Anything Can’t Happen

Opening event for group show: On the Tip of the Tongue: Performance and the War of Words

Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland

September - December, 2016

A six-week program entirely dedicated to performance and an “expanded” reflection on the issue of communication. Artists included Cara Benedetto, Jeremiah Day, Wojciech Kosma, and Pope.L.

Anything Can’t Happen was a three day performance event that opened the program. The show consisted of casual/erotic performances and encounters to affirm sex workers and artists in their forbidden service in social affairs under capitalism. Rehearsals were open to the public for the first two days. On the third day there was a party. Upon entry, guests received a lanyard with an electronic identification card, gaining them access to drinks at the bar, coat check, and participation with the performers.

The two performers, who identified as gender non-binary, had memorized their scripts in both English and Polish. They engaged museum-goers in informational, antagonistic, and challenging conversations about precarious laborers, including sex workers, mothers, and artists. The feeling resulted in a paranoid party, where the performers both gathered and disseminated information using laptops and cell phones. The event aimed to bring an experiential awareness to invisible societal manipulations. All press surrounding the event contained materials that critique manipulation tactics present in Polish advertising promoted by the dominant conservative culture. 

Twenty seven original scripts were written and translated into Polish for the event. Museum staff also joined in the reading of scripts throughout the evening. Collaborators included Trans-Fuzja Foundation, a trans activism non-profit, Warsaw; Basia Klicka, Poet, Warsaw; Joanna Ostrowska, Scholar and Professor, Warsaw; Mia Von Matt, Artist, Berlin; and Robert M. Ochshorn, Artist and Programmer, Berlin.