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BiographyXavier Cha's performance-based works and videos grapple with architectures of subjectivity, illusions of agency, what it means to be human with a physical body within racial/technocapitalism. Collaboration is central to the work. Specialized participants, generally performers in fields outside of the contemporary art world, play prominent roles in extracting the sublimated and magnifying an estranged or alienated human experience within inescapable hierarchies of exchange, consumption, and accessibility. Xavier directs actors, dancers, or other professionals through focused, controlled scenarios, where the challenged expression of their expertise reveals the body as an enigmatic conduit, a malleable corporeal/ psycho/ social system. Attuned to ways in which the body is watched and conveyed, immersed within heightened circuits of surveillance, marketing, voyeurism and self- spectatorship, they examine how mediating frames- screens, sets, algorithms and the omnipotent lens of the camera- shape behaviors and comfort within one’s own body. Cha was born in Los Angeles and lives in New York. They received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from UCLA. They have had recent solo exhibitions at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2019); Empty Gallery, Hong Kong (2018); the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2016); 47 Canal, New York (2015, 2012); Aspect / Ratio, Chicago (2013); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011), and have staged large scale performance works at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (2017); Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara (2015); INOVA, Milwaukee (2015); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2014); the New Museum (2013), among many other international institutions. Cha was awarded the Harkness/BAM Dance Residency in 2017, a Frieze Film Commission in 2015, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2012, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.XAVIER CHA 673 Halsey St.1B, Brooklyn, NY 11233 917.294.9503 e.xavier.cha@gmail.com Biography Xavier Cha's performance-based works and videos grapple with architectures of subjectivity, illusions of agency, what it means to be human with a physical body within racial/technocapitalism. Collaboration is central to the work. Specialized participants, generally performers in fields outside of the contemporary art world, play prominent roles in extracting the sublimated and magnifying an estranged or alienated human experience within inescapable hierarchies of exchange, consumption, and accessibility. Xavier directs actors, dancers, or other professionals through focused, controlled scenarios, where the challenged expression of their expertise reveals the body as an enigmatic conduit, a malleable corporeal/ psycho/ social system. Attuned to ways in which the body is watched and conveyed, immersed within heightened circuits of surveillance, marketing, voyeurism and self- spectatorship, they examine how mediating frames- screens, sets, algorithms and the omnipotent lens of the camera- shape behaviors and comfort within one’s own body. Cha was born in Los Angeles and lives in New York. They received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from UCLA. They have had recent solo exhibitions at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2019); Empty Gallery, Hong Kong (2018); the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2016); 47 Canal, New York (2015, 2012); Aspect / Ratio, Chicago (2013); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011), and have staged large scale performance works at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (2017); Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara (2015); INOVA, Milwaukee (2015); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2014); the New Museum (2013), among many other international institutions. Cha was awarded the Harkness/BAM Dance Residency in 2017, a Frieze Film Commission in 2015, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2012, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.

Artist StatementPerformance-based works and videos grapple with architectures of subjectivity, illusions of agency, what it means to be human with a physical body in a capitalistic-digital age where we exist as consumer and product.  Collaboration is central to the work.  Specialized participants, generally performers in fields outside of the contemporary art world, play prominent roles in extracting the sublimated and magnifying an estranged or alienated human experience within inescapable systems of exchange, consumption, and communication.  Cha directs actors, dancers, or other professionals through focused, controlled scenarios, where the challenged expression of their expertise- often pushing performers to extremes- reveals the body as an enigmatic conduit, a malleable corporeal/ psycho/ social system.  Attuned to ways in which the body is watched, and conveyed, immersed within heightened circuits of surveillance, marketing, voyeurism and self-spectatorship, Cha examines how mediating frames- screens, sets, and the omnipotent lens of the camera- shape behaviors and refine gesture.  

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