Rob Andrews Work | Artist Statement & CV | Return to Artist List
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Artist Statement
I am drawn to performance as one of our oldest forms of storytelling. The fear. Blood and spit—the susurration of gain and loss beyond language, beyond objects. I’m afraid we’ll lose this art, or it will change so much we’ll forget the stink of each other.
I enact rituals and tell stories using my body and the bodies of others. If stories aren’t re-told and distorted, they petrify. I steal from tradition, religious practice, and from my collaborators and get their stories wrong on purpose in order to make them right in another way.
My practice involves personal intervention into the muck of inherited mythology, public actions, and volunteer and forced collaborations. I try to join hands and muddy the waters we stand in because, after all, they are our waters.
I am drawn to performance as one of our oldest forms of storytelling. The fear. Blood and spit—the susurration of gain and loss beyond language, beyond objects. I’m afraid we’ll lose this art, or it will change so much we’ll forget the stink of each other.
I enact rituals and tell stories using my body and the bodies of others. If stories aren’t re-told and distorted, they petrify. I steal from tradition, religious practice, and from my collaborators and get their stories wrong on purpose in order to make them right in another way.
My practice involves personal intervention into the muck of inherited mythology, public actions, and volunteer and forced collaborations. I try to join hands and muddy the waters we stand in because, after all, they are our waters.
CV
selected performances/exhibitions:
Cusp (Invited Participant)
Performance
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NYC
Performer in William Pope.L’s “Cusp” performance
“landscape + object + animal”
May 10, 2010
Good Morning Song (Please Join Hands and Sing Along)
Performance
Grace Exhibition Space, NYC
April 2, 2010
Assembly
Performance
English Kills Gallery (in conjunction with SITE Festival)
March 6, 2010
Sehnsucht
Performance Documentation and Artist Writings
Online Artist Project
Launch: January 2010
Clean Dobill
Performance (in collaboration with Peter Dobill, Actionist)
Clean Humans Series. Gowanus Studio Space
January 23, 2010
Fountain Art Fair
Performance documentation presented by Grace Exhibition Space
December 3-6, 2009, Miami, FL
Gowanus Minotaur
Performance
Gowanus Studio Space, NYC
September 26, 2009
Tompkins Square Minotaur
Performance
40*PHI Art in the Parks, NYC
November 1, 2008
English Kills Minotaur
Performance
English Kills Gallery, NYC
August 16, 2008
Maximum Perception
Installation of performance relics and video
Group Show. English Kills Gallery, NYC
Aug. 16-September 1, 2008
Exit Minotaur
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
June 16 + 23, 2007
Hospital Mountain
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
Jan. 20 + 27, 2007
Water Project (Feet Clean)
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
June 3 + 10, 2006
The Studio Visit
Video
Group Show, Exit Art, NYC
January 7-March 25, 2006
Praying Project
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
April 15, 16, and 17, 2005
Your Big Buddy
Publishing project, performance
L Magazine
April 27-September 27, 2005
Exit Art Clean
Performance
Exit Reconstruction Biennial. Group Show. Exit Art. March 8-
May 29, 2003
365 Secrets to Mirabelle Marden and Melissa Bent
Performance, sculpture
Rivington Arms, NYC
September 1, 2002-Sept. 1, 2003
Emerging Artists Show
Performance, sculpture
Group Show. HERE Gallery, NYC
August 2002
Jumping in a Pair of Air Jordans 1,000,000 times
Performance
Location variable
Ongoing
professional:
Teacher, NYC Department of Education
September 2005-Current
Personal Assistant to Artist William Pope.L
1999-2001, New York, NY and Lewiston, ME
education:
Pace University, New York, NY
M.S., Education
Bates College, Lewiston, ME,
B.A. June 2001 Major in English, Concentration in Creative Writing.
awards:
Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art Grant 2010-11
Senseney Memorial Award. Given to graduating student who has shown outstanding creative ability and promise in writing. June 2001.
selected performances/exhibitions:
Cusp (Invited Participant)
Performance
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NYC
Performer in William Pope.L’s “Cusp” performance
“landscape + object + animal”
May 10, 2010
Good Morning Song (Please Join Hands and Sing Along)
Performance
Grace Exhibition Space, NYC
April 2, 2010
Assembly
Performance
English Kills Gallery (in conjunction with SITE Festival)
March 6, 2010
Sehnsucht
Performance Documentation and Artist Writings
Online Artist Project
Launch: January 2010
Clean Dobill
Performance (in collaboration with Peter Dobill, Actionist)
Clean Humans Series. Gowanus Studio Space
January 23, 2010
Fountain Art Fair
Performance documentation presented by Grace Exhibition Space
December 3-6, 2009, Miami, FL
Gowanus Minotaur
Performance
Gowanus Studio Space, NYC
September 26, 2009
Tompkins Square Minotaur
Performance
40*PHI Art in the Parks, NYC
November 1, 2008
English Kills Minotaur
Performance
English Kills Gallery, NYC
August 16, 2008
Maximum Perception
Installation of performance relics and video
Group Show. English Kills Gallery, NYC
Aug. 16-September 1, 2008
Exit Minotaur
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
June 16 + 23, 2007
Hospital Mountain
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
Jan. 20 + 27, 2007
Water Project (Feet Clean)
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
June 3 + 10, 2006
The Studio Visit
Video
Group Show, Exit Art, NYC
January 7-March 25, 2006
Praying Project
Performance
Exit Art, NYC
April 15, 16, and 17, 2005
Your Big Buddy
Publishing project, performance
L Magazine
April 27-September 27, 2005
Exit Art Clean
Performance
Exit Reconstruction Biennial. Group Show. Exit Art. March 8-
May 29, 2003
365 Secrets to Mirabelle Marden and Melissa Bent
Performance, sculpture
Rivington Arms, NYC
September 1, 2002-Sept. 1, 2003
Emerging Artists Show
Performance, sculpture
Group Show. HERE Gallery, NYC
August 2002
Jumping in a Pair of Air Jordans 1,000,000 times
Performance
Location variable
Ongoing
professional:
Teacher, NYC Department of Education
September 2005-Current
Personal Assistant to Artist William Pope.L
1999-2001, New York, NY and Lewiston, ME
education:
Pace University, New York, NY
M.S., Education
Bates College, Lewiston, ME,
B.A. June 2001 Major in English, Concentration in Creative Writing.
awards:
Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art Grant 2010-11
Senseney Memorial Award. Given to graduating student who has shown outstanding creative ability and promise in writing. June 2001.
The minotaur is tied on the street and left on the edge of the city.English Kills Minotaur
English Kills Gallery
In participation with the Maximum Perception Performance Festival
August 16, 2008
Duration: 5 hrs
The minotaur lay in his nest, bedded down in scraps from the outside that have fallen into his home. He lives and doesn’t live. Time is broken. Sleep is time. Time is just hunger. He remembers something, but forgets it. He dreams, and hears watery sounds from above and below. He puffs up, and then, nothing.Exit Minotaur
Exit Art
June 16 + 23, 2007
Duration: 4 hrs each evening
Ghosts walk around the minotaur and he is exhausted by jealousy. He is tied to an old tree. He feels hunger and smells the old familiar, but he wore his teeth down with worry a thousand years ago. He lie still as earth, listening.Tompkins Minotaur
Tompkins Square Park
40*PHI Art in the Parks
November 1, 2008
Duration: 5 hrs
Ghosts walk around the minotaur and he is exhausted by jealousy. He is tied to an old tree. He feels hunger and smells the old familiar, but he wore his teeth down with worry a thousand years ago. He lie still as earth, listening.Tompkins Minotaur
Tompkins Square Park
40*PHI Art in the Parks
November 1, 2008
Duration: 5 hrs
A dead factory is reborn. The minotaur was left behind, tied between floors to a broken loom with all of the old surveillance equipment running. The new owners celebrate their luck! The minotaur is taunted and cut. He fights wildly, but is wrenched back at the limit of his bindings.Gowanus Minotaur
Gowanus Studio Space
Performance with 3 channel live-feed projection
In participation with GSS launch, Umwelten
September 26, 2009
Duration: 5 hrs
A dead factory is reborn. The minotaur was left behind, tied between floors to a broken loom with all of the old surveillance equipment running. The new owners celebrate their luck! The minotaur is taunted and cut. He fights wildly, but is wrenched back at the limit of his bindings.Gowanus Minotaur
Gowanus Studio Space
Performance with 3 channel live-feed projection
In participation with GSS launch, Umwelten
September 26, 2009
Duration: 5 hrs
The minotaur dreams. He sniffs the old barn-stink and remembers being a child. Reaching forward, his ankle is bloodied.Grace Minotaur
Grace Exhibition Space
February 20, 2009
Featuring “Two Sails on a Sound”
by Animal Collective, Courtesy of Rough Trade Publishing
Duration: 3 hrs
This first in the Clean Humans series. In this work I clean Peter Dobill, Actionist. Peter and I design a situation that he finds suitable: a physically demanding, endurance based cleaning action. I clean and dry Peter’s body. I oil his body with frankincense and conserve the water that I use to clean him. Cleaning is a prayer. Cleaning is veneration. Cleaning is stealing.Clean Dobill
Gowanus Studio Space
January 23, 2010
Duration: 40 min
This first in the Clean Humans series. In this work I clean Peter Dobill, Actionist. Peter and I design a situation that he finds suitable: a physically demanding, endurance based cleaning action. I clean and dry Peter’s body. I oil his body with frankincense and conserve the water that I use to clean him. Cleaning is a prayer. Cleaning is veneration. Cleaning is stealing.Clean Dobill
Gowanus Studio Space
January 23, 2010
Duration: 40 min
I clean my body for three days. Cleaning is a prayer.Clean Prayer
Exit Art, NYC
Praying Project, Group Show
Supplemental text from Exit Art- rights reserved -below
April 15-17,2005
Duration: Between 4-6 hrs per clean
Photos: Thomas Hand Keefe
I clean the feet of visitors to the gallery without speaking. I wash each participant’s feet in water, dry, and oil their feet with frankincense. I hold their feet and we consider each other. This is prayer. I conserve the water from each participant in jars and place them throughout the gallery.Water Project - Feet Clean
Exit Art, NYC
June 3 + 10, 2006
Duration: 3 hrs per evening
I reach out to strangers through Craigslist and ask them to allow themselves to be cleaned by other strangers. We lay down together in the gallery, and visitors clean our bodies.Assembly
English Kills Gallery
In participation with the SITE Performance Festival
March 6, 2010
Duration: 2 hrs
I reach out to strangers through Craigslist and ask them to allow themselves to be cleaned by other strangers. We lay down together in the gallery, and visitors clean our bodies.Assembly
English Kills Gallery
In participation with the SITE Performance Festival
March 6, 2010
Duration: 2 hrs
I attempt to keep a system from failing. The system is a body, and I try to keep the body full. People join hands around me, but the body empties quickly.Hospital Mountain
Exit Art
January 20 + 27, 2007
Poem, used with permission, by Steve Dillon
Duration: 3 hrs per evening
Photos: Elizabeth Whiting
In winter, I place a door outside. The door is a body. I pray over the door. I lay with the door, and cut it apart. I conserve the pieces and carry the remains from that place.Sky Burial Part One - Enter Out
English Kills Gallery
In participation with the Maximum Perception Performance Festival
December 11, 2009
Duration: 3 hrs
On the night of my thirtieth birthday, in winter, I carry the remains of a door six miles from my home to a place of light. I release the door and prepare my body in its place. There is a holy thrum. Light pulls down. Light pushes up. I lose my body. My body is lost.Sky Burial Part Two - Empty Empty
Exit Art (pilgrimage location variable)
December 18, 2009
Duration: 6 hrs
On the night of my thirtieth birthday, in winter, I carry the remains of a door six miles from my home to a place of light. I release the door and prepare my body in its place. There is a holy thrum. Light pulls down. Light pushes up. I lose my body. My body is lost.Sky Burial Part Two - Empty Empty
Exit Art (pilgrimage location variable)
December 18, 2009
Duration: 6 hrs
Good Morning Song (Please Join Hands and Sing Along). I sing to animate a totem, and use the four elements under the direction of a local mystic: earth, air (the breath of song), water, and fire. I invite participants to sing with me and I sing to exhaustion.Good Morning
Good Morning
It’s a very good morning…
Good Morning
Good Morning to you
Boo-boo-bee-doo…
Good Morning Song (Please join hands and sing along)
Grace Exhibition Space
April 2, 2010
Duration: 3 hrs
Good Morning Song (Please Join Hands and Sing Along). I sing to animate a totem, and use the four elements under the direction of a local mystic: earth, air (the breath of song), water, and fire. I invite participants to sing with me and I sing to exhaustion.Good Morning
Good Morning
It’s a very good morning…
Good Morning
Good Morning to you
Boo-boo-bee-doo…
Good Morning Song (Please join hands and sing along)
Grace Exhibition Space
April 2, 2010
Duration: 3 hrs
I jump in the same pair of Air Jordan sneakers 1,000,000 times.Jumping in a Pair of Air Jordans 1,000,000 Times
Location Variable
September 2002-Present