CASSILS is a visual artist
Listed by the Huffington Post as “one of ten transgender artists who are changing the landscape of contemporary art,” Cassils has achieved international recognition for a rigorous engagement with the body as a form of social sculpture.
Drawing on conceptualism, feminism, body art, gay male aesthetics, Cassils forges a series of powerfully trained bodies for different performative purposes. It is with sweat, blood and sinew that Cassils constructs a visual critique around ideologies and histories.
“When we look at this work we look at the artist, but their skill lies in demanding our gaze move beyond the extraordinary set of practices that constitute the specific human body before us, and towards something that we could quite unflinchingly call the human condition. This artist takes their body and makes it, works it, into something else, something that questions how we see each other, how we seek to manipulate ourselves, our bodies and our lives. It is deeply ethical work as it poses crucial questions around the aestheticization and commodification of our bodies and ourselves.”
– Ruth Mackenzie,
Director of 2012 UK Cultural Olympiad &
Director of the Holland Festival (from ANTI International Prize in Live Art jury statement)
BIO
Cassils shows their work internationally. Solo exhibitions include:
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts; Macedonia Museum of Fine Arts; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands; Trinity Square Video, Toronto
Cassils’ work has been featured in museums and galleries all over the world:
Deutsches Historisches Museum and the Schwules Museum*, Berlin; Institute for Contemporary Art and The National Theatre, London; MUCA Roma, Mexico City; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City; ANTI Contemporary Performance Festival, Kuopio, Finland; Museo da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo, Brazil; Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, San José, Costa Rica; and Deutsches Historishes Museum, Berlin, Germany
Cassils is the recipient of:
USA Artist Fellowship (2018), Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), Creative Capital Award (2015)
Cassils’ work has been featured in:
New York Times, Boston Globe, Artfourm, Hyperallergic, Wired, The Guardian UK, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal, and Vogue Brazil
Cassils’ films have premiered at:
Sundance Film Festival (Utah), Out Fest (Los Angeles), The Institute for Contemporary Art (London)
Cassils received their bachelor’s degree from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Masters degree in visual arts and integrated media from the California Institute of the Arts. Cassils has adjudicated exhibition selections at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitons and currently is a lecturer in the Art Department at Stanford University. Cassils is the curator of Vital Signs, a performance series at Stanford University which aims to highlight and showcase underrepresented performance forms such as experimental performance art, durational art, and body art.
