Thirty-three years in the past, an eon in modern artwork phrases, artists Stephen Prina and Mike Kelley and choreographer Anita Tempo collectively conceived a novel and gruelling efficiency. Beat of the Traps concerned two drummers hammering their kits at extreme quantity, whereas an actor shouted Kelley’s confrontational textual content and two dancers moved to the rhythms. Nicely obtained in Vienna and Los Angeles in 1992, it has by no means been seen once more – till now. The piece is central to ‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’, the Museum of Trendy Artwork’s first-ever survey dedicated to an artist’s efficiency work.
Prina and Tempo, in addition to the 2 authentic drummers, reconvened in Los Angeles final month to rehearse a recent model of that now legendary occasion, to be offered in New York on 19 September 2025. Kelley had taken his personal life in 2012, partially as a consequence of despair and alcohol, the vodka that is part of this work’s textual content. For the reason that current rehearsal was within the Geffen constructing of the Museum of Up to date Artwork, an early supporter of the artists, it was an emotional second for the outdated associates who have been reliving its authentic creation.
Stephen Prina, Sonic Dan, 1994. Carried out at SO 36, Berlin, Germany, November 3, 1996
(Picture credit score: Picture: David Brandt. Courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York. © 2025 Stephen Prina)
Prina, along with his cropped beard and trim black swimsuit, recalled his good friend: ‘Mike was very self-critical. This has been a bit troublesome, truly. I am getting emotional as a result of it is introduced my Mike to the fore. The actor within the play is principally a double for me within the efficiency but in addition for Mike. And so I hear Mike’s voice.’
Tempo agreed. ‘It’s a little bittersweet as a result of Mike’s not right here so I’m performing a number of what he would have been doing. It’s type of like, “What would Mike do right here?”’ I need to preserve true to the place that first bonding of the three of us got here collectively to make this work. It’s been wonderful.’
Although music, composition and staging have lengthy been parts of Prina’s visible artwork, they tackle higher complexity when offered independently, and never as a part of a sculpture, set up or movie. MoMA curator Stuart Comer thinks that Prina’s method of borrowing from pop, classical and trendy music is ‘a mannequin of appropriation distinctive in a discipline extra rooted in images, transferring photographs, and sculpture’.
The artist excels at connecting unlikely factors of historic, cultural and social relevance. Evolving as a post-conceptualist throughout the Nineteen Eighties, he prolonged the concept of appropriation to music to amplify these references.
Mike Kelley, Anita Tempo, Stephen Prina, Beat of the Traps, 1992. Carried out in ‘Expanded Artwork’, Wiener Festwochen, The Remise, Vienna, Austria, 1992. Performers (from left): Jonathan ‘Butch’ Norton, Carl Burkley, Alan Abelew, Stephen Prina, Anita Tempo, MB Gordy
(Picture credit score: © Mike Kelley Basis for the Arts. All Rights Reserved/VAGA at ARS, NY., Anita Tempo, Stephen Prina. Picture: Karl Krauss)
The performances at MoMA can have a further and necessary historic profit. Comer factors out, ‘Stephen, and sometimes Kelley, refused recording of their performances at the moment so there’s little documentation. He nonetheless prefers to not do video, however now there can be audio documentation, so will probably be on the document and that can be an necessary contribution for posterity.’ The performances mix classical and rock music with Prina’s personal compositions and, at occasions, singing and guitar taking part in.
The unique Beat of the Traps was the primary time Prina had carried out in a decade. He had performed in rock bands in highschool within the small city of Galesburg, Illinois – even acting at a supper membership with a bunch referred to as Jeannie and the Aladdins – however left all of it behind after graduating from music faculty at Northern Illinois College in DeKalb in 1977. ‘I’ve grown out of that,’ he thought. ‘Now, I will be a severe composer, and I will write on paper.’
Prina went to graduate faculty at CalArts outdoors LA to review with sly pioneers of Conceptual Artwork like John Baldessari and Douglas Huebler, whose strategy was each severe and droll. ‘I’ve at all times been drawn to the issues that problem me. I am not a lot in artwork that congratulates me on my obtained concepts,’ he quips.
‘I’ve a project-based follow. What’s the easiest way to use this? I actually did not consider visible artwork and music being separate. I believed that, effectively, visible artwork is a number of to start with, so there are all these totally different genres. Images, portray, and music is simply one other element of that.’
Prina later introduced that perspective to instructing at Artwork Heart School of Design in Pasadena – the place he gained notoriety for instructing a category utilizing the appearing of Keanu Reeves and the writing of Nietzsche – after which at Harvard, earlier than retiring final spring.
Stephen Prina, The Prime 13 Singles from Billboard’s Sizzling 100 Singles Chart for the Week Ending September 11, 1993, 1993
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York)
The expertise of working with Kelley on Beat of the Traps led Prina two years later to the creation of Sonic Dan, a efficiency mixing the seemingly incompatible tunes of Sonic Youth and Steely Dan. That they had recorded the identical variety of albums by 1994, alongside a recording of Anton Webern’s full string quartets.
That present at Luna Park in West Hollywood introduced a powerful viewers, together with Mayo Thompson from the band Crimson Crayola, who then requested Prina to play on his first launch on Drag Metropolis Data. ‘When the album got here out, I used to be listed as a member of the band,’ he explains. He continued to carry out with them for the following decade.
But, simply as lots of his performances are rooted within the classics, such because the Mozart-derived String Quartet for Six Gamers (1976), involving a roll of the cube to pick which musician performs which part to develop the four-piece, a component of likelihood and arithmetic that evokes the strategies of John Cage. Nonetheless, Prina stays higher recognized for his visible artwork in galleries and museums. A number of such works are being proven at MoMA, together with a super selection being proven for the primary time: The Prime 13 Singles from Billboard’s Sizzling 100 Singles Chart for the Week Ending September 11, 1993. On the high of every hour, a big clock chimes a musical hit of the previous.
‘Whoomp, there it’s,’ a rap dance tune by Tag Staff, can be bouncing off the white partitions of the galleries. Comer says, ‘It reveals how issues change over time, how the canon, as soon as written by MoMA, could be performed with. It “contaminates” the establishment with fashionable cultures.’
Prina titled his prestigious present after a phrase utilized by his mom, who, like his father, was an Italian immigrant. ‘I grew up in a family that was bleached and boiled. If firm was visiting, and my mom did not have time to completely go over the home, she would give what she would describe as “a lick and a promise” to make it look presentable. So I’ve at all times beloved that phrase and I do take delight within the double entendre.’ It is usually the title of his latest composition, to be carried out in November, whereas the present concludes on 13 December with the Push Involves Love Fest. Prina will carry out with others, starting from classical pianist Ursula Oppens to Crimson Crayola’s guitarist David Grubbs.
Regardless of earlier surveys and reveals, his second at MoMA carries a number of weight. ‘I wish to suppose that I am a critically engaged artist and I am at all times, you recognize, self-critically being self-reflexive. However this locations a distinct type of stress on that. That’s the place the emotional punch is available in. I believe, “Nicely, what have I made a decision to do with my work, with my manufacturing, with my life?” You recognize?’
‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’, from 12 September – 13 December 2025 at The Museum of Trendy Artwork, moma.org
Supply: Wallpaper
