LAXART is pleased to present TIPPING POINTS, a program of performance-based work from trans and gender nonconforming artists, organized and hosted by Page Person.  About the event, Person writes:

Taking its title from the May 2014 Time magazine cover story, “The Transgender Tipping Point,” this event features performers that cross genders and cross genres to open new forms of queer expression. In the Time article, trans actress and activist Laverne Cox strikes an iconic, powerful pose and proclaims, “when people have points of reference that are humanizing, that demystifies difference.” These words were spoken a year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage; it seemed like progress was being made for securing LGBT rights. Eight years later these protections hang in peril, threatening to tip backwards to an oppressive police state that criminalizes queer bodies.

TIPPING POINTS invites trans/GNC artists to create “humanizing reference points” based on their own lived experience. Taking radical control of one’s body and the narrative surrounding it is at the heart of these artists’ performance practices. Each has a unique physical reality that affects how they are seen socially, and each uses live art to expand that narrative. At a time when bodily autonomy is in crisis, it is of dire importance to give space for individuals to take control of the language surrounding their body and presence in the world. A tipping point has been crossed from which these individuals can no longer be silent.

This event’s title is also a reference to tipping performers in the drag community. The artists featured here have some relationship to drag, in which gender definitions are mutable and a source of entertainment. The handing of currency from audience to performer symbolically links one body to another, creating a direct and real connection between them. Drag is a space where queer people come together to process trauma and uplift each other; the performers in TIPPING POINTS use drag as one of many forms of expression and simultaneously uphold and undermine the conventions of the genre. With LGBTQIA+—and specifically trans/GNC—rights constantly up for debate, it is more important than ever that we hold space for their stories to be told by them on their terms.

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Xina Xurner is an experimental music/performance collaboration between Marvin Astorga and Young Joon Kwak, whose cathartic performances combine DIY and power electronics, mutated vocals, and bad drag to expand ideas about queer and trans bodies. Their music combines a variety of genres (including happy hardcore, industrial, drone metal, and techno), in order to create sadical and sexperimental noise-diva-dance anthems that evoke a sense of transformation, rebirth, and renewal. Xina Xurner released their debut album "DIE" in 2012 and their follow-up, “Queens of the Night,” was released in April 2018. Xina Xurner will make you sweat. Xina Xurner has performed at events and venues including The Smell, Hammer Museum, Night Gallery, Cool World, Mustache Mondays, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (Los Angeles); Smart Museum of Art (Chicago); Maine College of Art; Bath Salts (NYC), the National University of Colombia, Bogotá; Pavillon Vendôme Centre d’Art Contemporain (Clichy, France); Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa, India); as well as performances in Tokyo, Seoul, and Mexico City among others.

Performing with Xina Xurner: Creepypasta Puttanesca is a dish best served in advance. She is a digital spectre on the cyber planes of consciousness and comes with a side of all you can eat bread sticks (upgrade to cheezzy™️ filled sticks for only $3 extra) *beverage not included. *

Dvvsk is a multi-faceted visual and performance artist. The message behind everything they do is duality: either rage and deep sadness or love and extreme heartbreak, the play with the mix of those emotions, how they battle, and how they feel at their rawest form. In combination with their emotive performance style and ethereal movement, they have become a staple in the Los Angeles drag and art scene in hopes of inspiring the masses.

Page Person is an interdisciplinary artist of transgender experience whose work spans the genres of drawing, painting, performance, drag, sculpture, costume, and storytelling. Their work has been presented at Human Resources, LAXART, Peres Projects (Los Angeles and Berlin), Stuart Shave/Modern Art, Anton Kern and Deitch Projects. Publications include Eden's Edge, Vitamin D, Dream and Trauma and Fractured Figure; with reviews including Artforum, Frieze and the New York Times. Their work has been included in museum shows at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Kusthalle Vien (Vienna), New Museum (New York), DESTE Foundation (Athens) and Kunsthalle Schirn (Frankfurt) and is in the permanent collections of Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and Museum of Modern Art (New York). They received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate studies at UCLA - until they were advised by mentor Dennis Cooper to save their money and just get a studio and make art. From 2005-2006 Person taught drawing and painting at UCLA. In 2018 they adopted the name Page Person and began performing in the drag community. Their weekly online drawing class Draw with Person has attained a cult following; they continue to live and work in Los Angeles.

Performing with Page Person: Reese S. Pianis, Siri, Tsai-clops Infiniti, Bunny Bloodlust, Bareback Kuntessa, Carmen Dioxide, Ken Dahl, Calla Faeria, Muriel Maraschino, Bebe Beaudacious.

This event is free, with limited seating capacity, first come, first served.
Proof of vaccination required, masks strongly recommended

Support for this event is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.