Autumn Knight: Sanity TV | Whitney Biennial 2019

Autumn Knight’s ongoing performance series Sanity TV, which began in 2016 during Knight’s residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, takes the form of an imaginary television talk show in which she plays the role of host. The performance is improvisational in structure: Knight moves through the crowd, rearranges the seating, and gives the viewers various prompts, asking them, for instance, to answer absurdist questions or to clap or dance for different “segments” of the show. Provoking laughter and occasional discomfort, Knight uses irrationality as a way to make meaning in the contemporary situation.