For the last 4 years, the Tasmanian Museum of Old and New Art has been running an installation called The Ladies Lounge. Only people who identify as ladies are allowed to enter. In the lounge, they can sit in luxury and look at famous artworks by Picasso etc, which are not available elsewhere in the museum. They are served champagne and pampered by male butlers. It was meant as a comment on exclusionary men's clubs (which still exist in Australia and elsewhere).
Some dude got upset about it and sued the gallery for entry at the anti-discrimination tribunal. The artist, Kirsha Kaechele, said she was "absolutely delighted" that the exhibit had been taken to court. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said.
She then turned the tribunal hearing into part of the art as well, by having a group of women observing the hearing dress like her and mimic her every move. They did not disrupt the hearing, and at the end of proceedings they exited the tribunal to the song Simply Irresistible.
Kaechele argued in her defence the Ladies Lounge was a “a response to the lived experience of women forbidden from entering certain spaces throughout history” and promoted equal opportunity.
The tribunal found against the gallery and is ordering them to allow men to enter the exhibit. MONA is removing the exhibit instead.
@fullfathomfive Love the double-take mental image of the Robert Palmer 'Simply Irresistible' video that had a male lead singer with a vapid-looking backup band, except that Palmer was the pretty face and the female band had the serious musical chops.
@fullfathomfive I'd love to know how many people who don't normally identify as women claimed to do so in order to view this exhibit. bc transphobes are screaming that this happens constantly, and this seems like the lowest-stakes "ID as a woman to access women's spaces" scenario out there
like, it's ridiculous to think that a serious man athlete would take hormones to permanently alter his body and then spend months/years being referred to as the wrong name and pronouns simply to compete in women's sports but that a random Australian man wouldn't walk up to an exhibit and say "I identify as a lady" to look at some art and then never see any of the ladies/butlers who had been there again
@fifilamoura She's a person I admire, and I enjoy hearing her speak. Her art has made a profound positive impact on my life. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel confident my admiration for her isn't culty.
@AshleyMarineP I don't mean in any satanic cult way or that you're in her cult (it's very expensive to actually join her institute/cult, this is the art world after all!!!), just that she uses cult techniques in her performances and presents them as art (the staring for extended periods is one such thing, frequently used by cults to break down the sense of self and create "spiritual" experiences, create intimacy and a sense of attachment, as is endurance of any kind, a lot of performance and Fluxus type work has these elements because they're about the body and endurance). I'm glad you find her work meaningful for you, art is as much about what we bring to it as it is about what the artist is doing and if it's meaningful to you that's all that matters on a personal level.
This is Vietnamese laser programmer and performance artist Lại Trần Ninh Kiềm. He is doing some mind-blowing things with his art form.
The transition between environmental and manual control of the lasers is wild. And he has meticulous, granular-level control over the illusion. It’s quite remarkable.
In 2018 a tour group in Thailand stumbled upon a group of unfamiliar creatures. They thought they had discovered a new species of animal or something alien or paranormal.
The creatures were actually an installation by performance artist Tori Wrånes. Actors in elaborate costumes. The exhibition was called Naam Yai.