P. Staff, Electric and ecstatic
Monday 23 Jun 2025 from 7pm to 8:30pm
Free upon registration
Talk in english
British artist P. Staff weaves readings with video work reflecting on the concept of ecstasy, understood as a state of extreme emotion, a spiritual or physical experience of being taken outside of oneself.
Through a curated selection of texts referencing trans poetics, mysticism, and necropolitics, P. Staff divulges ongoing research into processes by which life lived in (e)motion becomes repressed in a society defined by violence.
During the talk, the films On Venus (2019) and La Nuit Américaine (2023) will be shown.
On Venus is a work in two parts: the first presents altered images of agro-industrial exploitation, highlighting the systemic violence inflicted on bodies, both human and non-human. The second part offers a poetic meditation on a queer and fluid existence, evoking an alternative reality on the planet Venus.
La Nuit Américaine takes its title from the film technique of shooting during the day to simulate night. The film explores the dissolution of the boundaries between day and night, reason and chaos.
Solo exhibitions have been held at Ordet, Milan (2024); Kunsthalle Basel (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022, 2018); LUMA, Arles (2021); Institute of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2020); Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2024); 59th Venice Biennale (2022); 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021); Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin (2021); 47 Canal, New York (2021); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); and Gasworks, London (2016).
Staff is a recipient of Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2019) and the Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Artists (2015). Staff has participated in residencies at FD13, Minneapolis (2018); LUX, London (2014); The Showroom, London (2014); Fogo Island Arts (2012); and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta (2010).
Staff’s work is in the collections of Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf; LUMA Arles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Saastamoinen Foundation, Helsinki; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.