Joshua Sofaer

Description

Joshua Sofaer works across boundaries, borders and disciplines to create artworks that engage with all levels of society. In cultural institutions or on the street, for art galleries or personal homes, staged as operas or cast as golden sculptures, Sofaer’s work weaves with and through social fabric to consider the ideas that hold us together.

 

Co-published with the Live Art Development Agency, this lavishly illustrated volume is the first in-depth study of the artist’s work, featuring discussions with producers and participants, documentary images and a new photographic essay, interviews with the artist himself, and thirteen commissioned essays by scholars, curators and artists from the perspectives of performance studies, archaeology and opera criticism. With a mixture of intellect, humour and striking design, Joshua Sofaer: Performance | Objects | Participation analyses the artist’s oeuvre in the contexts of liveness, visual art and participatory practices. It explores the binding aesthetics of his approach as a model for contemporary practice, and it considers the impact of his work on audiences, institutions and pedagogy, as well as on fine art and performance ecologies as a whole.

Where Are You From? Or Originally – Joshua Sofaer

Introduction: Nobody Nose: Joshua Sofaer – Mary Paterson and Roberta Mock

Window Dresser – Stacy Makishi interviews Joshua Sofaer

Artist and Star – Joshua Sofaer

Joshua Sofaer’s Grammar of the Body – Roberta Mock

No Show: Personal Evidence in Public Space, Or The Artist is in Withdrawal – Sibylle Peters

Teacher's Pet – Lois Keidan

Documentation (of a Near Death Experience) – Robin Deacon

Back to the Artwork of the Future: Transformation, Emotion, and Participation in the Opera-related Works of Joshua Sofaer – Daniel Somerville

Make Happy Those Who Are Near, and Those Who Are Far Will Come – Yu-Ying Kung, Yuan-Liang An and Yu-Chin Hsiao, with Joshua Sofaer

Value, Labour, and Presence in the Live Gallery – Nadia Abdelaziz

Sibling Disciplines: Objects, Archaeology, and the Art of Joshua Sofaer – Joanna Sofaer 

Trashing the Institution: Disruption and Democratisation at the Science Museum – Sarah Harvey

Un-Thinking The Rubbish Collection: From Plastics to Plasticity – Carl Lavery

Naming: Joshua Sofaer's Dramaturgies of Interference in Public Space – Konstantina Georgelou

Performing Workshops at Home – Stuart Andrews

Small Actions, Everyday Encounters: Permission and the Possibility of Change in Gold Nose of a Green Finger – Maddy Costa

Keep It Opening: Joshua Sofaer's Use of Language – Mary Paterson

Afterword: Hilarious Hooters and Curious Conks – Simon Gould

Selected Artworks by Joshua Sofaer

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Human Geography
• Performing Arts
• Theatre
• Sociology
• Live Art
• Performance art
• General officer
• Visual arts
• Cultural studies
• Art
• General
• Performance
• Vivacité (informatique)
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 03 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789380934
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 192 Mo

Extrait

| |
Performance Objects Participation
JOSHUA SOFAER
JOSHUA SOFAER
| |Performance Objects Participation
Joshua Sofaer works across boundaries, borders Joshua Sofaer is a deeply attentive artist.
and disciplines to create artworks that engage His multifaceted works are careful, smart,
with all levels of society. In cultural institutions or witty and generous. At their heart sits the
on the street, for art galleries or personal homes, encounter: with ideas, people, places and
staged as operas or cast as golden sculptures, objects. I can’t presume to ‘know’ Sofaer,
Sofaer’s work weaves with and through social but this gorgeous, layered and richly
fabrics to consider the ideas that hold us together. detailed book – an exquisite collection of
documents, discussions and refections – This lavishly illustrated volume is the frst
allows me to encounter him and to relish in-depth study of the artist’s work, featuring
the unfolding perspectives.discussions with producers and participants,
documentary images and a new photographic Dee Heddon, Professor of Contemporary
essay, interviews with the artist, and new essays Performance, University of Glasgow
by scholars, curators and artists. Approaching
his work from a wide range of perspectives
– including opera criticism, archaeology, Joshua Sofaer operates in a predominantly
performance studies, and gossip – it explores relational feld of artistic practice where the
his impact on audiences, on institutions, and ‘artworks’ are so often site-specifc,
timeon pedagogy. As a whole, this book articulates limited and ephemeral. This publication
Sofaer’s infuence on the felds of performance produces an analysis of practice that
art, fne art, and participatory practices. traverses art, society and theory. In doing
so it ofers an astute, polyphonic reading
of a multi-layered practice. In the quality
Contributions by of its design, its rare combination of
personal warmth and intellectual rigour,
Nadia Abdelaziz Lois Keidan
this book is truly greater than the sum of
Yuan-Liang An Yu-Ying Kung
its parts. It is a waymaker, demonstrating
Stuart Andrews Carl Lavery
how it is possible to refect on and with
Maddy Costa Stacy Makishi
an artist about their socially engaged and
Robin Deacon Roberta Mock
participatory practice in all of its artistic
Konstantina Georgelou Mary Paterson
integrity and complex humanity.
Hugo Glendinning Sibylle Peters
Simon Gould Joanna Sofaer Ailbhe Murphy, Director of Create Ireland
Sarah Harvey Daniel Somerville
Yu-Chin Hsiao JOSHUA SOFAER
| |Performance Objects Participation
ISBN 978-1-78938-091-0
Edited by Roberta Mock and Mary Paterson
9 781789 380910JOSHUA SOFAER
| | Performance Objects Participation
Edited by Roberta Mock and Mary PatersonThe Perfect Nose by Joshua Sofaer, 2018 (gold-plated copper, silk
100 x 180 x 100mm). A 1:1 gold-plated false nose of Michelangelo’s
David’s nose. Considered by some to be a representation of
the ‘ideal’ nose, casts of the nose of Michelangelo’s David have
been used for many years as teaching tools in drawing classes.
Photograph by Hugo Glendinning, 2018.T
T
First published in the UK in 2020 by All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
Live Art Development Agency
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
e Garrett Centre
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
117 Mansford Street
without written permission of the publishers.
London, E2 6LX, UK
www.thisisLiveArt.co.uk All opinions expressed in the material contained
within this publication are those of the artists and
and
authors and not necessarily those of the editors,
Intellect, Te Mill, Parnall Road, publishers or the publishers’ partners.
Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
e editors and publishers have endeavoured to
www.intellectbooks.com
source accurate information about reproductions
First published in the USA in 2020 by and image copyrights. In the case of incomplete or
inaccurate information in image captions, upon
Intellect, Te University of Chicago Press,
request the editors will make every effort to correct
1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
subsequent editions where possible.
Edited by Roberta Mock and Mary Paterson, 2020
A catalogue record for this book is available
Contributions © the individual contributors, 2020 from the British Library.
Front Cover: Nose to See You by Joshua Sofaer,
20152016 (high impact polystyrene, elastic, various
dimensions). Tese plastic noses were vacuum
formed around casts of the noses of friends and
family of Joshua Sofaer as tryouts. Nose to See You,
2016 in North Point Shopping Centre in Hull was a
pop-up salon in which members of the public were
invited to have a false nose made of their own nose.
Photograph by Hugo Glendinning, 2018.
Endpapers: Joshua’s Nose by Jessica Aylen, 2017
(rubber stamp).
Producer for Joshua Sofaer Projects: Philippa Barr.
Designed by David Caines Unlimited
www.davidcaines.co.uk
Printed and bound by Gomer Press, UK
ISBN: 978-1-78938-091-0
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78938-093-4
Published with the support of, and thanks to,
Arts Council England, James Kent and
anonymous donors.JOSHUA SOFAER
| | Performance Objects ParticipationWHERE ARE YOU FROM? SIBLING DISCIPLINES: OBJECTS,
OR ORIGINALLY ARCHAEOLOGY, AND THE ART
OF JOSHUA SOFAER Joshua Sofaer 8
Joanna Sofaer 162
INTRODUCTION
NOBODY NOSE: JOSHUA SOFAER TRASHING THE INSTITUTION:
DISRUPTION AND Mary Paterson and Roberta Mock 12
DEMOCRATISATION
WINDOW DRESSER AT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM
Stacy Makishi interviews Joshua Sofaer 22 Sarah Harvey 178
ARTIST AND STAR UN-THINKING THE RUBBISH
COLLECTION: FROM PLASTICS Joshua Sofaer 34
TO PLASTICITY
JOSHUA SOFAER’S Carl Lavery 190
GRAMMAR OF THE BODY
NAMING: JOSHUA SOFAER’S Roberta Mock 38
DRAMATURGIES OF INTERFERENCE
NO SHOW: PERSONAL EVIDENCE IN PUBLIC SPACE
IN PUBLIC SPACE, OR THE ARTIST Konstantina Georgelou 206
IS IN WITHDRAWAL
PERFORMING WORKSHOPS Sibylle Peters 62
AT HOME
TEACHER’S PET Stuart Andrews 224
Lois Keidan 78
SMALL ACTIONS, EVERYDAY
DOCUMENTATION (OF A NEAR ENCOUNTERS: PERMISSION AND
DEATH EXPERIENCE) THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE IN
GOLD NOSE OF GREEN GINGERRobin Deacon 90
Maddy Costa 238
BACK TO THE ARTWORK OF THE
FUTURE: TRANSFORMATION, KEEP IT OPENING: JOSHUA
EMOTION, AND PARTICIPATION SOFAER’S USE OF LANGUAGE
IN THE OPERA-RELATED WORKS Mary Paterson 254
OF JOSHUA SOFAER
AFTERWORD: HILARIOUS HOOTERS Daniel Somerville 106
AND CURIOUS CONKS
MAKE HAPPY THOSE WHO Simon Gould 270
ARE NEAR, AND THOSE WHO
ARE FAR WILL COME SELECTED ARTWORKS
BY JOSHUA SOFAER 276Yu-Ying Kung, Yuan-Liang An and
Yu-Chin Hsiao, with Joshua Sofaer 128
CONTRIBUTORS 280
VALUE, LABOUR, AND PRESENCE
INDEX 284IN THE LIVE GALLERY
Nadia Abdelaziz 144Sofaer General Merchants and Commission Agents, Rangoon c.1906. Joshua’s great-grandfather,
Isaac Sofaer, is front-centre-right. Joshua’s grandfather, Ellis Sofaer, is peeking through the balcony.
Courtesy of the Tuborg Archive, Carlsberg Group. Photographer unknown.
8WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
OR ORIGINALLY
Joshua Sofaer
People often ask me where I am from – or even worse say, ‘What are you because you
look Italian or Greek or something?’ And I’ll say, ‘Do you mean where was I born?’ –
and thinking they’re going to hear something ‘exotic’, they say ‘Yeah’, and I’ll reply
‘Cambridge’ in the poshest voice I can muster. And then they say, ‘No, but originally’.
‘Well’, I say, ‘In 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded Jerusalem. After
sacking the city, he brought the King and his offcers back to Babylon. My forefathers
were part of that Royal household.
‘So then my ancestors stayed in what became Persia, later Baghdad in Iraq. In 1877,
my great-great-grandfather left Baghdad with his 10 year old son for Burma, as a
kind of economic entrepreneur. Born in Rangoon, my grandfather left Burma as a
young teenager to live with relatives in Calcutta in India. Tat is where he met my
grandmother who was also his frst cousin once removed. Her father was born in
Aleppo in Syria and I’m not entirely sure how he ended up in India. Anyway, they
came to the UK in the 1930s, and my Dad was born in London.
‘Tat is on my father’s side.
‘My mother’s side is a bit more complicated. Tey probably went to Eastern Europe
some time in the ffteenth or sixteenth century from Germany where they had settled
in the second half of the frst millennium. Anyway, her paternal grandfather was
born in 1880 in Gashmanka, a town somewhere in Russia, but moved to Dankera in
the province of Kurland near Riga, in Latvia. He decided to emigrate to the USA for a
better life, so he got on a boat to New York. When it docked on the Irish coast en route
on the 22nd October 1904, he thought he was already there, so he got off.
‘I was born in Cambridge, but we moved to Edinburgh when I was one year old,
and that was where I went to school.’
And when I’ve fnished this, a common response will be, ‘Oh, but you don’t have
a Scottish accent’.
9Nose Dainty crocheted by Sandra Kendal for Joshua Sofaer, 2016
(cotton 70 x 75 x 35mm). Doilies are used to protect surfaces,
to cover unsightly marks, and to prettify presentation. The nose
is rarely eulogised for its beauty. Might this whimsy help?
Photograph by Hugo Glendinning, 2019.INTRODUCTION
NOBODY NOSE: JOSHUA SOFAER
Mary Paterson and Roberta Mock
Tis book was almost called Nobody Nose: Joshua Sofaer, a pun that ref lects the important role
that language plays in Sofaer’s work. Like a skilled magician, Sofaer both cloaks and reveals his
artworks in the words that surround them. He constructs kitschy double entendres, for example,
at the same time as engendering serious debate; empty books as well as pregnant stories;
offcial narratives that sometimes turn out to be compromising fctions, and fctional tales that
transform into offcial narratives. Sofaer’s ambivale