Measures of Distance

Nick Meryhew + Lia Kohl
Roman Susan Art Foundation
2020

Intimacy and alienation do not constitute a binary, but rather operate as simultaneous phenomena; expanding and contracting distances requiring fluid performances of vulnerability, support, propriety, and separation. For Measures of Distance, Lia and Nick navigate this matrix, exploring alternative intimacies, physical proximities, and ambiguous distances through video, performance ephemera, and sculptural objects.

Measures of Distance was a street-view exhibition on view 24 hours a day, with projections after dark.

stills from Bread Piece

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Water on the Bridge

Katinka Kleijn and Lia Kohl
Eckhart Park Natatorium
2019

Water on the Bridge is a surreal and playful exploration of tenderness, violence and letting go through the unlikely pairing of cellos and water. An ongoing project now with three iterations, Katinka Kleijn and Lia Kohl create site specific work exploring the possibilities of cellos in and around bodies of water. Each iteration incorporates elements of theatre, movement, and improvisation, as well as a rich sonic landscape drawn from both water and cellos.

The first two iterations, collaborations with New Orleans-based cellist Helen Gillet and Chicago dancer Jasmine Mendoza, respectively, took place on (and in) Lake Michigan as part of Water Music, organized by art space 60618 North. Following wild, highly improvisatory arcs, both pieces explored the lake as a site of both safe harbor and embarking point.

The project’s first full scale performance took place in March 2019, and was performed with 30 cellos in and out of the swimming pool in the Eckhart Park Natatorium. The pair played, floated and moved around the cellos accompanied by live electronics and recordings.

photos by Todd Rosenberg

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Chair Piece

Corey Smith + Jasmine Mendoza + Lia Kohl
2019-ongoing

An ongoing exploration of space, architecture, and relationships.
Corey, Jasmine and Lia will be ACRE Artists-in Residence in Summer 2022.

photos by Kioto Aoki

Work Week

Mocrep: Deidre Huckabay, Nick Meryhew, Lia Kohl, Andrew Tham, Ryan Zerna
High Concept Laboratories
2018

Work Week is a collaboratively devised, durational work in which Mocrep exposes and attempts to repair the violation of time inherent in capitalism. For an uninterrupted week, the ensemble lives inside a gallery, performance hall, or public space, working steadily to paint, then disassemble a collection of everyday objects. Over time, performers expose materials that were previously hidden inside the original tableau—foam, thread, fabric, plastic, nails, staples, wood, wicker—and catalogue them in a display of profound intimacy and care. Both an explicit critique of capitalism and a silent, slowly unfolding ritual, Work Week achieves a powerfully moving equilibrium between protest and peace. By turns loud and silent, expressive and stoic, confrontational and contemplative, it echoes both an occupation and a meditation retreat. Audiences can interact with Work Week by viewing a continuous live stream available online and via social media. Mocrep arranges multiple cameras in the space and broadcasts the performance 24/7. Camera angles are curated to expand viewers’ perspectives on the performance and its materials. Work Week enables audiences to experience a new feeling of the passage of time in their own lives. Previous viewers described the sensation of recalling that the performance was ongoing, sometimes without having to tune in. These participants reported that their own daily routines and obligations took on a new meaning when they felt aware that somewhere, inside a remote performance, time had been moving in a powerfully different way.

photos by Leah Lee for HCL

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and mouth and

Lia Kohl, performed by Katinka Kleijn
Constellation Chicago + San Francisco Center for New Music
2018

An OpenICE commision for cellist and video.

and mouth is the front hole in the top part. There are a few of them but that’s the one that others see usually, the one that counts on TV. It’s wet and for eating and information and secret saying. If it wasn’t wet it would go clack clack clack when you open and close. If it wasn’t a mouth it would only be a hole. If something is just teeth and feet is it a mouth? Things depend on wetness things depend on teeth things depend on feet. If you think about them sometimes change one thing and it will stand on its head as the saying goes.

Sometimes there is sound that comes out when you mean it to and sometimes when you don’t mean it. Burps and bubbles. Sometimes kissing. And mouth is a secret and a mystery, when you talk it’s blinking, just like the eyeballs, also wet.

Talk to yourself and it will take on a mouth of its own.

When you want to say about the whole head sometimes you can sing it eyes and ears and mouth and mouth and mouth and mouth and mouth and mouth and mouth and

stills from video

more works and CV upon request

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