"Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water" & Indigenous Residency Series Panel Discussion
By LIAM MAHER
Time-Based Art Festival (TBA) at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) returns this year with a sneak peek of artist Anthony Hudson (Grand Ronde) as Carla Rossi's much-anticipated sequel, Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water. The screening of Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water was paired with a Zoom panel discussion featuring Hudson and artists Arias Hoyle and Steven Paul Judd in conjunction with PICA’s Indigenous Residency Series (IRS). Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water is Hudson/Rossi's follow-up from their 2019 Clown Down: Failed to Mount, which featured Hudson as Rossi hosting a Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood-style show while pinned beneath an IKEA cabinet.
Anthony Hudson/Carla Rossi. Clown Down. Photo credit Matty Newton, Image courtsey of PICA.
TBA:21’s preview of Clown Out of Water, starts as a facetiously cheerful tour behind the scenes. It quickly sours as Hudson tries and fails to make small talk with their creative team. Hudson’s set designer, portrayed by David Eckard, craftsman behind the experimental cabinet from Failed to Mount, pulls out a flask shortly after Hudson greets him. His desperate gulps fill an awkward silence. Jillian Snow Harris reprises her role as Liza Minelli and stutters through some Liza-isms for Hudson despite being told several times she is not on the clock. Matthew Leavitt, the puppet master who debuted the Evangelist cucumber and the iconic Possum Cult Leader in Failed to Mount, pointedly explains to Hudson how he is practicing with an old puppet because Hudson has yet to provide characters or lines for Clown Down 2. This backstage tour ends abruptly with Hudson appealing directly to the camera. “We are all so desperate for a shred of normalcy that we are back to performing,” Hudson says. “It’s getting harder.” They begin spiraling through anxieties. Many of which viewers likely can relate to; pandemic-related stress, returning to “normal” despite the world being anything but, difficulty finding humor amidst a melting, burning, dying earth. Mid-sentence the camera cuts to audio of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid and an infographic announcing Carla’s impending return before fading to black.
This preview of Clown Down 2 is devoid of any firm content. It’s a swindle, and I believe that is the way Hudson wants it. We should expect nothing less from someone who enthusiastically cites “terrorist women” like Courtney Love, Tonya Harding, and Valerie Solanas as their art heroes, and who calls their drag persona a trickster character akin to those from Indigenous coyote stories. I feel like this sneak peek is a reminder that artists do not owe anyone anything they are not ready to give. Hudson eloquently emphasizes in the Indigenous Residency Series panel that over the course of the pandemic they have learned to appreciate the value of their time. After losing elders before they could say goodbye, personal burnout, climate-related stress, and much more, Hudson embraced work from home to focus exclusively on what they love and tribal work. “I’m doing the things I want to see on my terms” they share to panel moderator Ed Bourgeois. Earlier in the discussion, they confidently stated “I make my work for me.” This is crucial to Hudson’s humor style. The question “what makes me laugh?” has guided their work from an early age, ever since they saw how their father used his personal humor to empathize and connect with strangers. Now more than ever, this question is one Hudson struggles to answer.
While Hudson’s behind the scenes parody for Clown Out of Water is comically opaque, they do remind us with this special that this work is on their time and no one else’s. Their feature in TBA:21 is a poignant reminder that as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to exacerbate an already compromised society, the best cultural work comes from those who respect others’ time and whose time is respected. We may not have only gotten a glimpse of what Clown Out of Water holds, we have also learned that Hudson will tell us more when they are ready. This sneak peek taught me that Clown Out of Water comes from the deeply personal experience, discomfort with labels, and eschewing of tradition that made Failed to Mount so cathartic and fresh. “Resistance can be being weird and spectacular and gross and confrontational” Hudson quipped while speaking during the IRS panel. If what I saw at TBA:21 is any indication, we can expect some spectacular weirdness from Hudson, Eckard, Harris, and Leavitt once Clown Out of Water premieres.
Clown Down 2: Clown Out of Water (sneak peak) is on view from September 16 - October 3, 2021 in conjunction with PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival.
Liam Maher is a doctoral student in art history at Temple University. His research focuses on queerness, Catholicism, and anti/colonialism in contemporary Latinx & Latin American art.
Anthony Hudson (Grand Ronde) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, performer, and filmmaker. Anthony lives in Portland, OR among lush greenery, sprawling gentrification, and a not-mutually-exclusive fear of bridges and earthquakes. Anthony is perhaps best known as Portland's premier drag clown CARLA ROSSI, an immortal trickster whose attempts at realness almost always result in fantastic failure. Anthony can be heard regularly on the GAYLORDS OF DARKNESS horror podcast with Stacie Ponder, on FEMMESPLAINING with Honey LeFleur, and on the XRAY.fm radio show QUEENS OF HOLLYWOOD with Elizabeth Teets.