About this Event
Asia Stewart has devised a new performance titled “Unyielding” in response to Entang Wiharso’s current exhibition When Rabbits Eat Meat. In “Unyielding,” Stewart returns to Abel Meeropol’s haunting “Strange Fruit,” a song made popular by Billie Holiday.
Stewart’s looped and improvised performance of “Strange Fruit” gives her the impetus to confront a Southern magnolia tree and investigate where histories of racial terror and violence reside in its soil, a direct reference to Wiharso's experience of seeing a tree in South Carolina that had been used for lynching, and likening it to the corpse flower, a recurring image in the works on view.
About the Artist
Asia Stewart is a Brooklyn-based performance artist whose conceptual work centers the body as a living archive. After receiving degrees in the social sciences from Cambridge and Harvard University, she has sought ways to transform the language specific to studies of race, gender, sexuality, and diaspora into materials that can be felt and worn on the body. As a National YoungArts Winner in Musical Theatre and a former National Arts Policy Roundtable Fellow with Americans for the Arts, Stewart uses her past experiences on stage to inject her work with a heightened sense of theatricality. Stewart has received various honors and support for her works in performance from organizations that include The Shed, Franklin Furnace, A.I.R. Gallery, Marble House Project, GALLIM, the Watermill Center, and the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Stewart routinely questions how she can best document her performances and represent movement and physicality across mediums. Her works in video and installation have been exhibited at venues across the United States, including the Mercury Store, Untitled Space, NARS Foundation, Goodyear Arts, A.I.R. Gallery, Kellen Gallery, and Anthology Film Archives. Her first series of prints is also now held in the permanent collection of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.
Installation view of Entang Wiharso: When Rabbits Eat Meat
Closing May 28, 2023
Press Release
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
MARC STRAUS Gallery, 299 Grand Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00