CASSILS (Los Angeles, NY) is a Canadian transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances
Cassils' art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, and empowerment. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils' work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.
Awards, Grants & Fellowships
Nominated for the Adobe Creative Residency at MoMA
The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Finalist
Arts Explore and Create Consolidation Grant, Canada Council
National Performance Network Award
Faculty Development Fund, PRATT Institute
Creativity and Free Expression Grant, the Ford Foundation
Co Production Grant, OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard
Canada Council Residency Grant
Nominated for Bemis Center for the Arts Legacy Fund
The National Creation Fund
Canada Council For the Arts, Explore and Create Grant
Canada Council Arts Across Canada Grant
Art Matters Foundation Artist 2 Artist Fellowship
Canada Council for the Arts Residency Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Travel Grant
INMATT Foundation Grant
Art Matters Foundation (for In Plain Sight)
Andy Warhol (for In Plain Sight)
Agnus Gund (for In Plain Sight)
Krupp Family Foundation (for In Plain Sight)
Quiet Foundation (for In Plain Sight)
Center for Cultural Power (for In Plain Sight)
Occidental College of the Arts (for In Plain Sight)
Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (for In Plain Sight)
Goodworks Foundation (for In Plain Sight)
For Freedoms (for In Plain Sight)
Fleck Fellowship & Residency, BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity, BANFF, Canada
Fellowship, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Bellagio Center, Italy
Herb Alpert/MacDowell Fellowship, Theater
United States Artists Fellowship
Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Grant
Canada Council for the Arts
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship COLA Individual Artist Fellowshi
Alpert Visiting Artist Fellowship, Syracuse University
Creative Capital Visual Artist Award
Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Touring Grant
Inaugural International Prize for Live Art, ANTI Contemporary Art Festival, Finland
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship
MOTHA Art Awards (Museum of Transgender Art) for Best Solo Exhibition
California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship
Cassils shows their work internationally.
Solo exhibitions include:
Cassils’ work has been featured in museums and galleries world-wide:
Cassils is the recipient of:
Cassils’ work has been featured in:
Cassils’ films have premiered at:
More:
“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.”
UPCOMING EVENTS AND TALKS
Artist Talks in Bremen, Germany: May 6 & 7, 2020
Artist Talk at Barbican, London: May 2020
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, Becoming an Image (Summer 2020)
SMOQUA—Festival of Feminist and Queer Culture 2020, Rijeka, Croatia, PRESSED (May 21-23, 2020)
Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada, Human Measure (July 16, 2020)
UPCOMING RESIDENCY
Cassils will be in Residence at the BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity, as part of the Fleck Fellowship from March 9-25. Cassils is preparing for their forthcoming solo show at the Walter Phillips Gallery, and developing a new performance: Human Measure.
The Armory Show, Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY (March 4- 8, 2020)
Fluidity, Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, at Syker Vorwerk, Berlin (Feb 23- May 17, 2020)
Wellcome Collection, Being Human, London, UK (Permanent Exhibition)
Barbican, Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography, London, UK, (Feb 20- May 17, 2020)
Gardiner Museum, RAW, Toronto, CA (March 5- June 7, 2020; Performance: Feb 20, 2020). Featuring new commission: Up To and Including Their Limits (live performance on February 20, 2020)
Tang Museum, Skidmore College, FLEX, Saratoga Springs, NY (Feb 22, 2020- June 7, 2020)
Craft Contemporary, The Body, The Object, The Other Los Angeles, CA (January 25, 2020 – May 10, 2020)
Walter Phillips Gallery, Solo Show, BANFF Centre, Canada (Summer 2020)
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Trans/American: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today, Chapel Hill, NC (Fall 2020)
Hessel Museum, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annondale-on-Hudson (May 2020)
Cassils
Becoming An Image, Wallpaper No. 1
(Perth Institute of Contemporary Art), 2019
photo: Cassils with Manuel Vason
Courtesy of the artist
Cassils Portrait
Photo: Robin Black
Cassils
Resiliance of the 20%, Installation Image No. 5
(Melt/Carve/Forge, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia), 2016
photo: Cassils with Zachary Hartzell
Courtesy of the artist
