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MARC LAFIA

MARC LAFIA

varied works

There is so much writing on my site, I want here to present a visual essay of certain works leading into works shown in exhibition.

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Artist’s Statement

Whereas my earlier performance works—Everything is Everything, There Is

Nothing Else, and Practicing Human—reached across time and culture in

search of the divine and the presence of being, this new piece returns,

almost inevitably, to California.

California, where I’ve spent many years of my life—as a late teen in the

desert, then at UCLA film school and in Hollywood. In 1996, I moved to San

Francisco and started artandculture.com, after which I came to New York

City to work for the MoMA as chief creative director of their emergent

digital arm.

As a teen and college student, like many, I sought something beyond the

Western Judeo-Christian framework I was born into. I turned, both casually

and in earnest, toward other wisdoms—Eastern philosophies, Native

traditions—out of a longing. America, a culture at war with itself—violent,

carceral, extractive—left us no room for equanimity; it seemed always in

struggle. And so I sought refuge: in music, in altered states, in states of

meditation, in psychedelic openings. But like most of us, I returned to the

reality of the culture that was mine and, at times, found great vitality and

spiritedness there.

This piece began as a kind of unrecognized return—while at the same time, a

progression forward into the now. Characters, fragments, echoes from the

’60s and ’70s, the period of my upbringing—Didion, the Beats, the fracture

of postwar Hollywood—all drifted back, alongside my years in the ’90s and

early 2000s working with software and social media. We were already

caught between loss and technology, even before the machine fully pushed

through.

Now that machine is in place, and the project it serves seems more heinous

than ever. But perhaps it has always been that way—here, in this strange land

—and that became entirely clear as I began to see it through the historic

personages of the Joans: of Arc, Didion, Crawford, Vollmer, and Patty

“Joan” Hearst. And J.O.A.N., the algorithm absorbing us all.

J.O.A.N.—here—is not just one figure. It’s an acronym, a composite, a living

set. An engine of memory and invention. Through her—or this matrix—and

the language model I used to create it, I ask: Were the dreams of justice, of

planetary care, of plural selves—just that? Dreams? Were they naïve? Are we

now awake in the reality that always was? Or are we still dreaming?

— Marc Lafia

Biographies

LEAH TEMPLE LANG

Leah is an Irish-born and raised actor based in New York completing their MFA in

Acting at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University. Leah has been training

in the Linklater Voice Technique with teachers Peter Marciano, Craig Bacon, and

Robert Serrell. Leah’s most recent theatre credits include The Maker by Dakota

Silvey (Yellow), Arrangements by Thomas James Boudreau (Maggie), Dirty Laundry

by Caleb Duke (Aubrey), Art by Yasmina Reza (Saoirse/Serge), Idawalley by Maggie

Kearnan (Idawalley Lewis) and Dead Man’s Cellphone by Sarah Ruhl (Mrs.

Gottlieb). Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

KENDALL BOTTJER

Kendall is a New York-based dance artist and curator whose work has been

presented with Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Columbia Repertory Ballet, Supper

Club Dance, and more. She graduated cum laude from Barnard College with a

degree in Dance and Anthropology, and currently serves as the Associate for

Creative Enterprise in The Juilliard School's President's Office.

OLIVIA MEROLA

Olivia has trained at The Ailey School, Joffrey Ballet School, The French Academie

of Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet Academy, SHARE, Sidra Bell’s MODULE, and Orsolina 28.

An alum of Columbia University's dance organizations including Columbia Ballet

Collaborative and Columbia Repertory Ballet.

CHAD RAINES

Chad Raines, composer, performer and sound designer from Dallas, Texas. In New

York his work has been featured at Soho Rep, Roundabout Underground, Here Arts

Center, Jack Performing Arts Center, Target Margin, The Baryshnikov Arts Center,

Brooklyn College and more. He was a member of Amanda Palmer and the Grand

Theft Orchestra and currently tours with Cellular Chaos.

DAVID PYM

David is a filmmaker, video designer, and AI artist. Recent work: Suppose Beautiful

Madeline Harvey by Obect Collection (LaMaMa), Atlas Drugged (Tools for

Tomorrow) by The Builders Association (Skirball Center), The Lydian Gale Parr

directed by Meghan Finn (Target Margin). David is currently creating daily AI art on

Instagram @drphyllotaxis

ANDREEA MINCIC

Andreea is a visual artist who works as a theater designer in New York City. From

stage design to costumes, making masks, or puppets, Andreea loves working with

everything that unconventional and challenging.

MARC LAFIA

Marc Lafia is a multidisciplinary visual artist, performer, and director of theatre and

film. He has been exhibited at the Walker Art Center, the Whitney, the Tate, Centre

Pompidou, the Minsheng Museum of Art in Shanghai, the Shenzhen Sculpture

Biennale 2014, and most recently the Guangzhou Triennial. His books Image

Photograph, Everyday Cinema, The Event of Art a