TONY OURSLER – TC: THE MOST INTERESTING MAN ALIVE
2018-07-30The work is a performative mixture of written, oral history and improvisation sequences, shot over a period of approximately six months in Oursler’s studio in New York City. The film is structured around various notable points in the multimedia artist’s life from childhood through his formative creative years. It begins with an introduction by Conrad, told over a soundtrack of his one of his avant-garde musical scores, in which he states “You know if you’re talking about your own life, then you’ve got a lot of things you can draw on, you can fall back on all kinds of things you make, you remember. You can’t really go wrong because according to what they say, all stories are autobiographical.” Characters in Conrad’s memory are performed by friends and fellow artists such as Paige Sarlin, Constance Dejong, Joe Gibbons, Maríe Losier, Peggy Awash and Jennifer Walsh.
The dramatized reenactments and sound experiments portray a complicated and comic tribute to the artist’s life. The film examines how memories can be reimagined and recombined to form new meaning, asking how exactly we become who we are. It begs an answer to the question — are we more than a collection of stories and experiences arranged in sequence and doomed to be lost in the passage in time of time? A version of this work first premiered at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia in 2016. New footage was added for this exhibition.
Exhibition runs through to August 10th, 2018
Lisson Gallery
138 Tenth Avenue
10011 New York
USA
