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the cell theater kicks off season with LIFE IS DRAG Feb 13 - March 28
Posted by: Official_Press_Release 01:25 pm EST 02/12/21

THE CELL TO KICK OFF 2021 SEASON WITH "LIFE IS DRAG"
FEATURING THE DRAG PORTRAITS OF RACHEL RAMPLEMAN
February 13 - March 28

Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre (Artistic Director Kira Simring) presents its first residency of 2021, LIFE IS DRAG, an exhibition showcasing the video portraits of Rachel Rampleman. Exploring subjects such as gender, artifice and spectacle, Rampleman documents the most innovative and singular performers of the currently exploding international alt-drag and burlesque scenes, a portion of which have been filmed throughout the pandemic at the cell's space on West 23rd Street. Opening February 13th on the Gallery Floor, this exhibit is free and open to the public. Patrons are required to follow all city mandated COVID-19 precautions including mandatory mask wearing, limited capacity, filling out a contact-free survey for symptoms and potential exposure, and a digital temperature check upon entry.

Rachel Rampleman utilizes processes ranging from directorial to curatorial to anthropological to showcase exuberantly irrepressible personalities who revel in challenging clichés associated with masculinity and femininity. A sampling of subjects featured in LIFE IS DRAG include Girls Girls Girls (the world's first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band), Tazzie Colomb (the world's longest competing female bodybuilder), and LACTIC Incorporated (an avant-garde clothing brand that takes the detritus of corporate life and reinterprets it into one-of-a-kind structural garments that challenge the polarization of gender) as well as drag and burlesque stars Untitled Queen, Fem Appeal, Darlinda Just Darlinda, C'etait BonTemps, Chartruice, Mimi Silk, Dick TransDyke, JAX, Robyn Edges, Sham Payne, Just JP, Stixen Stones, Kiara Chimera, Barbie Crash, Bunny Wonderland, Robin from Human Resources, Geo Soctomah Neptune, Jayden Jamison, Mike Hawk, Arabella LaDessé, Bender Bluefish, and Zayn-X.

LIFE IS DRAG includes more than 4 hours of video featuring over 60 artists from all around the globe. Rampleman plans to create nearly 40 more video portraits during her residency and incorporate many of those into the exhibition.

"My long-term goal is to continue to do a series of such residencies nationally and internationally, which will allow me to create portraits of drag artists from a wide variety of areas, backgrounds, cultures, ages, etc. Each portrait includes video of the drag artist performing (lip-synching, singing, telling stories, dancing, etc.) in addition to interview documentation, and will become part of an online archive as well be presented at a wide variety of art and non-art venues."

LIFE IS DRAG opens Saturday, February 13 at 6PM at the cell (338 W. 23rd Street) and runs Saturdays and Sundays from 12PM-6PM through March 28, 2021. Follow the cell on instagram at @thecelltheatre for updates or go to www.thecelltheatre.org for upcoming events.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently living and working in New York City, Rachel Rampleman received her MFA from New York University in 2006. Since then, her work has been shown internationally at the Shanghai Biennale (Brooklyn Pavilion, 2012-13) in China, the Chennai Photo Biennale (India), JAM in Bangkok, Thailand, and throughout Europe at S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst) and Art Cinema OFFoff (Ghent, Belgium), Monte Arts Centre (Antwerp, Belgium), Terasa (Pilsen, Czech Republic), C/O Berlin, Die Fruhperle, and The Secret Cabinet (Berlin, Germany), and at VIDEONALE.16 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.

Nationally, her work has been exhibited at such venues as Socrates Sculpture Park, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Cleopatra's, Petzel Gallery, Smack Mellon, Auxiliary Projects, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Satellite Art Show, The Frank Institute at CR10, Spectacle Theater, The Wassaic Project, Flux Factory, VOX Bizarre, Cynthia Broan Gallery, NP Contemporary Art Center, Satellite Art Show, Squeaky Wheel, Envoy Enterprises, Shoestring Press, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, The Warehouse Gallery, SELECT Art Fair, The Last Brucennial, un(SCENE) Art Show, 80 WSE Gallery, Gowanus Swim Society, El Puente CADRE, Art Gotham, Rosenburg Gallery, Cantor Film Center, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, and Collar Works (New York), Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University (New Jersey), Other Cinema at Artists' Television Access (California), The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Contemporary Arts Center, The Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts, Thunder-Sky, Inc., The Mini Microcinema, Semantics, and SS NOVA, (Ohio), KMAC Museum Louisville, The Lexington Art League, The Fountain Gallery at Purdue University (Kentucky), 1506 Projects (Washington), University Hall Gallery at UMass Boston (Massachussetts), Icebox Project Space (Philadelphia), PULSE Miami (Florida), The Flint Art Institute, (Michigan), The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University and The Andy Warhol Museum (Pennsylvania).

Rampleman recently had a survey exhibition on view at the Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts (Cincinnati, Ohio) as well as solo exhibitions at VOLTA NY (New York), These Things Take Time (Ghent, Belgium), 42 Social Club (Connecticut), Carl Solway Gallery and The Neon Heater Art Gallery (Ohio), and an early career retrospective at The Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art (CEPA Gallery) in Buffalo, New York. She is currently preparing for her upcoming solo exhibitions at 3S Artspace (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), and Auxiliary Projects (Brooklyn, New York).

She has also created curatorial projects with Vanessa Albury as The Sun That Never Sets for venues such as The Frank Institute at CR10 in the Hudson Valley and SPRING/BREAK Art Show in NYC.

Rachel's work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Art F City, Paper Magazine, Artnet, DRAIN, Domino, eyes toward the dove, HYPERALLERGIC, Gothamist, Berlin Art Parasites, the Fanzine, Seattle Pi, Absolute Arts, ÆQAI, and LeCool Bangkok, among others.

www.rachelrampleman.com

ABOUT THE CELL

Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre (Artistic Director Kira Simring) is a non profit dedicated to the incubation and presentation of new works that mine the mind, pierce the heart, and awaken the soul. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the cell has successfully moved into the digital sphere by streaming virtual concerts and programming such as Dark Matter Immersive's Garden of Eden, Tolerance Party, the Room | to | Breathe series with Bright Shiny Things, Nourishment "Bites" with Holdtight Dance Company, Apex Sky, Harps Uncovered and Liquidverse (a psychedelic & meditative show exploring the images of the cosmos through oil based dyes) by Liquid Light Lab and music by composer and technical director of the cell Ricardo Romaneiro. Past productions include Found, Hoard (co-produced with Off the Wall), The Pink Unicorn (starring Alice Ripley co-produced with Out of the Box), The Evolution of Mann, Bastard Jones (Drama-Desk Nominated), Crackskull Row, Hard Times: An American Musical, The McGowan Trilogy, Hey Jude, Horse Girls and more. www.thecelltheatre.org @thecelltheatre
Link https://www.thecelltheatre.org
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