The Aspen Art Museum is a popular stop for tourists as they vacation here. The contemporary gallery has brought in well-known, international artists. One element of a current exhibit has to be seen to be believed.
At a time I won’t disclose, in a room I won’t disclose in the museum, something really weird happens. Six women come into a showroom, and they start singing.
People enter the room and perform a haunting song about how society has to change before any problems can be solved.
It’s part of the show “A Fragile But Marvelous Life.” The show is inspired by Allan Kaprow’s “Happenings”, which was quote “something spontaneous, something that happens to happen.”
The full show is a collection of pieces by different artists. There’s a a few thousand oranges arranged into a pyramid. Three ponytails stick out of the wall in a row and bounce. A bench rumbles as an imaginary subway runs by.
The piece has a really long title, so be ready. “Tough Kid, Full Out. True Pro. Get Better, Rest Up, Strange Night but... Proud.” For short, let’s call it “Tough Kid”. It’s a piece of performance art by British artist Cally Spooner. It’s part of a larger set of performances she’s created and written called “And You Looked Wonderful, On Stage.” Lots of titles, I know.
Spooner told the Pinchuk Arts Center last year about the overall performance.
“The installation comes out of a larger project I’ve been working on called “And You Looked Wonderful, On Stage,” which is a musical I’ve been writing about thinking about notions of technological dependency, but thinking of technics more broadly as forms of dependence on other humans.”
The song grows from a lone voice to the group singing in harmony.
The piece gets bigger and bigger. The tempo increases. The women walk from the edges of the room until they meet at the center. Repeating a sequence of letters over and over with increasing intensity.
The whole thing lasts about three minutes. One minute it’s there, and it’s gone the next. According to the museum guide, the piece suggests the results of what humans do are valued more than the discourse that they create. It’s up to the viewer to decide what the performance means - if they can catch it.
The performances happen until February.
