2018, Is This Burning An Eternal Flame? (a queer rite), Mount Analogue, Seattle, WA
MKNZ with Allie Huska
For those of us who grew up in the margins of queer identity, those of us who couldn't blend, those of us to who couldn’t acculturate to the current, we have only each other and simulations of the rituals we grew up with but are barred from participating in. We are often left seeking connection to our spirituality not through the words of scriptures, but through the lyrics of pop songs; through gathering in night clubs, punk houses, public beaches at dawn, back alleys and front porches. We don’t fall at the feet of statues of saints, but at the feet of the impermanent bodies of our friends and lovers.
Bound in rope and coated in a thick layer of animal fat, the body becomes a collective and temporary sculpture in service of a queer rite.
Instruction posted on the gallery wall: The audience is invited, one at a time, to light a candle and place it on the body of the artist. While doing so, please be mindful of the delicacy of this act; we ask that you place your candles gently in the layer of lard covering the artist's body.
The candles and lighters are available on the shelf behind the artist.
What melts off during and what remains after the performance will be kept in the gallery until the end of October.
2017, Cumulative Deposits (of you inside me). Glass Box Gallery, Seattle, WA
Cumulative Deposits… is a solo exhibit of 6 installations named after 6 individuals who used to be in the artist’s life. One installation also became the cite of a performance on opening night. One room in the gallery is carpeted in mirror shards and unlit. The artist, beginning on the far side of the room, holds a small flash light in her mouth while crawling, barefoot and barelegged, to the opposite side of the room, by carefully picking up and moving the shards to her side. Fractal reflections from the mirror shards dance on the walls and ceiling of the dark room as she moves through. Once arriving at the opposite side of the room, she puts on a pair of boots and walks out. The installation now has a small pathway through the middle, speckled with blood from the artist.
In the room upstairs, another installation, named after the artist’s first love, is completely covered in Paul Mitchell shampoo, save a narrow strip along the wall where viewers can stand. The air in the room is overwhelmed with the scent of the shampoo.
2015, The Inherent Codependency of the Heaving Heart. Vignettes Gallery, Seattle, WA
The artist, blindfolded and ears plugged, shoulders the weight of two salt blocks from either side of a milkmaid’s yolk. Audience members are invited to relieve the artist of the weight by cooperating with another person to evenly support either salt block for as long as they desire. Performance lasted 2 hours.
2015, An Exemplary Case of Love Without Respite, a 72-hour performance between Traiskirchen, Austria and Vienna, Austria
Performer/tattooer with Saint Genet
Summary by Ryan Mitchell:'
“An Exemplary Case of Love Without Respite began at dawn on April 17th (5:02am) and continued without break, pause, or hesitation for 3 days. Each day began with a dawn installation and performance in an abandoned factory (“Semperitfabrik”) located in Traiskirchen, immediately followed by a 30km procession, which twice intersected, as poetic homage, with Gunter Brus’ original route taken while performing Wiener Spaziergang (1965). I was lucky enough to have Hermes Phettberg join me for the 2nd homage procession. Everything finish at the Charim Galerie where an accumulating “re-creation” of each days dawn performance took place.”
mknz’s primary role in this performance involved tattooing Ryan as part of a ritual during each performance (a total of 6 times). The tattoo’s contents unknown to Ryan until the end of the 72-hour performance. The tattoo reads “love me or kill me, brother”, an excerpt from John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
2014, Darling If You Want Me To. As part of the ‘Mo-Wave Festival, Seattle, WA
A partial recreation, a bookend, to Blind Faith (2013), occurring after the abrupt ending of the relationship between Taylor Pinton and MKNZ. Unaccompanied this time, with a ceramic cinder block situated where Pinton would have been, MKNZ sat through her part of the original performance. No tattooing took place. MKNZ’s arm hangs limp through the hole in the wall. The weight of the wall was sustained for the same amount of time as the original performance, 55 minutes.
2014, Sentimentality #1-23. As part of In The Absence Of…, a group show at Greg Kucera Gallery. Seattle, WA
Sentimentality is a series of letters created for 23 individuals. Each letter is enclosed in an envelope marked with the name of its recipient. Each recipient is a person who has, in varying capacities, affected the life of the artist. Their relationships range in quality from friends to lovers, exlovers, family members, mentors, and collaborators. A letter is only made public when the addressee chooses to remove the black envelope. Over the course of the exhibit, the series elaborates upon each relationship as the letters are exposed.
Instruction during the exhibit: “If your name is written at the top of a letter and you wish to open it, please check in with the gallery attendent. To open your letter, untire the bow and slide off the black envelope. When an envelope is removed it cannot go back on and will remain on display until the exhibit closes. Each piece belongs to its recipient at the end of the exhibit.
2015, impossible monument (on my eyes and my head)
Mary Ann Peters w/ MKNZ
Text by Mary Ann Peters:
“This work draws upon various associations to bread: from ritual to calamity. Its conceptual framework is the idea of impossible monuments; those everyday items of events that deserve reverence, but most likely will never be acknowledged. The entire piece is made from baking flour. “
2013, Blind Faith
Taylor Pinton & MKNZ
The artists sat on cinder blocks on opposite sides of a large, leaning wall. The wall was suspended over Pinton and supported by a pulley system, which was anchored in mknz’s right hand. The two were unable to see on another. While mknz supported the entire weight of the leaning wall with her right arm, her left arm penetrated a small hole in the middle of the wall. The wall vibrated and lurched sporadically, narrowing the space that cushioned Pinton while gradually forcing mknz to double over. The exposed skin of her forearm was concurrently tattooed by Pinton, with imagery unknown to mknz at the time of the performance.
The tattoo on mknz’s forearm reads, in Pinton’s handwriting, darling if you want me to, a lyric from Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U”
