Written by Professor Micol Hebron


I am very pleased to announce that I have been invited to present a performance art piece at Emerson Dorsch Gallery in Miami on Thursday November 13, 2014 as part of “This is Happening”, a 5-week long performance art series. My performance, titled “Three Stage Transfer Drawing” is a collaborative drawing project that invites participation by artists from around the country as well as on-site in the gallery. Four Chapman students will be participating in the performance with me as well!

“Three-stage transfer drawing” performance is inspired from a project that conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim did with his son in 1971 titled “Two-stage transfer drawing”. The piece is also inspired by Joseph Kosuth’s conceptual notion that “the best work of art is an idea communicated telepathically from one person to another”. Other influences include Yoko Ono’s
Telephone Piece,
Sol Lewitt’s drawing instructions, Fluxus performance scores, and the 1969 exhibition
“Art by Telephone”
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Group of people smiling.


“Two Stage Transfer Drawing”, Dennis Oppenheim and son, 1971



My “Three-Stage Transfer Drawing” performance engages the public in a three-part act of performative drawing that explores the transmission and expression of an image through technology, language, body, and image (drawing). It is a game of ‘telephone’ for the modern era, which examines the various means through which we communicate, understand, and visualize an image. In this performance, an artist off-site in another city sends a text to one of the viewers in the gallery, the viewer then interprets that text as a drawing, and draws it with their finger on my back. I then translate what I feel them drawing on my back, onto a piece of paper to create the final drawing.

I have performed similar versions of this project at the
Torrance Art Museum
, and at the
Central Utah Art Center. 

Emerson Dorsch
is a leading international contemporary art gallery that focuses on mid-career contemporary artists.