New York, NY — Performa is proud to continue its acclaimed Not For Sale series with Staging Language, featuring artists Adam Pendleton, Frances Stark, and writer Tom McCarthy. Each panelist will present projects that stage language in material form and ask, "What is borrowed from performance in this work?" Staging Language is also the first in a series of Not For Sale panels leading up to Performa 11, and will discuss one of the key research themes of the biennial, Language, Translation, and Misinformation. Introduced and moderated by Performa Curator Mark Beasley.

Adam Pendleton will speak on his Performa 07 Commission The Revival (2007), a live performance that employed the ecstatic language of gospel, and his recent video installation, BAND (2009), a film constructed in the manner of a text. Frances Stark will discuss how she pulls snippets from literature, pop songs, and her own writing to rearticulate them in posters, publications, and theatrical lectures. Tom McCarthy will discuss his involvement with the International Necronautical Society, founded by the writer in 1999, which "inhabits and appropriates a variety of art forms and cultural movements," as well as his novels including Remainder (Vintage, 2007).

As part of an ongoing series of Not For Sale discussions in advance of Performa 11, Staging Language will touch on a key element of the biennial’s research theme, language. Language, Translation, and Misinformation will investigate the use of language in the field of performance by visual artists versus that of theater actors. Along with the biennial’s research theme, Performa 11 will also have two historical themes including Russian Constructivism (1913–1940s) and Fluxus (1960s), both of which used language in a visual art context.

The conversation will be introduced and moderated by Performa Curator Mark Beasley. Beasley is a curator, writer, and artist based in New York. His recent projects include the first public art quadrennial Plot/09: This World & Nearer Ones (2009); Hey Hey Glossolalia: exhibiting the voice (2008); and Javier Tellez’s critically acclaimed film A Letter on the Blind (2007). He has contributed articles and essays to numerous exhibition catalogues, radio plays, and journals.

Adam Pendleton (b. 1984, Richmond, Virginia) is a New York-based conceptual artist who is best known for his painting, publishing, and performance projects that investigate the potential of language to shape subjects and re-engage history.  Major exhibitions include BAND, The Kitchen, New York (2010); Greater New York, MoMA/PS1, Long Island City, New York (2010); The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2010); Performa 07, New York (2007); Manifesta 7, Trentino-South Tyrol, Italy (2008); Object, The Undeniable Success of Operations, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008); Hey Hey Glossolalia, Creative Time, New York (2008); Manifesto Marathon, The Serpentine Gallery, London (2008); and Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since the 1970s, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas (2005). 

Los Angeles-based, Frances Stark (b. 1967, Newport Beach, California) is a writer and artist. She has presented work internationally at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2010); The Artist’s Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2009); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2009); Whitney Biennial, New York (2008); Culturgest, Lisbon (2008); van Abbe Museum, Eindoven, The Netherlands (2007); Learn to Read, Tate Modern, London (2007); and Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2006). Stark’s writings have appeared in exhibition catalogues and art publications such as Artforum, Freize, and Parkett. 

Tom McCarthy (b. 1969, London, England) is a writer and artist whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages. His first novel, Remainder (Vintage, 2007), won the 2007 Believer Book Award and is currently being adapted for film; his second, C (Knopf, 2010), was a finalist in the 2010 Man Booker Prize. McCarthy is also Founder and General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS), a semi-fictitious avant-garde network of writers, artists, philosophers, and political activists that surfaces from time to time via publications, proclamations, denunciations, and gallery exhibitions.

Co-hosted by NYU Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions and The School of Art at The Cooper Union.

ABOUT NOT FOR SALE
Not For Sale is an ongoing public education series presented by Performa that features artists, authors, and critics discussing current issues in performance and new media, and the related task of writing about art and artists whose work encompasses several disciplines at once. Previous Not For Sale panel topics include: Diamonds on The Soles of Her Shoes: Contemporary Performance in Cape Town, Kinshasa, and Tunis (2010); Have You Kicked a Building Lately? (2010); It’s History Now: Performance Art and the Museum (2010); Noise Panel (2009); Ideal Performance Space (2009); You Didn’t Have to be There: Photography, Performance and Contemporary Art (2007); Dance and Conceptual Art in the Visual Arts (2007); Forever Radical? (2007); We Are Still Appalled (2006); Writing on Performance and New Media (2005); New Media and Sound (2005); Artist’s View (2004); and Curating, Conserving, and Collecting Ephemeral Art (2004). 

Past participants include Marina Abramovic; Vito Acconci; Alexander Alberro; Jan Avgikos; Terry Dean Barlett; Vaness Beecroft; Elizabeth Berger; Jennifer Blessing; C. Carr; Beatriz Colomina; Tony Conrad; Christopher Cox; Teddy Cruz; Michelle Dunn; Okwui Enwezor; Didier Faustino; Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena; Sandra Grinberg; Laura Hoptman; Anthony Huberman; Susan Jarosi; Branden W. Joseph; Florian Idenburg; Chrissie Iles; Margo Jefferson; Eungie Joo; Dana Karwas; Ron Kuivila; Carin Kuoni; Andre Lepecki; Arto Lindsay; Elizabeth Lecompte; George Lewis; Xavier LeRoy; Eric Liftin; Babbette Mangolte; Christian Marclay; Greil Marcus; Kelly Nipper; Hans Ulrich Obrist; Orlan; Klaus Ottmann; Clifford Owens; Taisha Paggett; Adam Pendleton; Cay Sophie Rabinowitz; John Rockwell; Martha Rosler; David Ross; Shohei Shigematsu; Bennett Simpson; Debra Singer; Marten Spangberg; Robert Storr; Emily Sundblad; Rikrit Tiravanija; Christian Wassmann; Glenn Wharton; Deborah Willis; Catherine Wood; and Linda Yablonsky.