from “THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME: Tolentino Archives Ron Athey’s Self-Obliteration #1” 2008

“Julie Tolentino’s series THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME, initiated in 2006, is an ongoing examination of the relationship between performance, archives and histories as unique and living systems. For the series, Tolentino works collaboratively with an artist to archive one of their prior performances with and on Tolentino’s own body, exploring the corpus’ potential as both a medium and container of memory”

…”These three photographs capture different moments in the archive/performance of THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME: Tolentino Archives Ron Athey’s Self Obliteration #1″….”In this iteration of THE SKY REMAINS THE SAME, Tolentino first observes Athey’s performance of Self Obliteration #1 from off stage…as it occurs…then joins Athey…then together, the artists play out the impossibiity of clean repetition while creating new works that shift from the action of archiving.”

from left: documentation courtesy of Leon Mostovoy (far left), documentation courtesy of Paula Court (middle and far right)

©Judy Ornelas Sisneros