In ‘MOBY DICK; or, The Whale’, award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Wu Tsang and the collective Moved by the Motion embark upon a feature-length, silent-film telling of Herman Melville’s great American novel. Presented in its Los Angeles premiere for The Performance Project at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, the film includes original music composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee with Asma Maroof, performed live by Monday Evening Concerts Ensemble in Residence, ECHOI, conducted by Jonathan Hepfer.
This adaptation, written by Sophia Al-Maria and directed by Tsang, follows the white whale above and below the surface of the water, developing a visual cosmology that resists the exploration and exploitation of the earth under imperial colonialism. The narrative is interwoven with extracts by the Sub-Sub-Librarian, a character played by Fred Moten, and tackles the novel’s subterranean currents, encountering the resistance of the ship’s hydrarchy, or organizational structure, and collectives of ‘mariners, renegades and castaways,’ as described by historian C.L.R. James.
The staging of this adaptation by Moved by the Motion pairs the classic story of the whaler’s ‘floating factory‘ with the beginnings of the film industry in silent film. The film was shot entirely on a soundstage combining silent-era filmmaking techniques with a virtual reality game engine projecting surreal ocean environments.
‘MOBY DICK; or, The Whale’ is produced by the Schauspielhaus Zürich and co-commissioned by LUMA Foundation, Superblue, TBA21—Academy, HARTWIG ART FOUNDATION, The Shed, DE SINGEL and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Tickets are $15 each. All ticket proceeds will be donated to Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles’ 2023 Charitable Partner of the Year, the House of AWT Project. To inquire about our accessible pricing options, email info@hauserwirth.com.
