Relax Into The Invisible, excerpt from the documentation of a collaborative performance by Emily Mast & Barnett Cohen, inspired by the writings of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, at LAXART, on August 10th 2019

To celebrate the closing of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s exhibition Relax into the Invisible, L.A.-based artists Emily Mast and Barnett Cohen presented an afternoon of dance and theater inspired by Solomon’s unmatched sensibility.

Barnett Cohen takes up Solomon’s artist book Utopia Myopia: 36 Plays On A Page to stage a theatrical reading of select texts, which Solomon describes as “Typography & Pornography, Lines & Lies & Clues to Use Nonsense Invents Events.” These short, pithy (and all-ages-friendly) plays have never before been staged and Cohen’s actors will, for the first time ever, bring them off the page. These absurdist plays delve into everything from mass media, Hollywood, and Anderson Cooper to European émigrés, history, ecology, angels, palm trees, and legs! Performers are Celina Bernstein, Lea Madda, Andres Paul Ramacho, and Cary Thompson.

Drawing inspiration from Solomon’s artist book Read Any Good Boots Lately?, Emily Mast choreographs a group of dancers to interact with and move through the artist’s sculptural installation. In her book, Solomon—who was trained as a dancer before beginning her career as a graphic designer—describes a “flashy chorus-line [that] covers hovers a seriously silly history. Her-story. How high-heeled red boots make her feel free.” As Mast’s dancers make clear in a series of vignettes, “Red boots make the invisible extraordinarily visible.” Performers are Gregory Barnett, Dorothy Dubrule, Jessica Emmanuel, and Darrian O’Reilly, with music by Evan Mast.