“Avoidance-Avoidance (A Project of Transparency) [script 10]“ by Jesse Ash on show at the herbst exhibition “Forms of Distancing” consists of a performance with two performers and an installation. The project, which has been in progress since 2012, is created anew at each venue. The relationship of the characters in the performance and the installation design are adapted, with Ash making special reference to the characteristics of the particular venue of the show: in Graz that will be, on the one hand, the history of Palais Wildenstein – former police headquarters and before that even Gestapo headquarters – and, on the other, the limestone quarries commonly found in Styria.
The performance presents a fictional dialogue between Mary Ellen Bute (1906–83), an experimental film animator and her cinematographer and ex-partner Ted Nemeth (1911–86). The title of the project is inspired by ‘avoidance’, a technique of diversion and manipulation used by politicians in interviews or in police cross-examination. This approach resonates in the dialogue between the two characters as they undertake an excruciating analysis of their work relationships and love lives.

Forms of Distancing