Fine Arts: Painting & Graphic Art

Can painting be performative? Students from the Department of Painting and Graphic Arts at the University of Art and Design Linz find out in a performance inspired by Anne Carson's novel "Autobiography of Red."

Can painting perform? Students from the Painting & Graphics class at the University of Arts Linz find out in a performance inspired by Anne Carson's novel, Autobiography of Red.

A “novel in verse,” Autobiography of Red is based on “Geryoneis,” a poem written by Greek lyric poet Stesichorus in the 6th century BC, which tells the story of a red-winged monster named Geryon and his “heroic” killer, Heracles. Carson's work includes her translation of the existing fragments of this poem, and then expounds on the myth with a queer coming of age story about Geryon, set in the present day. Over the course of the semester, while reading this novel together, we simultaneously researched performative possibilities of painting, and more specifically, we found a shared interest in painting, text, and sound that could act as threshold experiences. We looked at ways in which paintings could play with the idea of the multiple—playing with opacity, reflection, and translucence. The performance itself is a Theater of the Multiple; multiple rooms, multiple performative modes, multiple ways of looking and listening.

Autobiography of Red is a shapeshifter. It is a book that has many heads, a form that reflects the body of the protagonist Geryon. It is a web of fragmentary, dreamlike scenes from the life of Geryon – a novel that defies summary, because in essence it is anti-whole. It is about questioning monstrosity. It is about subjectivity in motion. It is about alternative, anti-hero narratives. It is about alienation. It is about the fluidity of being. It is about queer sexuality. It is about becoming. How can painting be staged into this flux? Together as a class, we sought to approach these themes with the same multiplicity that the text itself offers. Ideas poured in, getting tangled in a matrix of collectivity, and in turn untangled to reveal what is possible in collective imagination.

We discovered ways in which text, sound, and painting could share a space in performance. Students took Anne Carson's own imaginative cues in her re-imagination of queer Geryon, and continued to rewrite the stories. These texts became integrated into a collaboratively built sonic fabric, which in turn integrated into a staged world of painting.

In this performance, we offer you a guided tour through a performative exhibition of E.A.C.H. through three spaces that offer three distinct worlds of Autobiography of Red.

On site: University of Art and Design Linz, Domgasse 1, 2nd floor, Aktsaal (DO.02.35)

Can painting be performative? Students from the Department of Painting and Graphic Arts at the University of Art and Design Linz find out in a performance inspired by Anne Carson's novel "Autobiography of Red."

Can painting perform? Students from the Painting & Graphics class at the University of Arts Linz find out in a performance inspired by Anne Carson's novel, Autobiography of Red.

A “novel in verse,” Autobiography of Red is based on “Geryoneis,” a poem written by Greek lyric poet Stesichorus in the 6th century BC, which tells the story of a red-winged monster named Geryon and his “heroic” killer, Heracles. Carson's work includes her translation of the existing fragments of this poem, and then expounds on the myth with a queer coming of age story about Geryon, set in the present day. Over the course of the semester, while reading this novel together, we simultaneously researched performative possibilities of painting, and more specifically, we found a shared interest in painting, text, and sound that could act as threshold experiences. We looked at ways in which paintings could play with the idea of the multiple—playing with opacity, reflection, and translucence. The performance itself is a Theater of the Multiple; multiple rooms, multiple performative modes, multiple ways of looking and listening.

Autobiography of Red is a shapeshifter. It is a book that has many heads, a form that reflects the body of the protagonist Geryon. It is a web of fragmentary, dreamlike scenes from the life of Geryon – a novel that defies summary, because in essence it is anti-whole. It is about questioning monstrosity. It is about subjectivity in motion. It is about alternative, anti-hero narratives. It is about alienation. It is about the fluidity of being. It is about queer sexuality. It is about becoming. How can painting be staged into this flux? Together as a class, we sought to approach these themes with the same multiplicity that the text itself offers. Ideas poured in, getting tangled in a matrix of collectivity, and in turn untangled to reveal what is possible in collective imagination.

We discovered ways in which text, sound, and painting could share a space in performance. Students took Anne Carson's own imaginative cues in her re-imagination of queer Geryon, and continued to rewrite the stories. These texts became integrated into a collaboratively built sonic fabric, which in turn integrated into a staged world of painting.

In this performance, we offer you a guided tour through a performative exhibition of E.A.C.H. through three spaces that offer three distinct worlds of Autobiography of Red.

On site: University of Art and Design Linz, Domgasse 1, 2nd floor (DO.02.35)