Shana Moulton Meta/Physical Therapy (2024) at the Museum of Modern Art
original score by and live performance collaboration with Nick Hallett
February 17-April 21, 2024; Live Performances April 6 -14
This exhibition will premiere a new site-specific installation by Shana Moulton, whose work captures the banality and enormity of everyday life.
Presented as a multi-chapter narrative, the installation will be accompanied by a series of performances created in collaboration with composer Nick Hallett. Follow Moulton’s performance persona, Cynthia, on her quest for wellness and knowledge as she navigates an ecstatic environment in which things are not what they seem. The performance will take the form of a medical ritual, in which a team of care providers—performed by musicians Nava Dunkelman, Shayna Dunkelman, Raquel Acevedo Klein, Anaïs Maviel, and Nick Hallett—guides Cynthia through a series of strengthening exercises and lessons in self-acceptance. In a final act of transformation, she achieves synchrony with the mysterious workings of the universe.
Through performance, video, and sculpture, Moulton chronicles the experiences of her semi-autobiographical alter-ego, Cynthia, as she navigates personal choices and physical limitations. Transforming the Kravis Studio into a prismatic environment, this installation employs the artist’s signature blend of spiritual imagery, medical technology, popular culture, and references to high art and dollar-store kitsch. An extension of Moulton’s Whispering Pines series, which began in 2002, the project continues the artist’s incisive examination of the aesthetics of pain and healing and the mass marketing of wellness, and explores the maladies of middle age.
