To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:12:33 -0400
Subject: [Puptcrit] Stuart Sherman exhibition in NYC


Hey Puptkins,
  Here is news about an upcoming exhibition concerning the life and  
work of the late Stuart Sherman (may his name be for a blessing)-- one  
of the great stars of the late 20th Century, mini-tabletop-object- 
theatre universe. He was a source of inspiration for us at Great Small  
Works and we were fortunate to have featured him in performance in a  
few of our toy Theatre Festivals.
Don't miss if you can help it.


Artist, performer, filmmaker and writer Stuart Sherman has returned to  
New York, concurrent with a season of performance that descends upon  
the city this November, courtesy of Performa. Eight years after his  
passing, an exhibition at NYU's 80WSE gallery brings together the  
first extensive sampling of Sherman's prolific output. A folding table  
Sherman used for his tabletop performances in Washington Square Park  
in the 1970s announces the exhibition from the street-level windows of  
80 Washington Square East.

Sherman's early performances were short, non-narrative works he  
scripted and performed using simple store-bought objects, manipulating  
them in ways that demonstrate their use or unexpected relations to one  
another-he might, for example, take a cheap plastic toy from a  
suitcase, place it alongside another one, move them around, then put  
them away.  "Magic tricks without the magic," to quote exhibition  
curator Yolanda Hawkins, might be the best way to describe them.  
Between 1975 and 1994, Sherman developed a series of nineteen  
"spectacles": resolutely anti-spectacular works where everyday  
gestures like reading a book or sharpening a pencil are performed with  
deadpan concentration and understated humor. Several are on view here  
as filmed documentation, supplemented by contextual wall labels and  
quotes from the artist-not to mention cameos from the "actors," like  
the TV-shaped pencil sharpener with starring turns as both symbolic TV  
and actual sharpener in the 1978 Eleventh Spectacle (The Erotic).

"Beginningless Thought/Endless Seeing: The Works of Stuart Sherman" is  
on view through December 19.  80WSE is located at 80 Washington Square  
East in New York.

A screening of Stuart Sherman's film and video works, curated and  
hosted by Bérénice Reynaud, will take place November 11, 7 PM, at  
NYU's Einstein Auditorium, 34 Stuyvesant Street, in New York.  Plays  
by Stuart Sherman will be presented December 4 to 7 at the Emily  
Harvey Foundation Gallery, 537 Broadway, 2nd floor, in New York.

"Stuart Sherman: Nothing Up My Sleeve" takes place November 8-22 at  
Participant Inc., 253 East Houston Street, New York.









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