READING VENTRILOQUIST SCRIPTS:
“THE TALKING AT MONEY”
“Concept and performance: Paul Outlaw
Camera: Ian Byers-Gamber
Editing: Agnes Stauber
Premiere: July 15, 2021
Subsequent screenings:
• October 2021: Poetic Research Bureau, Los Angeles, CA
• October 2025: Highways Performance Space & Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
• February 2026: Highways Performance Space & Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
NOT I: Throwing Voices (1500 BCE–2020 CE) was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Curator: José Luis Blondet
”
A performance for the camera based on Darby English’s commissioned piece for the accompanying publication for the exhibition NOT I: Throwing Voices (1500 BCE– 2020 CE), on view at LACMA from April to July 2021.
This multi-channel video was the last episode in a series of five virtual performances and readings from the publication Six Scripts for Not I, which features commissioned pieces by Darby English, Amy Gerstler, Sarah Kessler, Christina Catherine Martinez, and Alan Page Arriaga.
Paul Outlaw selected an excerpt from English’s contribution “The Talking at Money” for this performance, shot in the galleries of NOT I near the painting Conspiracy (c. 1955) by Edward Biberman. Darby English’s text is a passage from the 1955 trial of Emmett Till’s murderers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam.
Darby English is the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. His books include Charles Ray: Adam and Eve (2024), To Describe a Life: Notes from the Intersection of Art and Race Terror (2019), 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (2016), and How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (2007).