ACAW Field Meeting: "Take 3–Thinking Performance"
By HG Masters
If you had spent even five minutes on the street in any part of downtown Manhattan during the last week of October, you would have witnessed the current vogue for performing: publicly, queerly and exuberantly. The Halloween season and its succession of balls, street parades and parties stretched more than a week, with people donning costumes at all hours. A whisker here, a scar there—fishnet stockings and dinosaur jumpsuits anytime. Amid these public festivities—and, this being New York, countless others, like the city marathon—was Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), a confederation of gallery openings, museum projects, performances, lectures and the ACAW Field Meeting. The latter, whose third edition, “Take 3: Thinking Performance,” spanned two days and a third night, brought together practitioners from around the world for TED-talk-like “keynotes” and collegial discussions around this irresolvable term.