July 1996: MINE, a sculptural installation and performance conceived and directed by sculptor Rona Pondick, will be presented in the Museum’s Grand Lobby in November 1996 by The Brooklyn Museum in collaboration with The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Artists in Action: BAM’s Visual Arts Initiative, a program that gives visual artists the lead role in performance projects. The performances will take place during the evenings of November 13, 14, 15, and 16, and the installation, which will be augmented after the performances, will continue through January 4, 1998.
The visual elements of MINE will include an elongated and narrow doorway, dividing the Grand Lobby into two separate spaces, suggesting the inside and the outside world. The inside world, represented by a bedroom, will include furniture with radically altered scale to create a bizarre presence. The phrase “I WANT” will be written compulsively over all the sides of the furniture, suggesting a wide range of childish desires taken to an absurd end. From underneath the long thin bed will spill out hundreds of ears, soft and clay-like on one side and jagged on the other. A clothesline will run from front to back, hung with costumes the dancers will wear.
Front and back, and the internal and the external, will be the central themes of the installation and the performance. The dancers’ costumes will be based on men’s and women’s clothing and will be transparent. These outer costumes will be exchanged between the dancers throughout the performance. The dancers will each have a large image of a mouth with teeth on their backsides. (The mouth, like the ear, is an organ that mediates inside and out for Pondick.) The dancers’ movements within and between both areas of the installation will be important performance elements.
The performances of MINE, which will include original music and choreography, are a collaborative work with choreographer Sara Rudner, composer William Matthews, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, and co-director and painter Robert Feintuch, working under Rona Pondick’s direction.
Born in Brooklyn, Rona Pondick is known for her provocative sculptures and installations, which are both hilarious and horrific. Since first gaining recognition in the 1991 Whitney Biennial she has had numerous solo exhibitions and is represented in several public collections, including The Brooklyn Museum. She is currently represented by the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York.
A limited number of tickets for the performances of MINE will be available at the Brooklyn Academy of Music box office at (718) 636-4100.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1995 - 2003. 07-12/1996, 090-91.
