live performances, allowing viewers to take part in the Bureau both as an art object and as a lived experience. The installation will showcase photo, video, and found object materials produced and/or collected over the course of the full conceptual work. Bass will track three routes through the installation that encourage different experiential outcomes for each viewer. The exhibit coincides with the release of the Bureau of Self-Recognition monograph, published by am i human Press.
Friday, June 14th, 7pm:
Book Launch Party + Artist’s Talk
To document some of the experiential work of the Bureau of Self-Recognition, Chloë Bass produced an artist’s book with Jessalyn Wakefield and am i human Press (Portland, Oregon). The book includes essays by Esther Neff and Eric Heist, images produced both by Bass and other project participants, and text by Bass and Wakefield. This event will feature a discussion with both Bass and Wakefield about the art of turning a conceptual performance project into a story, and the collaborative processes shared between performance and book-making. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Friday, June 21st, 7pm:
Free Consultations Post Mortem
From July – December 2012, The Bureau of Self-Recognition held a Free Consultations program: one-on-one performances between Chloë Bass and individual participants. These performances took the form of therapy sessions, during which each participant was asked a standardized set of questions and then asked to complete a simple mirror exercise. Following the initial session, each participant was assigned a personalized exercise which he or she then conducted for 30 days, sharing the results with Bass.
This discussion invites the participants in these performances to share their experience of working with Chloë Bass in a process both intimate and distanced. The conversation will be moderated by Esther Neff.
Sunday, June 23rd, 3 – 6pm:
Closing Performance
For the third and final event associated with the Bureau of Self-Recognition exhibit, Chloë Bass will reprise the private performance offered for the opening. In this performance, Bass will take on the docent’s role and lead visitors through a guided tour of the exhibit. Tours will be offered on the hour, and will last for approximately 30 minutes.
Chloë Bass is a Brooklyn based performance and conceptual artist. She has received commissions from the Culture Project’s Women Center Stage Festival, the Bushwick Starr’s Bushwhack Festival, and 3rd Ward’s Moviehouse, and residencies from POGON (Zagreb, Croatia) and D21 Kunstraum/5533 art space (Leipzig, Germany and Istanbul, Turkey). Recent artistic work has been seen at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart, Exit Art, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, ITINERANT Performance Festival, Glasshouse Project, Panoply Performance Laboratory, SCOPE Art Fair, Fountain Miami, Agape Enterprise, and the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas for the New City. Bass received her MFA (Performance and Interactive Media Arts) in 2011 from Brooklyn College and her BA (Theater Studies) in 2006 from Yale University. For more information: chloebass.com.
