Event

Narcissister Organ Player

Thu Nov 15: 8.00pm
Fri Nov 16: 7.30pm
Sat Nov 17: 7.30pm
Sun Nov 18: 7.30pm

Narcissister
US
2018
1h 31m

About
Of all the supposedly shocking work that performance artist Narcissister has created, Narcissister Organ Player may surprise even her most unflappable admirers: it is a searching, open-hearted tribute to the artists mother. While there are excerpts from her stage and video performancesconcerned with gender, sexual, and racial identity, replete with giddy, childlike anatomical imagerythe throughline of the film is her family history, with her mother, Sarah Benzaquen Lumpkin, as guide, focal point, and object of conflicted adoration. In interviews shot before her passing, Lumpkin speaks of her childhood in Tangiers, her emigration to the United States, and her total devotion to her daughters artistic ambitions. It is that devotion which rouses the films ambivalent emotions. Narcissister speaks with gratitude for her mothers attachment and inspiration; she recalls with discomfort their intense, nearly symbiotic bond; the feelings her mother caused are the feelings that have powered her art, and they are both contrary and inextricable from each other. Narcissisters search through this thicket of emotions is a journey simultaneously irreverent and graceful.

Description courtesy of Andy Stark

Juxtaposing the Narcissister characters formation with the artists family history, the film, like Narcissisters performances, conceals even as it exposes intimate insights into the creative process and embodied ancestral knowledge. Outfest Los Angeles