As part of the ongoing exhibition Studio Systems, the artist Dawn Kasper performs a new, site-specific sound composition and sculptural environment exploring historical references to the philosophy of desire. Using a process-based and itinerant approach (she has worked outside a permanent studio since 2008), Kasper creates a kind of living sculpture she calls the Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment. In 2012 she moved herself and the entire contents of her apartment-slash-studio to the third-floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for the duration of the Whitney Biennial; she spent the three-month period conducting research, holding studio visits and playing music while the museum was open to the public.

In creating transparent and improvisational works, Kasper discloses the intricacies of her process in front of an audience, conflating the distinction between private and public, preparation and final performance. Conceived expressly for the American Academy in Rome, Kasper’s On Desire or THE METHOD combines sound, improvised movement and a constantly evolving installation made up of props, including musical instruments and recording devices, as well as the data she accumulates during the course of the performance.

Kasper is an interdisciplinary artist and her work emerges out of a fascination with existentialism, vulnerability, desire, and the construction of meaning. She has been featured in exhibitions at the Migros Museum, Zurich (2005); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2011); Tramway, Glasgow (2012); the 2012 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012); AND Collection, Bolzano (2014); Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York (2015); and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon (2015).

The exhibition Studio Systems will be open from 4pm to 8pm on Thursday 26 May 2016.

STUDIO SYSTEMS EVENTS

Reading
Peter Schjeldahl – The Critic as Artist: Updating Oscar Wilde
12 May 2016
6:30pm, AAR Lecture Room

Exhibition Opening
19 May 2016
6pm-9pm, AAR Gallery

Inaugural Lecture
Theaster Gates – The Sermon on the Buildings
19 May 2016
6pm, AAR Lecture Room

Performance
Bryony Roberts – Corpo Estraneo
16 June 2016
​6-8pm, Piazza del Campidoglio

STUDIO SYSTEMS HOURS:

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 4:00pm–7:00pm until 3 July 2016