The Museum of Modern Art, New York presents Combatant Status Review Tribunals, pp. 002954–003064: A Public Reading November 12–13, 2011 12:00–4:00 PM.

Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Ashley Hunt, Katya Sander, David Thorne, Combatant Status Review Tribunals pp.002954–003064: A Public Reading,” 2007. Performed at Documenta 12, 2007. © 2011 the artists

In conjunction with the New York performance biennial Performa 11, The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Media and Performance Art presents the live work Combatant Status Review Tribunals, pp. 002954–003064: A Public Reading. The performance comprises a four-hour public reading of unedited transcripts from 18 Combatant Status Review Tribunals held at the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between July 2004 and March 2005. During the reading nine performers rotate through eight juridical positions. The artist group—consisting of Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Ashley Hunt, Katya Sander, and David Thorne—understands the performance as a simple yet urgent gesture towards making these tribunals public. By presenting the transcripts word for word, the readings offer insight into the complicated geopolitical landscape in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2001 and 2005, and aim to expose the contradictory and problematic processes the U.S. military has used in capturing, detaining, and classifying so-called “enemy combatants.”

Readers include: Yves-Alain Bois, Cynthia Chris, Maggie Chon, Kyle deCamp, Anna Deavere Smith, Judy Greene, Patricia Hoffbauer, Fred Moten, George Sanchez, and Vyjayanthi Rao.

The performance corresponds with the recently acquired multichannel video installation 9 Scripts from a Nation at War, which premiered at Documenta 12 in 2007 and will be shown at MoMA in the second-floor Media Gallery, from January 24 to July 30, 2012.

Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Ashley Hunt, Katya Sander, and David Thorne have been working together as artists, organizers, researchers, and writers since 2004. Their collaborations have been prompted by the geographical dislocations inherent to contemporary art practice, in which opportunities for exhibitions, teaching, and other means of support for artists have an individualizing and dispersing effect. They have responded by developing projects that allow for their relationships as colleagues and collaborators to continue.

More information on MoMA’s performance program and a detailed schedule of exhibitions and events are available at MoMA.org/performance.

Organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator, and Jenny Schlenzka, Assistant Curator for Performance, Department of Media and Performance Art.

The Performance Program is made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York
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