Out of Line: A.R.M. | The High Line

A feverish choral arrangement of amplified voices emanates from a sculpture not of marble, but of flowing red water. In A.R.M.’s anti-monument, non-memorial performance Blood Fountain, vocalists interconnected by fetish gear, sports equipment, and medical supplies harmonize queer club hits to unearth queer history, to make us remember the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis.

With ritual, pageantry, improvisation, and free association, Blood Fountain depicts the endless consequences of HIV/AIDS within individual queer bodies and on queer communities.

Performed by Robbie Acklen, C. Bain, Malik Gaines, John Gutierrez, Jordan Ho, Richard Kennedy, Stuart Meyers, Alexandro Segade, Justin Wong
Directed by Alexandro Segade, Robbie Acklen and Malik Gaines
Fountain and Costumes by Robbie Acklen
Art Direction by Alexandro Segade
Lighting Design: Scott Davis
Score by Malik Gaines With improvisations by the cast
Text by Alexandro Segade and Robbie Acklen
Beat by Nick Weiss

Now in its fourth year, Out of Line presents a new set of arresting, intriguing, and playful performances by some of New York City’s most exciting contemporary artists.

Video by Lauryn Siegel

ABOUT A.R.M.:
A.R.M. is a collaboration of artists Alexandro Segade, Robbie Acklen, and Malik Gaines. Their shapeshifting projects use a promiscuous mix of performance, video, photography, sound, installation, and sculpture to explore queer subjects. Recent works include Poses (2017) a durational performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Arcángel Miguel (2017) a multimedia performance at the Kuir Festival in Bogotá, Colombia; A Cruel Angel’s Thesis, a mail artwork produced and sent to an audience of the group’s own making; Fire Signs (2017) began with a 2014 residency at BOFFO, Fire Island, New York and was the subject of a solo show at DD55 Gallery in Cologne, Germany; and The Legend (2015) a video piece that premiered at Rogaland Art Center in Stavanger, Norway and also was presented at Play: Video and Performance Festival in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Robbie Acklen is an artist working in photography, sculpture and performance based in Los Angeles, CA. Exhibitions include Entre Nous, Bad Reputation, Los Angeles, CA; Aperture, BLAM Projects, curated by Peter Hickok, Los Angeles, CA; Walk Artisanal, 3716 Eagle Rock Blvd., curated by Peter Harkawik & Miles Huston, Los Angeles, CA; BOFFO Block Party, BOFFO, Fire Island Pines, NY; New Directions 2010: Down + Out, Wallspace Gallery, Seattle, WA (2010). He graduated with a BA from Pitzer College in 2012.

Alexandro Segade is an interdisciplinary artist whose performances have been presented at the Broad and LAXART in Los Angeles; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; the TBA Festival in Portland, Oregon; Movement Research at the Judson Church and Park Avenue Armory in New York City; and the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York. In 2018, Segade co-wrote and directed Popular Revolt with Amy Ruhl, premiering at the NYU Skirball Center in a festival celebrating the 200th birthday of Karl Marx and included in the 2019 NOW festival at REDCAT, LA. Segade’s recent writing on queer comics, science fiction, and Chicanx zines have been published in Artforum.

Malik Gaines is an artist and writer based in New York. His book, Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left (2017), traces a circulation of political ideas in performances of the 1960s and beyond. His essays have appeared in Art Journal, Women & Performance, e-flux, and in many exhibition catalogues and arts publications. He is an associate professor of Performance Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He performs in various collaborations and solo. Since 2000, Segade and Gaines have worked together in the collective My Barbarian, whose work has been included in the Whitney Biennial, two Performa Biennials, the Montreal Biennial, and the Baltic Triennial, among others. They have performed in many art, theater, and music venues, and have had exhibitions and projects at the New Museum, Participant Inc., the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Hammer Museum, Museo Experimental El Eco, Human Resources, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles, and others. My Barbarian has received fellowships and awards from United States Artists, Creative Capital, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Art Matters, and the City of LA. The group is currently preparing a 20-year survey exhibition for fall 2020.