Clutch Gallery is pleased to present Chance Encounters with Joan: Invitations toward an Epilogue by Trevor Martin. Playing on the participatory nature imbued in Clutch, Martin has structured this work as a chance encounter and a series of performance engagements. For this project, phrases from the stage directions of George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan have been custom-fitted as written text into a series of fortune cookies. The viewer may interpret these individual fortunes as fragments of poetry or, in the spirit of Yoko Ono’s “Instruction Paintings,” as invitations for his or her own performative response. Upon opening the fortune, each viewer is invited to offer a short performance response with the curator of Clutch, using the fortune-encrypted text as a script for a chance happening. Any response is acceptable and welcomed. Chance Encounters with Joan: Invitations toward an Epilogue runs through August 27, 2011.
Trevor Martin is a multidisciplinary artist who currently serves as the Director of Exhibitions and also teaches in the Performance Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Trevor received his BA in literature and studio art from Transylvania University (1992) and MFA from SAIC (1998). He has shown his solo and collaborative works both locally and internationally in festivals and curated programs.