Autumn Knight Performance 1: party of one

About this event

Autumn Knight: I Can't Complain New York-based interdisciplinary artist Autumn Knight presents a newly commissioned performance-lecture about the act of complaining: its pleasures, its frustrations, and its political potential. The first in a series of five performances, party of one sees Knight command the room, shifting the exhibition space into a live stage. A captivating performer, Knight uses her presence, movement and voice, alongside the elements of the exhibition including a lightbox platform and balloon net. The lecture-perfornance follows a text-based script developed in tandem with, and in response to, the other works in I Can't Complain . Knight’s performance practice often draws on absurdity, humour and vulnerability to confront serious topics, while opening them up for consideration with empathy. Knight has been exploring complaint and disappointment in her practice for the last few years. She interrogates the nuances of complaint: the individual’s burden, the social judgement, who has the right to complain and where, and the institutions and mechanisms that suppress it. At the same time, she revels in the cathartic joy of expressing long-held grievances and the power of complaint made communal. Across her solo exhibition I Can’t Complain , and within these performances, Knight explores complaint as tool for crystallizing other critical areas of her artistic interest: social dynamics, systems of authority, and conventional perceptions of race and gender.