Jun 17, 2024

Miles Greenberg respawns at the AGO as part of Luminato

The artist's nine-hour performance exhilarated audiences at the AGO on June 5

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

On Wednesday, June 5, internationally renowned artist Miles Greenberg captivated Toronto audiences at the AGO with his first large-scale performance on home soil. Co-commissioned and co-presented with Luminato Festival Toronto, Greenberg’s performance saw Walker Court transformed into an otherworldly realm. Over mirrored flooring were scattered nine life-sized silicone replicas of Greenberg’s body, the tenth being his own live one. Alternately wielding a sword, dagger and his fists, Greenberg engaged in countless rounds of combat with an imaginary foe in the form of a large robot-mounted camera. The actions were accompanied by an original long-form poem by Canadian artist and playwright Jordan Tannahill.

In first-person fighting video games, to “respawn” is a mode in which a character dies and comes back to life to continue their journey. Through the performance, Greenberg explored the concept of respawning as a mode of transformation, pointing to the ways we can potentially reclaim and reanimate our origins. The psychoanalytic inspiration behind the poem underscored this process of creating subjecthood as well.  Over nine hours, audiences were enamoured and fascinated by the ritual nature of this work, a totally unique way to experience art in the museum. Some briefly glanced while passing by, while others sat and carefully observed for hours. Greenberg relishes this variability, recently sharing with Foyer that, “I really like working in courtyards and atriums because they are spaces of transit, a naturally occurring crossroads that doesn’t block an audience but empowers them to stay 30 seconds, three minutes, or three hours. For however long an audience member and the people around them might remain, I want them to feel free to use it as a sort of space of communion and transit at the same time. The architecture in which I perform is important to me because it, the audience, the light filtering in and any other particularities of the moment all become part of the provenance of the work.” 

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Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Paul Ayers.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Craig Boyko.

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN, 2024. Co-presented and co-commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto. © Miles Greenberg. Photo by Paul Ayers.

Apart from the artist himself, RESPAWN at the AGO was brought to life due to the curatorial and logistic work of a collaborative production team led by Bojana Stancic, AGO Program Curator, Performance and Live. “Museums are experts at making exhibitions; they have done so with historic and contemporary artists in retrospectives and group shows and with different mediums and historical movements, “said Stancic. “Since performance has entered museums as a significant contemporary art medium, however, there hasn’t been a consolidated effort to encase it within the canons of art history from an institutional perspective.  Miles Greenberg’s performance was a live exhibition installed by art handlers working alongside film industry professionals. It was documented by art photographers and accompanied by a curatorial essay. In the span of nine hours, thousands of people encountered it in the museum’s main hall, and likely will remember it as much as those who worked on presenting it. One can never underestimate the power of an art encounter, be it live or still. Greenberg’s generosity and intentionality, imposing visuals and our unprecedented access to the process of creation, won’t be soon forgotten.”

Miles Greenberg RESPAWN was co-commissioned and co-presented by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Luminato Festival Toronto and curated by Bojana Stancic, the AGO's Program Curator, Performance and Live.