Elliot Reed (born 1992) is an American dancer and performance artist. Their projects span dance, video, performance, and sculpture and explores the relationship between physicality, time, and systems. Reed has shown internationally at venues like
MoMA PS 1, New York, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland, and
The Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...
, Los Angeles. Reed is a 2019 danceWEB scholar, 2019–20 Artist in Residence at
The Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...
, and recipient of the 2019 Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant.
Early life and education
Reed was born in 1992.
Reed graduated from
The School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...
with a BFA in 2011 and will graduate from the Institut Chorégraphique International - CCN Montpellier with an MA in
Choreography
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design ...
in 2023.
Work
As of 2014, Reed is the founder, director, and sole employee of ''Elliot Reed Laboratories.'' This is a production office located within the artist's body. ''Elliot Reed Laboratories'' holds a copyright with
The Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
and a
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...
business license. In 2017, Reed's performed ''COMEDY'' at Nous Tous Community Gallery in Los Angeles's Chinatown.
Reed's 2018 performances included the group performance in tribute to his great grandmother, ''America's Procession,'' and ''500 Questions'' where Reed and a cast ambled around the
Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
in uniform repeating only question words. Another performance, ''Two Business Women Trek To An Undisclosed Location'', had Reed direct two business women to walk from one end of Union Station Los Angeles Metro system to the other end. For Reed's Studio Museum residency, Reed drafted an account of the
Ed Buck
Edward Bernard Peter Buck (né Buckmelter; born August 24, 1954) is an American convicted felon and businessman. A former model and actor, he made a significant amount of money running and selling the data service company Gopher Courier. He becam ...
case. The project included self-performed choreography of vocalization and movement.
Reed is a frequent collaborator with performance artist
Ron Athey
Ron Athey (born December 16, 1961) is an American performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally (especially in the UK and Europe). Athey's work explores challenging ...
. In 2021, at Participant Inc, Athey and Reed replicated the human printing press for an audience who could only see the artwork via the non-profit gallery's windows. For the accompanying MoMA PS1 piece, Reed had on a cardinal's cloak and recited "the indictment of the
Swarovski
Swarovski (, ) is an Austrian producer of glass based in Wattens, Austria, and has existed as a family-owned business since its founding in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski.
The company is split into three major industry areas: the Swarovski Crystal ...
family for its alleged complicity with the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
."
For edition ''FIVE'' curated by artist
Nina Chanel Abney
Nina Chanel Abney is an American artist, based in New York. She was born in Harvey, Illinois. She is an African American contemporary artist and painter who explores race, gender, pop culture, homophobia, and politics in her work.
Personal life
...
for
Jack Shainman gallery Jack Shainman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City. The gallery was founded by Jack Shainman and Claude Simard (19562014) in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The gallery has a focus on artists from Africa, East Asia, and North America.
...
director Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels's roving gallery, We Buy Gold, Reed showed ''Quarantine Ballet'' (2020). The video was constructed from five smartphone recordings.
Reed contributed to
MIT Press's ''The Dance Review'' Winter 2020 edition with an essay on ''Performance Art Is…''
In 2021, Reed exhibited, ''This Longing Vessel: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2019–20'', alongside artists
E. Jane and
Naudline Pierre at
MoMA PS 1. The installation featured several sculptures, painted walls that referenced the color of his digitally scanned, and a multichannel video based on the crimes of Ed Buck, a contributor to Democratic politics in California. Buck was accused of handing out drugs that led to the deaths of Black men whom he'd hired for sex. Later that year, Reed show,''Three Works'', at
OCDChinatown
OCDChinatown is a Contemporary art, contemporary space for sound, image, object, movement and thought, located in New York City in the Chinatown, Manhattan, Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan. It was established in 2018 by Liutas van Hook.
OCDChi ...
in New York. The show took on the theme and explored the very definition of “Drawing." In March 2021, Reed performed, ''Enter the Facilitatrix,'' at
Monmouth University
Monmouth University is a private university in West Long Branch, New Jersey. Founded in 1933 as Monmouth Junior College, it became Monmouth College in 1956 and Monmouth University in 1995 after receiving its charter.
There are about 4,400 full- ...
''.''
Late in 2021, Reed showed in Switzerland for the first time at Kunsthaus Glarus. The exhibition, titled ''Rhythm'', included various video works, a green room lit with a neon, 4 Yamaha motorbikes and 4 speakers, a wall of knives halfway installed into the wall. They showed alongside Bri Williams and
Puppies Puppies. Reed was on a panel with Art + Practice's Public Programs and Exhibitions Manager Joshua Oduga to converse on Ellliot's history as an artist and the intersection of technology, collaboration, and sculpture.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reed, Elliot
1992 births
American performance artists
American queer artists
21st-century African-American artists
American contemporary artists
Living people
American LGBT artists
21st-century American LGBT people
21st-century American artists