by Martha Sherman
In “Transmissions,” his riveting new show at the Whitney Museum, Nick Mauss offers a new form of performance art. “Transmissions” is an immersive experience that starts with a history that cuts across disciplines: a cultural map of New York City from the 1930s to the 1950s. He builds a new understanding of the era through the visual art, dance and the many forms that touch and intersect with them. “Transmission” is Mauss’ first solo show at an American museum. It fills the eighth floor, using photography, sculpture, costume and set designs. At its center is a live dance performance. Each visual form is tied to the performance with strands of history: the dance, the time and place it honors, are inspired by the images on display.
Mauss has many roles here – he is an historian, graphic artist, curator, writer and choreographer. The central work of the exhibit, a 45-minute ballet-based dance performance, was created in collaboration with 16 dancers. It’s the product of a year-long exploration of the way in which 20th century ballet emerged, and its relationship to the avant-garde art forms of the same time.
Mauss started with research from many sources, including the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Kinsey Institute, to create a history of New York before the 1960s, that included the emerging recognition of queer history. The 1930s to 1950s – the era of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein – was a flowering for ballet, and also a time rife with homoerotic imagery hidden in plain sight.
The dancers move on and off a large central performance space, ringed by art. Among the most intriguing are a large paneled mirror, painted by Mauss, and a larger-than-life screen rotating a series of playful, dramatic color slides of the dance artists of the era photographed by Carl Van Vechten. Sculptures surround the performers as well, notably several plaster models by Elie Nadelman, including a version of the enormous figures that grace the lobby of the State Theater, George Balanchine’s home for the New York City Ballet. The gallery walls offer a mix of other treasures, like the small 1931 black and white portrait of a stern young “Lincoln Kirstein (without hat)” by Walker Evans.
The dance is also lightly shielded at the exhibit entrance by an eerie, magnetizing set of black and white dance portraits by George Platt Lynes. The photos are strung on a translucent scrim the length of the room, and spaces between the portraits allow the dancers to be viewed as if in an elegant peep show. The mix includes not only Lynes’ ballet and fashion shots, but also his hidden work – sensuous, homoerotic nude photos of beautiful men.
This new exhibition form, supported by the Whitney, allows for many permutations for engaging and experiencing the story that Mauss tells. It’s worth more than one visit. Runs through May 14.
copyright © 2018 by Martha Sherman
“Transmissions” – Nick Mauss
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Cover: George Platt Lynes, Tex Smutney, 1941. Collection of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University; courtesy the George Platt Lynes Estate.
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