BAYTHUR is a multimedia installation by Kansas City-based artist Johanna Winters that considers the condition of a puppeted female who performs her sensuality for a pretend audience. Through video, audio, and sculpture, Winters manifests the BAYTHUR as an embodied chaperone adorned in papier-mâché costuming and appendages. She navigates her environs devoid of human presence (empty garden fountains, empty home interiors, empty bathtubs), yet she is titillated by the possibility of being witnessed. In this way, we might recognize a familiar tension between consented and unwanted noticing. Her bumbling and muted disposition cajoles onlookers into a (pitying?) response that offers up the validation she seeks.

At the opening on April 1st, Winters will present a collaborative performance with cellist and composer Ethan Philbrick, titled AN UNTUCHING, EN FOOR PARTS, that explores the politics of touch by pairing experimental shadow puppetry and new music for solo cello.

Johannna Winters

Johanna Winters is a puppeteer and educator based in Kansas City, MO. Her work engages puppetry, video, performance, and sculpture to dispatch anxieties about aging in a female body. She holds an MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She has been awarded residencies at the Corporation of Yaddo, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, Lawrence Arts Center, ACRE, Vermont Studio Center, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Guttenberg Arts, and Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland. Prior to her artistic pursuits, Winters trained as a professional cross country skier and competed on an Olympic-development ski team based in the upper Midwest.

Winters’ work has been exhibited and performed nationally – recently at Coop Gallery (Nashville, TN), Soo Visual Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), Plug Projects (Kansas City, MO), and Open Eye Figure Theater (Minneapolis, MN). She currently teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute

Ethan Philbrick

Ethan Philbrick is a composer, cellist, and writer. Recent projects include Choral Marx at NYU Skirball (2018), 10 Meditations in an Emergency at The Poetry Project and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2019/2020), March is for Marches with Morgan Bassichis at Triple Canopy (2019), Disordo Virtutum at Museum of Art and Design (2020), Slow Dances at The Kitchen Video Viewing Room (2020), and The Gay Divorcees at the One Archives at USC (2021). Philbrick’s writing has been published in academic journals such as ASAP/Journal, PAJ, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, TDR, and Women and Performance. Philbrick holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University and currently serves as visiting assistant professor of performance studies at Muhlenberg College.

 

Opening Reception:

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ACRE Projects @ Drama Club
2439 S Oakley Avenue
Chicago , IL 60608

Not Wheelchair Accessible

Performances at 8pm and 9pm

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