Picture this: Catherine Sullivan
Tis Pity She’s A Fluxus Whore
Catherine Sullivan’s ambiguous work arises from her passionate commitment to both performance and moving image. This dual interest is reflected in her education, having earned an acting diploma before obtaining her Master’s degree in studio art at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. She creates theatre works that she writes, designs, and directs, involving both professional and non-professional actors.
Sullivan’s work appeals to the sheer ‘presence’ of acting in any type of performance, ranging from minimalist dance to auditions for Hollywood films. Sullivan aims to make acting visible in such a way that it becomes impossible not to see that a performance is taking place.
The work Tis Pity She’s a Fluxus Whore from 2003, shown here at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, brings forth two completely different performance traditions: 17th-century Jacobean drama and 20th-century Fluxus movement actions. The title of the work is a parody of Tis Pity She’s a Whore, the most famous play by John Ford from 1630, which highlights the incestuous relationship between brother (Giovanni) and sister (Annabella). The work had a highly controversial production in England in 1943, with the Director of the Atheneum, Everett Chick Austin, playing the male lead, which sparked strong reactions from the conservative wing at the time.
The word “Fluxus” in the title refers to the well-known international avant-garde movement, active in Europe and the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. It was primarily known for its interdisciplinary and multimedia approach, organizing various ephemeral events, concerts, performance actions, and publications, rather than creating ‘museum’ objects or exhibitions. In the context of Catherine Sullivan’s work, the Fluxus presentation at the Festival of New Art in Aachen, Germany in 1964 is particularly relevant. The twelve artists who performed there faced very aggressive, even physical reactions from the audience.
The program of the Fluxus action in 1964 was minimally documented. Catherine Sullivan conducted extensive research - including interviews with participants - on these actions and their hostile responses from the audience. She chose to focus on the work of 8 of the 12 participating artists: Ben Vautier, Bazon Brock, Ludwig Gosewitz, Eric Andersen, Arthur Koepke, Robert Filiou, Wolf Vostell, and Joseph Beuys. At the same time, she also conducted intensive research on performance activities throughout history at the Wadsworth Atheneum, where the controversial Ford production took place in 1943.
Catherine Sullivan’s interest in seeking such historical sources is also confirmed by the filming method itself. Both performance videos of Tis Pity She’s a Fluxus Whore were recorded in the respective theatres where the ‘original’ performances took place, the Audimax in Aachen and the Avery Memorial Theatre in Hartford. However, Sullivan’s intention is not to reconstruct these performances but to integrate two completely different styles of performance in two completely different ‘productions’ into one entirely new work. Rather than remaining rigorously faithful to the source, she distances herself from it.
The ultimate result is a double projection on two TV screens depicting the same actions in contrasting styles. The voice-over features two voices, one female with a measured British accent, and one male with a German accent, speaking dialogues from Ford’s play and the Fluxus conversations respectively. In this presentation, Catherine Sullivan ’frustrates’ both sources. Not only is the mere narrative structure, characteristic of Jacobean theatre, disrupted, but also the Fluxus spirit, which strongly resisted stylized interpretations of art in general, and the Fluxus actions themselves in particular.
