Kiss of the Spider Woman
8th April 2022
Performance
South Asia Institute, Chicago, IL, USA
Kiss of the Spider Woman was a collaborative performance that took place the night after the opening of Amin’s solo exhibition, The Spider Speaketh in Tongues, curated by Adam Fahy-Majeed, at the South Asia Institute in Chicago. The performers included old friends of Amin who had travelled from all over the United States to take part; young artists whom Adam had met as a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and classical South Asian dancers based in the area. Amin held a series of conversations with each to determine how their individual narratives could merge with his. After jointly agreeing on how each performance would unfold, Amin selected one or more of his objects for them to wear. Nineteen performers enacted their works over 77 minutes. Some reacted to the work on display, which included sculpture, installation, sound and video. Shiwali Varshney Tenner, extended copper nails on her fingers, fluidly danced khattak-like movements before Zero Gravity. An androgynous-looking Dominique Knowles, wrapped in a silver bustier and holding a single copper leaf, stood motionless before the installation Liminal Letters. Some interacted with the audience: Anene Ejikeme, dressed as a traditional Nigerian woman, cat-eye sunglasses and Amin’s spiked mask obscuring her face, approached random people and asked, sotto voce, “What is your sexuality?” Irene Wa, flecked in gold leaf and wearing a silver helmet, placed her hands on people’s backs and made sonar-like sounds. Amin, a crushed sheet of copper tied around his midriff, a horned helmet on his head, allowed Hassan Raazee, whose face was clouded by mesh, to flog him then place a hard-boiled egg into his mouth. The performers, whether floating or interacting with the work or each other, seemed to merge into one. As Amin said during a post-show discursive session over Zoom, “It was a shared belief.” Keny de la Peña, who, like a medieval troubadour, walked back and forth before Amin’s projection Algorithm IV singing an incomprehensible mix of Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan, wearing not only Amin’s objects but a sarong that he himself had silkscreened, added, “It was a caring for each other.”