In early 2020, we commissioned George Saxon to develop a short artist lab residency, using film and performance to deconstruct the expansive archival prompts and traces that closely inform his practice. Then, in March, a national lockdown was abruptly announced. With vulnerable health, the artist was at risk.
George, and fellow artist Ryan Sehmar, took the decision to shield, and the residency was revised, to operate in a remote, enclosed, safe space. From this space they broadcast live, on Instagram, with a short series of events, referred to as interludes and intervals; fragile tensions and antagonisms presented by their encounters with the exterior world, and with the archive.
‘Spect. Anon.’ is a moniker under which George Saxon and D. John Briscoe envisioned a series of ongoing works; performances, writings, drawings, film, audio and video that began in 1976. These propositions often described as ‘constructions of events’, drew as much from Situationist writings as from personal myth-making. The resulting exhibition at Vivid Projects, draws together transitional performances first streamed live on Instagram alongside archival material and new films.
