Sharon Hayes

In her performances, videos, and installations, Sharon Hayes (b. 1970) explores the nexus between politics, history, speech, and desire. Her works modify or appropriate the language and tools of political dissent, creating unexpected affinities between important historical events and the present. Highlighted in this volume will be the video installation Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Screeds Number 13, 16, 20 & 29 (2003) – a work in which Hayes memorized the famous taped speeches by Patty Hearst and her kidnappers, the leftist radical group the Symbionese Liberation Army, and then reads them to an audience who corrects her mistakes. It is in these slippages between memory and history that the meaning of Hayes' work resides. This book will also include a group of new site-specific works that will address the Whitney's role in the historic development of process-based, performative art and its engagement with politics that took place the late 1960s and early 1970s. This book also features original contributions from Hayes that provide insight into the complex motivations and development of her projects. Scholarship by Chrissie Iles contextualizes Hayes's work in the history of political discourse by examining and explaining her sources of inspiration. Beautiful images of projects spanning the artist's career are presented in conjunction with photographs and texts from these historical events.