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Meg Stuart, performance photo of It’s not funny, 2006. Photo: Chris Van der Burght. All images of Meg Stuart performances courtesy of the artist and Damaged Goods.

I was introduced to Meg Stuart’s work in the late ’90s by Catherine Bastide, my gallerist in Brussels. She knew that I was interested in dance and encouraged me to approach Stuart, whom she was very enthusiastic about, regarding a collaborative theater work I was making. I learned that Stuart, an American, and her company Damaged Goods had been established in Brussels for a few years, and that, in fact, they already were involved in a number of collaborations with other choreographers and visual artists. As is usually the case with things you’re interested in but haven’t yet seen firsthand, fantasy starts embellishing the information at your disposal. A pleasantly distorted and potentially misdirected view of works of art by another person can persist for years. The self-consciousness people displayed when struggling to describe Stuart’s work made me particularly curious. When I finally saw the piece ALIBI in 2003, I understood why Stuart’s work resisted being summarized: it is enormously confident but at the same time spectacularly full of doubt. Although there are no obvious idioms at play in her pieces, they have a palpable sense of familiarity and recognition. They are fiercely introverted and precarious, yet also affirm presentation and display. Part of the pleasure of experiencing them, for me, comes from seeing all those plates spin in the air. I was happy to be in discussion with her in Berlin last December, and find out more about the space she has insisted upon to make her work.

—CATHERINE SULLIVAN

 

Catherine Sullivan, installation view of Triangle of Need, 2007; 16mm film transferred to digital media. Total running time: 56 minutes. All images of Triangle of Need courtesy of the artist, Walker Art Center, and Metro Pictures.

To be honest, I wasn’t aware of Catherine Sullivan’s work until we were both teaching at the Mobile Academy in Warsaw in 2006. I’d heard people drop her name but I got more intrigued and fascinated by her art through the lecture and workshop she gave. These even led me to study her movement approach and scores. Her eclectic work in theater and film reveals a complex and intelligent take on performance art. She explores the foundations of dramatic conventions and means of expression, and filters them out from multiple historical references. Her works read like manifestos in their formal questioning of visual arts, theater, music, performance art, and literature. They are dense, cryptic, uncomfortably familiar, and elegant. I have rarely seen a visual artist approach movement with such sophistication. Catherine is also interested in the emotional tension between representation, the performers, and the public. We met through our shared practice and thoughts.

—MEG STUART

 

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