“This is a story of art without markets, drama without a script, narrative without progress. The queer art of failure turns on the impossible, the improbable, the unlikely, and the unremarkable. It quietly loses, and in losing it imagines other goals for life, for love, for art, and for being.”
― J. Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure
W . I . P functions as a performance that embraces the art of failure by queering, clowning and exhausting contemporary references to class and gender through the sport of polo. A continuation of Steinberg’s own exploration of American heritage through her families career in horse breeding W . I . P uses the aesthetics of polo/steeplechasing to set up a system that turns failure on its head.
Lauren Steinberg, American Steeplechase, 2017. Image: Michelle Murphy.
Lauren Steinberg (US) is an interdisciplinary artist from New York who recently graduated with MFA Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She creates queer uncanny spaces and uses endurance performance, muscle memory, sound, pumping, inflation and deflation to illustrate what is means to witness assimilation from both sides. She has performed at multiple locations including Links Hall, DfbrL8R and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. http://lauren-steinberg.com
Part of our Queer Futures public programme and exhibition exploring narratives for queer resistance, from mythology and folklore to speculative science fiction. The programme will include performances, screenings, discussions and workshops and each event will leave a contribution in the space to form a gradually expanding archive.
