Greg Staats Condolence Untitled_liminal_effort
G. Staats, 2010
From a real-time performance to a video as electronic archive exhibited in the gallery, untitled_liminal_effort is the first of a series of attempts by Greg Staats to redefine his relationship to the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] concept of condolence and its restorative aesthetic and effects on those who grieve and those who condole. Staats’ effort at an oral translation is at once a personal confrontation and a continuum of performative burdens.
Using the screen as intermedia, Staats investigates the emotional void generated by his own loss of the Mohawk language and its concurrent world-view. The artist’s body becomes the site of exploration of a metaphysical reciprocity through the attempted utterance of 14 translated Mohawk phrases intuitively extracted from the 3 of the 4 parts of the condolence ceremony known as the Mourning Rituals: [On the Journey, Wiping Their Tears (the Requickening Address), and At the Edge of the Woods or Near the Thorny Bushes].
Staats films (and records) his own live performance during which his hesitations and breath expose an underlying emotional and vulnerable dialogue: confronting the fear of the loss of self, a state of mind further reflected by the codified and heightening voice of the dark wampum string while the screen becomes its mnemonic support.
Performance
Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 5 pm
10$ – entry fee
G. Staats, 2010
Greg Staats (b. Ohsweken, Ontario) is a photographer and video artist whose works combine language, mnemonics and the natural world. He has had solo exhibitions at the Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Gallery, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Mercer Union, Kelowna Art Gallery, Gallery TPW, Toronto. Group exhibitions include: Ottawa Art Gallery, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art.
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
Condoléances Effort_liminal_sans_titre Condolence. Greg Staats – Photo Paul Litherland, 2011
