Casey Kaplan
As It Whirs: Kevin Beasley on His Whitney Museum Performance Program, with a Cotton Gin At Its Core
March 1, 2019
By Andy Battaglia
When Kevin Beasley first took an interest in the whirring motor of a vintage cotton gin that now serves as the centerpiece of his eye- and ear-catching show at the Whitney Museum in New York, the sound it might have made was not on his mind.
“The first gesture of the project was acquiring the motor,” the artist said of the machine, which he acquired from a farmer in Alabama. “The second was contextualizing it—thinking about this object, its history, its method of manufacture.”
Then came mention of the specter of sound. “I had a conversation with Bobby, the person I bought it from, standing over the motor. It was the first time I’d seen it in person. He brought me to it and said, ‘Well, this is it.’ He told me how it ran and gave me information I already knew. But then he said, “I still remember the way it sounds.”
Click here to continue reading