Sweat Paintings (2018)

Sweat Paintings

2018. Gym mats, megaphone, violinists. Performance, 15 minutes. Dimensions variable.

SWEAT PAINTINGS, a live performance and collaboration between Cassils, martial arts consultant Melissa Wyman and Stanford students Ash Ngu, Free Tripp, Meg McNulty, Tori Parrish and Vivienne Le, combines kinesiology, martial arts, and sports science to reinterpret Yves Klein’s Anthropometries paintings.

Playing on Yves Klein’s problematic legacy, SWEAT PAINTINGS is a performance of self-defense choreography accompanied by Klein’s Monotone Symphony. Drawing on personal stories, the language of university legislation, and national political headlines, this new work deals with issues of harassment, microaggressions, and personal boundaries on Stanford University’s campus. With the aid of Melissa Wyman’s background in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as self-defense training, the performance choreography combines katas and physical defense scenarios as they build dissonance with the serenity of the Monotone Symphony. The social sculpture ends when the collective bodies leave a sweat stain on a specially commissioned gymnastic mat the color of “International Yves Klein Blue.” The ephemeral sweat stained mark generated is reminiscent of Klein’s Anthropometries paintings, reimagining Klein’s oeuvre through a queer, feminist, socially conscious lens.