A conversation between David Getsy and Dominic Johnson illuminating the historical, social and cultural context of the ‘gutter art’ of Stephen Varble and the wider para-theatrical traditions it sprang from.

Greg Day, Stephen Varble in the Demonstration Costume with Only One Shoe (for the Chemical Bank Protest), 22 March 1976. Digital print, 2018. © Greg Day, 2019

2.00pm - 4.00pm

Admission £3

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Excessive: Performance, Confrontation, and the 1970s

Dominic Johnson and David J. Getsy in Conversation

In the United Kingdom and the United States, the 1970s were a time of economic anxiety and uncertainty. This decade also saw the flourishing of performance art that was confrontational to commercialism, to propriety, and to the public. Dominic Johnson, author of Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s, and David Getsy, curator of The Gutter Art of Stephen Varble: Genderqueer Performance in the 1970s, will discuss the ways in which performance artists infiltrated public discourses, created extreme or aggressive works, and brought new questions about gender and sexuality to the fore.

This talk is part of The Horse Hospital’s Psychic Communities programme of exhibitions and events looking at community-forming mechanisms that operate beyond verbal and visual transmission through sensual, sexual, spiritual, embodied and tacit forms of connection. Psychic Communities runs throughout October & November 2019.

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