Robert Derr: 'Life is a Performance'
The works of artist Robert Ladislas Derr center on a barrage of questions about life and art. To watch life flow, recognizable patterns and responses are visible. Life captures us in constant performance as we negotiate second by second stimuli. It is this natural corporeal desire to act and react that compels Derr to bust his head through a wall. This physical action from a cathartic impulse produces an art product of activity. Approaching the product, you see either a white wall or his head busting through, and instinctually, you walk around to see the other side, where you find the back of his head thrusting back and forth against the wall. Joining the life flow, Derr adorns a suit with mirrors and video cameras, creating a spectacle, drawing your attention from your routine. You have become the actor in the art product, while the visitor of the product stands immersed in the performance. At the center of four life-size video projections forming a square, the stimuli instigate further actions and reactions. In My Shoes on view February 16 - March 1, 2012, at the Centre for Creative Practices (Dublin, Ireland), has him at the center of an existential dilemma of recalling others' memories as he walks in their shoes. Projected on the floor, the video projection of his perambulation in the shoes seems to stride across the room. These constructions that beseech inquisitiveness, the primal urges, the stimuli that naturally entice, influence his making.
Derr has exhibited and performed worldwide at such venues as the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (Athens, GA, 2011), The School of Visual Arts (New York, NY, 2011), Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland, OR, 2010), Athens Video Art Festival (Athens, Greece, 2010 and 2007), Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt, Germany, 2009), Jack the Pelican Presents (Brooklyn, NY, 2009 and 2007), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH, 2008), Independent Museum of Contemporary Art (Limassol, Cyprus, 2008), LIVE Performance Art Biennale (Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2007), Photographic Resource Center (Boston, MA, 2006), American Academy in Rome (Rome, Italy, 2006), Art Interactive (Cambridge, MA, 2006), DiVA Festival (New York, NY, 2005), and Irish Film Institute (Dublin, Ireland, 2004). Awards for his work include the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Ohio Arts Council, among others. Derr has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and he is an associate professor of art at The Ohio State University.
