{"id":6661,"date":"2024-08-23T21:38:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T21:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/?p=6661"},"modified":"2024-11-07T06:06:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T06:06:32","slug":"geowyex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/geowyex\/","title":{"rendered":"Geo Wyex, Nobody Wade Never Too Much"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geo Wyex <\/strong>
\nin collaboration with Constantina Zavitsanos, S*an D. Henry-Smith, Kamron Hazel, NDNMK Solutions, and Ghaith kween Qoutainy<\/strong><\/p>\n

October 23\u2013December 21, 2024<\/strong> <\/span>
\nOpening: Wednesday, October 23, 6\u20139pm
\nPerformance: Saturday, October 26, 7:30pm doors, 8pm start<\/strong> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0Muck Studies Dept. at the Bonnet Carr\u00e9 Spillway, 2019, performance documentation by Kari Robertson.<\/p>\n

JOAN presents <\/span>Nobody Wade Never Too Much<\/em><\/strong>, the first institutional solo exhibition in Los Angeles by Rotterdam- and New York-based artist and musician, Geo Wyex. Developed collaboratively with Constantina Zavitsanos, S*an D. Henry-Smith, Kamron Hazel, NDNMK Solutions, and Ghaith kween Qoutainy, this site-specific installation brings together new sculpture, sound, performance, ephemera, and interventions in architectural space as an extension of Wyex\u2019s multi-year project, Muck Studies Dept. (2018\u2013present).<\/span><\/p>\n

Muck Studies Dept. is an ongoing speculative fiction project and archive\u2014a retelling of the past from an imagined future. It contains many forms and formats, including performance, video, poetry, music, and installation, with research taking place in New Orleans, New York, and the Netherlands. Muck Studies Dept. is also an imaginary municipal agent, surveying the bottom of low-lying water areas, \u201clooking for stars out of what stinks.\u201d Informed by the aesthetics and methodologies of black Atlantic poetics, speculative narrative, investigative journalism, and absurdist theater, the project \u201ctouches\u201d on elements such as mud, metals, gas, rocks, coins\u2014that which might be found beneath surfaces, or more precisely, bodies of water\u2014and connects them to what resonates within one\u2019s historical context and lived experience. This includes extractive industry, time travel, historical immanence, and the sensual expression of belonging. The title of this project is taken from \u201cmuckraking,\u201d especially so from the legacy of American writer Ida B. Wells, whose investigative journalism exposed the injustices of lynching practices and brought the \u201cmuck\u201d of corruption in government and business to the surface. By looking at the tension of what is and isn\u2019t visible, and studying the holes that look out into a deep past that is present, Wyex\u2019s research urgently addresses absences in the historical record and the pitfalls of representation, questioning what visibility does or doesn\u2019t do for those seeking recognition or redress from structures of power.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody Wade Never Too Much<\/span><\/em> centers around Wyex\u2019s new script, based loosely on Irish playwright Samuel Beckett\u2019s 1952 absurdist classic, <\/span>Waiting for Godot<\/span><\/em>.<\/em> Organized as a circular conversation between three professors of Muck Study, the text is staged with office chairs turned into sound machines. The characters and related cosmologies reverberate at the edges (i.e. in the \u201cmuck\u201d) as they meditate on the failures and possibilities of a shared sense of identity\u2014in the landscape, in the body, between bodies, and beyond the confines of institutional walls. Further ruminating on what political action can look like, and how organizing strategies can be enacted in our contemporary moment, the work performs a deeply inside job: it refuses separation from the conditions of race, class, and gender, but raises the possibility of connection, pleasure, and insurgency in excess of what is made legible or apparent through and by institutional structures. Audio recordings, including Luther Vandross\u2019s 1981 hit \u201cNever Too Much\u201d and the sound of Wyex\u2019s piano being gently dismantled in Rotterdam, intersect with the transmission of the professors\u2019 voices over FM radio signal, moving in and out of both visible and less visible spaces. This convergence allows for a loose constellation of meaning that complicates the boundaries between the audience and the characters, between inside and outside. Wyex invites his audience to wade with him through the sonic, the historical, the embodied, and the shimmering, offering possibilities for new frameworks of study and transmission.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upcoming Programs and Autograph Press:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday, October 26 at 7:30pm at JOAN, Wyex will present <\/span>Nobody Wade Never Too Much<\/span><\/em>, a performance developed with dramaturgical support from artist Will Rawls<\/strong>. The performance is co-presented with ICA LA<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0and the Scientia Sexualis<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00a0exhibition curated by Jennifer Doyle and Jeanne Vaccaro,\u00a0as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For more i<\/span>nfo on the performance, see here<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>A<\/span>dditional programs to be announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

A poster composed of Wyex\u2019s script and drawings will be available at the gallery. The foldout is designed by The Rodina<\/strong> and produced by JOAN\u2019s Autograph<\/a><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This project is part of JOAN\u2019s Chapter Two<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span>o<\/span>f programming, which runs from April 2024 through July 2025 and brings together artists and collectives that explore varying communal structures of intervention and support as experiments towards liberatory futures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Geo Wyex<\/b> 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, <\/span>ATM FM<\/span><\/em>, was released through Muck Studies Dept. in 2020. He is currently based between Rotterdam and New York. <\/span><\/p>\n

Curated by Suzy Halajian
\nCuratorial assistance from Camila Pernisco
\nInstallation by Ian Page
\nCreative and installation support from Kamron Hazel
\nAudio support from \u201cASMR Conductor & Demolitionist\u201d NDNMK Productions & sound artist\/creative consultant Ghaith kween Qoutainy
\nVoices of the \u201cProfessors\u201d: Geo Wyex, Constantina Zavitsanos, and S*an D. Henry-Smith
\nProduction support from Nahui Garcia and Ronald Tailor Shop
\nGraphic design by The Rodina
\nSpecial thanks to Jennifer Doyle and Jeanne Vaccaro<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 23, 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-237","category-current"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6880,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6661\/revisions\/6880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanlosangeles.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}