We find ourselves in the holiday-art-shop season. It is the time of year when nonprofits are pushing their end-of-year giving campaigns, raffles, and boutique artworks as a marketable alternative to holiday gift stores known for their globally harmful practices. For many, it is a season of compulsory gifting and consumption driven by an economy of thoughtfulness and also, for lack of a better word, prepping—perhaps for another year of tumult and unpredictability. And amidst all of this, individual artists and small collectives are jumping in with their own alternatives. 

Enter Physical Education aka. P.E., a group of artists who work across Oregon and New York, as well as abroad. This cooperative—consisting of ever-thoughtful dance and performance artists keyon gaskin, Allie Hankins, Lu Yim, and Takahiro Yamamoto—has developed an exhibition titled Cold Flow, A Slower Fountain, currently unfolding at Holding Contemporary. And yes, they are selling things too. 

Over the years, I have witnessed these artists’ work take shape through dynamic media, well beyond the legible parameters of dance and performance art. This exhibition, pragmatically described as an evolving “workshop,” was organized by curator Ashley Stull Meyers. Curatorial text calls the exhibition as a “chaotic reflection on moving in this era of physical and functional distance.” 

I attended one of P.E.’s public events (offered both online and in-person at Holding Contemporary) on December 15, to clarify my understanding of their multi-layered endeavor and its material take-aways. 

Upon entering the gallery that evening, I ran into a friend of mine near a display of artful clothing items at the front of the gallery. Each item had distinctive embellishments: iron-on images from the P.E. archives, some of which had been fashioned into collages by Yim. These clothes were for sale with prices starting at $25. My friend and I admired an iridescent shirt embellished with a photo of the foursome: gaskin, Hankins, Yim, and Yamamoto. They were all dressed in wetsuits and smiling brightly, as if just in from a cold swim. My friend remarked, “imagine wearing this [shirt] if you didn’t know the people…” (a thought I still find funny). This shirt, however, had already been spoken for, as indicated on its tag. 

Printouts lined the bottom of the clothing display, presumably for gallery goers to peruse. I glimpsed Andre Lepecki’s name mentioned in passing on one printout—a hot ticket in performance theory of the 2010s. Certain titles stuck out, e.g. “Penny Arcade of the Professionalization of Performance Art,” published on Hyperallergic in 2014, and “Object Lessons: Thinking Gender Variance Through Minimalist Sculpture” by Gordon Hall. 

I turned to the other side of the gallery to find a series of small sculptures, including some cement ice cubes sculpted by Hankins. All sculptures were arranged on a blue tarp with care but not preciousness, as if they would melt and soak the folding table below. They were interspersed with little QR codes that, once scanned, took viewers to experimental short videos by Hankins. I appreciated this option to scan the QR code and escape to Hankin’s world via my phone for a moment, as well as the chance to ground myself in this bustling social environment by holding an uncanny ice cube, with its familiar shape and surprising weight and texture. 

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I followed a swell of noises to the back of the gallery where Hankins was patiently ironing embellishments onto clothing for a growing line of gallery goers. As per the invitation for this event, these attendees either brought their own clothing to receive an iron-on of P.E. memorabilia for $20, or chose an item from a pile of used clothing at the gallery for a $40  customization experience. Several iron-ons featured old photos of the entire P.E. foursome.

I wondered about P.E.’s practice of selling these ultra-personal entry points to their relationship history. Were they conjuring up a level of desirability through these images, or offering those external to their collaboration a sense of being “in”? It reminded me of how social media often functions as a platform of interconnection and longing, playing on the tensions between appearance, intimacy, and FOMO. In any case, the price of P.E.’s memorabilia was right for many, and the activity of customizing clothing seemed temptingly accessible to this crowd of mostly friends who were quite keen to support the group. I found my way into the hype when I discovered a perfect pair of soft briefs in the clothing pile. Hankins helped me embellish them, indulging my compositional choices. At first, I told myself they might make a nice holiday gift for a friend, but I have since decided to keep them. 

While I was there, someone tried to leave with overalls from the clothing pile that were gaskin’s and not for sale. Yamamoto gently intervened—for, as it turned out, both gaskin and Yim were not around that night. As I rummaged through the clothing pile, I noticed some V-neck T-shirts and recalled that this was a popular style from the 2010s when P.E. first congealed into a group. I thought about this process of revamping hipster trends gone by with strategically placed fragments of art, and the act of recontextualizing (maybe even critiquing) personal history by mixing it into the fleeting aesthetics of the times. What  gets to continue sticking around? 

My friend claire barrera, a local choreographer and known punk, said that the whole ordeal felt reminiscent of their days going to music shows—like getting merch from a friend’s show that continues to serve as a sentimental reminder that you were there.

Unexpectedly, from the back of the gallery, Hankins announced that it was time to play a M.A.S.H. I recalled this game from my middle school years—it was the original algorithm for predicting future happiness and/or misery in an uncertain world. That night at the gallery, we played for the future of all P.E. members, of course. Visitors  congregated for the spectacle. Yamamoto wrote out the game on one of the gallery walls, while Hankins live streamed everything from her phone so folks could join virtually. The live stream is still available to watch on P.E.’s Instagram. 

As part of the event, P.E. also projected (and streamed) a video of their first ever performance together as collaborators from 2014. This archival video was filmed on a low resolution camera in an intimate space housing a packed audience. This seven-year-old documentation showcased the collaborators in all of their low-fi charisma and closeness. It felt both recent and long past, which might be the very definition of “nostalgic.” As I watched, I wondered if other dance and performance artists were still organizing these kinds of intimate shows for their friends and community—I sure hope so.

Physical Education will host one last public event at Holding Contemporary on December 18th. Details are available here.

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