Exhibition
The Keith Haring Theatre
Opening Reception: October 5 | 6:30pm
October 5 – 31 | Tuesday – Sunday | 12 – 6pm
Free
Performance
The Keith Haring Theatre
October 31 | 8pm
Tickets
Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Nasty & Full presents the New York debut of a body of work four years in the making, site-specifically installed for the Keith Haring Theater at Performance Space New York. Through a fusion of voice, video installation, sculpture, and performance, Thomas seeks new pathways to understand and express the foundationally transient nature of being and becoming a doll—a trans femme so flawless and unbound she is no longer considered real.
Thomas’s artwork emerges from an iterative process informed by her writing and performance; her practice is linguistic as much as it is bodily. With latex, paper bags, pillars and bricks of repurposed materials, Thomas thoughtfully builds a fluid space, black and blue, all imbued with elements signifying care that build upon and depart from past bodies of work throughout her career.
A series of sculptures aptly titled Waterbodies mark the gallery floor in two portal-like ripples of blue nitrile gloves that surround the blackened, resilient figures of tree stumps; carbonized fuel for the new world. Although stationary, each Waterbody holds movement, caught between buoyancy and wading.
Stationed throughout the perimeter of Nasty & Full are a selection of twelve Paper Bag Soldiers, made by Thomas between 2022-2024. Some shown for the first time, these sculptures are vessels of compact time, loosely packed with material such as fast food baskets, used latex glove packaging, and other remnants from Thomas’s past exhibitions, installations, and performances that now become elements of the artist’s archive.
Contained within the world of Nasty & Full is the video trilogy Come Hell or High Femmes made between 2020-2023. The videos are projected to life size proportions on three custom-made screens, and suspended from the ceiling with manila rope typically used on large ships and in the boating industry. The video trilogy is presented in three “Acts” which appear and disappear in three sequences of moving image and audio. This process of layering and overlapping image and sound—that also appears in Thomas’s live performances—is central to Thomas’s practice. It is one way her work continues to build upon itself and create new worlds and experience–ever expanding.
This timeless world is for us, offering moments to acknowledge, reflect on, and move through realities that can feel oppressive and untenable, with self-fulfillment always in sight. Transfiguration for the artist is not a destination, but a tool that can act as a shield and life force, allowing dolls to move through worlds and show up wholeheartedly in our truth. Unique and unified, she will meet you there.
Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Nasty & Full culminates with the one and only New York premiere of the live performance from which this body of work originated, Come Hell or High Femmes: The Dolls Rise, on Halloween night (October 31).
Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Nasty & Full is curated by Isis Awad as Executive Care*.
*Please Note: This production contains strobe lighting and haze effects which may be disruptive to people who are sensitive.
Funding: Keioui Keijaun Thomas: Nasty & Full is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Photo: Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Come Hell or High Femmes: The Era of the Dolls, Abrons Art Center, 2023. Photo by Christopher Sonny Martinez. Come Hell or High Femmes was made possible with funding from The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Mellon Foundation.
Production Credits:
Lighting Designer: Beaudau Karel Banks
Video Engineer: Matthew Deinhart
Audio Engineer: Jonah Rosenberg
Production Manager: Andy Sowers
Screen Stretcher: Žilvinas Jonuśas