Artist wanting two people to be part of an installation performance work. Fully clothed in animal costumes, playing the scene of two koala bears mating in an indoor public-art space. Weekends for a period of six weeks. Non-union performers. Pay. Begins mid-March
During 1998, I placed the above advertisement in Backstage magazine and New York’s free weekly The Village Voice. I received eighty phone calls responding to the advertisement. I returned everyone’s phone call and organized auditions with fourteen actors. Six of them were couples, two auditioned on their own with the empty koala-bear suit on the floor, and the last two pairs were organized according to coinciding schedules. With the exception of one Australian, everyone was American and none had seen a koala bear in real life. I videotaped the auditions to have a record that would help me decide who would be best for the parts. The final work, titled Pet Corner, was a performance over several weekends in March and April 1998 as part of P.S.1’s “Wish You Luck” exhibition.
The project here presents a selection of video stills taken from the auditions, that I have divided into two groups. This project for Cabinet is titled Too Human / Animal Enough.
Kathy Temin is an Australian artist based in New York.