cover of Aperture Magazine Winter 2015: Helena Almeida, Inhabited Painting, 1975

Helena Almeida is on the cover of Aperture magazine now with a good article about her work by Delfim Sardo. http://aperture.org/blog/magazine-helena-almeida/ The whole issue is on performance. I am so happy that Helena Almeida is gaining recognition in the U.S. and the world. The major exhibition of her work that I saw in Porto at the Serralves will be on view in 2016 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and at the Wiels in Brussels.

So what is my work with these remarkable women artists all about? Global feminist art research project? Multi-disciplinary artwork? Performance art? These are a few of the descriptions I have used to characterize my endeavors over the last few years; working first with avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, then with Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi and most recently with Portuguese artist Helena Almeida as my “guides.” Over the last 3 years I have enacted research on women artists from all over the world, traveled great distances, performed embodiment rituals and produced a multitude of drawings and images with these artists working “along side of me” in some phantom way.

untitled, Sherry Wiggins, image by Luis Branco, 2015

I don’t think of myself as a “performance artist”– but that has really changed since my recent work with Almeida as “my guide.” In this communion with Helena Almeida in Portugal “my own” work/performances developed very quickly. The series of images above and below are from the first photo-shoot I did at the Obras Foundation in Portugal. I had begun my rituals of research and the embodiment of Almeida’s oeuvre before arriving in Portugal. I was ready to get to work. I brought with me a suitcase full of black and red cloth constructions to use in the large studio space and in the landscape at the Obras Foundation.

series of 9 images, untitled, Sherry Wiggins, images by Luis Branco, 2015

Upon arriving at the Obras Foundation I had a dream team to assist me with this project including photographer Luis Branco and drone cameraman Rui Fernandes. My dear friend curator and writer Cydney Payton was at Obras working on her novel but took time to help with the direction of my “perfomances.” Ludger van der Eerden and Carolien van der Laan of the Obras Foundation have been remarkable supporters of this project. The stars aligned and magic happened – I became a “performance artist.” My team and I did photo-shoots with a regular camera and with a drone camera – in the studio at Obras, on top of the beautiful castle at Evoramonte, in the landscape and on the terrace at the Obras Foundation. I have sorted through 100’s of images from Portugal (and have posted many of these on this blog) and feel confident that I have a compelling body of work to produce and to exhibit in the U. S and I hope to exhibit in Portugal as well.

obrigada a todas