About the Artist
CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances.
Cassils's art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. 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.
Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts,NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.
They are the recipient of a 2020 Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist (2020), a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (2019), a United States Artist Fellowship (2018), a Guggenheim Fellowship and a COLA Grant (2017) and a Creative Capital Award (2015). They have received the inaugural ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, California CommunityFoundation Grant, MOTHA (Museum of Transgender Hirstory) award, and numerousVisual Artist Fellowships from the Canada Council of the Arts. Their work has been featured in New York Times, Boston Globe, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Wired, TheGuardian, TDR, Performance Research, Art Journal and was the subject of the monograph Cassils published by MU Eindhoven 92015) and their new catalogSolutions, is published by the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, TX (2020). Cassils's work was recently acquired by the Victoria Albert Museum, London, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and the Leslie Lohman Museum.
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:
Born Toronto, Canada
Raised Montreal, Quebec
Lives in Los Angeles, California, USA
Education
2002 MFA Art and Integrated Media, California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, CA
1997 BFA Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, NS, Canada
1996 Ecole Nationale Superieur des Beaux Arts, Paris, France
2021
Art Matters Foundation Artist 2 Artist Fellowship
Canada Council for the Arts Residency Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Travel Grant
INMATT Foundation Grant
2020
Princeton Arts Fellowship Finalist
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)
Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Grant Three Year Consolidation Support Grant
Fleck Fellowship & Residency, BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity, BANFF, Canada
2019
Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Touring Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Travel Grant
2018
Fellowship, The Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Center
United States Artists Fellowship
Herb Alpert/MacDowell Fellowship, Theater
2017
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
2015
Creative Capital Visual Artist Award
Canada Council for the Arts Media Arts Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Touring Grant
Canada Council for the Arts Inter-Arts Travel Grant
(for more, see full CV)
2023
Ana Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax , Nova Scotia
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta
2022
SITE Santa Fe, Sante Fe, New Mexico
2021
HOME, Human Measure, Manchester, UK
$HT Coin, NFT Exhibition, Phillips Gallery One, NYC, NY
2020
Walter Phillips Gallery, BANFF Center for Arts and Creativity, BANFF, Canada
2019
Perth Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia
2018
Station Museum, Houston, TX
2022
CryptoPong, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Denmark
Blurred Boundaries: A Glimpse of Queer Art from Canada, A.G.O., Toronto Fashioning Masculinities, Victoria Albert Museum, London, UK
Arken Museum of Modern Art, WOMEN AND CHANGE, Denmark
RMIT Gallery, Agent Bodies, Melbourne, Australia
Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Alternative Futures, Charlottesville, VA
2021
Hase29, gender piracy, Osnabrück, Germany
FOMU, Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography, Antwerp, Belgium
Arts Help, ZERO GRAVITY: Is This Our Earth? Inaugural Digital Exhibit in Space (Yes as in SPACE!)
Arles: Les Rencontres De LA Photographie, Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography, Arles, France
Big Medium, 2021 Texas Biennial: A New Landscape, A Possible Horizon, San Antonio & Houston, TX
ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Pride Publics: Words and Actions, Los Angeles, CA Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Body Memory Body Vision, Orange, CA
2020
Craft Contemporary, The Body, The Object, The Other, Los Angeles, CA
Gardiner Museum, RAW, Toronto, CA
Barbican, Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography, London, UK
The Armory Show, Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY
Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst at Syker Vorwerk, Fluidity, Berlin
Tang Museum, Skidmore College, FLEX, Saratoga Springs, NY
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Trans/American: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today, Chapel Hill, NC
2019
Wellcome Collection, Being Human, London, UK (Permanent Exhibition)
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Ancient History of a Distant Future, Philadelphia, PA
Art Gallery Burlington, The Gender Conspiracy, Burlington, Ontario
Dark Mofo, A Forest, Hobart, Tasmania
The McNay Art Museum, Transamerica/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today, San Antonio, TX
Annenberg Space for Photography, For Freedoms, Culver City, CA
Artothèque of Strasbourg, Corps-à-Coeurs, Strasbourg, France
French National Museum Mucem, Shall We Dance, Marseille, France
MASS MoCA, Suffering from Realness, North Adams, MA\
Oakland Museum of California, Queer California: Untold Stories, Oakland, CA
The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Building A House Without Walls: The Value of Sanctuary, New York, NY
Gazelli Art House, It's Not Me, It's You, London, UK
(for more, see full CV)
2021
THEYFRIEND Festival 2021, San Francisco, CA, Pressed
Cocktail d’Amore, Berlin Germany, Fast Twitch Slow Twitch
2020
OPYUM Festival, Paris, France, Fast Twitch Slow Twitch
Full Body: Cuts a Traditional Sculpture, Gropius Bau, Berlin Germany, Fast Twitch Slow Twitch
Outfest Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA, Jackalope
2019
Outfest Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA, This Love Is On Fire
2018
Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria, Inextinguishable Fire, 103 Shots, Fast Twitch// Slow Twitch
2023
Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta
2022
REDCAT. Los Angeles, CA
Canadian Stage, Toronto, Ontario
Maria Abramovic Institute, Amsterdam
Tiresias, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
2021
HOME, Manchester, United Kingdom, Human Measure
2020
Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Canada, Up To and Including Their Limits
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, Becoming an Image
SMOQUA—Festival of Feminist and Queer Culture 2020, Rijeka, Croatia, PRESSED
Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada, Human Measure
2019
Perth Festival, Perth Australia, Becoming an Image
Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Tiresias
2018
Station Museum, Houston, TX, Solution; performance featuring Cassils, Rafa Esparza, Fanaa, and Keijuan Thomas
Biosphere 2, Oracle, AZ, Cyclic, as part of Blessed Be: Mysticism Spirituality, and the Occult In Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; performance featuring Cassils, Ron Athey, and Fanaa
Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria, Becoming an Image
Stanford University, Sweat Paintings
University of Victoria Transgender Archives, Victoria, BC, Becoming an Image
(for more, see full CV)
“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)
