Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective (2024)
By Laura Levin
Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective
Constellating performance archive
192 pages
Published : October 2024
ISBN: 9781835950449
Paperback
14 x 10 inches
How do archives perform? What might it mean for art institutions to take seriously the embodied and communal nature of performance art in their practices of archiving and museological display? Renowned international performance theorists and artists explore and reflect on Dobkin’s celebrated 30 year practice. 440 col. illus
Taking as its starting point the first-ever retrospective exhibition (2021) of performance art icon Jess Dobkin, the book reflects on the internationally acclaimed artist’s playful and provocative practice as performer, activist, curator, and community leader. At the same time, it grapples with a question that is vital for art and performance studies: How do archives perform?
More than a discrete showing of a single artist’s work, the exhibition, including its new staging in book form, is a large-scale research experiment in performance curation, investigating what it might mean for art institutions to take seriously the embodied and communal nature of performance art in their practices of archiving and museological display.
In Jess Dobkin’s Wetrospective, a cast of renowned international performance theorists and artists dive into this exploration alongside Dobkin, curator Emelie Chhangur, and performance theorist and dramaturg Laura Levin. These contributions appear alongside a riot of full colour photographs, providing access to Dobkin’s celebrated artistic productions from the last 30 years.
About the Author
Laura Levin is associate professor of theatre and performance at York University (Toronto) and York research chair in art, technology, and global activism. She is director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology and the Hemispheric Encounters Network, and author of Performing Ground: Space, Camouflage, and the Art of Blending In.
