TASK Party
“Anything is possible”- Oliver Herring
The audience gets involved; Shanghai by Oliver Herring
Oliver Herring is known for radically experimental, performative, and collaborative works that treat human behavior and vulnerability as materials. A TASK party is an event where guests pick tasks written by the host from a bucket, complete them, write a new task, and then keep going. These tasks can be very creative or crafty. The party is great for getting to know each other, trying new things, or sparking creativity.
See
In his early work, he knitted objects out of transparent tape and Mylar. Since the late 1990s, his work has been devoted to stop-action videos and performances using random volunteers. (artsy)
Hanging Coat #1 (from A Flower for Ethyl Eichelberger Series) 1993
Knitting at DiverseWorks, 2015, Houston, TX
A group of participants each knit on a pre-knit sheet of circular yarn. Each circular sheet was connected to two neighboring sheets, creating an entirely interconnected structure. To gain a stitch, a performer had to unravel fabric from a neighbor. Gains and losses became visible through changes of color in the performers’ sheets. (Herringstudio)
Herring redefines the roles of artist and audience, often becoming an observer of others performing in situations that he designs but can never wholly control. The artmaking process becomes a site of vulnerability and risk-taking, a social experiment, and an open laboratory for innovative modes of representation. (DiverseWorks)
The TASK process seemed to lower inhibitions and promote a sense of freedom. It was art, it was social interaction, it was therapy. (NYTimes)
Say
“Most participants expressed surprise and relief that they had allowed aspects of their personalities to surface that hadn’t been tapped into since childhood,” said Herring in reference to reactions by TASK participants.
Can you think of a time recently when you allowed aspects of your much younger self to shine through? What were you doing? How did it feel?
Write a task for someone that will create an unusual connection with another person.
Do
“I’m a real believer,” said Kristen Hileman, the curator of contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, “Sometimes, the art world can be too commodified a place, all about the market and preciousness and exclusiveness. TASK allows people not just to be passive onlookers but to make things and take part. Also, the unpredictability of the event is so different from the gallery or museum experience.”
Host a TASK Party! Herring is cool with passing along this gem, so why not try it?
Read more about the Mylar Knitted coat and engage with questions and activities.
About Oliver Herring
Oliver Herring was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1964. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His ever-expanding body of work ranges from early sculptures knit with Mylar tape to experimental videos, complex photo-sculptures, and TASK events, which invite participants to entirely shape the work by assigning each other creative tasks to complete. (bankmabsociety)
Herring grew up in Heidelberg with no particular art leanings. After secondary school, he enrolled in English-language classes at Oxford, then found that he could evade Germany’s military service requirement if he became a full-time student. Art seemed like a subject that would not place heavy demands on his less-than-perfect English. After earning a degree at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art, he headed to the United States, receiving an M.F.A. from Hunter College.
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