Clean Labor
Public Art
Clean Labor
Created by artist Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor was a contemporary dance performance shedding light on the often overlooked work of hospitality and cleaning professionals. Collaborating with dancers and housekeeping staff at the Wythe Hotel, Fernandes crafted a choreography inspired by the graceful yet demanding movements of maintenance work. The performance explored the intersection of dance and labor, revealing the physical toll of unseen efforts. Dancers engaged with hotel spaces, intertwining maintenance gestures with dance.
When
March, 2017
Where
Wythe Hotel, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The Armory Show art fair.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
-
About the artist
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Created by artist Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor was a contemporary dance performance that makes visible what is too often overlooked — the work of hospitality workers and cleaning professionals whose contributions ensure that our homes, offices, schools, hotels, and public spaces are safe, clean, and livable. Fernandes collaborated with six dancers and members of the housekeeping staff at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to design an original, contemporary dance inspired by the movements and routines involved in their work. The resulting performance explores the similarities between the graceful and methodical movements of maintenance and those of dance, establishing a dialogue between the two, physically demanding professions and making us all more aware of how our bodies shape and are shaped by the work we do.
As the artist notes, “On stage, dancers enact romantic gestures of grace and virtuosity perceived as effortless and ephemeral, whereas in reality, these efforts leave a permanent mark on the body in muscle memory, altered physicality, and injury.” Throughout the performances, the movement artists engaged with and activate the spaces of numerous hotel rooms and shared spaces of the Wythe Hotel by reproducing the gestures of maintenance within the lexicon of contemporary dance. In the hotel itself cleaning go on as usual both with cleaner and her/his dancer shadow. While the piece was rehearsed and scored, the live performance relied on improvised movements inspired by the spatial elements of each site’s floor plan composed of numerous and interlocking quarters.
On Sunday, March 5, 2017 Clean Labor was performed at the Wythe Hotel. Dancers were joined by the Wythe Hotel’s cleaning staff in this very special performance. While the cleaners make up the room, the performers took their movements and gestures as inspiration as the voyeuristic crowd watches every subtle moment occur. The performance will take place in numerous rooms throughout the Wythe as well as in the Ides Rooftop Bar. An originally choreographed preview of Clean Labor was also performed at the Sotheby’s VIP Gala at the opening of The Armory Show art fair.
Clean Labor included performances by Christopher DeVita, Charles Gowin, Madison Krekel, Erica Ricketts, Oisín Monaghan, Khadijia Griffith with Wythe Hotel housekeepers: Angie Sherpa, Tenzin Thokme, and Tenzin Woiden. Special thanks to Lorissa Rinehart, Eric Shiner, and Kimia Kline for their work as key consultants.
Download the press release.
Partners
Brendan Fernandes
Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Brendan’s projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Brendan’s projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest...always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity. Brendan is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters grant. Brendan is also the recipient of the Artadia Award (2019), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019). His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal); among a great many others. He is currently Assistant Professor at Northwestern University and represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Noguchi Museum, New York, NY; Munch Art Museum, Oslo, Norway; The Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC; and The DR Vocal Ensemble, Copenhagen, Denmark.Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Brendan’s projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Brendan’s projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest...always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity. Brendan is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters grant. Brendan is also the recipient of the Artadia Award (2019), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019). His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal); among a great many others. He is currently Assistant Professor at Northwestern University and represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Noguchi Museum, New York, NY; Munch Art Museum, Oslo, Norway; The Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC; and The DR Vocal Ensemble, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Gesso Presents: Brendan Fernandes's Performance "Clean Labor" in collaboration with More Art, the Wythe Hotel Brooklyn, and Monique Meloche Gallery.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Preview performance at The Armory Show art fair, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Preview performance at The Armory Show art fair, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Preview performance at The Armory Show art fair, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
Brendan Fernandes, Clean Labor, 2017. Performance at Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn NY, March 2017.
