The Kissing Mask

The Kissing Mask was first performed at the Seattle Art Museum as part of the opening night of Disguise: Masks and Global African Art curated by Pam McClusky & Erika Dalya Massaquoi.    

The Kissing Mask is a performance inspired by one of ruby onyinyechi amanze's drawings. The drawing is titled:

that low hanging kind of sun, the one that lingers two feet above your head, (never dying) house plants in exchange for your freedom...orchids in exchange for your love, who are you kissing, when you kiss a mask?

I was particularly drawn to this question: who are you kissing, when you kiss a mask? For the performance I have created a mask [which riffs off of amanze's drawing].  I sit on a plinth over the course of the evening and kiss audience members who approach me. These may be cheek, face or lip kisses.

Photograph: John Rudolph

The Kissing Mask reconnects the 'artifact' to the present moment by proposing an intimate act between artist, mask and viewer. As such, this performance complicates and dismantles the mask as sacred object or historical relic by making use of it on a living body [that of the artist/performer]. The performance also becomes a vehicle to speak about what constitues intimacy, touch, and connection. What do we share with and show to our family, friends and strangers? Does a mask offer a space to negotiate that intimacy outside of society's rules? Does the mask come alive only through the audience? Or simply the artist? Or, is it always charged? Do the intentions of the wearer and/or viewer affect the power and pull of the object?

amanze writes further about her drawing:

when i think about kissing a mask i think about kissing something that isn't. something that is blocking you from the thing that you understand is like you. something that is a disguise. but so perfectly, that it's becomes its own thing. a mask is a mask. and it's inanimate 90% of the time. but can be charged in the right hands. or on the right body. i wondered in that drawing about kissing this relic. this stolen, no longer charged representation of africa. kissing it to revive it. kissing it to see what africa tasted like. kissing it because you're in love. with this thing. or with what this thing is trying to be. or is in your head. or none of the above. maybe it was just this woman ghost kissing merman who had on a mask.

In my own work I often use masks to interrupt present time and create space or claim power. The mask is an opening, a way to claim physical, social or liminal space. But, I am also interested in how this particular mask and performance [in true trickster fashion] might simply be 'none of the above', an object completely devoid of the sacred or reverent.

Other work that I am thinking about with regard to this performance includes: James Luna [The Artifact Piece,1986], Tracey Rose [The Kiss, 2001], and Lorna Simpson [Flipside, 1991].

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A drawing-performance with ruby amanze

A drawing-performance with ruby onyinyechi amanze, Feb 21, 2015.  

As part of amanze's exhibition a story. in parts at Tiwani Contemporary.  Read more about the performance and exhibition in ruby's interview with Yvette Gresle. 

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NO SUCH PLACE: Opens February 26, 2015

detail from The Garden, 2015

No Such Place: Contemporary African Artists in America
Curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah & Dexter Wimberly 
Opening Reception: February 26, Thursday, 6-8pm
Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery 
37 West 57th Street, NY
February 26-April 3, 2015

featuring: ruby onyinyechi amanze, Modou Dieng, Brendan Fernandes, Derek Fordjour, SherinGuirguis, Vivienne Koorland, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and AdejokeTugbiyele

Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art announces No Such Place: Contemporary African Artists in America curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah and Dexter Wimberly, a group exhibition that highlights recent work by nine contemporary African artists living and working in the United States.
The exhibition’s curators, Larry Ossei-Mensah and Dexter Wimberly, seek to initiate a nuanced discussion about "Africaness" in the context of contemporary culture. By including multi-generational artists from African countries as varied as Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, they seek to further debunk the idea of Africa as a singular, monolithic "place". The exhibition highlights artists who express cultural duality and punctuates the complexities of African identity.

In stating, "There is no such thing as contemporary African art – there is only contemporary art from Africa,” Bisi Silva, independent curator and founder/director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria warns against generic geographical descriptions of art from a continent that is so vast and diverse. Taking a cue from Silva’s significant statement, No Such Place investigates the overlapping signifiers and great diversity present in these particular artists’ work, providing a space that fosters a broader dialogue about culture, aesthetics, religion and politics. No Such Place dives into artistic intuition, exploring how these nine artists process identity and represent their individual points of view.

According to Nahem "There is a new and talented wave of artists emanating from all corners of the rich cultural tapestry known as Africa. We are excited to share in this exploration of contemporary work from a small group of artists from the diaspora, whose diversity lends itself to age, gender, roots and geography. Their new world is ideally one that opens us up to our own concept of the newness of Africa today. We are excited to provide such a forum and hopefully to be a meeting ground and catalyst for its growth and dissemination."

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