"Charles Atlas: Portrait of a Brain" by Hans Ulrich Obrist

In today’s internet culture, everyone is a performer. But in the 70s, when artist Charles Atlas first started out making Super 8 films and collaborating with the likes of Merce Cunningham, Michael Clark, and Leigh Bowery, drag and rhythm were the stuff of the underground scene. Across a career as long as it is diverse—spanning from docu-fantasy to mathematics, from TV to TikTok—his lexicon remains one of raw energy and omnivorous imagination.

HANS ULRICH OBRIST:

I wanted to start by asking you how it all began. How did you come to art? How did art come to you? Was there an epiphany?

CHARLES ATLAS:

Not really. I started out with Super 8 film. I just wanted to make movies. In 1973, Merce Cunningham asked me to collaborate with him on video. In those early years, video and film weren’t really considered part of the art world—I didn’t have a real gallery until 1999.

HUO

And what prompted you to record? Because you have one of the most extraordinary archives. I was introduced to the idea of the archive by Jonas Mekas. In the early 90s, when I began curating, I was telling him that I have all these conversations with artists and I go to all these performances, and Jonas said, “You’ve got to film it all, and you will regret it one day if you don’t.”

CA

I took my camera to archive material in the 80s when I went out to clubs. I was always filming what was going on on the stage—the cabaret and the performance art. The stages were barely lit, and I was drunk and stoned at the time when I was recording. And also the camera I was using had an omnidirectional microphone, so you can really mostly hear my laugh. I laugh a lot. That’s the main sound.

HUO

In many interviews, you say that drag is your favorite thing.

CA

Well, I mean, it was the club culture of the late 80s and early 90s. My main hangout was the Pyramid Club, which had a drag show every Sunday night. It was underground culture at its best. The way it developed, the way drag is now, is more like mainstream commercial entertainment. I don’t really go for the whole Drag Race thing. I prefer the more raw, unfinished looks and takes.

Read full interview at kaleidoscope.media