ART IN AMERICA 29
FIRST LOOK
To d d M c Q u a d e
by Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal
“THE PERMANENT collection is now on view,” a computer-
ized voice asserted from a corner speaker, as the lights flicked on,
revealing an ensemble of rectangular aluminum sculptures. “The
permanent collection is now closed,” the voice then announced,
and the room went dark. The phrases and flickering repeated as
Todd McQuade, dressed in a nude bodysuit, slowly surveyed the
objects during the opening moments ofPrecarity Positions, which
debuted last fall at PAM, a performance and residency space in
Los Angeles. McQuade’s striking musculature, skeletal cheekbones
and shaved head verged on inhuman, as he executed evenly timed,
angular movements and held contorted poses that mimicked the
sculpture’s stiff compositions. From the perspective of the future, as
implied by the term “permanent collection,” the body is a piss-poor
medium, bound for inevitable decay.
An MFA candidate at UCLA, McQuade flouts performance
art clichés. InPrecarity Positions, he eventually discarded his
bodysuit, but his repetitive, constrained motions prevented his
nudity from signaling freedom as it often does in dance. Similarly,
he forestalled endurance art’s uncomplicated demand for empathy;
while holding an upside-down wheel position for almost two
minutes, he smirked and winked through his sweat.
McQuade doesn’t simply pit the body against objects.
He’s attuned to its complex instrumentalization by labor
and capital, its subjectivity tied to its becoming-object. For
his installationLars(2014), he massaged a block of clay to
produce a sculpture. The process is recorded on video, with
the resulting piece displayed alongside the monitor. By leav-
ing the clay unfired, McQuade evokes the fleeting effects of
the masseur’s hands. “This sculpture is to be exchanged for
services that rehabilitate the durability of a service provider’s
body,” a wall text instructs, proposing the circulation of both
body and art in a system of commerce.
While the titlePrecarity Positionscharacterizes the artist’s
feats of strength, resilience and balance, it also resonates with the
precarious labor conditions of the gig economy. In the perfor-
mance’s final act, McQuade wore workman’s gloves as he trans-
formed his metal sculptures from set into props, hooking a heavy
ladder-form onto a series of metal cubes and crawling across
the new configuration as if it were a bridge. Finally, he leaned
the ladder out an open window, working its top rungs securely
over a bough of the tree outside. Though perhaps he could have,
McQuade didn’t cross the divide. The link to the outside world
was a reminder that we had only borrowed autonomy for a time,
and that the performer, like the performance, is only temporary.
“A vulnerability has been detected,” that computerized voice had
earlier scolded. “Your scene has a body in it.”View of Todd
McQuade’s
performance
Precarity Positions,
2015, at PAM,
Los Angeles.
Photo Brian
Getnick.TRACY JEANNE
ROSENTHAL is a
writer based in Los
Angeles.