Blank Banquet

Blank Banquet is a new exhibition developed by Joel Cocks and Tarren Johnson, concerned with communication and thresholds of language.

At the heart of the exhibition is the deconstruction of Cornelia’s Room, Johnson and Cocks’ experimental operetta. The script addresses feminine desire and explores the potential of a message to gain its own force independent of the speaker or recipient.

The titular Cornelia is pursued by Ivor, who hopes they might meet on the occasion of the eclipse. Alas, his messenger, the Black Dragon, absconds with the messages, forcing Ivor to confront her directly. Framed as a Romantic Drama, it is Cornelia who constructs an independent meaning of the relationship from her own desire and emotion. Through this misdirected romance, Cornelia’s Room highlights the parallels between diplomatic and romantic correspondence.

Large-scale mosaics composed of photographs drawn from the artists’ archives reshape the gallery’s architecture and act as scenic backdrops for two durational performances.

Writer Olamiju Fajemisin’s reading of the script is played from speakers embedded within the mosaics and forms the soundtrack for the accompanying video work, Dripfeed Episode 6: Succubus. This episode continues Johnson’s and Cocks’ ongoing series that captures the boundary between creation and collapse, exploring how narratives fracture, evolve, and resist coherence. An actor’s headshot, plastered around the streets of Paris appears as a cosmic answer, amongst vignettes of pedestrians, lovers and shoppers. Edited to retain Fajemisin’s occasional line errors, Succubus refuses to easily parse meaning, embellished with visual and linguistic obstructions.

Blank Banquet reflects on the containment and release of information, as well as the processes of alignment and separation underpinning every encounter.

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Tarren Johnson, an American artist and choreographer from Southern California, and Joel Cocks, an artist from Ōtautahi, have collaborated since 2016. Together, they have developed an evolving archive that includes performances in different states of completion, as well as photographs and videos from various productions and their personal lives. Johnson and Cocks recontextualise this material to create new works that explore fragmentation, cultural reproduction, and the peripheries of spectacle.

Their collective work has been presented at Systema, Marseille; Bologna.cc, Amsterdam; and Paris Internationale’s public programme; as well as Volksbühne, Berlin; HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Tanzhaus Zürich; Les Urbaines, Lausanne; Sophiensæle, Berlin; and Festspielhaus Hellerau. Tarren has performed at venues and festivals such as Festival d’Avignon; Festival d’Automne à Paris; Faurschou New York; Romaeuropa; Manifesta 11; and Art Basel. Together, they were laureates of La Becque’s 2021 program and the Cité Internationale des Arts residency in Paris in 2024. In March 2025, they will debut their play We Don’t Live Here Anymore at New Theater Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Thank you to Christchurch City Council, Toi Ōtautahi and Toi Auaha for generously supporting this exhibition and related events.