Critical Writing Index

Sara Angelucci, A Mourning Chorus: Exhibition Review

by Magdalena Vasko

The Senses and Society, Apr 2015, v. 10, no. 1, pp. 107-110

Magdalena Vasko reviews Sara Angelucci's A Mourning Chorus, an evening presenting a mix of performance and visual art at the Art Gallery of Ontario on February 5, 2014 as a part of the artists residency at the institution. Vasko reviews the evening, the first part of which was composed of a musical performance of two movements from Songbirds (1974-1980) by composer John Luther. The second part was Angelucci's work A Mourning Chorus (2014), which consists of bird costume-clad singers performing various bird chants across Walker Court. Accompanying the live events was a presentation of prints from Agelucci's photographic series Aviary (2013). Vasko discusses how Angelucci's decision to use women singers to perform a mourning chant contrasts with the male birds' singing, which is meant to attract female mating partners. Angelucci's subversion, combined with her merging of the human and the animal in Aviary, can be read as a feminist act and one that seeks to humanize the position of endangered species.

ITEM 2015.002 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

A Mourning ChorusSara Angelucci

AviarySara Angelucci