The Performance of Making Art (2021)

video (4:07)

commissioned by MoMA Public Programs

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As part of MoMA’s public programming for the video art exhibition, “Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality,” Chao was invited to create a video response to her 1985 video “SoHo SoAp/Rain Damage,” which chronicles a flood in the artist’s studio and the conditions of being a working artist in NYC in 80s. The Performance of Making Art mimics the stylistic parameters of Kubota's work, who shot her films in a very DIY, unfussy, documentarian manner on her Portapak. Using her iPhone to document her own practice, Chao ​explores a central question raised in Kubota's work: What are the material and economic realities of sustaining an art practice? And Chao asks: Is it possible to be a non-commercial artist without overworking?