Follow Me

Leslie Kelman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

PUTTY'S CORONATION is pleased to announce the opening of Follow Me, a solo performance and exhibit by Leslie Kelman at Trestle Studios on 62 18th St. Brooklyn, NY 11232.

Follow Me October 26th - November 14, 2019

Open Reception October 26th, 4-6pm This performance will also be live-streamed October 26th 4-6pm EST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDoRs9Foi7Y with accompanying twitter feed: @lesliekelman

“Here ruining people is considered sport.” So is watching people. Millions tune into platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, and Twitter to see what each other are doing, saying, and seeing. We all want to be someone else. That person whose post just comes across your feed? They are skydiving in some undisclosed tropical location. You are on your lunch break, eating leftovers. Watching people has become the ultimate spectator sport.

In her solo debut for Putty’s Coronation, Leslie Kelman uses live-streaming performance and Twitter to transport the peculiar egotism and anonymity which defines social media. Dressed in tan spandex and makeup, Kelman positions herself as a foreign body; an avatar which we can easily project our aspirations, desires, and fears.

For the performance Follow Me, Kelman performs in a private location, far from the gallery. Tweeting selfies accompanied by cryptic and foreboding messages (“it goes away,” “here ruining people is considered sport”) a mysterious and looming narrative emerges calling into question the aesthetics and inherent value of social media.

Simultaneously, and seemingly unbeknownst to Kelman, a laptop live streams her in the act of taking and posting these selfies. Giving viewers a voyeuristic vantage into Kelman’s curation of her social media content. The live-feed exposes the manipulative underbelly of social media by showing Kelman alone in an empty room, the sound effect of the phone camera click filling the void.

Follow Me expresses the perversion of identity as it relates to our current preoccupation with social media by exploiting the dichotomy of the real and placing it into the gallery and online via live-stream.

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