Over the course of four weeks at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Muistardeaux Collective created SCULPTURE L.A., a multimedia lecture and performance series. SCULPTURE L.A. featured performance-based introductions to and overviews of five of SFMOMA's upcoming exhibitions. Professional actors delivered one-hour lectures based solely on the titles of the exhibitions, which they were given after they stepped up to the podium; no prior research nor exposure to any of the museum's advance materials was allowed. Lecture locations were the galleries and landings where those shows were pending installation. So as the museum progressively emptied 80% of its galleries, those same locations came to life with the alternative narratives created by the SCULPTURE L.A. lecturers. The actors were hand-picked and trained by Muistardeaux Collective not to be experts but to believe they are experts. On the final evening, Muistardeaux Collective also delivered a 2-hour lecture entitled 'Four Saints in Three Acts', a topic given to Muistardeaux Collective by SFMOMA curator Frank Smigiel just as the lecture began. Without preparation, Muistardeaux Collective gave a detailed presentation on the operatic device as it applies to theatre and spectacle, as well as the cultural and historical significance of the specific opera at hand.
SCULPTURE L.A. operates on a number of fronts in a number of environments with a wide cast of characters. It throws many elements and issues into play: questions of expertise and authorship in the Information Age; live facsimile of the different ways in which the human brain catalogs and retrieves knowledge to make sense; reality television; institutional critique; music. At its core, SCULPTURE L.A. is about the ritual of self-discovery and a celebration of the individual operating as part and parcel of the collective. |
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