Raising Baby X
Raising Baby X: The First Year is the first year of an ongoing performance art project that re-contextualizes the everyday act of raising a child as a work of art. This project is the latest for Brooklyn-based performance artist Marni Kotak who creates multimedia works in which she presents her everyday life as art.
Kotak in her "Baby Shower" performance at MyHouse Art Space, Brooklyn, NY (June 2011)
It is a conceptual art project that is designed to help us think about and develop a greater respect for the intricacies of child rearing, as they are a deeply rich part of the lives of anyone who has children. A work in progress, the project aims to address various aspects of raising the child, such as food, education, clothing, the child's room, healthcare, playtime, travel, safety, discipline, entertainment, and simply loving the child. In addition, Kotak will write and publish an anthology of memoirs about her experiences with motherhood, containing journal entries, photo documentation, and discourse on current social issues relevant to her project and facing all mothers today, such as whether or not to vaccinate a child, how to support your child's education, school nutrition, the influence of the media, and how to balance work and family life.
Installation shot of Kotak's "I have to get on with my life..." exhibition at Alice Chilton Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (January 2011). Image on bedspread is Kotak as a baby in the ocean for the first time.
For The First Year Kotak will present the performance of raising her child through videos that document various activities that took place that week, such as breastfeeding, diaper changing, bedtime stories, playtime, sleep, and nursing minor ailments. At the end of the year, Kotak will hold an exhibition where she re-creates the baby's bedroom in an art gallery and as in her recent exhibition "I have to get on with my life..." at Alice Chilton Gallery, fuses photo and video documentation of that year's every day life performances with household items such as pillows, blankets, rugs, wallpaper, clothing, artwork, toys, and other memorabilia. During the exhibit, Kotak will hold the child's first birthday party and publish and sell the first book in her series of memoirs.
Installation shot of Kotak's "I have to get on with my life..." exhibition at Alice Chilton Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (January 2011). Image shows trophy presented to all audience members for living their everyday lives.
Kotak plans to launch Raising Baby X: The First Year in conjunction with her upcoming solo exhibition at Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn in October 2011. The show, titled The Birth of Baby X, will present the birth of her baby as a work of art. During the run of the exhibition, Kotak will give birth in the gallery as a live performance. The space will be designed to create the ideal homebirth center for Kotak, including a birthing pool, comfy shag carpet, the rocking chair her mother used to rock her to sleep on, her grandmother's bed upon which Baby X was conceived, and other items to assist Kotak in her natural birth, such as a sound piece of ocean waves crashing on her favorite Cape Cod beach. On the walls, there will be a custom photo wallpaper border wrapping around the gallery involving a timeline series of photos taken throughout the duration of Kotak's pregnancy, and art created by Kotak and her partner, the child's father, Jason Robert Bell.