ON FILE

The Kitchen Archives

The Kitchen Archive holds an extensive collection of posters, ephemera, and historic audio and videotapes from events and performances spanning over the 50 years of its history. The development of The Kitchen's Finding Aid is currently in process and updated frequently. Please visit our ArchivesSpace to see more of our holdings. The Kitchen Archives is located in Brooklyn, New York and is open to visiting researchers by appointment.

The Kitchen ArchivesSpace

Spotlight: Staging the “Objecthood”: Dean Moss at The Kitchen

Dean Moss’s presence as both performer and dance curator (1999-2004) at The Kitchen has made him a sustained collaborator within the organization’s community. This duality between artist and curator prompted Moss to push the limits of dance and choreography in an experimental and interdisciplinary vision and space. This Archival Spotlight by 2023-24 Archival and Curatorial Intern Emiko Inoue brings together three programs co-directed and performed by Moss at The Kitchen, varying in contents and themes, that each interrogate and demonstrate the elements of “objecthood.” *figures on a field* (2005) is a program co-directed by Moss and visual artist Laylah Ali that questions how racial stereotypes on behaviors can be critiqued by restaging gestures and moves in a deviated setting far from social norms. Here, Moss introduces a museum docent figure who subjectively interprets the performers gestures and moves, and in doing so, forces the viewers to be conscious of their experience as the audience of an audience. Such repetition delegates and degrades the assumed authority of witnessing the performance. *Nameless Forest* (2011) is another collaborative work by Moss with Korean sculptor Sungmyung Chun that interrogates the figuration of a community through the individual and the collective’s participation in ritual rites. This program furtherly foregrounds the identity of an audience: the audience’s participation is taken inside the stage, either to be part of the performance or to be asked to answer questions by performers. By using the historical persona of the 19th century white abolitionist John Brown, *johnbrown* (2014) is one of Moss’s crucial performances which experimentally actualizes the racial issues into the present era. johnbrown is a work that creatively reimagines the narrative history of race––for instance, by projecting a video of an imaginative dialogue between John Brown and Fredrick Douglass. At one point, these visionary creations are disrupted by a distinct character, who mimics a contemporary singer that talks to the audience. All of these programs construct “objecthood” in a unique way, which coincides with the ripening moment in the early to mid 2000s when dance performances became frequently presented at museums and collecting institutions. In contrast to these tendencies, Moss’s programs at The Kitchen are concerned with how the authority to objectively view a performance can be critiqued, and how a non-museum, alternative space allows room to redefine “objecthood” in the context of performance.