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Catherine Sullivan, ?Tis Pity She?s a Fluxus Whore, 2003
?Tis Pity She?s a Fluxus Whore2003 ?Tis Pity She?s a Fluxus Whore, a double-channel video by Catherine Sullivan shown on two adjacent monitors, juxtaposes footage shot at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford with footage from the Audimax lecture theater of the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany. Both sites once hosted performances that caused a scandal: Jacobean playwright John Ford?s drama about incest, ?Tis Pity She?s a Whore, appeared at the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1943, causing much consternation, while the Audimax was the location of a 1964 Fluxus festival that was interrupted by enraged students, leading to a famous photograph of a bleeding Joseph Beuys holding a crucifix. Sullivan has the same actor perform actions based on the Fluxus events and on the Jacobean piece, but episodes from Ford may be played in Fluxus style and vice versa, and they do not necessarily take place on the ?appropriate? stage.
The work is accompanied by a series of photographs, The Potential Interlocutor, which depicts the desks at the Audimax lecture theater.
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
For the past few years, Los Angeles-based artist Catherine Sullivan has created performances combining installation art, dance and traditional theater dialogue. Sullivan began her work in the theater as an actress, performing in numerous stage productions. Since then she has worked in a variety of media, but is primarily focused on creating original theater and video works which she writes, directs and designs.
