A Full Room at LACMA, 2023
Casey REAS standing in front of his artwork An Empty Room at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
A happening inside An Empty Room, an installation by Casey REAS at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, commissioned for the Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952-1982 exhibition. This event took place on June 29, 2023, and featured performances by Edgar Fabián Frías, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Romi Ron Morrison, and Casey REAS.
There were two short cycles of performances, with each performer sharing a brief gesture before passing the microphone to the next person. Edgar initiated the event by arranging an altar in the corner of the installation space. They then walked around the room, offering prayers and clearing, followed by filling bowls on the altar with dried pinto beans and rainbow corn that had been blessed and prayed over. Following this, Edgar guided the group through a short meditation to help them ground and connect with their ancestors, systems, and webs.
For their second performance, Edgar shuffled tarot cards and offered a three-card reading dedicated to the late Rachel Pollack. They used her 'The Shining Tribe Tarot' deck for the reading. In front of each projection of Casey REAS' artwork, Edgar picked a card and shared a personal story inspired by the tarot card that emerged. The cards that came up during the reading were: Speaker of Trees, Ace of Rivers, and The World.
Photography by Gabriel Noguez. Video Documentation by Sarah Zucker, Mars Wright, and Thaddeus Pedisich.
