February 26th, 2022 at 2pm at the Steuben Playground Handball Court
Featuring Nile Harris, Bobbi Jene Smith, Holly Sass, Matt Shalzi, Jonah Rosenberg, Jesse Zaritt, and Matty Davis
Presented by Bungee Space, 3standardstoppage studio
ABOUT How Shall Thou Resolve Thyself
2 of 150 editions of How Shall Thou Resolve Thyself, bound using garments worn by the performers.
How Shall Thou Resolve Thyself will be released for the first time in New York City site-specifically at the Steuben Playground handball court, where the work took place. The occasion will feature readings by the performers as well as a conversation facilitated by dance artist Jesse Zaritt. This is an outdoor event, so please dress appropriately. Hot coffee will be provided.
Admission to the site-specific release of How Shall Thou Resolve Thyself can be purchased here via Eventbrite. Attendees can pay $10 to attend the event or purchase the work as a form of admission.
How Shall Thou Resolve Thyself, 34.5 x 24.5 cm / 10 x 14 in (unfolded 66 x 48 cm / 26 x 19 in)
Coinciding with the release, Davis’s first performance arranged for print, Knee Balance, will be available at 3standardstoppage’s Bungee Space (13 Stanton St. New York, NY 10002), along with additional publications including Until it reached into our lives and destroyed the tranquility that we had (made with Ayham Ghraowi, Matt Wolff, and contributors Michael Maizels, Ileana Selejan, Eryka Dellenbach, Chris Lee, Michael Kelsey, et al.), Carriage (made with Ben Gould, Ayham Ghraowi, Matt Wolff, and contributors Will Arbery, Jade Thacker, Joseph Johnston, and Luke Joyner), and Wood Bone Mill (made with Bryan Saner, Ayham Ghraowi, Matt Wolff, and contributors Kara Jefts, Jake Saner, Teresa Pankratz, Eryka Dellenbach, Quinn Turley, Hannah Geil-Neufeld, David Kasnic, Whitten Sabbatini, and Indigo Greenberg.) Additionally, from February 26 - March 12, Bryan Saner and Davis’s artist editions of Wood Bone Mill will be exhibited for the first time.
Knee Balance, 34.5 x 24.5 cm / 10 x 14 in (unfolded 138 x 98 cm / 54 x 39 in)
Until it reached into our lives and destroyed the tranquility that we had, 30 x 23 cm
Carriage, 17.8 x 10.8 cm / 4.25 × 7 inches
Annotated artist edition, Matty Davis. Wood Bone Mill in handmade mulberry case. 2020.
Wood Bone Mill, 24 x 26 cm
ABOUT MATTY DAVIS
Matty Davis is an artist and choreographer whose work uses embodied forms of risk, trust, and empathy to locate and expand relationships to the self, other people, land, and histories. Unique and multi-faceted, each of these relationships, i.e., projects, is part of a broader orbit around perennial questions of mortality, desire, and how to deal with one another and survive together. Davis was born in Pittsburgh, PA, where his grandfather worked in the steel mills and his dad’s plane crashed. He grew-up as a multi-sport athlete, which exposed him to visceral experiences of surface, injury, resilience, cooperation, and play that continue to influence his interdisciplinary work. Spanning sculpture, drawing, photography, and books, his projects predominantly manifest in performance and dance, which he values as shared space in which to be transformatively alive. His performances have been described as “balancing ecstatically o n the edge of life and death.”
Over the last several years, Davis’s work has been mostly presented in site-specific contexts appropriate to the demands and underlying meaning of a given work. Beyond what is happening within a performance, he is critically attuned to what is present and happening around it. Institutionally, Davis’s work has been presented at the Art Institute of Chicago, Kanal Centre Pompidou, Bozar, the Palais de Tokyo, the Max Ernst Museum, Printed Matter, Pioneer Works, the Fine Arts Center Gallery at the University of Arkansas, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Steppenwolf Theater, Danspace, and the 92nd St. Y, among others. He has been commissioned to make performances for artists including Hito Steyerl, and in 2019, and was named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. He enjoys teaching masterclasses and workshops at various institutions throughout the US and abroad, including New York University, the University of Iowa, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Kansas City Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Oberlin College, and Charleroi Danse.
He currently works in the Mountain West. For more information, please visit www.mattydavis.net