Cally Spooner: On False Tears and Outsourcing

The New Museum presents a new installation by Cally Spooner which will be her first solo and institutional presentation in the United States.

Marking an important shift of duration in her work, “On False Tears and Outsourcing” will bring Spooner’s live performance practice into the format of an exhibition. Responding directly to the space of the Lobby Gallery—and using it as a readymade pavilion—Spooner’s project will take the gallery’s architectural similarity to industrial glass structures and office environments as a point of departure. By exaggerating the light and heat levels and introducing continuous disembodied sound, Spooner will engage directly with the mechanics of the space to create an intensified situation in which a group of performers will complete a set of tasks that fluctuate between competition and intimacy. Structured according to the logic of corporate development meetings, often referred to as “stand-up scrums,” this performance will also appropriate gestures from romantic movies and competitive contact sports. Interested in the pretense of the neutralizing effects of work environments and the concept of transparency—both conceptually and spatially—Spooner will look at the production of an “architecture of management” and the ways in which it imposes itself very physically onto the human body.