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Dynasty Handbag, Interspercial Dressing Room Videos, 2014 (still). Video, sound, color; 1:48 min. Courtesy the artist
Exhibition
Screens Series: Dynasty Handbag
6 Nov 2018 – 6 Jan 2019
Regular hours
- Tuesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 21:00
- Friday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 18:00
Address
- 235 Bowery
- New York
New York - NY 10002
- United States
Travel Information
- From the East Side of Manhattan Take the downtown 6 train to Spring Street. Exit the station and walk one block north on Lafayette Street to Prince Street. Turn right and proceed until Prince Street ends four blocks later at Bowery. From the West Side of Manhattan Take the downtown N or R train to Prince Street. Exit the station and proceed east on Prince Street for six blocks to Bowery. You may also take the downtown D or F train to Broadway/ Lafayette. Walk three blocks east to Bowery and turn right two blocks to Prince Street. From Brooklyn Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street. From Queens Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street.
Dynasty Handbag, the alter ego of artist Jibz Cameron, is best known for her “falling-apart stand-up” shows, delivered in polyester suits, spandex leotards, and ripped pantyhose.
About
Ribald, absurd, and endlessly riveting, her vaudevillian interpretations of classic literature (“A Homo’s Odyssey”), morning talk shows (“Good Morning Evening Feelings”), and aerobic lessons (“Exorcise Class”) are, according to Cameron, ways to “combat the terror of being alive.” Dynasty Handbag assumes the trappings of femininity in configurations zany and over-the-top, garbling gender codes in outrageous formulations. Digressions, rhymes, and false starts riddle her one-woman acts, providing unexpected pathways into material taken from commercials, pop songs, and tidbits of art history. As cultural theorist José Esteban Muñoz writes, “Dynasty Handbag’s queer failure is not an aesthetic failure but, instead, a political refusal. It is going off script, and the script in this instance is the mandate that makes queer and other minoritarian cultural performers work not for themselves for but distorted cultural hierarchy.”
In this selection of videos, Dynasty Handbag models a series of coping mechanisms: she takes a vow of silence in an attempt to find serenity; she rejects a gluttony of breakfast options in order to prepare for the world becoming toast; and, in a makeup tutorial, she teaches viewers how to put their best faces forward for life under fascism.
