Breakdown

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      Simone Leigh, Liz Magic Laser, Breakdown, 2011, single-channel digital video, color, sound; 09:00 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Samuel and Blanche Koffler Acquisition Fund, 2019.33.2, © 2011, Simone Leigh & Liz Magic Laser

      Artwork Details

      Title
      Breakdown
      Date
      2011
      Location
      Not on view
      Copyright
      © 2011, Simone Leigh & Liz Magic Laser
      Credit Line
      Museum purchase through the Samuel and Blanche Koffler Acquisition Fund
      Mediums Description
      single-channel digital video, color, sound; 09:00 minutes
      Classifications
      Highlights
      Object Number
      2019.33.2

      Artwork Description

      Leigh, who is best known as a sculptor, and Laser, whose practice often turns public and political speech into performance scripts, decided to creatively collaborate when they discovered a shared interest in the depictions of "female hysteria" in popular media. For the initial score for Breakdown, they gathered scenes from soap operas, plays, movies, and reality television shows featuring characters expressing psychological crisis. The artists then worked with Alicia Hall Moran, the renowned mezzo-soprano, to interpret direct quotes and poses from this research material, which developed into the final libretto and choreography for the video.

      In her tour-de-force performance, Moran's artistic range and improvisational ability transform the repetitive phrases and shrill cries of hysteria into musical layers that are associated with gravitas, heroism, and history. The overall operatic style aligns this Black woman's emotional release with a traditionally elitist European high-art form, raising questions about which expressive displays are valued or criticized, and whose personal dramas are legitimized or dismissed. The performance also includes touches of the blues, jazz, and gospel hymns--African American musical forms that are themselves creatives balms for the psychological and spiritual impacts of racial inequity and violence.

      Though alone in a balcony, Moran points through the screen to us, her imagined audience. What role does our witnessing play when personal pain is presented for public consumption?

      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies, 2023

      Works by this artist (1 item)

      Mark Bradford, Amendment #8, 2014, mixed media, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Lohrfink Foundation and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2015.34, © 2014, Mark Bradford
      Amendment #8
      Date2014
      mixed media
      On view

      Related Books

      The cover of the publication Musical Thinking New Video Art & Sonic Strategies
      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies 
      Exploring the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music, the exhibition Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies features ten leading contemporary artists and the work.

      Exhibitions

      Media - 2020.54.1 - SAAM-2020.54.1_2 - 139600
      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies
      June 23, 2023January 28, 2024
      Musical Thinking explores the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music.

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