Janet Biggs
Janet Biggs is an American artist, known for her work in video, photography and performance art. Biggs lives and works in New York City. Biggs' work focuses on individuals in extreme landscapes or situations and often navigates territory between art and science. Often working in collaborations with neuroscientists, aerospace engineers, astrophysicists and robots, her work draws connections between physical terrains and psychological, societal, or political dynamics. In her videos, Biggs focuses on individuals in extreme landscapes, such as the Taklamakan desert of Western China, the Horn of Africa, the Arctic, and the Mars Desert Research station. Her work explores challenges faced by diverse groups including the Uighurs, Indonesian sulfur miners and Yemini refugees. She has captured such events as kayaks performing a synchronized ballet in Arctic waters and a NASCAR pit crew's grace struggle to service a racecar. Biggs’ work has taken her into areas of conflict in the Horn of Africa and to Mars (as a crew member at the Mars Desert Research Station). She has collaborated with neuroscientists, Arctic explorers, aerospace engineers, astrophysicists, miners, Yemeni refugees, and a robot. Her earlier video work dealt with issues of psychosis and psychotropic drugs. Biggs was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts in 2018. Recent work Biggs' work will be presented at the 2021 Armory Show, Javits Center, New York City, from 9–12 September 2021. Her work will be shown at a featured solo booth as part of “Focus,” a curatorial initiative curated by Wassan Al-Khudhairi. In addition to videos, Biggs' recent work includes multi-discipline performances, often including multiple large-scale videos, live musicians, artificial intelligence, paraplegics and athletes. Her newest work incorporates footage shot by Biggs at refugee camps in Djibouti, in Ethiopian badlands, and at Mars simulations in Utah and the Himalayas. She has recently trained in space medicine, equestrian vaulting and arctic kayaking. On April 8, 2021 Janet Biggs presented a livestream performance, "Singular Value Decomposition," emerging from a collaboration between Arts at CERN, the official arts program of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Integrated Arts Research Initiative (IARI) at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas (KU). On 30 July 2020, Biggs created an experimental live online performance at Fridman Gallery in New York City. While Biggs directed remotely, singer and dancer Mary Esther Carter performed, accompanied by an Artificial intelligence entity named A.I. Anne, which was created by composer and music technologist Richard Savery. Also in July 2020, the Boca Raton Museum of Art presented a new installation by Biggs, "Solitary Acts." In June 2019, Biggs presented 'Overview Effect', an exhibition of new video work, at the Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York City. As part of this exhibition, Biggs' premiered "How the Light Gets In," a multi-media performance, at the Theater at the New Museum. In December, 2018, Biggs had solo exhibitions and film screenings at the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre and the Museum of Science and the Cosmos in the Canary Islands. In May