Tony Orrico: Unentitled (some legwork)

About

signs and symbols is pleased to present Unentitled (some legwork), a video exhibition by Tony Orrico as part of the gallery’s series of online-only solo presentations of video works. In conjunction with the artist's onsite exhibition Great Divide, Unentitled (some legwork) further explores the enigmatic, interior spaces of bodily memory — how bodies remember trauma — specifically honing in on the male splits as a powerful access point to vulnerability. The two-channel video relays a pair of seven-minute, mirrored headstand performances by Orrico, strenuously testing the limits of his own physicality and the boundaries of his movement practice.

Unentitled (some legwork). In direct response to the former President’s public address post his incitement of an insurrection at our nation’s Capitol, Orrico performed two consecutive actions in his studio the following day. His inverted white/male/artist embodiment bares messaging and postures that share in the ego and culpability of white supremacy. Using humor as a device, the personification of his genitals aims to lock the gaze in his subjection and mediation. Two entities quiver inside their held stamina, while morphing gestures suggest flexing, stretching, sun-bathing, and motioning to “who, us, what?” as if, why do we not see ourselves(?).

Orrico writes: “The politics within what I hold, what I manifest, and how I harm are becoming more visible to me; that which is of my body, the social and historical bodies I belong to, how our limbs extend, divide, other and dominate.”

*Please note that Orrico’s video will be viewable online from Wednesday, March 10 at 6:00pm until Saturday, April 10 at 6:00pm. Following the end of the exhibition, the video will only be accessible via private link and password. We trust that given our current circumstances, everyone will act in good faith and good will, understanding that these are primary artworks by our artists that are collected and which would otherwise be password protected.
 

tony orrico's work has reached mass circulation for its ingenuity within the intersections of performance and drawing. His work explores how consciousness and physical impulses manifest into visible forms. He uses his own somatic research, Suspension Practice, as point of entry into his visual work. Orrico has performed/exhibited his work across the US and internationally in Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. His visual work is in the permanent collections of The National Academy of Sciences (Washington DC) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC, Mexico City) as well as prominent private collections such as Grazyna Kulczyk, Kablanc/Fundación Otazu and Bergmeier/Kunstsaele, among others. He has presented at the CCCB, Centre Pompidou-Metz, The New Museum and Poptech 2011: The World Rebalancing. Orrico was one of a select group of artists to re-perform the work of Marina Abramovic during her retrospective at MoMA (2010). As a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has graced such stages as the Sydney Opera House, Teatro La Fenice, New York State Theater and Theatre du Palais-Royal. In 2020, Orrico was included in the book PERFORMANCE DRAWING: New Practices since 1945, a collection of interviews and essays exploring the relationship between drawing and performance, published by Bloomsbury.