Adam Dugas

Adam produced this lavishly illustrated, 336-page book overviewing the first four years of the art-pop group Fischerspooner. Some of Adam’s photographs were published in it.

“Peanuts” - Polaroid by Adam Dugas
Fischerspooner: New Truth (Damiani, 2014)
Book produced by Adam Dugas

Adam is currently assembling a book about the life and work of pioneering trans artist and underground star Alexis Del Lago.

Richly illustrated with photographs, paintings, sketches and designs, the book will survey Del Lago’s work as a clothing and costume designer, performing artist and writer. Documentation includes collaborations with artists like Jackie Curtis, Charles Ludlam and Marta Minujín, including rare photos of now legendary performances. Photographs by Peter Hujar, Gilles Larrain, and many others will be included, pending approvals.

In conjunction with the book, the plan is to mount an exhibition of works and new stagings of her plays and performance texts, some of which Adam is reconstructing.

Black Rabbit was first presented in the 2006 Art Parade organized by Deitch Projects. Black Rabbit’s second appearance was in VERNAL HOODOO: An Easter Pageant. Black Rabbit also appeared in Dueling Harps.

Black Rabbit will return in a standalone performance piece.

Black Rabbit
Hood designed by Desi Santiago;
Fabricated by Miki Horii

Photo by Matthew Placek

Adam’s original sketch of the Black Rabbit character.

Adam performed in My Barbarian’s project Double Agency, commissioned by LACMA. The project included film work and a final performance, all shot on site at the museum. The films are included in the retrospective of the group’s work at the Whitney Museum.

L-R: Robbie Acklen, Jibz Cameron, Adam Dugas, Alexandro Segade, Jade Gordon, Malik Gaines.

Still from video “Masks of the World” an edited document the on-site performance including pre-recorded music tracks.

Adam performed in both the film and live performance aspects of My Barbarian’s project Double Agency, commissioned by LACMA. One of the purposes of the project was to document the architecture of the museum buildings that were slated to be demolished.

L-R: Alexandro Segade, Adam Dugas
On set photo by Malik Gaines

Adam’s work was included in the group show PORTRAIT OF A GENERATION at the Hole Gallery in New York, curated by Kathy Grayson. The concept was to have artists make portraits of one another, which were hung together in the show.

Installation view.

Portrait of Casey Spooner by Adam Dugas
Digital painting on digital photograph

POTRAIT OF A GENERATION (group show)
The Hole; New York, NY

CATHOLIC No. 1 [Cats]
Evil Twin Publications, 2004
Photographs by Adam Dugas accompany a story by Kelly Kuvo

Invitation to The Trepanning Opera,
evening-length performance work by The Citizens Band
Deitch Projects, Wooster Street Gallery, New York, NY

Installation view of Bjarne Melgaard’s piece in the 2014 Whitney Biennial.
Adam produced the films shown within the piece. 

FAMILY VALUES - Group Show
Galeria Senda; Barcelona, Spain

Painter Michael Bevilacqua curated a show centered around the film DUST, including artworks from the central performers and filmmakers. This was the first showing of the video piece “Cake Show” by Adam and Casey Spooner, a psychedelic candy-colored slow-motion shot of actor Jaimie Warren devouring and destroying a piece of cake, derived from the opening credit sequence of the film. Bevilacqua also created new paintings using stills from the film as his base.

Michael Bevilacqua’s painting “Family Values” from the group show he curated at Galeria Send around the film DUST. His painting uses a still from the film as its base.

Deitch Projects, February 3, 2007

For the opening of the exhibition of Jason Schmidt’s photography, the amazing art group Gelitin were asked to be artistic directors of a banquet, for which they created a work called Bunter Abend. During the course of the dinner, the artists and their collaborators built a wooden scaffold over the tables, which sometimes required moving entire groups from under the giant wooden sculpture. Once the piece was assembled, the group, who had surreptitiously imbibed multiple cases of water, began to urinate in unison from different parts of the fountain, aiming perfectly into buckets worn as hats, creating a live piss fountain.

I curated the music for the evening, which included myself, theremin artist Armen Ra and operatic countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo.

Photo collage created for Brazilian magazine Melissa to accompany an article about living in New York .

Photos and collage and article by Adam Dugas

Adam curated a multi-week series of performances and screenings as part of the Excellent Workshop Salon Series at Deitch Projects, Brooklyn during the Fischerspooner residency in the space.

Week 1: “The Ange Show” - a live talk show hosted by Angela Di Carlo with a band, dancers, videos, guests and a talk show set.

Week 2: “Classical Night” - performances related to classical music included an Isadora Duncan style dance choreographed by Stephanie Dixon, an electro punk version of Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria, and a full band performing Ravel’s “Bolero” in the middle of the space.

Week 3: “The Citizens Band” - the debut performance by the Citizens Band and a screening of the short film “Kill Your Darlings” by Sarah Sophie Flicker.

“Loud Fast Shiny Machines (Firecracker 400)”
Digital video, 4:17
Power Room, curated by Giorgio Handman
Monkey Town; Brooklyn, NY

Daytona Beach, Florida; July 4, 2004. Opening with the national anthem and military jets flying into a double rainbow, a portrait of the loud, monotonous NASCAR event during the peak of George W. Bush jingoism.

Colored pencil and marker on found xerox

LIPS.GIF

Adam had multiple works included in the online exhibition Moving The Still: A GIF Festival organized by Paddle8 to honor the 25th anniversary of the image file format.

TAFFY.GIF
Adam had multiple works included in the online exhibition Moving The Still: A GIF Festival organized by Paddle8 to honor the 25th anniversary of the image file format.

MANNEQUIN.GIF

Adam had multiple works included in the online exhibition Moving The Still: A GIF Festival organized by Paddle8 to honor the 25th anniversary of the image file format.

MOTHER.GIF

Adam had multiple works included in the online exhibition Moving The Still: A GIF Festival organized by Paddle8 to honor the 25th anniversary of the image file format.

LULU
single-channel video by Aïda Ruilova

Lulu originally appears in two plays by Frank Wedekind, Pandora’s Box (1902) and Earth Spirit (1894). She is a chameleonic character who morphs into what each of her suitors desires her to be. She is the ultimate femme fatale, destroying the men who fall in love with her at the end of each act and in the last act causing her own violent death. While she shifts her identity, she is forced to reenact in each instance the death of the love that she consumes but barely gives herself to. To German art critics of the time Lulu was the ultimate work of art, creating and destroying her identity at the end of each act. Lulu represents both life and death in the same instant; she is a vital, self-destructive force, a metaphor for the clash between instinct and civilization.

Ruilova’s adaptation of the story is part of a lineage of Lulu’s that stretches through the 20th century. In 1929 She is portrayed by Louise Brooks in the silent film Pandora’s Box. She is the title role in Alban Berg’s 1937 opera. She is played by Edie Sedgwick in a stage adaptation of Berg’s opera by Richard Leacock. Ruilova has been inspired both by the character herself and by her many incarnations.

In Ruilova’s Lulu, three male leads portray Lulu. The recasting of the very traditional female role of the femme fatale with three male actors who constantly change roles allows Ruilova to play with gestures of seduction and destruction. This gender switch provides an ambiguity, an appeal to both men and women, inspired for Ruilova by the cross gender appeal of actors like Marlon Brando or Helmut Berger.

Intertwining their actions and interactions in one setting, Ruilova creates a claustrophobic set where the apex of the tragedy is never reached. No dialogue takes place between the characters, the only soundtrack comes from the ambient sound and from the humming of a song by one of the men: “Bike,” by Pink Floyd. Lulu’s labyrinthine structure never ends and begins, as the narrative structure is lost in a setting full of masks and mirrors.

Digital photography and manipulation