Deadtime, an anatomy study
February 17–May 11, 2024
A Thesis on Spillage, a Symposium-like Gathering: February 17, 10am–7pm
The Graham Foundation presents Cally Spooner as the 2024 Graham Foundation Fellow. Spooner’s fellowship showcases her multi-year research project, “Deadtime,” which delves into the relationship between performance and the social body.
“Deadtime” is a thought-provoking exploration of the boundaries between life and death in a neoliberal world. The project features a diverse range of media, including sound works, films, paintings, sculptures, and architectural interventions. Through these works, Spooner investigates how the current economic and political conditions impact our perception of life and death and our ability to distinguish between the two.
At the Graham Foundation, “Deadtime” will be curated by Sarah Herda, the foundation’s director, and Hendrik Folkerts, curator of international contemporary art and head of exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibition will open to the public on February 17, 2024, and will feature a series of performances, choreographies, conversations, and lectures.
Spooner and Folkerts have developed a score that structures the event, aligning it with previous iterations of the “Deadtime” works. This score guides the viewer through the exhibition, encouraging them to contemplate the complex relationship between life, death, and the social body.
A Thesis on Spillage, a Symposium-like Gathering: February 17, 2024, 10am–7pm
Assembled by Hendrik Folkerts and Cally Spooner with: Nuar Alsadir, Marquis Bey, Wendy Brown, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Tony Cokes, Hendrik Folkerts, Melody Giron, Irena Haiduk, Sarah Herda, Ralph Lemon and Darrell Jones, Maggie Segale, and Cally Spooner, among others.
In the morning
At 10am, Cally Spooner introduces the day, scored with DEAD TIME (2018), accompanied by Melody Giron, on cello. At 10:43 and 55 seconds in the am, Cally phones Wendy Brown, political scientist and staunch critic of neoliberalism’s stealth revolution to ask: WHAT HAPPENED?
At 11:45am, Maggie Segale does a spine roll.
At 11:53am, we will have a coffee break.
At 12:10pm, Joshua Chambers-Letson, author of After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life (2018), spills a communion that does not leave our dead behind but draws them into the present. At 1pm, Marquis Bey, expert on fugitivity and stealing themselves back, delivers a manifesto on spillage.
At 1:15 everyone eats lunch.
In the afternoon
At 2:30pm, artist Tony Cokes considers fragments, in relation to each other. At 3pm, Maggie Segale dances Still Life on a Single Breath. At 3:10pm, choreographers and long-time collaborators Ralph Lemon and Darrell Jones rant.
At 4pm, we will have a coffee break.
At 4:30pm, psychoanalyst and poet Nuar Alsadir presents a spillage of Animal Joy (2022).
Frrrrrrr, prrrrr, frrrrrrrr, prrrrrrrr, mmmmmrrrrrr, throughout the day and at 5:15pm, artist Irena Haiduk inhales thick smoke issuing from the fallen buildings and then, only moments later, exhales billions of zero-shaped smoke rings.
At 6pm, we will stretch our legs.
In the evening:
At 6:15pm, Maggie Segale dances SWEAT SHAME ETC. At 6:18pm, a critique of the day will be provided.
At 7pm, we transition.
Graham Foundation
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610
USA