Maya Stovall
Site: Grandel Ballroom
Curator: Allison Glenn
Anthropologist and artist Maya Stovall is known for her use of ballet in public space. Her work is deeply invested in the contemplation of power structures and the politics of the subject. At Counterpublic, the artist presents Theorem, no. 3, the third public performance in the Theorem series. The Theorem works reveal and distill some of the artist’s backstage thinking and theorizing that drive her major works like Liquor Store Theatre and Neon Theatre. This performance follows Theorem, no. 1 and no. 2, which took place in public spaces in San Francisco (commissioned by Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in 2019) and Houston (commissioned by the University of Houston, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center in 2022). In Theorem, no. 3, commissioned by Counterpublic, the artist presents a series of actions as reparations to forty St. Louisans.
Theorem, no. 3 contemplates and assumes control of institutional and repressive state apparatuses through its logic, as apparatus. The artist employs a careful approach that prioritizes the trust and anonymity of participants in no strings transmissions of the official currency of the United States of America. The linguistic actions of Theorem, no. 3include an unauthorized Presidential Letter of Apology, where Stovall, through artistic license, assumes the position of President of the United States of America and writes an unauthorized public apology for the crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. Government and its designees between 1526 and 1968.
Following the unauthorized Presidential Letter of Apology is Stovall’s Resolution on State Terror, a dossier of evidence-based judgments formulating the U.S. Government’s hypothetical binding decision to pay $744,352.00 compensation for present heirs to close the wealth gap. The unauthorized Presidential Letter of Apology and the Resolution are (re)presented and (re)performed in the Counterpublic Catalog.
Thus, in Theorem, no. 3, the artist, as new apparatus, unfurls a transformative methodology for concretized reparations connected to the histories of inequity in St. Louis and in dialogue with local, national, and international reparations movements.
ABOUT the artist
Maya Stovall is an American conceptual artist, anthropologist, and author. Stovall is known for her use of ballet and public space in her art practice, is an assistant professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and lives and works in Los Angeles. She has been a Whitney Biennial artist and a Studio Museum in Harlem F-Series artist. Her works are included in public permanent collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Studio Museum in Harlem, Cranbrook Art Museum, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
