Performer and compost-lover Alex Tatarsky will share some ongoing research into the connections between clowns and dirt clods – considering their shared choreographies of falling down and falling apart. Tracing American fear of the so-called “scary clown” alongside efforts to keep waste and rot out of sight, Tatarsky examines the pathologizing impulse towards those figures and substances whose presence suggests in-between, ambiguous, and disordered states. If laughter is a mode of displacing abjection, can the fool guide us towards generative decay? An etymological foray, essay as sashay, clown talk in the abyss.

Called “a hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” (Theatre Jones) and “an East Village relic” (Vogue), Alex Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. They make performances in the unfortunate in-between zone of comedy, dance-theater, performance art, and deluded rant, sometimes with songs. They embrace the model of the clown as an antidote to despair, and a figure who keeps trying despite repeated failure.

Venues include La MaMa, The Kitchen, MoMA PS1, Gibney, AUNTS, Segue, Bronx Art Space, Judson Church, New Museum, The Glove, PSNY, and many bars and basements. Tatarsky has had the thrill of collaborating as performer and dramaturg with artists and ensembles including Trajal Harrell, Pig Iron, Lilac Co., Josephine Decker, David Levine, Aya Ogawa, Adrienne Truscott, Greg Zuccolo and Marianna Ellenberg. Writings on counterfeit poetics and grotesque politics have appeared in publications including The New Inquiry, Hypocrite Reader, ArtReview Asia, Folder, Viscose, and Vulture. They teach workshops on mask performance, holy fools, decomposition, and mistranslation.

Along with Ming Lin, they form one half of the poetic research unit Shanzhai Lyric and founded the fictional office entity Canal Street Research Association. Tatarsky is honored to have been an artist in residence at Movement Research, Abrons Arts Center, the Independence Foundation, and the Pew Foundation. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a performance-lecture series on the poetics of rot. Current research interests include bootlegs and compost.

Organized by Alhena Katsof.

This event is part of PRACTICING THE ENVIRONMENT, a virtual, public-facing event series with artists, curators, activists, and scholars across the world who explore and engage in various aspects of environmental concern. This series reconsiders the supposed distinction between humans and nature; it is a distinction that has impacted notions of cultivation and place, as well as our relationships with plants and with each other. Focusing on visual arts and performance-based projects that engage notions of environment, these events consider the ecological implications of the materials that we work with, as well as the environmental frameworks and atmospheres that we work within. Hosted by faculty from the Department of the Arts at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. All events are free and open to the public, but prior registration is required.

Zoom link will be sent in advance of the event.