"Life is Drag" at Satellite Art Show BK
SATELLITE ART SHOW BK

67 METROPOLITAN AVENUE

BROOKLYN, NY 11249
JUNE 19-23, 2024


Thrilled to have been able to present "DRAG IS LIFE IS ART", a multi-media installation featuring video work from my “Life is Drag” project at SATELLITE Art Show in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (June, 2024).


I showcased a curated selection of "Life is Drag" video portraits (performance documentation) in 4K on a 75" monitor as well as lifeisdrag.com (the official online archive - the largest living digital archive in the world) on an adjacent laptop.


In addition, I curated a drag brunch on the final day of the fair, showcasing the best of the best performers from the Brooklyn art-drag scene - who in turn also exhibited their art at the fair in conjunction with my DRAG IS LIFE IS ART installation: Esther the Bipedal Entity!, Amygdala, Linda Felcher and X-Emma (among others, Brooklyn, NY) presented 'Drag is Visual', a constellation of original works from some of the most compelling NYC drag artists featured in Rachel Rampleman's 'Life is Drag' project.


More info and the work itself can be found at:

lifeisdrag.com


More images from the install and drag show:


https://www.flickr.com/photos/megalomediac/albums/72177720318814230/


RECENT PRESS:


"The Best Art Fair in Miami"
   -Miami New Times
"Satellite fair is weird and wonderful."
   -Miami Herald
"A reminder of why you like art in the first place" 

   -Hyperallergic

"SATELLITE on unstoppable trajectory"

   -Artefuse
"Underdog with a bite"
   -Financial Times
"a heart based gift to the emerging art community"
   -Art Net
"the antidote to Basel’s more white-walled fare.” 

   -Playboy

"Life is Drag" at SoMad


"Life is Drag" at SoMad's Mad Pride '24 Happening

June 14th, 2024


For SoMad's annual NYC Pride event - Mad Pride 24 - I was invited to install a selection of "Life is Drag" video portraits (performance documentation) as a gigantic 3-channel video installation in their event space, as well as a monumental installation of 300+ printed video stills from the project on their gallery floor above. Also exhibiting work for Mad Pride 24 were fellow artists Ash Hagerstrand & Paul Simon, and Untitled Queen, Jess A Mess, Xana Whoria, Lester Mayers, Felix III, Lee Gumbs all performed. 


More info:
SoMad® is a femme and queer led, independent art space and artist residency program that fosters creative experimentation. A platform, production house and gallery, located South of Madison Square Park, the name “SoMad” refers to both the physical location of the space as well as the collective’s frustration with the current landscape for emerging artists, particularly for artists from underrepresented communities. SoMad® supports and nurtures artists and curators by providing space: mental, physical and digital; for them to make and exhibit their work. SoMad® itself is a collective of artists, seeking to empower other artists through togetherness, practice and collaboration.


More about Mad Pride 24 here!

"Life is Drag" at Panel and Live Show La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

Coffeehouse Chronicles #175 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

May 11, 2024, East Village, NYC


So honored to have been featured at this iconic East Village institution as part of their epic event “The Chronicles of Drag - What a Drag”. For this SOLD OUT event, we took over the whole building, and drag historians and NYC legends traced drag back to as early as 1865, continued through WWII, into the legendary 82 Club, and wove through the downtown and off-off-Broadway scene up and to the present day. I showcased a 20-channel video and print wall installation, chatted on a panel about “Life is Drag” - and curated a micro drag show featuring some of my all time favorite project collaborators Esther, Lena Horné & Charlie Wo!


The event also featured live performances by Michael Lynch, Brian Neil, and music director Mark Oleszko, and was moderated by Benjamin Gillespie, with panel members Joe E. Jeffreys, Rachel Rampleman, Jim Camicia, Elyssa Goodman, Agosto Machado, Shelly Mars & Michael Musto.

Thank you to curators Michal Gamily and Brian Belovitch, and the entire lovely LaMama Staff - we had a fabulous time! 


“30 YEARS IN 3 HOURS: A ONE NIGHT ONLY RETROSPECTIVE” at Satellite Gallery LES, NYC
“30 YEARS IN 3 HOURS: A ONE NIGHT ONLY RETROSPECTIVE” 

Satellite Gallery LES, 279 Broome St, NYC

April 19, 2024


It was an honor to be one of the artists invited to take part in the epic undertaking - 30 LOVERS IN 30 DAYS - celebrating the launch of Satellite Art Show’s new gallery on the Lower East Side, NYC, in 2024.

To kick things off with a bang, they presented a marathon of solo shows every night for the entire month of April. I presented “30 YEARS IN 3 HOURS: A ONE NIGHT ONLY RETROSPECTIVE” - a solo show featuring 3 decades of my video work.


I also produced a *live drag show* finale for that evening, showcasing some of my favorite Brooklyn art-drag performers whom I work frequently with for my "Life is Drag" project - now the largest living archive of digital drag in the US.


More images from the install and drag show:


https://www.flickr.com/photos/megalomediac/albums/72177720318668653/with/53879624974/


More on my work and the gallery:


THE SATELLITE STORY:


Noticing a lack of true artistry present during Miami Art Basel, Satellite Art Show was conceived. The goal of the project being to present cutting-edge works of art that are accessible to collectors and art patrons alike. To delve into conceptual works of art and to mine for the essence of the creative spirit. To create a safe space for unsafe self expression. To allow for more than fine art, but all forms of art, both high-brow and low-brow; crossing mediums, styles, forms and technologies. We launched the project in 2015 by taking over an abandoned pharmacy, restaurant, parking garage and the notorious abandoned beach-front hotel.
Over the years, Satellite has hopped from venue to venue, each location adding a unique flavor to its story. There was the Wynwood Walls, where graffiti art served as a vibrant backdrop, and the industrial chic of The Buena Vista Building, where shipping containers morphed into mini-galleries. There was the SXSW transformation of a Museum into a holistic art experience. There was the legendary New York City factory “night bazaar” edition. Most recently Satellite took over a Halloween megastore, injecting its characteristic irreverence into the spooky kitsch environment.
Today, Satellite Art Show stands as a testament to the power of independent art. It's a beacon for those who believe that art should be accessible, engaging, and transformative. Satellite has grown in prominence as its impact has expanded. Satellite was voted “Miami’s Best Fair” (over 25 other fairs), Satellite received the key to the city of Miami Beach and December 5th is, by proclamation, Satellite Art Show day in Miami Beach. Press accolades have been robust and continuous as our vision has remained consistent. Visitation and sales have grown as our model has become established and celebrated. In the spring of 2024 SATELLITE opened its first brick and mortar gallery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
As SATELLITE continues to evolve and push boundaries, one thing remains constant: Satellite's commitment to showcasing the most exciting and innovative art, while creating a space where everyone feels welcome to experience the magic of artistic expression.


SATELLITE is proudly 100% artist-run.
"Life is Drag" Panel and Live Show at Symphony Space

Top (left to right): Esther, The Bipedal Entity!, me, Joe E Jeffreys, Julian Castronovo, Murray Hill

Middle: Esther, The Bipedal Entity!, Klondyke, La Zavaleta, Paris L'Hommie

Bottom: Esther, The Bipedal Entity!, Murray Hill



THU, JUNE 15 | 7:30PM

About the Program:


The art of drag has long been a part of New York City's cultural scene. In celebration of Pride month, we welcome a group of thinkers, creators, and artists for a discussion and performances exploring the history of drag in the city, what can be done about the current wave of drag bans, and the inspiring world of drag today.


Hosted by Esther, the Bipedal Entity!, the event features a conversation between Life is Drag creator and multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman, actor, comedian, and entertainer Murray Hill, drag historian, documentarian, educator, and pundit Joe E. Jeffreys, and legal expert Julian Castronovo, as well as performances and conversation with drag artists Klondyke, La Zavaleta, and Paris L'Hommie, and video footage by Rampleman interspersed throughout.


Presented in partnership with Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre and The Municipal Art Society of New York.


Featuring:


Panel:
Esther, the Bipedal Entity!, moderator
Julian Castronovo
Murray Hill
Joe E. Jeffreys
Rachel Rampleman

And performances by, and discussion with:
Klondyke
La Zavaleta
Paris L'Hommie

Click HERE to view the digital program



Below (top to bottom): La Zavaleta, Klondyke, Esther, The Bipedal Entity!, Paris L'Hommie, group shot

"Life is Drag" Panel and Live Show at The Cell Theatre

Above images:

1. (left - right): Martha Wilson, Junior Mintt, me, X-Emma, Joe E Jeffreys, Tank, Elena Zavalez, Fem Appeal, Mimi Silk, Sir Cum Sized & Carrie Able)

2. (left - right): Carrie Able, Martha Wilson, Elena Zavalev

3. Fem Appeal

4. Printed video still installation

5. Tank

6-7. (left - right): Esther, The Bipedal Entity!, me, Stephanie McGovern, Fem Appeal, Carrie Able,  Martha Wilson, Elena Zavalez, Joe E Jeffreys, Junior Mintt, me, Sir Cum Sized



"Pride as Performance: Preserving the Ephemeral" at The Cell Theatre, June 8, 2023


CADAF is excited to announce "Pride as Performance: Preserving the Ephemeral'', its third

Web3 Collectors Salon event exploring the possibilities of performance art in Web3. This event

is hosted in collaboration with Franklin Furnace and the cell, taking place in New York on June

8, 6-9pm.


The event will feature a panel discussion followed by live performances by Carrie Able, Mimi

Silk, Jay Kay, Sir Cum Sized, Show Ponii, X-Emma, Charlie Wo, Vic Sin & bonus surprise drag

artists! 


Pride as Performance features distinguished industry leaders, artists, and performers:

● Martha Wilson (Franklin Furnace founder & performance artist)

● Rachel Rampleman (Life is Drag archive creator & multimedia artist)

● Carrie Able (internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist & metaverse pioneer)

● Joe E. Jeffreys (drag historian, documentarian, educator and pundit)

● Sebastian Sanchez (digital art at Christie's Auction House)

● Esther, The Bipedal Entity! (drag/multimedia artist)

● Fem Appeal (18 veteran of NYC’s drag & burlesque scenes)

● Stephanie McGovern (visual artist/performer/video artist)

● Junior Mintt (drag preacher, businesswoman):


Topics to be covered:

● The vital role of documenting and archiving performance art

● Web3 / NFT opportunities for performance artists

● The transformation of performance art and drag in the digital era

● Making performance art accessible in the digital space


In partnership with Franklin Furnace and the cell.


About CADAF:

CADAF is an ecosystem for artists, curators and collectors to discover, buy and learn about

digital art and NFTs. CADAF supports the expansion of digital and new media art through a

dedicated program of art fairs, festivals and educational programming around the world.


About Franklin Furnace:

Franklin Furnace’s mission is to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize and advocate on behalf

of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, cultural

bias, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content. The organization is dedicated to

serving artists by providing both physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based

art, including but not limited to artists’ books and periodicals, installation art, performance art,

and unforeseen contemporary avant-garde artforms; and to undertaking other activities related

to these purposes. Franklin Furnace is committed to serving emerging artists; to assuming an

aggressive pedagogical stance with regard to the value of avant-garde art to life; and to

fostering artists’ zeal to broadcast ideas.


About the cell:

Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre (Artistic Director Kira Simring) is a not-for-profit dedicated

to the incubation and presentation of new work across all artistic disciplines that mine the mind,

pierce and awaken the soul. Founded in 2006, the cell has provided a developmental home in

the heart of Chelsea for works in progress by artists ranging from early career to established

staples of the New York community. Originally established as a 21st century salon, the cell has

evolved into a cultural hub for the performing arts, food artists, cyborg theatre artists, musicians,

installation artists, choreographers and more. Past installations include Dark Matter Immersive

Garden of Eden, Rachel Rampleman's Life is Drag, Chauhaus and Steve Pavlovsky's

Tranquility Base.


Link to event info here

I am beyond THRILLED to announce that I will be returning to The Cell in Chelsea for another residency in support of my ongoing "Life is Drag" project (2022-23)!
"Life is Drag" Residency and Exhibition at Wave Pool

I create bodies of work that explore subjects such as gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing lens-based processes ranging from directorial to anthropological, I showcase exuberantly irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of recent subjects include Girls Girls Girls, the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band; Tazzie Colomb, the world's longest competing female bodybuilder; and LACTIC Incorporated, an avant-garde clothing brand that challenges the polarization of gender.


With my current and ongoing project "Life is Drag", I document the most singular and innovative performers of the currently exploding alt-drag and neo-burlesque scenes. 3 years into this project at this point, so far I've made 250+ portraits in my Brooklyn studio as well as during multiple artist residencies.


During my residency at Wave Pool, I worked with 25 performers - including members of Cincinnati based ODD Presents drag haus and Smoke & Queers burlesque troupe, as well as with other artists from the tri-state area. The residency also involved an exhibition featuring the my ever-growing archive, as well as 3 live performance events I produced. "Life is Drag" is the 2022 Vance-Waddell Residency and I had the honor of borrowing works by Cindy Sherman and Janine Antoni from the Vance-Waddell collection to inform and expand on the installation for this project. The exhibition ran from March 12 - April 30th at Wave Pool Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio.


"Life is Drag" Residency and Exhibition at Cheeks NYC (Pop-Up Strip Club at Satellite Art Club)

Above: Mimi Silk Performing "Heaven's on Fire" (Kiss), shot in 4K on Halloween 2021, NYC

Many thanks to Stephanie McGovern (aka Mimi Silk) and Brian Andrew Whiteley for inviting me to shoot video portraits of the Cheeks NYC (a pop-up strip club at Satellite Art Club in Brooklyn during the month of October in 2021) performers for my "Life is Drag" series! Also during the month of October, previous portraits from the "Life is Drag" series were on view in 4K on a large flat screen monitor at Cheeks/Satellite (as curated by Stephanie McGovern), and the new Cheeks NYC portraits premiered there as the edits were completed.


"Life is Drag" Cheeks NYC video portrait collaborators include: Caresse Deville (PA), Stella Nova (NY), Aliester Lore (NY), Glow Job (NY), Hula Hoop Barbie (NY), Corvette (NY), and Dick TransDyke (NY)


And SO SO HAPPY to finally be caught up on editing the Cheeks portraits, all now on view HERE!

Below: Stella Nova Performing "Pressure" (Ari Lennox)

"Life is Drag" Residency at Bushwig NYC 2021

Above: Show Ponii Performing "Que Lio" (Willie Colon Y Hector Lavoe)


THANK YOU to the 30+ incredible drag artists who shared their amazing performances with me and my “Life is Drag” video portrait archive during the 20+ hours I spent at Bushwig at the Knockdown Center NYC over the weekend of September 11-12, 2021, and a HUGE thank you also to the spectacular Bushwig founder Horrorchata for welcoming me to be a part of this epic annual event’s 10 year celebration! For the uninitiated, Bushwig is the biggest, queerest and most iconic festival of Drag, Music and Love in the world, featuring over 200 performers  over two full days and nights of live music, performing arts, DJs, delicious food and outdoor fun.


"Life is Drag" Bushwig video portrait collaborators include: Andramada (NY), BABY (MD), Basura (NY), C’était BonTemps (NY), Champagne Killer (TX), Crimson Kitty (NY), Esther (NY), Evangeline (NY), Isaac Miss Isaac, Isabella Rio (NY), Katarina Mirage (NY), Kevin Beleza (NY), Lexa Con (NY), Marco Linx (NY), Mauve (NY), Maxxx Pleasure (NY), Pinwheel Pinwheel (NY), Sham Payne (MA), Shanita Bump (NY), Show Ponii (NY), Sister Selva (NY), TANK Creative (NY), TJ Maxxx (NY), Una Osato (NY), Venus Peculiar (NY), Victor Vendetta (FL), Virgil III (NY), X Emma (NY), Zavaleta (NY).


And SO SO HAPPY to finally be caught up on editing these Bushwig portraits, all now on view HERE

Below: Una Osato & Sister Selva Performing "Gimme More" (Britney Spears)

"Life is Drag" at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh

Above: Esther Performing "Surveillance Capitalism", 4K video, 2021


I am THRILLED to share that selected performances from my Life is Drag series were  featured at the venerable Carnegie Museum of Art as a part of TQ Live! in Pittsburgh, PA. 

TQ Live! is an annual resplendently queer evening of dazzling performances: music, dance, drag, spoken word, comedy, pole work, video, and more. Prior editions have been held at The Andy Warhol Museum, and the 2021 edition was held in the Carnegie Museum of Art on August 27.


Hosted by Joseph Hall and co-hosted by Duane Binion, the 2021 line-up included performances by:


- The Dragon Sisters (NYC)
- Caleb Gonzales (dance)
- Drake Phouasavanh (dance)
- Ensilence (musical performance)
- HUNY (DJ)
- Luna Plexus (pole dance)
- Pissy Mattress (drag performance)
- Remy Black (drag performance)
- Samira Mendoza (musical performance)
- SUPA’ NxC (musical performance)
- The Childlike Empress (musical performance)
With video portraits from the series Life is Drag, by Rachel Rampleman (NYC)


This seventh installment of the annual performance series was organized by Professors Suzie Silver and Scott Andrew along with Joseph Hall and guest curator sarah huny young. 


Address: Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

"Life is Drag" - Residency, Exhibition and Performance Events in Pittsburgh in Conjunction with Bloomfield Garden Club and Bunker Projects

 Above: Luna Plexus Performing "Just My Luck" (Coco Jones), 4K video, 2021


Thanks so much to everyone who joined us at Bunker Projects in June for live shows presented in conjunction with the premiere of 12 new Life is Drag video portraits I made while an artist in residence in Pittsburgh that month. And MANY MANY thanks to my phenomenal performer collaborators (Azizzy, Cindy Crotchford, Kierra Darshell, Luna Plexus, Maxi Pad, Pissy Mattress), to Tina Dillman of Bloomfield Garden Club for bringing me to town as her 1st visiting artist in residence, to Scott Andrew for his amazing help in every possible way, and to our incredibly generous and lovely community partners Kelly Strayhorn Theater and the Blue Moon for providing venues for us to shoot at, and so much more!

View more pix from the Pittsburgh residency here (stills, production shots, etc!)


Below images are of: Pissy Mattress, Maxi Pad, Luna Plexus, Cindy Crotchford, Kierra Darshell & Azizzy, taken in June at Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, PA

"Life is Drag" at The Cell -  Exhibition and Residency Grand Finale Performance Event
Above images are of: (clockwise from top left) Angelica Sundae, Poly Ester, Civilization, Dick Trans Dyke,
Nikki Sexx, Anna Monoxide, God Complex, & Darlinda Just Darlinda

I'm very happy to be able to share a few photos from my wrap party/performance extravaganza at the cell in June of 2021, celebrating in grand style the grand finale of my epic 8 month Life is Drag residency AKA Haus of Chau: Curtain Call!  THANK YOU to all the performers who allowed me to document their phenomenal performances for this archive, and ESPECIALLY to those who returned to perform on this magical night: Angelica Sundae, Anna Monoxide, Chartruice, Civilization, Darlinda Just Darlinda, Dick TransDyke, Nikki Sexx, Pinwheel Pinwheel & Poly Ester!!!


View more pix from the epic wrap party here!


And more pix from the overall cell residency (video portrait stills, production shots, live show documentation AND wrap party highlights) here!


Below are a few images from my cell residency wrap party - Haus of Chau: Curtain Call, NYC
(top left) Angelica Sundae, (top right) Poly Ester, (middle left) Nikki Sexx, (middle right) Anna Monoxide,
(bottom left) God Complex, Darlinda Just Darlinda & Nikki Sexx, (bottom right) Chartruice & Jazz,


ARTIST STATEMENT ABOUT THIS WORK / RESIDENCY:


I create bodies of work that explore subjects such as gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological, I showcase exuberantly irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender). With my new and ongoing project Life is Drag, I am documenting the most innovative and singular performers of the currently exploding international alt-drag and burlesque scenes. I am two years into this project, and so far have created over 150 portraits spanning 10+ hours.


From October of 2020 through June of 2021, I was featured as an artist in residence at Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. During this time, I collaborated with many of NYC's most unique and experimental drag and burlesque performance artists. My portraits were filmed throughout the historic townhouse, including in the cell's grand 1st floor performance space, and were then on view in the cell's gallery above, as part of an ever-evolving and immersive multimedia installation. We also presented four pop up live shows on the 23rd Street sidewalk in front of the cell this spring, as well as a grand finale performance event inside the cell in collaboration with the cell's culinary artist Steven Shikhel, called Haus of Chau: Curtain Call.


My long-term goal is to continue to do a series of such residencies nationally and internationally, which will allow me to create portraits of drag artists from a wide variety of areas, backgrounds, cultures, ages, etc. Each portrait includes video of the drag artist performing (lip-synching, singing, telling stories, dancing, etc.) in addition to interview documentation, and will live online as well as in galleries and unexpected places in between.


TO VIEW THE FULL SERIES IN PROGRESS, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

Below: installation images of "Life is Drag" at the cell in Chelsea, NYC, February - June, 2021

"Life is Drag: More is Better and Never Too Much" Solo Show at 3S Artspace in New Hampshire

"Life is Drag: More is Better and Never Too Much" Exhibition Synopsis:


During her two-week residency at 3S Artspace In Portsmouth, NH,  in 2020, Rachel Rampleman filmed and interviewed 21 New England drag artists. Their stories and performances, told through Rampleman’s unique artistic lens, were due to premiere in person last spring (2020). However, the pandemic required adaptation and we shared the first preview of "Life is Drag" in a virtual format. While living in New York over the past year, Rachel was able to meet with drag and burlesque royalty and add to her portfolio during a singular moment in history.


This solo exhibition ran from May 7 - June 27, 2021, and featured over 7 hours of incredible performances by: Agatha Crusty, Angelica Sundae, Anna Monoxide, Arabella LaDessé, Bender Bluefish, Bunny Wonderland, C'etait BonTemps, Chartruice, Cherry Lemonade, Civilization, Darlinda Just Darlinda, Dick TransDyke, Esther, Fem Appeal, Foxy Belle Afriq/Uncle Freak, God Complex, Geo Soctomah Neptune, Harlow Havoc, Horrorchata, JAX, Jayden Jamison, Juniper Juicy, Just JP, K.James, Kitty Willow, Li Monahd, Linda Felcher, Mike Hawk, Menthol Menthol, Muscles Monty, Mimi Silk, Mini Horrorwitz, Miss Malice, Neon Calypso, Nüqueer Power, Ophelia Johnson, Paris L'Hommie, Pinwheel Pinwheel, Rara Darling, Regan White, Rita Fluxx, Robin from HR, Robyn Edges, Secret Queen, Sham Payne, Sweaty Eddie, The Illustrious Pearl, Theydy Bedbug, Veronica T & Zayn-X.


----


"Life is Drag: More is Better and Never Too Much" Extended Version:


Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman creates bodies of work that explore subjects like gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological, she showcases exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects and collaborators include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band) and Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder/powerlifter).


In early 2019 she embarked upon Life is Drag, a new series in which she documents her collaborations with the most singular and innovative artists of the currently exploding international alt-drag scene. In January and February of 2020, Rachel met with 21 New England-based drag artists while an artist in residence at 3S, and captured compelling interviews, stunning photographs, and transcendent performances that have become a part of her growing Life is Drag archive. This was her first opportunity to create a large number of video portraits as part of a residency, and she found herself in awe of the wide range of talent she encountered at 3S, the unbridled creativity, confidence, boldness, and power of the performers, and the exuberant and liberating energy and feelings they inspired.


Some examples that illustrate the range of talented individuals she collaborated with at 3S include a local-to-Portsmouth high school senior, a Dutch doctor working in the field of infectious disease diagnostics at Harvard, a Passamaquoddy Two-Spirit (the Indigenous term for someone who is both male and female, and fulfills a third-gender ceremonial role in Native communities), master basket maker, activist, storyteller, and educator from Indian Township, Maine, and an outdoor enthusiast who came to the US as a child of refugee immigrants fleeing Communist Vietnam, who is now the proud father of 46 drag sons in Boston and proudly states that drag literally saved his life.


In late 2020, Rachel started a new residency mid-pandemic in New York City at the cell theatre, and proceeded to create over 50 new video portraits for her Life is Drag archive - and this time expanding the roster to also include alt-burlesque and performance artists. The eponymously titled exhibition was originally scheduled at 3S Artspace from April 10- May 31. Although the gallery temporarily closed, we presented Life is Drag: Virtual Edition, which premiered her video portraits of New England's most unique, edgy, exciting, and inspiring drag royalty, created while in residency in January and February of 2020 at 3S Artspace.

For Life is Drag: More is Better and Never Too Much, the Gallery at 3S Artspace will feature the portraits of New England's finest drag royalty as originally intended prior to the pandemic in tandem with the premiere of Rampleman’s exciting new NYC portraits.

"Life is Drag" at The Cell - Exhibition Extended and Live Shows Added!

THE CELL EXTENDS “LIFE IS DRAG” EXHIBIT, ADDS STREET-SIDE PERFORMANCES, NEW YORK, NY — Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre (Artistic Director Kira Simring) has extended Rachel Rampleman’s exhibition Life Is Drag until April 18, and added street-side performances featuring the performers captured in the exhibition. The lineup for this Saturday April 3rd at 6:00 PM (EST) includes Uncle Freak, Egregious Philbin, Chevy Lace and C'etait BonTemps.


Performers featured in previous street-side live shows include Darlinda Just Darlinda and Mimi Silk with host Dick TransDyke (March 13th), Anna Monoxide, Foxy Belle Afriq, Chartruice and Fem Appeal (Saturday March 20), and Unforgivable Emotional Carnivores featuring God Complex , Esther, Menthol Menthol and Pinwheel Pinwheel (on March 27). The performances are free of charge however tips and donations are greatly appreciated. Masks are required and audiences are asked to maintain social distancing practices from other members throughout the length of the pop-up performance. The exhibition will extend hours until 7PM on the day of the performance and will be available to view on the cell’s third floor Gallery. Visitors will have the opportunity to engage with the performers during gallery hours prior to the performance.


"Life is Drag" Opens at The Cell!

THE CELL TO KICK OFF 2021 SEASON WITH “LIFE IS DRAG”

FEATURING THE DRAG PORTRAITS OF RACHEL RAMPLEMAN

February 13 – March 28, 2021


NEW YORK, NY — Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre (Artistic Director Kira Simring) presents its first residency of 2021, Life is Drag, an exhibition showcasing the video portraits of Rachel Rampleman. Exploring subjects such as gender, artifice and spectacle, Rampleman documents the most innovative and singular performers of the currently exploding international alt-drag and burlesque scenes, a portion of which have been filmed throughout the pandemic at the cell’s space on West 23rd Street. Opening February 13th on the Gallery Floor, this exhibit is free and open to the public. Patrons are required to follow all city mandated COVID-19 precautions including mandatory mask wearing, filling out a contact-free survey for symptoms and potential exposure, and a digital temperature check before entry.


Rachel Rampleman utilizes processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological to showcase exuberantly irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender) as well as drag and burlesque stars Agatha Crusty (NH), Arabella LaDessé (MA), Aura Tannen (OH), Barbie Crash (KY), Bender Bluefish (The Netherlands), Bunny Wonderland (ME), C'etait BonTemps (NY), Chartruice (NY), Cherry Lemonade (ME), Civilization (NY), Darlinda Just Darlinda (NY), Dick TransDyke (NY), Esther (NY), Fem Appeal (NY), Geo Soctomah Neptune (ME), Harlow Havoc (MA), JAX (NY), Jayden Jamison (MA), Just JP (MA), Kiara Chimera (OH), Kitty Willow (NH), Li Monahd (NH), Mike Hawk (NH), Menthol Menthol (NY), Muscles Monty (NY), Mimi Silk (NY), Nüqueer Power (MA), Ophelia Johnson (MA), Regan White (NH), Rita Fluxx (NH), Robin from Human Resources (MA), Robyn Edges (NY), Secret Queen (MA), Sham Payne (MA), Stixen Stones (OH), Untitled Queen (NY), and Veronica T (NH)

Zayn-X (MA).

“Life is Drag” already features over 4 hours of video featuring over 60 portraits of artists from all over the globe. Rampleman plans to create as many as 40 more video portraits during her residency and will incorporate all of these into the exhibition.

“My long-term goal is to continue to do a series of such residencies nationally and internationally, which will allow me to create portraits of drag artists from a wide variety of areas, backgrounds, cultures, ages, etc. Each portrait includes video of the drag artist performing (lip-synching, singing, telling stories, dancing, etc.) in addition to interview documentation, and will  live online as well as in galleries and unexpected spaces in between. ”


The exhibition will open on Saturday, February 13 at 6PM at the cell on 338 W. 23rd St. Open Saturdays and Sundays from 12PM-6PM. New York, NY. Open until March 28, 2021. Masks are required and capacity will be limited. Follow the cell on instagram at @thecelltheatre for updates or go to www.thecelltheatre.org for upcoming events!

Nancy Manocherian's The Cell Theatre in Chelsea NYC is Now Hosting Me as an Artist in Residence, in Support of My Ongoing "Life is Drag" Project 

THE CELL THEATRE

338 W 23RD ST, NYC, 10011


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, NEW YORK, NY —  Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre is thrilled to announce our first residency of 2021, Life is Drag, an exhibition showcasing the video portraits of Rachel Rampleman. Exploring subjects such as gender, artifice and spectacle, Rampleman will document the most innovative and singular performers of the currently exploding alt-drag and burlesque scenes. More information to come!


* Masks are required and capacity will be limited.


* All above and below images (video stills) produced while in residence at the cell theatre

(ABOVE: C'etait BonTemps, BELOW: Esther, Mimi Silk, Chartruice, Robyn Edges, and JAX)


ARTIST STATEMENT ABOUT THIS WORK / RESIDENCY:


I create bodies of work that explore subjects such as gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological, I showcase exuberantly irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender). With my new and ongoing project "Life is Drag", I am documenting the most innovative and singular performers of the currently exploding international alt-drag and burlesque scenes. I am a year and a half into this project, and so far have created over 50 portraits.


Presently, I am an artist in residence at Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre in New York City, and during this time I plan to collaborate with many of NYC's most unique and experimental drag and burlesque artists. My long-term goal is to continue to do a series of residencies nationally and internationally, which will allow me to create more portraits of drag artists from a wide variety of areas, backgrounds, cultures, ages, etc. Each portrait will include video of the drag artist performing (lip-synching, singing, telling stories, etc.), as well as interview documentation, and will become part of an online database/archive as well be presented in gallery (and non-gallery) exhibitions. All of these platforms will help connect these exceptional performers from around the globe to both each other and the larger international audience they deserve. I believe this project is innovative in that it is treating and respecting drag as a proper art form – recognizing it as an extremely vital and valid style of performance art, and every bit as deserving of the deference reserved for more traditional classical art forms like painting and sculpture. Drag is painting AND sculpture AND performance, and quite often also activism and education and therapy and religion and so many other different things to those who practice it, and also to those who experience it as an observer.

My "Life is Drag" Project Featured at the New Satellite Art Club in Brooklyn (As Seen in the New York Times, Forbes and Artnet)

SATELLITE ART CLUB

961 FULTON STREET
BROOKLYN, NY 11238


I am thrilled to share that as of August 2020, my new collaborations with NYC’s and New England's most singular and innovative drag and burlesque artists are making their debut at the gorgeous and magical Satellite Art Club! Please check back regularly as new content is constantly being added as my current residency at the cell theatre in Chelsea progresses...

Now on view nightly from 5-10pm at Satellite Art Club
Please RSVP at: davidhasselhoff.net


ABOUT: ART CLUB is a new, boundary pushing collaboration between Brian Andrew Whiteley (Artist and founder of Satellite art show), Jen Catron & Paul Outlaw (Artist Collaborative), and Joseph Latimore (of Gavin Brown’s Passerby Bar).


ART CLUB is a new art space developed by artists for the creative community. A space that allows for expressiveness, performances, curated exhibitions, art sales and a platform for essential debauchery which is needed more than ever in these trying times. We are die hard NY'ers who believe that art and culture shapes the direction of NYC - not corporations and the monied class. We represent the past and future of the soul of NYC.


As Covid and politics create seismic shifts in the city and the art world, we want to be a major part of inevitable reshaping of NYC by offering a welcoming, boundary-pushing, debaucherous, creative, and inclusive space to explore culture. We are presenting a model of new norms of socializing while providing space for artists to express themselves without the influence of the market driven side of the art world. Creativity does not stop for pandemics, and we aim to provide an appropriate venue to nurture creativity for artist and audience alike. Like most seismic societal historic shifts, collapse breeds creativity, and we are ready for what may happen next. 


ART CLUB in the New York Times:

"Life Is a Drag / ‘Life Is Drag’ @ 3S Artspace" Review by Art New England Magazine Writer Emily Rose Bass
Zayn-X, Courtesy of the artist and 3S Artspace


May 8, 2020


MANY THANKS to Pop Historian extraordinaire and exceptional Art New England Magazine writer Emily Rose Bass for this very thoughtful and insightful review of my 3S Artspace solo show “Life is Drag: Virtual Edition”:


"Life Is a Drag / ‘Life Is Drag’ @ 3S Artspace"


I miss drag.


Miss performance, miss creativity, miss community, and maybe most of all, I miss costumes.


Life Is Drag—a virtual exhibition at 3S Artspace celebrating New England’s alt-drag scene—reminds me of the best of these things. And not in a way that feels hollow, like a desolate bedroom Zoom rave. The exhibition elicits an unexpected joy, like digging up a time capsule or running into a childhood best friend. A welcome reminder of the happiest moments from “before.”


Life Is Drag is the most recent project by multimedia artist (and absolute badass) Rachel Rampleman, whose profiles of female bodybuilders, burlesque dancers, latex maskers, and toddler pageant queens magnify the performative aspects of gender. Her subjects redefine spectacle, pushing presentation to the extreme, yet their portraits never venture into voyeurism. Rampleman graces each collaborator with a divinely empathetic eye, making her the perfect candidate to pull off an authentic, compelling exhibition about the people behind drag.


During a winter residency at Portsmouth, NH’s 3S Artspace, Rampleman collaborated with 21 of New England’s finest (and freakiest) performers to capture their fresh approaches to drag. While the physical exhibition of these videos, interviews, and photographs planned for April 10-May 31 was halted by the Coronavirus crisis, Rampleman is premiering these works in a digital version of the show at galleryat3s.org, now on view through June 4.


Serendipitously, the project is perfectly suited to live online. While some artworks lose something in the digital form, Rampleman’s videos somehow become stronger, more focused. Without the distraction of a gallery attendant looking over your shoulder or the time constraint of your nearing lunch plans, it’s easier to truly dive into the performances. Whether you choose to binge the whole lot in one sitting or savor a few each day, the ~3 minute routines feel sacred, special, like private concerts. 


Be it opulent glamour or dark humor, spoken word or comedy skit, the exhibition covers every drag niche imaginable (and a few you’d never dare to imagine), from the grotesque horror of Zayn-X’s hair-raising body modification (Spoiler alert: There’s a staple gun involved.) to Bunny Wonderland’s banishing ritual likening drag shows to religious ceremonies, to Kitty Willow’s Us-themed dance set to Carly Rae’s “Cut To The Feeling,” complete with scissors and cut paper chain.


Life Is Drag masterfully counters the notion that drag is one-size-fits-all. Drag is not a monolith, although it’s often portrayed as one (Hey, RuPaul!)—a sentiment proven by Rampleman’s collaborators, diverse in nearly every aspect. The group includes an immunologist, a high school senior, an ex-Navy officer, a Two-Spirit Passamaquoddy activist, and a Boston-based father to 46 drag sons, to name just a few. And much to my delight, performers of all gender identities and presentations are represented—Yes, finally, an exhibition with drag kings! 

Bender Bluefish, Courtesy of the artist and 3S Artspace


When I’d originally planned to review Life Is Drag back in February, all I could think about was how exciting it’d be to see a thoughtful exhibition about drag make it into a respected gallery. To see an art form so often pushed underground, relegated to the basement or the dive bar, presented to the larger public in a considerate (but still fun!) way. To bring drag performers across New England together, and to invite newcomers into their world. Rampleman and the team at 3S (including Bunny Wonderland, the aforementioned ritualist and 3S’s program manager) planned a holistic schedule of events to welcome 3S’s community into the drag world and the drag community to 3S—showcases, bootcamps, campy movie screenings, and more.

While mourning these events, I find myself even more grateful for the exhibition now because it gives something precious back to our community. We all need a little spectacle in our lives right now, and Life Is Drag delivers when it’s most needed. The exhibition is an invaluable reminder of queer joy, queer innovation, and queer adaptability.


At a time when there’s not much to look forward to (Dare I say it…Life is a drag.), I’m thankful we still have drag. 


- Emily Rose Bass


Link to review here

"Life is Drag: Virtual Edition" launches, presented by 3S Artspace

https://www.galleryat3s.org/https://www.galleryat3s.org/


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PORTSMOUTH, N.H., MAY 1, 2020 — 3S Artspace announces a special online exhibit, Life is Drag: Virtual Edition, on view May 1 - June 4.

Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman creates bodies of work that explore subjects like gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological, she showcases exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging common clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects and collaborators include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band) and Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder and powerlifter).


In early 2019 she embarked upon Life is Drag, a new series in which she documents her collaborations with the most singular and innovative artists of the currently exploding international alt-drag scene. The eponymously titled exhibition was originally scheduled at 3S Artspace from April 10 - May 31. Although the gallery is temporarily closed, we are thrilled to bring you Life is Drag: Virtual Edition, which premieres her video portraits of New England's most unique, edgy, exciting, and inspiring drag royalty, created while in residency in January and February of 2020 at 3S Artspace.


During her residency, Rachel met with 21 New England-based drag artists, and captured compelling interviews, stunning photographs, and transcendent performances that have become a part of her growing Life is Drag archive. This was her first opportunity to create a large number of video portraits as part of a residency, and she found herself in awe of the wide range of talent she encountered at 3S, the unbridled creativity, boldness, and power of the performers, and the exuberant and liberating energy and feelings they inspired.

Some examples that illustrate the range of talented individuals she collaborated with include a local-to-Portsmouth high school senior, a Dutch doctor working in the field of infectious disease diagnostics at Harvard, a Passamaquoddy Two-Spirit, master basket maker, activist, storyteller, and educator from Indian Township, Maine, and an outdoor enthusiast who came to the US as a child of refugee immigrants fleeing Communist Vietnam, who is now the proud father of 46 drag sons in Boston and proudly states that drag literally saved his life.

"LACTIC Incorporated: Times Square Shoot" Featured in "TIME LAPSE" Presented by Auxiliary Projects

TIME LAPSE

Auxiliary Projects, 212R Norman Ave, Brooklyn, NY

May 2020

http://www.auxiliaryprojects.com/current-exhibit/


I'm very happy to share that my piece "LACTIC Incorporated: Times Square Shoot" is being featured in a 48 hour streaming video exhibition presented by Auxiliary Projects titled "TIME LAPSE", from 5pm May 1st - 5pm May 3rd, 2020. Please see the expo description here:


Remember when we were so busy we had to tape a banana to the wall and call it art? Brisk and efficient cultural consumption–I mean really, what were we thinking?–was always dubious at best. From the vantage point of New York City in lockdown at the epicenter of a global pandemic, many of us strangely find ourselves with time to burn. Why open a can when you can soak beans for 14 hours? Why do anything at all today, when you can do it tomorrow? Of course, to be in this situation is to be among the lucky who are even able to hunker, locked in battle with our stupid refrigerators, our stupid cohabitants, and our stupid bills.


Together with the grinding specificity of the minute to minute (how long has it been since I last washed my hands???) all of us endure a new blindness to the expansive future: who among us knows what June will look like, or whether we will be here to see it? In this moment of forging new relationships to time, we are inspired to present TIME LAPSE, a 48-hour exhibition of streaming video art to soothe, irritate, and entertain you in your anxious confinement. We are sorry we can’t provide our usual vintage of “gallery white,” but we also know that whatever you BYO of will be superior. What we will provide is an amazing array of video art in its original format that can replace your news feed on the screen of your choice. We recommend letting it play the whole time, allowing your attention to drift and to refocus, just as it did when the “old you” was out in the world where new stimulus was constant, unexpected, and compelling. 


Featuring work by: David Opdyke, Anthony Discenza, Marie Guex, Rachel Rampleman Salvador Munoz, Adam Douglas Thompson, Valery Estabrook, Vanessa Albury, Sarada Rauch, Mitch Patrick, Chanan Ben Simone and Inkyoung Bae, LoVid, Azikiwe Mohammed, Jennifer Dalton Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, and Faith Holland.


My Video Portrait of Just JP Performing "Happy Face" Featured in "The Fungus and the Future" at 601 Artspace

THE FUNGUS AND THE FUTURE

601 Artspace, 88 Eldridge St., NYC, NY 10002

April - May, 2020


https://601artspace.org/The-Fungus-and-The-Future


I'm pleased to announce that my portrait of Just JP Performing "Happy Face" (Destiny's Child) from my new Life is Drag series is being featured in an online exhibition presented by 601 Artspace titled "The Fungus and the Future", as a part of their series "It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine / Not Fine". Please see the expo description here:


Our thoughts flip and flop at lightning speed between the contents of our refrigerators and the fate of the world. We now live in a whiplash-inducing push and pull between the personal and the global, the concrete and the unknown. The artists in this exhibition look beyond the immediate concerns at hand to focus their micro and macro lenses on the Earth itself. They meditate on the oft-overlooked minutiae of the natural world, and prophesize about the planet's imperiled future. And, lest it all become too much, one work offers a little unbridled optimism, by way of (who else) Beyoncé.


Featuring work by: Yura Adams, Antonia Dias Leite, Daniel Fernandes, Ghost of a Dream, Sylwia Gorak, Catarina Lopes Vicente, Rachel Rampleman, Jill Sigman, Jess Willa Wheaton.

POSTPONED: The New England Drag Showcase - In Partnership with My Solo Show "Life is Drag" at 3S Artspace

NEW ENGLAND DRAG SHOWCASE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LIFE IS DRAG

3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, NH 03801

April 25, 2020 


3S Artspace & Bunny and the Fox Present:

The New England Drag Showcase
Hosted by Bunny Wonderland & Joslyn Fox

Doors 7pm / Show 8pm

Tickets: $30 Standing / $40 Reserved Seating
Ages 18+


On April 25th, #joinus for a raucously fun night of illusion, spectacle, and subversive gender! The Performance Space at 3S will feature a lineup chock full of drag royalty unlike New England has ever seen before! Get ready for an outstanding night of drag with 19 back-to-back performances by kings and queens from Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, Dover, Worcester, and beyond!


3S Artspace and Bunny and the Fox are proud to partner with multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman. Rachel's exhibit Life is Drag in the Gallery at 3S is a collaboration with all of the performers you'll see in The New England Drag Showcase.  Life is Drag explores subjects like gender, artifice, and spectacle. A "showcase" in its own right, Rachel's work captures the exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging common clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. Make sure to visit this incredible exhibit while you're here at 3S.


The New England Drag Showcase features performances by: Regan White - Agatha Crusty - Cherry Lemonade - Rita Fluxx - Zayn-X - Arabella LaDessé - Mike Hawk - Sham Payne - Harlow Havoc - Just JP - Secret Queen - Nüqueer Power - Bender Bluefish - Geo Neptune - Veronica T - Kitty Willow - Jayden Jamison - Bunny Wonderland - Joslyn Fox


About Bunny and the Fox: Everyone's favorite drag duo, Joslyn Fox (RuPaul's Drag Race Season 6) and Bunny Wonderland are back for the 2020 season of Bunny and the Fox! This box office smash and critically acclaimed drag show has become a staple in the Seacoast arts community. Regularly featuring 7+ drag queens and kings, Bunny and the Fox fully immerses the audience with interactive props, video, and audio with a rotating theme for every performance!

----

No guests under 18 will be admitted.

Please show your support and get up and tip your performers!

Promotional image by artist Rachel Rampleman

POSTPONED: "Life is Drag" Solo Exhibition to Open at 3S Artspace on April 10, 2020

LIFE IS DRAG

3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, NH 03801

April 10 - May 31, 2020


Artist Opening Reception: Friday, April 10. 5-8pm.
A brief intro of the artist will occur at 7pm.
Free and open to the public.


Born and raised in the suburbs of the Midwest, Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman creates bodies of work that explore subjects like gender, artifice, and spectacle. Utilizing techniques and processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological, she showcases exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging common clichés associated with masculinity and femininity.

A sampling of subjects, muses, and collaborators include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder/powerlifter), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender and critique existing power structures).

In early 2019 she embarked upon Life is Drag, a new series in which she documents her collaborations with the most singular and innovative artists of the currently exploding international alt-drag scene. The eponymously titled exhibition at 3S Artspace will feature work produced while in residency in early 2020 at 3S, and premiere her portraits of New England's most unique, edgy, exciting, and inspiring drag royalty.

My "Life Is Drag" Video Portraits are Screened within the Performance is Alive Portion of SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC

SATELLITE ART SHOW

Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Ave. Brooklyn, NY

October 6, 2019


Many thanks to Performance is Alive curator Quinn Dukes for screening and hosting a discussion of my new series of video portraits - "Life is Drag" - at SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC.

artnet picks SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC and My Work as a Must-See Pick of the Week

Thank you to Sarah Cascone at artnet for the personal shout out within her inclusion of SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC as an NYC art world must-see pick of the week.

My "Life is Drag" Video Portraits featured at SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC

SATELLITE ART SHOW

Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Ave. Brooklyn, NY

October 3 - 6, 2019


I was featured in the SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC edition as both an exhibitor AND a participant in the PERFORMANCE IS ALIVE program. I presented multiple channels (screened and as an installation) from my new and ongoing "Life is Drag" video series, in which I am creating video portraits of the most singular and innovative emerging artists from alt-drag scenes all across the US!

At SATELLITE ART SHOW NYC, I showcased my collaborations with:

* Untitled Queen (NYC-based) - Brooklyn Nightlife Awards 2019 winner of Best Visual Artist and Community Vanguard (Best Drag Queen in previous years)
* Stixen Stones (Cincinnati-based) - winner of Louisville's 2019 "Drag Me To Hell" competition, and co-founder of ODD Presents draghaus (pictured above)
* Aura Tannen (Cincinnati-based) - co-founder of ODD Presents draghaus
* Barbie Crash (Louisville-based) - finalist in Louisville's 2019 "Drag Me To Hell" competition, and co-founder of Haus of Dicks (pictured below)
* Kiara Chimera (Dayton-based) - winner of Miss Kentucky Bearded Queen 2019 



About SATELLITE ART SHOW: the groundbreaking experiental art fair voted "Best Art Fair" by Miami New Times, SATELLITE ART SHOW presents interactive projects by young dealers, artist-run spaces and non-profits. By fostering a range of programming, SATELLITE is able to offer patrons and collectors with a unique experience where art is at the forefront of creative expression, activism, and curiosity. Exhibitors are encouraged to provide our visitors both an opportunity to collect new works of art as well as to present exhibitions that are engaging, experiential and interactive. SATELLITE is expanding perceptions on art and community and providing an inclusive environment for guests to feel comfortable in exploration and discovery.
My Video Installations Featured in "Found" - an Immersive Theater Experience at the cell in Chelsea, NYC

the cell

338 W 23rd St New York, NY 10011

September - November, 2018


Enter the whimsical, irreverent, and epic world of artist Mikel Glass as the cell launches its first ever immersive theatrical experience, Found, an explosion of art, found and transitional objects, mysterious cocktails, and the endless wonders of our imaginations. Found is a revolutionary new way to consume the arts.


I was invited to showcase selections from my various bodies of work exploring the worlds of female bodybuilding, alt-drag, makeup tutorials, and child beauty pageants in a historic brownstone in the heart of Chelsea in NYC, in collaboration with Mason Holdings and featuring the artwork of Mikel Glass. The production team included Kristjan Thor (Director) Daniel Baltzer (Collaborator) Rob Paustian (Sound Composition) Chaney Trotter (Outside Installation Artist) Rachel Rampleman (Video Art) Ronan Day-Lewis (Video Art) Frank Hartley (Audio Engineering, Lighting Design) Fiona Kiernan-Molloy (Fabrication) Daniel Quinn (Fabrication) Tracy Weller (Founding Artistic Director of Mason Holdings / Mama) Zoe Watkins (Shelley) Caroline DeCastiglioni (Sparrow) Tyler DeLeo (Sparrow) Ekin Naz (Sparrow) Laura Arias (Dancer) Jenna Lazar (Production Stage Manager) Reed Ridgley (Producing Director).


"Bodybuilder Vignettes" on Video Wall at Davidson College

Davidson College

315 N Main St, Davidson, NC 28036

September - October, 2019


For 6 weeks in September and October of 2019, the large scale (9’ x 16’) video wall at the E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center has presented my piece "Bodybuilder Vignettes", selected by a jury panel including members of the Art Collection Advisory Committee and Davidson College faculty and staff. The Van Every / Smith Galleries play a fundamental role in the life of Davidson College. The Galleries provide a challenging forum for the presentation, interpretation, and discussion of primarily contemporary artworks in all media for students and members of the Davidson community, as well as for national and international visitors to the campus. 

REBEL REVEL at the Weston Art Gallery (closing reception event/party for "Oh! You Pretty Things" survey show)

CINCINNATI, OH—REBEL REVEL came to the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the atrium of the Aronoff Center for the Arts on Saturday, June 8th, to celebrate the closing of Oh! You Pretty Things—a nearly twenty year survey exhibition of the incomparable documentary and experimental video work of Cincinnati native and Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman. Oh! You Pretty Things was a kaleidoscopic array of many of the artist’s single- and multi-channel videos from her extensive creative catalogue, along with brand new works from the Life is Drag series out of New York City.

Oh! You Pretty Things opened at the Weston Art Gallery April 19 and continued through June 16 throughout both levels of the Weston—creating an unforgettable immersive gallery experience.


REBEL REVEL was a one-night-only festival celebrating those who truly and boldly push the limits of gender expression by combining drag, burlesque, avant-garde fashions, and radical makeup with subversive and often political performances. Inspired by Rampleman’s vivid video explorations of identity and set amongst a dazzlingly tall Mylar curtain backdrop, suspended disco ball, and accent stage lighting, the performing artists and models activated the Weston’s voluminous street-level space with their visually stunning creativity, featuring:


• A drag extravaganza including performances by ODD Presents, the new Cincinnati-based alternative drag haus committed to presenting queer-centric entertainment in all its forms;


• Draglesque by nationally renowned and legendary local male illusionist Alexander Cameron;


• Burlesque by Ginger LeSnapps, head mistress of the award-winning Cin City Burlesque and RAW Artists Cincinnati Performing Artist of the Year; plus Cincinnati’s brand new Smoke & Queers—a queer coed amateur burlesque troupe that encourages all expressions of self, gender, identity, and sexuality;


• Runway shows with gender-bending looks from Northside's NVISION and NYC's LACTIC Incorporated;


• The premiere of the latest fantastical art-couture stylings by costume and wig designer Stacey Vest of Sweet Hayseed’s Wearable Wonders.

Movers & Makers announcement for REBEL REVEL at the Weston Art Gallery
ART PAPERS Review of "Oh! You Pretty Things at the Weston Art Gallery"

On the day I visited Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, OH, to see Rachel Rampleman’s mid-career survey, Oh! You Pretty Thingsnews came that Caster Semenya, a South African runner and Olympic gold medalist, would be barred from competing in certain races by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) because her body naturally produces a high level of testosterone, and that she would be forced to suppress the hormone through medical means to continue in her sport, a decision which has since been, at least temporarily, suspended. As I’m writing this, Alabama has become the latest in a rash of states in the US to pass measures that, if put into effect, would make it nearly impossible to gain access to an abortion or perform one within its jurisdiction. Between then and now, the “Camp” themed Met Gala—which, if nothing else, encouraged some to read or reread Susan Sontag’s seminal essay on the topic—took place.


It has been instructive to confront events that reinforce the state and society’s imposition on the bodies and minds of women and femmes while stewing over the work in this exhibition. In nearly all of her video works on view, Rampleman studies women, girls, and others who perform femininity in one way or another. All her subjects take their gender performances to extremes, either by exaggerating traits generally associated with femininity, sometimes to the point of being absurd, or by presenting themselves directly in conflict with those traits to similar effect. Many of the subjects, regardless of whether their presentation is conscious as such, read as campy in their hewing to exaggeration, artifice, and stylization and their joyful disregard of the borders that attempt to contain them. Rampleman’s editing of the source material—she often cuts video into short, gif-like, repeating loops—further emphasizes the gender performances in which her subjects engage.

Rachel Rampleman, Bodybuilder Portrait (Tazzie Colomb), 2011 [courtesy of artist and Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati]


Take for example Bodybuilder Portrait (Tazzie Colomb). On the left side of the two-channel video, Colomb, a veteran female bodybuilder who is active on the professional circuit, speaks about the difficulties and rewards of her extreme lifestyle. She cautions young women who might consider competitive bodybuilding against pursuing the sport because of its harmful effects upon her health, while maintaining that her extraordinary size and strength allow her to feel safe and capable, especially in public. She expresses frustration that she draws positive and negative attention wherever she goes, and she dispels the myth that men aren’t attracted to muscular women. In the right channel of the video, she silently works her way through a choreographed set of competition poses while wearing a bedazzled string bikini. The multichannel Bodybuilder Vignettes (Bodybuilder Series) offers further insight into the aesthetic performance of bodybuilding competitions. All nine competitors featured in the video are oiled up and outfitted in bikinis similar to the one Colomb wears in Bodybuilder Portrait. Each also wears heavy, dramatic makeup and long false fingernails. Many are spray-tanned to a deep orange. Contrary to Bodybuilder Portrait , the vignettes—many of which have the camera trained on the subjects’ backs—show Rampleman’s subjects repeatedly performing isolated movements meant to showcase different muscle groups. The performers, abstracted through repetition, become disembodied, boiled-down signifiers of the sport in which they compete.

Rachel Rampleman, Bodybuilder Vignette 01 & 05, (stills), 2016 [courtesy of artist and Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati]


Sexy Baby Studies (Sexy Baby Series) and Red Room Studies (Burlesque Dancer Series) explore other instances of performed femininity. Sexy Baby Studies is a dizzying 28-channel video installation that shows wildly outfitted young girls made up to look remarkably like adult women for child beauty pageants. In the looped video fragments they dance, walk, and occasionally throw tantrums. Red Room Studies compiles snippets of burlesque routines filmed over the course of four years at The Slipper Room in New York. The performers enact similar gestures, without the tantrums. Both pieces put performances of hyperfemininity on display, but to different ends. Sexy Baby Studies documents a cultural phenomenon that Bruce LaBruce might categorize in his Notes on Camp/Anti-Camp manifesto as Conservative Camp. Beauty Pageants in general, and especially ones for young girls, use performance of gender to reinforce expectations of women already entrenched in Western society—specifically that women and girls should be simultaneously attractive and virginal. Burlesque, on the other hand, frequently maintains a hyperfeminine aesthetic while allowing performers to claim agency over their bodies and sexuality. Burlesque performers choose what, when, and how much of their clothing they remove.

Rachel Rampleman, Sexy Baby Study 09, (still) & installation image, 2018 [courtesy of artist and Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati]


In Rampleman’s Female Masking Studies (Female Maskers Series), a nine-channel video installation, the artist collects videos from YouTube of female maskers, a subculture made up primarily of cisgendered heterosexual men who wear full-body latex suits to make themselves resemble female dolls or mannequins. Most participants in the subculture see this masking as a safe, semi-private way to access their femininity. There are also numerous works made from found YouTube videos that explore the wildly popular phenomenon of online makeup tutorials. Not unlike videos posted by female maskers, many of the more inventive makeup looks are meant not for public, everyday wear but for an audience on the other side of a phone or computer screen. In Faceless Portrait (Makeup Artist Series) the performer applies a skin-tone mask to flatten and erase her features, creating a smooth beige surface where her nose, mouth, and eyes should appear, interrupted only by two small slits, one for breathing and one for seeing. A related work, The Power of Makeup 2.0 (Makeup Artists Series) shows 12 YouTube makeup artists, each with half the face made up and the other half left bare, a gesture that reinforces how even the aesthetic choices we make for daily wear are performative in nature.

Rampleman’s work in Oh! You Pretty Things provides us an expansive view of individuals and subcultures that push at the borders of womanhood and, more broadly, of gender. Collectively, these video portraits force into focus the absurdity of gender expectations while also proposing that they can be employed, to great effect, as a tool for exploration and play.


Paul Michael Brown is a writer and curator based in Lexington, KY. He currently serves as the Director of Institute 193, also based in Lexington.

ÆQAI review of my survey show "Oh! You Pretty Things" at the Weston Art Galley

Aeqai

April 30th, 2019 

–Annie Dell’Aria


A shallow stage, dramatic floor to ceiling curtain of silver mylar, pink lights, and disco ball have recently transformed the ground floor of Weston Art Gallery. Alluding to the settings of over-the-top performances of artifice, this open space literally sets the stage for Rachel Rampleman’s labyrinthine exploration of drag subcultures, body builders, make-up artists, and child beauty queens found in the lower floor in “Oh! You Pretty Things,” a survey of the Brooklyn-based, Cincinnati-native’s video work. Alternately alluring, humorous, and terrifying, the personalities and subcultures examined in Rampleman’s videos demonstrate the range of ways gender is explored through performance and spectacle under capitalism.


Oh! You Pretty Things” spans over half a dozen of the artist’s series. Each body of work explores a particular subculture or means of performing identity in ways that bend, smash, or amplify gender binaries. Rampleman’s videos, fixating on performance, blend the ethnographic documentary gaze with spectacle and artifice. Installed on flatscreen and CRT monitors in a darkened gallery rather than through projection, the space becomes mysterious. Light pours out of the screens and into the gallery space and onto viewers as they strain their eyes to adjust to each light-emitting device and still navigate the dark space. Many of the multiscreen works also have their cords exposed, foregrounding the mechanisms of illusion in much the same way Rampleman’s videos foreground the production of artifice in the subcultures she explores.

In the most straightforwardly documentary entries, Rampleman’s often hand-held camera follows her subjects in their preferred environments. Two entries from the Rock ‘n Roll Series, for example, feature members of New York City’s Girls Girls Girls, an all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band, coming together from various walks of life to tailgate at a concert and later cover the band’s misogynistic anthems. Another set of documentaries follows LACTIC Incorporated, a fashion brand that repurposes corporate logos and throw-away objects from commodity culture into gender-bending garments. The camera follows a group of gender-fluid models as they sashay down the streets and stage a fashion shoot in Times Square or perform in a former pharmaceutical factory in Brooklyn. These documentaries are like backstage exposés of moments of performance that Rampleman’s other video installations isolate and explore through both single and multi-channel means. Paradise Binary (Ego Sensation, White Hills)(2013), for example, features a split-screen study of female bassist Ego Sensation of the psychedelic rock band White Hills in performance, and Hell Bent Binary (Gyda Gash, Judas Priestess) (2013) studies a performer of another all-female cover band through two-channel installation, to name two from the Rock ‘n Roll series.


The vacillation between documentary and performance for the camera similarly informs Bodybuilder Portrait (Tazzie Colomb) (2011), part of Rampleman’s much celebrated exploration of female body builders. On the left screen Colomb sits inside a generically feminine hotel room telling stories about her career as a body builder and dealing with how both men and women perceive her body in a confessional mode common in documentary forms. On the right, she poses for the camera in the same room, flexing her massive muscles in a sparkly black and pink string bikini. With daylight streaming into the room at odd angles, doors ajar, and an opened suitcase sneaking into the right side of the frame as she poses, this setting feels both intimate and pathetic, contrasting the self-possessed performance of Colomb’s body with the cheap, lonely textures of bland conformity and placelessness.


The newest work in the show from the Life is Drag series are presented as collaborations between the artist and Brooklyn’s alt-drag scene. These works feature performers shifting between speaking about and preparing their character and embodying them through lip-synced performance. The two-channel piece God Complex (Ziggy Stardust) (2019) visualizes this transition in diptych form. The same performer appears in in a backstage dressing room on two vertical flat screens: on one side he puts on makeup and prepares to become David Bowie over the course of a two hour loop, on the other screen he lip-syncs a Bowie song in the same room in a twelve minute loop. The allusion to labor alluded to in the contrasting temporalities between channels in God Complex also informs a single-channel work in the series, Untitled Queen Performing “Untitled Clarinet” (2019). Again featuring a single performer on a vertical screen (only this time sitting on a chair on a shallow stage with a silver curtain that complements the one upstairs), the gender fluid performer begins by speaking in their deep voice about an impromptu clarinet performance at a staff meeting that lead to a larger discussion of the joys and struggles of being an artist in a capitalist world. The six-minute video culminates in a lip-synced rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “For Free,” a song about a clarinet street performer who performs beautifully, though without compensation.


Contrasting these more ethnographic studies, which I argue generate a sense of empathy with their subjects, are works where Rampleman appropriates footage from television and the internet. The Female Maskers Series (2018), excerpted from YouTube, features clips of videos from an online subculture of men who wear a latex mask and bodysuit to take on a feminine identity for the camera. Less a literalization of pioneering psychoanalyst Joan Rivere’s 1929 proclamation of womanliness as masquerade than a manifestation of fetish and kink, these works sit uncomfortably next to some of Rampleman’s other works. Unlike the drag performers that grace a number of Rampleman’s screens and use artifice as a means of expression for living subject, these works (to me at least) reveal a subculture that performs femininity as profoundly passive and dehumanized, magnifying not performative artifice but restrictive social norms that objectify women and confine them to the home. Rampleman’s multiplication of these appropriated internet performances through multiscreen installation amplifies their uncanniness and recreates the YouTube environment in the gallery space. Not only are the images utterly terrifying (to me at least) in their animation of blow-up sex doll fantasies of women, but if the plastic women are doing anything at all in in these vignettes it’s vainly looking at themselves or performing chores of domestic labor.


Even more unsettling than the female maskers, however is another appropriation work Sexy Baby Studies (2018), a 28-channel installation on 6” tablets. Each tiny screen isolates a movement of a child beauty queen from a televised broadcast. These moments are often overtly sexual hip gyrations or coy glances and winks that are then played in reverse at the same speed and looped. Combined with the tacky costumes, excessive makeup, and cheesy stage settings, each screen isolates a moment of horror in this farce of femininity. Unlike the performances of LACTIC, female bodybuilders, or the alt-drag community with which Rampleman has most recently collaborated, the exaggerated, looped movements of these child performers deny them agency and instead imprison these children within biologically-determined gender roles.


Rampleman’s documentary research and isolation of moments of artifice and performance illuminate both the liberating and terrifying sides of the performance of gender under spectacular capitalism. The coexistence of these works within the gallery space does not suggest an ambivalence about their subjects but rather a deeper consideration of the concept of fluidity with regard to how gender intersects with other structures of power, mirroring the disorienting experience in the dark gallery space. Untitled queen’s frank discussion of the relationship between performance, identity, labor, and capital through the confessional monologue and lip-synced appropriation of Mitchell’s song (and hopefully the upcoming live performance on June 8th Rebel Revel) not only subvert stereotypes and gender binaries, but also potentially point to new possibilities.


OH! YOU PRETTY THINGS - survey show at the Weston Art Gallery

(Revised press release): 

CINCINNATI, OH—On Friday, April 19, from 6 to 8 p.m., the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts premieres Oh! You Pretty Things, celebrating almost twenty years of the incomparable documentary and experimental video work by Cincinnati native and Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rampleman. Oh! You Pretty Things features a kaleidoscopic array of many of the artist’s single- and multi-channel video installations from her extensive creative catalogue along with brand new works from the Life is Drag series out of New York City in an unforgettable immersive gallery experience.


Best known for bodies of work exploring subjects such as gender, artifice, and spectacle, Rampleman showcases exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging common clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. The exhibition stretches across both levels of the Weston starting with the creation of a “lowbrow meets highbrow” “divey”/DIY-inspired performance space installation in the atrium gallery including spectacular but low-budget Mylar curtains to set the mood for the aestheticized performances of identity portrayed in her video sculptures and displays screened across multiple electronic platforms including CRT monitors, tablets, and flat screen TVs seen in the lower-level.


A sampling of subjects, muses, and collaborators represented in the survey includes Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder/powerlifter), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender and critique existing power structures). In addition, Rampleman will premiere a new series of work, Life is Drag, in which she documents her collaborations with the most singular and innovative emerging artists of the flourishing Brooklyn alt-drag scene.


The Weston’s street-level exhibition space will feature a dazzling Mylar curtain backdrop and suspended disco ball and accent stage lighting that also serve as the site for Rebel Revel, “an alt-drag-queer-burlesque-pop-punk-fashion-performance-gothic-cabaret-metal-disco-festival on Saturday, June 8. This one-night-only festival celebrating those who truly and boldly push the limits of gender expression combines drag, burlesque, avant-garde fashions, and radical makeup with subversive and often political performances. It will feature a drag extravaganza including performances by ODD Presents, the new Cincinnati-based alternative drag haus committed to presenting queer-centric entertainment in all its forms; draglesque by nationally renowned and legendary local male illusionist Alexander Cameron; burlesque by Ginger Lesnapps—head mistress of the award-winning Cin City Burlesque and winner of RAW Artists Cincinnati Performing Artist of the Year; and also more burlesque by Cincinnati’s brand new Smoke & Queers—a co-ed amateur burlesque troupe that encourages all expressions of self, gender, identity, and sexuality; a runway show with gender bending looks from Northside's NVISION and NYC's LACTIC Incorporated; and the premiere of the latest fantastical art-couture stylings by costume and wig designer/former vaudeville and burlesque performer Stacey Vest of Sweet Hayseed. Admission to the event is free. Capacity is limited.


In conjunction with Oh! You Pretty Things, Rampleman herself will present a video program she curated in 2013 at The Mini Microcinema on Tuesday, April 23 at 7:30 p.m. entitled “Hyper-muscularity & Femininity on Film: A Screening of Media Portrayals of Women Bodybuilders from the 1980s and the 1990s aka ‘The Most Awesome Female Muscle Celebration in the World.’” This program takes the latter part of its title from an event by the same name held in New York City in 1995 which showcased top-name women bodybuilders of that time displaying their physiques by doing different individually choreographed performances (as warriors, queens, pop stars) as opposed to the normal mandated posing routines they performed for professional competitions. Running time is 01:20:00. No charge. Donations are accepted. The Mini Microcinema is located at 1329 Main Street, downtown, Cincinnati. www.mini-cinema.org.

Screening at The Mini Microcinema of "The Most Awesome Female Muscle Celebration In The World" Program 

The Mini Micro Cinema

1329 Main St, Cincinnati, OH, 45202


Tuesday April 23. Doors are at 7, screening 7:30.


The Most Awesome Female Muscle Celebration In The World 


Rachel Rampleman presents Hyper-muscularity & Femininity on Film; A Screening of Media Portrayals of Women Bodybuilders from the 1980s and 1990s aka The Most Awesome Female Muscle Celebration In The World. This program takes the latter part of its title from an event by the same name held in NYC in 1995, which showcased top-name women bodybuilders of that time displaying their physiques by doing different individually choreographed performances (as warriors, queens, pop stars) - as opposed to the normal mandated posing routines they performed for professional competitions. This selection of obscure and riveting clips was culled from Women's Physique World's extensive documentary archive of 80s-90s women's bodybuilding competitions and post-competition interviews (as well as curious staged encounters with the women in hotel rooms wearing only wigs, bikinis, and pumps - and clips from the afore mentioned 1995 NYC celebration), and the movie Pumping Iron II: The Women, a 1985 "documentary" about female bodybuilding which focuses on several women as they prepare for and compete in the 1983 Caesars World Cup, and addresses the (still ongoing in 2019) argument of how much muscle is too much muscle when it comes to judging professional women bodybuilders - which has never been an issue in the men's competitions.


Best known for her bodies of work that explore subjects like gender, artifice, and spectacle, Rampleman showcases exuberantly bold and irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging common clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. Subjects, muses, and collaborators include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder/powerlifter), LACTIC Inc (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender and critiques existing power structures), among others. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently living and working in New York City, she received her MFA from NYU in 2006. Since then her work has been shown widely both nationally and internationally, and she is currently preparing for her solo exhibition Oh! You Pretty Things - which will be on view at The Weston Art Gallery from April 19 - June 16, 2019.
THE UNSPEAKABLE featuring my new piece "Sexy Baby Studies," Re: Art Show in the Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, NY

THE UNSPEAKABLE


Curated by Peter Clough 

Organized by Re: Art Show (Erin Davis / Max C Lee)


Pfizer Building

630 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11206


September 22 - October 21, 2018


Erin Davis / Max C Lee are pleased to announce The Unspeakable, the twenty-third iteration of Re: Art Show, curated by Peter Clough. The Unspeakable is a large group show in a defunct portion of the former Pfizer Pharmaceutical factory in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, opening on September 22. The space is wild and strange, and not at all like a traditional gallery. Old industrial equipment has been left behind, disused debris scattered across the floor, in a labyrinthine layout of strange rooms and spaces. Works are installed inside industrial freezers, mounted directly to stainless steel mixing vats, and projected inside disused sanitation booths. The show is presented in total darkness, and viewers are invited to explore this massive exhibition by way of flashlight.


The Unspeakable features works by more than 40 artists focusing on taboo, transgression, desire, and the body—and on experiences of the body that fall outside our collective capacity for communication, comprehension, and language. These topics are linked closely to our current political moment and the works that emerge here are urgent, angry, gooey, messy, divulgent, sexy, and maybe a little embarrassing. Durational performance is a focus, as strange creatures carry out their obsessive fantasies in this dark and brooding space. Sound, smell, video, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and photography are all included as well.

In Samuel R. Delany’s incredible On the Unspeakable, a theory text set in a porn theater written as a mobius strip, Delany characterizes the unspeakable like this: “[It] is always in the column you are not reading. At any given moment it is what is on the opposite side of the Mobius text at the spot your own eyes are fixed on. The unspeakable is mobile; it flows; it is displaced as much by language and experience as it is by desire.” The artworks in The Unspeakable function according to this logic: they flow; they “recede before us as a limit of mists, and vapor.”


The Unspeakable is the twenty-third iteration of Re: Art Show, an ever-evolving, recurrent, curatorial project spearheaded by Erin Davis and Max C Lee. Roving within sections of the former Pfizer Pharmaceutical factory in Brooklyn, Re: Art Show brings together an abnormally wide breadth of artists in an abnormal environment. Existing mostly outside of established art institutions and embracing a DIY aesthetic, this space can be a platform to present works that might not be possible to present within mainstream museums and galleries. DIY is a form of resistance to dominant norms and conventions. Through the embrace of chance, ad-hoc adaptation, and experimental collaboration (both with the environment and the artists themselves), each iteration acts as a fluid network of ideas whose connections are, at once, coincidental and directed. For every iteration, another Re: is added to the show’s title.

My "Bodybuilder Vignettes" featured in Davidson College's inaugural video wall exhibition project, Davidson, NC

VAN EVERY / SMITH GALLERIES AT DAVIDSON COLLEGE
INAUGURAL VIDEO WALL EXHIBITION PROJECT


Davidson College, E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center
325 Concord Road, Davidson, North Carolina, 28036


September 15, 2018 through October 31, 2019

Over the next year, the large scale (approximately 9 feet tall x 16 feet wide) video wall at the E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center will present my piece "Bodybuilder Vignettes", selected by a jury panel including members of the Art Collection Advisory Committee and Davidson College faculty and staff. The Van Every / Smith Galleries play a fundamental role in the life of Davidson College. The Galleries provide a challenging forum for the presentation, interpretation, and discussion of primarily contemporary artworks in all media for students and members of the Davidson community, as well as for national and international visitors to the campus. An ongoing series of exhibitions and lectures by visiting artists and scholars nurture individual thinking, develop visual literacy, and inspire a lifelong commitment to the arts. Video wall: The Galleries manage a video wall comprised of 16 screens at the E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center, showing the work of professional artists at this hub for transdisciplinary learning on the campus of Davidson College. 

NO TIME FOR UTOPIA featuring my "Zombie Studies" in the Czech Republic

NO TIME FOR UTOPIA


Curated by Jan Van Woensel

Zbrojnická 7 vchod přes kavárnu Emily Plzeň, 

326 00 Plzeň, Czechia


August 29, 2018


The international group exhibition NO TIME FOR UTOPIA brought together art & music video, animation film and documentary work that each in their own way relates to the absence, failure or collapse of the utopian concept. While most of the selected art works resonated feelings of irreversible loss and post-apocalyptic grief, the undercurrents in other videos downheartedly carried ideas of escapism, nostalgia and hope.

ÆQAI review of my pieces "Bodybuilder Vignettes" & "Red Room Studies" in BODY LANGUAGE at Memorial Hall
TRAIPSING BALLROOM HALLS


By Ekin Erkan
Published in ÆQAI August 26th, 2018

Excerpt only below, to read the full review,
please click here: Link to full article 


... Rachel Rampleman’s “Bodybuilder Vignettes” (2016) and “Red Room Studies” (2017) operatively conciliate auteurism with theory. Both works are ten-channel video installations displayed on a tower of kindle tablets. “Bodybuilder Vignettes” showcases female bodybuilders while “Red Room Studies” contends burlesque performers. As with “Dancing Backwards in High Heels” (2017) and “Times Square” (2016), the multimedia artist continues to mend acerbic video art that challenges gender stereotypes and femme identity via documentary-viewership. However, these two works also contemplate the hypnotic poetry of voyeurism, a theme less recognized by commentators. As the oiled bodybuilders flex their muscle groups, turning away from the camera, they divide space and format a dance, belying traditional signification systems. Similarly, the burlesque performers coyly reveal illuminated body parts while blanketed by the illustrious reflective hues of crimson curtains and reflective satin garments.

A closed and surface level reading might underscore Rampleman’s obvious feminist considerations – she aestheticizes, extols, and celebrates non-conforming female bodies; these bodies deconstruct gender and, hence, the male gaze. However, such readings simplistically identify Rampleman’s work with her case studies, as critics have lauded her “subjects…often exuberantly bold and irrepressible female/femme personalities who revel in challenging outdated expressions of identity” (Seda-Reeder) and the “marginalized populations who take on a powerful stance repossessing language” (Albury). This is a reductive disservice to Rampleman’s operational faculties and her camera/editing choices. Rampleman’s camera posits viewers as inherent voyeurs, inviting existential qualms, therewith.

In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre describes the story of a man who gazes through a keyhole, absorbed by the scene (56). Sartre’s voyeur, immersed in the pleasure of looking, is suddenly startled by a sound – a nearby and unidentifiable clammer in the hallway or the rustle of leaves; suddenly, the voyeur believes he (too) is being watched. Sartre posits that the sound makes the voyeur aware of his own voyeur-ship and that it is precisely this realization—that someone else has been looking at him—which allows him to enter into Being. As Sartre identifies human relations by this battle of voyeur-ship and concealment, Rampleman’s cinematic lens allots us the perturbed poetry of prying. In both works, it appears as if the spectators are not aware of their voyeurs: although the bodybuilders are performing poses, their backs are often turned away from the spectator and the burlesque performers never make eye contact with the camera. The videos are devoid of audience or sound. Requisite and compact, Rampleman’s Kindles serve as voyeur-windows to observe spectacle, replete with the meditative pleasure of observing the performers’ dancerly loops. There subsists an uncanny peaceful quality to Rampleman’s works, as the screens are looking-glasses.

Rampleman’s “moment of interruption” (read: Sartre’s voyeur as he hears the hallway clammer) is sly and comic – a product of Rampleman’s sculptural concerns. Her towering stack of ten kindles – or ten keyholes – before an appropriated open ballroom space fit with art installations’ functions as a constant reminder that we are not alone when engaging in the spectator/spectacle relationship. Furthermore, the sinuous, impenetrable snake pit of coils below the tablet towers adds an affective tinge to Rampleman’s multi-channel video piece, disruptively inviting tangible dimensionality within the relatively enshrined and quiet privilege of video-viewership. Rampleman’s pieces are keen and clever, carefully balancing theory with personal aesthetics.
-- 

Several of my pieces featured in BODY LANGUAGE at historic Memorial Hall in Cincinnati, OH


BODY LANGUAGE


MEMORIAL HALL
1225 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH, 45202


July 27 - August 24, 2018


Video Art by Cynthia Greig, Rachel Rampleman, Alan Rath
Organized by Michael Solway


Carl Solway Gallery’s director Michael Solway organized the first installation of video art and kinetic sculptures at Cincinnati’s newly and ornately restored Memorial Hall ballrooms. The intermedia exhibition, titled Body Language, featured a myriad of carnal moving images and works by Detroit artist Cynthia Greig and Cincinnati natives Rachel Rampleman and Alan Rath. The experiential and observational new media installations, shown in seamless conjunction, featured aural soundscapes of droning electronic melancholia with video projections and moving sculptures. Patrons were provided with glimpses into each artist’s thematic take on framing the human body with digital referents. Greig invited “visual mistakes” into the ballroom halls, exploring the nuances between phenomenology and perception, drawing on the artist’s background in photography and print-media alongside art historical surveys. While Greig’s wall-sized projections set the foreground for Body Language, Rampleman’s multi-channel vignettes and layered subject-studies of femme personalities boldly negotiated activism with voyeurism. Alan Rath’s biomechanical kinetic sculptures fragmented the human body in computer-animated still images, thus linking theoretical considerations (read: commodity fetishism and organizational control).

My photography featured in AMERICAN SPLENDOUR: NEW PHOTOGRAPHY, New York, NY 

AMERICAN SPLENDOUR: NEW PHOTOGRAPHY


ILON ART GALLERY
204 West 123rd St, New York, 10027


June 1 - July 12, 2018


Where is my American Splendour in a world that is cloudy and gray?

This juried exhibition calls for photography that captures the beauty and splendor of the American spirit. Despite the clouds that hang overhead, despite our present times of discomfort and wounded spirit, how can we look to photography as a release, pause, or escape? How can photography provide a sense of optimism towards the diversity of the American landscape, its people, cities, towns, families, architecture and natural beauty? How can photography lift us up? American Splendour is a call for new photography that gives us hope towards something better.


Curator: Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Judges: Jon Feinstein, David Rosenberg, Hannah Frieser, Loni Efron and Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Anchor Photographers: Andrea Blanch, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Sally Davies, Dana Hoey, David LaChapelle, Annie Leibovitz, Ken Regan, Elliot Ross, Mark Seliger, Rachel Pappos, Todd Hido and Oliver Wasow


My installation "Landscape Tutorials" featured in ALTERED VIEWS: EXPERIENCING THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE, Lexington, KY


ALTERED VIEWS: EXPERIENCING
THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE

LEXINGTON ART LEAGUE AT THE LOUDOUN HOUSE

209 Castlewood Drive, Lexington, KY 40505


June 25 - July 27, 2018

Curated by Alice Pixley Young, Altered Views: Experiencing the Contemporary Landscape explores the 21st century landscape. No longer romantic, sublime or grandiose, our "landscape" is viewed primarily through the media of our screens, moving from blissed-out vistas to environmental traumas. Our interest in understanding nature and landscape is often constrained to the poles of beauty or terror, with everyday views overlooked. 
My piece "Bellmer Burlesque" featured in NURTUREart’s Single Channel: Video Art Festival at Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY


SINGLE CHANNEL: VIDEO ART FESTIVAL

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
& NURTUREart


Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003


May 12 - 13, 2018


Single Channel 2018 is a video art and short film festival that will screen the work of 19 artists. The festival, with a focus on emerging and under-represented artists, provides the context for single channel video work and short film to be screened outside of exhibition spaces in a more suitable context. NURTUREart’s Single Channel offers uninterrupted and undisturbed viewing and listening experiences to come to full fruition—acknowledging the exceptionality of video art and short film by presenting them on a large screen. 


Curated by Vanessa Albury, Ivan Gilbert, and William Penrose.
Each 60 minute screening will be followed by a conversation with participating artists.

REBEL REBEL - my virtual solo exhibition with QUINNC
April - May, 2018


The exhibition REBEL REBEL showcases selected works which encourage and inspire viewers to reconsider their perspectives on the female body and femininity by QUINNC's inaugural featured artist - Rachel Rampleman. These works engage viewers in a dynamic dialogue with concepts such as identity, subjectivity, and gender fluidity and suggest possibilities for what comes next after the post-feminism of today’s digital reality. REBEL REBEL is designed as a virtual early career retrospective, and showcases two of Rampleman's most recent works entitled Rorschach Portrait (Calendar Girl; Summer) and Rebel Rebel (Pan Dulce in LACTIC Inc, Times Square).







New York based QUINNC Contemporary Art Agency creates curated residential and business environments and conducts customized collection management. Acting as an intermediary among collectors, galleries, artists and art professionals, QUINNC offers contemporary art consultancy and curating, and understands the needs and philosophies of its clients as well as the creative objectives of its artists and their market potentials.


Please CLICK HERE to visit the virtual retrospective

Please email INFO@QUINNC.CO to contact QUINNC, or call [+1] 917.975.0757

My piece "Bodybuilder Study (Pose, Stroke, Lift, Carry)" featured at Other Cinema, San Francisco, CA


A NON-ZERO-SUM GAME: SPORTS, ART AND THE MOVING IMAGE AT OTHER CINEMA


OTHER CINEMA
AT ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS
992 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110


March 3, 2018


The newest issue of Incite Journal of Experimental Media launches with a series of events in San Francisco - including screenings, exhibitions, and discussions at Kadist, YBCA, Adobe Books, and Other Cinema. The 344-page double-issue examines the intersections of sports, politics, popular culture, experimental media, and performance in the context of residual and contemporary media practices – the first volume of its kind. Contributors include 41 up-and-coming and established artists, writers, critics, scholars, historians, and athletes.


INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media
#7/8: Sports
http://incite-online.net/issueseven.html

Editors: Astria Suparak and Brett Kashmere
Layout and Design: Stripe SF / Jon Sueda


Incite Journal of Experimental Media is an artist-run publication dedicated to the culture, community, and discourse of experimental video, film, and new media. Since 2008, INCITE has produced yearly thematic print issues containing artists’ writings, interviews, original artwork, manifestos, scholarly articles, and photo and comics dossiers; as well as an online interview series, artist multiples, a DVD compilation, and public events.

Other Cinema is a long-standing bastion of experimental film, video, and performance in San Francisco's Mission District. Curating legendary programs at Artists' Televison Access for 25 years!

My "Female Masking Studies" featured in the 20/92 VIDEO FESTIVAL, Icebox Project Space at Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA

20/92 VIDEO FESTIVAL


ICEBOX PROJECT SPACE AT CRANE ARTS

400 N American Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122


March 9, 2018


The 20/92 Video Festival was a rare opportunity to exhibit my work in a contemporary gallery environment, at unique scale and format. The Icebox Project Space is one of the largest exhibition spaces in the city at nearly 3,500 sq.ft. and has a dedicated projection system which allows for a continuous image to be cast upon its eastern and northern walls, at a maximum size of 20’ x 92’ with a resolution of 3646 x 768. Submissions were juried by Icebox directors Timothy Belknap and Ryan McCartney.

TRANSITIONS at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University, featuring my "Verge Study," Newark, NJ

TRANSITIONS

PAUL ROBESON GALLERIES

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

350 Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard

Newark, NJ, 07102

February 15 - March 28, 2018

Each year Women In Media – Newark presents a thematic exhibition of works by visual artists that coincides with their annual film festival. This year’s theme is Women in Transition. On view at the Paul Robeson Campus Center Gallery from February 15 to March 28, Transitions features work from 20 artists in a range of media, curated by Adrienne Wheeler and Gladys Grauer. The exhibition attempts to examine the ways in which transitions or the state of transitioning impacts the works of women artists. These transitions are inclusive of, but not limited to gender identity transition, transition to motherhood, transition in aging, transition in work, transition through loss, transition in grief, transition in death.

My work featured in (STILL) LIFE at Shoestring Press Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

(STILL) LIFE


SHOESTRING PRESS ART GALLERY

633 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238


February 16 - March 16, 2018


(Still) Life presents work that draws on the many ways in which the stillness of the photographic image can bring the viewer into contemplation of a frozen moment of life. Whether through the traditional vocabulary of the still life as a reflection on mortality, the documentary impulse to make life hold still for the eye, or the essential message that we are still here, still alive, the wider senses of the still life are deeply embedded in the practice of photography. For (Still) Life, Shoestring Press showcases photographs that explore the many ways in which the photograph works to hold life’s ceaseless motion still for the eye.

My "Bodybuilder Vignettes" installation featured in HARD: SUBVERSIVE REPRESENTATION, University Hall Gallery, UMass Boston, Boston, MA

HARD: SUBVERSIVE REPRESENTATION

UNIVERSITY HALL GALLERY
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON

100 Morrissey Blvd.
Boston, MA 02125


January 22 - April 19, 2018


Curated by Samuel Toabe


HARD is a group exhibition that brings together artworks from self-identified female artists who take different approaches to representing female subjects, often through subversive frameworks. With artworks spanning 1923–2018, it argues that Contemporary, Post-Modernist, Modernist, and Feminist artistic approaches have and continue to expand the dynamism of the feminine image, pushing beyond stereotypical, reductive, and unrealistic visions of women.

This exhibition contextualizes artists from Boston within a cast of national and international artists of the past and present. Artworks focus on gender politics, identity, and intersectional feminism through figurative and abstract representations. Complex and compelling images and sculptures present depictions of transgender, cisgender, and non-gender normative female subjects to expand upon our view of the female experience.