Perma-F(r)ail: Personae Documents

Online repository for artists, articles, text, and video in conjunction with the Perma-F(r)ail shows at Paragraph Gallery, KCMO & Howard Art Projects, Boston.

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About The Show (To be Tampered)

Persona within art can be understood as a potential lens by which to view or understand art making; meaning, what is the physical body behind the work produced and shown, and how is that generating particular affect(s) for the viewer? Or, it can be seen as an artistic endeavor in and of itself; meaning, how does one take in and observe performativity of self, the flux and presentation of identity-making within real-time and, extrapolate that experience utilizing a critical perspective for another viewer outside of the originally designated site of construction?

  The concept of persona has been interwoven into the fabric of artistic practice for a long time, however, with the advent and growth of newer technological, queer-feminist, and live-art practices; the object of persona as legitimate artistic product and practice is one that questions, challenges, and evokes several aesthetic and academic disciplines. Persona-as-object is something that pushes the boundaries of readily made and understood artistic object. With an intent to ever-evolve, this genre of art making is both a function of survivor practices as well as less understood extensions of product making art practices. Within the artistic academic realm, we may learn and study art objects, but we are also fed the narrative of constructed personae behind the artwork. This type of narrative construction has been imperative to the economy of cultural consumption.

  But, what happens when we distill those narratives in a way that showcases how that constructed narrative can be, in and of itself, an appealing, enthralling, and terrifying object of both temporal praxis and failure? Where does economy lie in something that is always shifting depending upon conversation, situation, and a sense of faux-fixed aesthetic?