Performance: Geo Wyex, Nobody Wade Never Too Much

Written and performed by Geo Wyex
Movement consultation and dramaturgy by Will Rawls

Saturday, October 26, 7:30pm doors, 8pm start at JOAN

JOAN and ICA LA co-present a performance by Geo Wyex developed with dramaturgical support from artist Will Rawls. This program is in conjunction with Nobody Wade Never Too Much, the first institutional solo exhibition in Los Angeles by Rotterdam- and New York-based artist and musician, Geo Wyex.

Photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith.

During a university staff meeting / at the bottom of a river / at the site of the big bang, an esteemed professor, chair of Muck Studies Dept., collapses through and with a constellation of objects, processes, and material in a murky and gaseous scene of communion with that which is yet to arrive.

A relative of Samuel Beckett’s 1952 absurdist play Waiting for Godot and Luther Vandross’s 1981 hit single “Never Too Much”, the performance is an extension of Wyex’s ongoing project Muck Study. Muck Study is a leaky method of approach to black and trans life that uses the sensorial as an investigative tool to allow for a certain squelch of history and meaning. Muck Studies Dept., an investigative personality inspired by so-called “muck-raker” Ida B. Wells and the cartoon character Inspector Gadget, conducts this research by “touching the bottom” of shallow, murky water, “looking for stars, outta what stinks.”

Geo Wyex is an artist and educator who works in music, performance, sculpture, poetry, and sound. He often takes the form of various characters in his work, usually outcasts that counter an institutional narrative, and finds poetry in landscapes that are discounted. In doing so, he engages in processes of reclamation, re-envisioning communal experiences and invigorating them. His record, ATM FM, was released through Muck Studies Dept. in 2020. He is currently based between Rotterdam and New York.

Will Rawls is a multidisciplinary choreographer, dancer, and writer. In 2023, his performance and video installation, [siccer], toured to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Momentary, On the Boards, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Other recent presentations include the 35th Bienal de São Paulo, Counterpublic 2023, and Liste Art Fair. He has received fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Herb Alpert Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, United States Artists, Rauschenberg Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony. His writing has been published by the Hammer Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, and Dancing While Black Journal. He is currently Associate Professor of Choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA.

This performance is co-presented by JOAN and ICA LA on the occasion of their concurrent Fall presentations of work by Geo Wyex. See here for more information about the Scientia Sexualis exhibition curated by Jennifer Doyle and Jeanne Vaccaro at ICA LA, as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

This project is made possible with financial support from the Mondriaan Fund, a Dutch public funding organization focusing on visual and cultural heritage. The performance program is supported by ICA LA.