Constance DeJong, Modern Love
Theater Neumarkt and Kunsthalle Winterthur in collaboration with Kunstverein München, IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute and Kunstverein Düsseldorf.
Constance DeJong’s writing and art is driven by a tireless process of collecting elements of linguistic and visual expression: within her performative work, she allows language and image to merge and flow into one another. For the last forty years, DeJong has worked on narrative form in the context of contemporary art and avant-garde music. Considered one of the progenitors of media art, or “time-based media,” DeJong shapes her intricate narrative form through performances, audio installations, print texts, electronic objects, and video works. This porousness already shaped her influential, long-neglected 1977 novel Modern Love, in which elements from science fiction, autofiction, and detective stories merge across disciplinary boundaries.
DeJong wrote Modern Love (1977) in the heat and heart of the New York art world of the 1970s. The narrative is at once intimate and highly constructed. Modern Love is a feverish, passionate fantasy, a personal confession and a historical document. “People told me that if you keep writing, you might eventually make a name for yourself. So I wrote: My name is Constance DeJong. My name is Fifi Corday. My name is Lady Mirabelle, Monseiur Le Prince and Roderigo, Roderigo is my favourite name.” In Modern Love, we meet all these characters, characters who live in different times and places – in Paris, New York, Delhi. We meet them in the past, then they appear in our present.
After Silvia Federici, writer and artist Constance DeJong is the next guest in the series ‘Neumarkt gossips’ organised by Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, on this occasion in collaboration with Kunsthalle Winterthur, Kunstverein München, IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute and Kunstverein Düsseldorf. On 7 May, DeJong will read excerpts from Modern Love at Kunsthalle Winterthur. At Kunstverein München, a selection of printer matter from DeJongs personal archive alongside video recordings of performances is on display in the Kunstverein’s Archive Space. The presentation is accompanied by the performance It’s Always Night, which will take place at Kunstverein Düsseldorf on May 3 and Kunstverein München on May 5.
Constance DeJong (b. 1950, Cleveland, OH, USA) lives and works in New York. In addition to her award-winning novel Modern Love (1977), she has worked in long-term collaborations with Philip Glass and Tony Oursler, with whom she also developed the performance series Relatives (1989). Constance DeJong’s performances have been presented internationally, including at The Kitchen, New York; Artists Space, New York; and the Renaissance Society, Chicago.
In conversation with Tine Milz & Geraldine Tedder
Pay what you want: Tickets via Theater Neumarkt or register via info@kunsthallewinterthur.ch
The event will be held in English.
On May 7, the current exhibition SCRIPT – MEMORY will be open from 6 – 8 pm
