Newly commissioned by the Gardiner Museum, Up To and Including Their Limits opens at a time of increasing visibility for trans people. However, as a consequence of this increased exposure, it also coincides with an increase in violence against trans people and the questioning of their rights. In this provocative performance, spectators confront this tension by pushing their bodies to the limit while the audience watches live.
Suspended from a harness in a plexiglass box with walls covered in thick raw clay, Cassils hurls himself from side to side. Scratching the walls and throwing chunks of clay on the floor, he creates “windows” through which the audience can watch the performative action. This is an homage to feminist icon Carolee Schneemann, using clay to re-imagine her eponymous performance (1971-76) from a non-binary trans perspective. As swathes of clay are removed, the artist problematises and complicates the public gaze by engineering voyeurism into the work itself.
According to Sequoia Miller, the curator of the exhibition, “Cassils’ use of clay to shape our understanding of the non-binary body has transformed our perception of both the material and trans identity. Cassils’ work has the power to reframe the way we understand ourselves and our relationships with others, in part through the medium of raw clay”.
