The installation at the Whitney offers a view into the improvisatory process that is key to Tsang’s collaborations, stepping out of the story frame to investigate all the other tempos of queer friendship. Queer Liberian iconoclast Telfar Clemens designed costumes. The feature was narrated by acclaimed poet and critic Fred Moten portraying the Sub-Sub Librarian, a minor character in the novel whose persona is also a nod to Moten’s notion of the “undercommons.” Tosh Basco delivers a kinetic performance as Queequeg, Melville’s problematic literary harpoonist and cannibal. As a triptych, these new works plumb the depths of extractive capitalism, offer glimpses into queer proletarian community, and imagine a liquid cosmos in which the possessive human gaze is no longer at the center. Consisting of a feature film and two video installations, Tsang’s latest pieces offered audiences in New York and Venice a vital new perspective on a novel whose place in the canon might lead readers to overlook its astonishing perversity.
Recently, the artist Wu Tsang premiered three interconnected works that reimagined Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.
