"The theater opens the hidden corners of the human psyche and society as few other art forms can. On the stage, the body is present before the audience, undertaking the most obscene act imaginable: feeling. William Joys is an artist whose works explore the implicit power relations performers experience and create through the characters they portray."
"The characters Joys creates, in particular 'The Actress'-a grande dame of the stage who is unafraid to offend the audience in ways that might even make Peter Handke blush-revel in treading across the red lines of social and power hierarchies. Joys performs 'The Actress' in different formats, sometimes as a lonely monarch surveying her kingdom of inadequates from impossible heights of scorn."
"Abjection and power go together like Deleuze and Guattari, but it's not always clear which one is in charge. Power dynamics lie at the heart of human relationships, but they're often invisiblized. Among the few times and places such relations are laid bare for consideration is on the stage."
Theater uniquely reveals power dynamics and hidden aspects of human psychology that remain invisible in everyday life. Artist William Joys creates works exploring implicit power relations through performance, particularly via the character 'The Actress'—a provocative figure who deliberately transgresses social and power boundaries. Joys performs this character in various formats, sometimes as a scornful monarch surveying inferiors, other times integrated into physical constructions that deliberately blur distinctions between actor and prop, subject and object. These constructions literalize the concept that objecthood and subjectivity are intertwined in performance. The work engages with performance theory, class consciousness, and the transgressive potential of theatrical presentation.
Read at Berlin Art Link
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