Johanna Constantine, Conduit
Curated by ANOHNI
July 10 – Aug 14, 2022
Opening Sunday, July 10, 5-9pm

From July 10 to August 14, 2022, PARTICIPANT INC presents Johanna Constantine, Conduit, which marks the artist’s first solo exhibition including performance, sculpture, vintage and newly produced performance videos. Eight of Constantine’s iconic dance works were videotaped on-site for this exhibition: White Dance, Insect Mother, Airplane Dance, Ceremony, Deer Dance, Claw Dance, Bird Dance, and Knife Dance and, together with videos from the archives of ANOHNI, will be continuously on view as an immersive installation. Conduit emphasizes and acknowledges Constantine’s lifework, channeling the struggle to survive in an uncertain environment.

Johanna Constantine, Conduit is the first in a series of three exhibitions curated by ANOHNI exploring work related to Blacklips Performance Cult. Blacklips was started by ANOHNI in New York City's East Village in the summer of 1992 with founding members Johanna Constantine and Psychotic Eve. At times, Blacklips enacted an art of death as described by artist and queer theorist Jill H. Casid, anticipating the Necrocene with the production of allegorical plays that addressed the intertwined issues of AIDS and the Anthropocene, weekly and with great effort, through scenes of post-apocalyptic horizons populated by dead and undead, non-human and human characters. In discussing some of the unexplained cultural references of Constantine that pre-dated as well as permeated Blacklips, ANOHNI recalled, “In Class Nine Nuclear Mishap [a deep-state conspiracy play written by Clark Render] she was cast as a nuclear reactor, which was exactly the type of role at which she excelled. She embodies a savage force of nature, dancing through ever-near annihilation. This is the spirit that has stayed with her in past and current works.”