Catherine Sullivan: Triangle of Need

‘Triangle of Need' is a multi-channel video installation, in which Catherine Sullivan orchestrates a complex set of ideas and participants to weave a nuanced story about evolution, class, wealth and poverty, and the inequalities and injustices in our global economy. Best known for her theatre and video work that explores the conventions of performance and role playing, Sullivan has collaborated with Los Angeles -based composer Sean Griffin, Minneapolis-based choreographer Dylan Skybrook, and Nigeria-based actor and film maker Kunle Afolayan, in the creation of this commission. ‘Triangle of Need’ will have its world premiere at the Walker Art Center in August 2007, before moving to Greenland Street for its European premiere. ‘Triangle of Need’ will then tour venues in the US and Europe.

The first two elements of ‘Triangle of Need’ transpose several imagined narratives into different locations. The first location is the former estate of American industrialist James Deering, Vice President and heir to the American agricultural trust, International Harvester. Built in the 1910s on the bay of Biscayne in Miami, and now the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the architecture spans Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neo-classical styles. For Sullivan, Vizcaya represents an environment embellished by horrific consumption and provides a setting for her piece where the past, present and future collide.

The second location is a turn of the century apartment building in Chicago, the home of Deering's factory. The narratives of these two locations centre on notions of evolution, categorisation, discontinuity and the 19th century imagination. The first narrative involves a wealthy industrialist trying to force the last remaining members of a unique hominid species to reproduce, while the second narrative sees reconstructions of scenes from the catalogue of Pathescope Films, the company from which James Deering ordered silent film reels for screening at Vizcaya.

Details are picked out to highlight the relevance between these two contrasting scenes. The same is true for the language of the third narrative, another wealthy façade. This narrative focuses on text from fraudulent e-mails originating in Nigeria, seeking assistance in securing large sums of money. These components are collaborations with Nigerian actor/director Kunle Afolayan, who will direct various scenes from Sullivan's script, Minneapolis based dancer/choreographer Dylan Skybrook, and Los Angeles based composer Sean Griffin. Griffin has created an original score for eleven instruments for ‘Triangle of Need’. For this project he has developed a performance language called Mousterian. This language incorporates Neanderthal speech and explores the pathologically cultural acts of European science which held their most disturbing presumptions about the primitive in the colonial era, the era of Vizcaya.

Skybrook and Sullivan have focused their rendering of three of the characters in ‘Triangle of Need’ on notions of overcoming a "social face". Skybrook’s choreography uses ideas of anatomical history to create movement which might inspire the same dizzying feeling brought about by viewing something that seems both human and not. He has invited two dancers, Kristin Van Loon and Justin Jones, to participate.

Another component of ‘Triangle of Need’ sees figure skater Rohene Ward shown in a series of combination spins offering a fleeting form. These scenes are presented with footage of festive events at Vizcaya including photo sessions on the occasion of Quinceañera, a young woman's fifteenth birthday. This creates a symmetry between the skater's romantic costume and the gowns of the young women. At the same time a disfiguring element is introduced, with both scenes partially shot in discontinued film stock, one in particular, reveals a palate associated with a modern and familiar era which has recently passed.

Sullivan, who is based in Chicago, initially trained as an actress. Using a wide range of historical and cultural references, including film noir, avant-garde cinema, contemporary art and the history of theatre, Sullivan explores the tensions between performers, their roles and their audience. Sullivan’s most recent work, ‘The Chittendens’, was exhibited at Secession Vienna and Tate Modern to critical acclaim.

Catherine Sullivan’s Triangle of Need is co-commissioned by A Foundation, Liverpool; Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. A Foundation’s commission is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation and Arts Council England. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens’ Contemporary Arts Project is supported by The Danielson Foundation. Catherine Sullivan’s artist residency at the Walker Art Center was made possible by a generous support from Nimoy Foundation. Additional support is provided by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Miami; Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels; Metro Pictures Gallery, New York Galeria Giò Marconi, and Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne/Berlin.

Catherine Sullivan
Triangle of Need