Essays by: Charlie Fox, Tobi Haslett, Dominic Johnson, Jennifer Krasinski, Nick Mauss, Elizabeth Wiet
Edited by: Negar Azimi, Tiffany Malakooti, Michael C. Vazquez
Designed by: Tiffany Malakooti
Co-published by: Bidoun, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Hatje Cantz, and MoMA PS1
Over a too-brief, twelve-year career, Reza Abdoh broke the conventions of American theater, pushing actors and audiences past their limits to create hallucinatory, at times nightmarish, dreamscapes shot through with humor, song, and an unlikely spirituality. His productions addressed the bitter political realities of his time — the systemic devaluation of black life, governmental indifference to the AIDS crisis, sexual repression, genocide in Europe and war in the Middle East — with harrowing eloquence.
Profusely illustrated, this first-ever monograph contains a suite of original essays on the influence and reception of Abdoh’s works in theater, film, and video by a new generation of Abdoh interpreters, interviews with the director, scripts of his plays, contemporary reviews, a timeline of his life and work and the events that animated both, as well as an oral history section born of conversations with friends, family, collaborators, lovers, haters, and more.
The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Reza Abdoh, held at both MoMA PS1 and KW Institute for Contemporary Art; co-organized by Negar Azimi, Tiffany Malakooti, and Babak Radboy for Bidoun, Klaus Biesenbach, Director, MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art, and Krist Gruijthuijsen, Director, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
