David Medalla: "FOUR ACES - A participatory performance"

David Medalla at the Swiss Institute, 11/06/07

As we come into the art space, we see fabrics on the floor of one part of the space, defining what is to become the stage. Visitors are invited to take a seat on chairs facing this stage, and also on the margins of the stage itself. Next to this carpet of fabrics, we see a group of young men, all wearing nothing but white t-shirts and white briefs.

David Medalla starts his performance with a monologue addressing the audience:

His choice of young men is not only aesthetic, but based on a painting by Piera della Francesca, which is displayed at the National Gallery in London. He points out that the Renaissance was a period when the human body was free of censorship, and that a marker of repressive societies is the repression of the human body and human needs. He also talks of other paintings he saw at the National Gallery in London that represent people playing cards, and that in this performance, cards play the role of assigning arbitrary meanings.

From this art historical set up, Medalla moves into a personal story.

When he lived in New York in the nineties, he lived in a place too far out in Queens and didn’t have a ‘Green Card.’ He decided to live as a homeless person in Thompson Park and do performances for a living.

For example, he put a branch on his head, similar to the one right here.

He also had a moneybag in his hand. When people came to ask what he was doing, he answered “it’s a wishin

g tree. When you put money into the bag, make a wish and it will come true.” When they asked if he could guarantee that their wish would come true, he said “no, I can’t.” Nevertheless, they gave him money, and so he continued with this performance, even repeating it in other cities.

Later, as an invited artist on a DAAD stipend in Europe, a woman walked up to him. “Do you remember me? Because, I remember you!” “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I do this very often.” It turns out that this woman had put 300 dollars into Medalla’s moneybag. “Of course! I wanted to

thank you!” The woman continues to tell her story. When she saw him in Thompson Park, she made th

three wishes: to divorce her husband, to get a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, and to live happily. All the wishes came true. She took Medalla out to dinner and gave him an envelope to be opened later. She had given him another three thousand dollars.

On this note, the young men start giving out envelopes to the audience, for everyone to make a wish and donate money.

Every individual man is asked to introduce himself, talk a bit about their lives, what they are doing, and how they came to perform here.

Most of them turned out to be artists or performers themselves, coming to the performance through art organizations, though some were curators or actors. Medalla seems not to have met them before.

The men give out sticky notes, and everyone in the audience is asked to write a noun on them.

Next, Medalla explains the playing cards, to be drawn later: Hearts stand for a verb, Spades for an adjective, Clubs for adverbs, and the Joker for anything.

Medalla reminds the audience that all is about utter meaninglessness.

We hear music, English and French ballads about love.

Throughout the whole performance, Medalla gives precise instructions for each step, calmly and persistently. Although nothing appears to be practiced, the performers do a very experienced job in following the given steps.

One after one, each young man takes off his shirt, then holds up a color copy of the detail of the Renaissance painting. Half-naked, they sit down in a circle and Medalla starts dancing in the middle. He looks mischievous, obviously enjoying himself. Then they all dance, culminating in throwing their t-shirts up in the air.

Medalla explains the four suits of cards, representing now the four directions. With their shirts and photocopies, the young men form a cross and a circle. Then they all point north, south, east and west. As they were first instructed to point, a funny slip occurred: many of them pointed in conflicting directions.

They all lie down are told to sleep and dream.

He asks the audience to close their eyes and dream. However, hardly anyone even pretends to. He also addresses the audience with other speeches, but the music is too loud for me to understand what he’s saying. Then Medalla wakes up the young men. He says, “I was going to offer you rice cakes, but I forgot them in Brooklyn.” Instead, they receive rubber balls to play with, and they do so joyfully.

I’m impressed by Medalla’s balancing of his script and with the improvisation. He seems very masterful at creating an atmosphere of calm, focus, and playfulness.

After playtime with the balls, the young men are told to represent the four seasons with body language. They repeat this task twice. As they arrive in winter for the second time, they get close together to hug and keep each other warm.

The erotic atmosphere increases with the next game: forming a circle with one young man standing in the middle, the others are supposed to form a star, using a twine. As they start experimenting, several get caught up in twine, rather bondage-style. The star formation has come out of control erotically.

You can smell the men’s sweat throughout the Swiss Institute. Using the previously distributed post its, the young men start reciting and making up short poems, and so does the audience. That’s when Medalla starts sticking the sticky-note nouns from earlier onto their backs.

While the poetry recital is spinning out of control, Medalla begins wrapping golden fabric around the waists of “his boys.” This fabric mirrors the golden flag in the background which announces the details of the performance. He proceeds to explain more to the audience, but the simultaneous poetry recital makes it too loud to understand anything. (see video below)

We are coming to the last part. Medalla reads out four postcards which he has written to friends during his brief NYC stay. The first three of them strike me as rather professional, announcing and describing future events mostly. Only the last postcard describes personally what he has been doing in New York. It’s a pragmatic description of preparations for the performance we just saw, along with impressions of the New York Marathon. Medalla thanks his friend for helping him move his books out of his London flat in Hackney.

The performance ends with Medalla thanking everybody and the young men collecting the envelopes. The cash inside is for them to keep.

Overall, the audience seemed amused, and they clapped cheerfully. Only a few left during the performance.

Personally, I can’t say if I liked the piece or not. It simply ‘was.’ And since I’m a fan of work that ‘is’ rather than being ‘about,’ I went home in a good mood after a night well spent at another successful event in the “Spoken Word Exhibition” series.

Later, I had a chance to chat a bit with the performers, and I invited them to contribute to this blog. So, if you read this, boys, let us know! What were your impressions? How did you feel on the stage?