Agents of Chaos
The illicit love affair between Venus and Mars has been explored by more poets, artists, and philosophers than we can count, leaving behind a cultural legacy of gendered binaries: love and war, beauty and strength, grace and brutality. Video artist John Sanborn thinks we can do without these outdated images of male and female. In V+M, a multi-channel video and sound installation co-produced by the French institution Vidéoformes, Sanborn draws on an older myth: Eros springing from the primordial void Chaos. Love — as expressed in V+M through three couples defying gender-normative roles — is messy, unpredictable, and tumultuous, but no less desirable. Sanborn’s work has been shown in most major museums in the world; he’s directed 16 programs for PBS and won three Emmys for his work with Mikhail Baryshnikov; he’s also worked with The Residents, John Zorn, Grace Jones, King Crimson, Twyla Tharp, Phillip Glass, and Van Halen. (When MTV launched, he was among the first on air.) Even though Sanborn is local, this is a rare viewing opportunity — he has not held an exhibition here in 25 years, and for the show, he’ll be enlisting the talents of experimental violinist Theresa Wong and a recurring cast of dancers.
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