Duets is a series of four improvised performances by Elliot Reed, the score for which calls Reed to invite a single guest for a unique hour-long encounter. Reinterpreting COVID-19 precautions as a formal challenge, Reed and his guests occupy an audience-less physical space at a distance from one another, navigating institutional public health guidelines. The performances are filmed in a private location within MoMA PS1 inaccessible to the public, and streamed live to a monitor onsite at PS1 and also to this webpage. In tandem, live footage of the monitor, as well as the visitors watching it, will be broadcast to PS1’s instagram. This tangle of multiplied feeds reflects the doubling of bodies in digital space, a conceptual extension of Reed’s work in This Longing Vessel.
Duets is presented in conjunction with This Longing Vessel: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2019–20, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s annual Artist-in-Residence exhibition, held at MoMA PS1 while the Studio Museum constructs a new building on the site of its longtime home on West 125th Street.
