Tim Miller (performance artist)
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| Tim Miller | |
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| Born | 1958-09-22 Pasadena, California |
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| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Performer, writer, performance teacher |
| Employers | UCLA |
| Home town | Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California |
| Known for | Performance art |
| Spouse | Alistair McCartney |
| Website http://members.aol.com/millertale |
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Tim Miller (b. September 22, 1958, Pasadena, California) is an American performance artist and writer, whose pieces frequently involve gay identity and immigration issues. He was one of the NEA Four, four performance artists whose National Endowment for the Arts grants were vetoed in 1990 by NEA chair John Frohnmayer.
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[edit] Biography
He was born in Pasadena, but grew up in nearby Whittier.
Miller has developed shows based on his personal life as a gay man and as an activist. A member of ACT UP and other campaigning organizations, Miller has participated in numerous demonstrations to call for funding of AIDS research and treatment and to promote equal rights. His civil disobedience has led to his arrest on several occasions.[1]
I was seventeen going on eighteen and I was desperate for love and dick. I searched everywhere for it. I hung around the Whittier Public Library, leaning suggestively against the stacks in the psychology section, waiting to be picked up by some graduate student. I leaned too far, once, and almost knocked over an entire row of bookshelves.
– Tim Miller, Boys like us, 1996[2]
[edit] Career
Miller's interest in performance began in high school, where he took classes in theater and dance. At nineteen he moved to New York and studied dance with Merce Cunningham.
In 1980, Miller joined with Charles Moulton and Charles Dennis to found P.S. 122, a space for performance art. The name derives from the former school building that houses the project.
In 1987, Miller returned to California and founded another performance space, Highways, in Santa Monica.
In 1997 Miller published Shirts & Skin, a compilation of personal stories that he had told in his shows over the previous decade. He also launched a show of the same name.
Miller took on a new topic, immigration rights for gay and lesbian partners of American citizens, in Glory Box (1999). The immigration issue is a personal cause as Alistair McCartney, his partner since 1994, is Australian.
In 2002 Miller published Body Blows, a collection of scripts from six of his shows with associated essays.
Miller returned to the theme of the problems of Americans with same-sex life partners in "Us" in 2003. The title refers both to his relationship with McCartney and to the U.S., whose laws could prevent them from being together.[3]
[edit] Productions
| Year | Title |
| 1981 | Live Boys, created with John Bernd |
| 1982 | Postwar |
| 1983 | Cost of Living |
| 1984 | Democracy in America |
| 1985 | Buddy Systems, created with Doug Sadownick |
| 1987 | Some Golden States |
| 1989 | Stretch Marks |
| 1991 | Sex/Love/Stories |
| 1992 | My Queer Body |
| 1994 | Naked Breath |
| 1996 | Fruit Cocktail |
| 1997 | Shirts & Skin |
| 1999 | Glory Box |
| 2002 | Body Blows |
| 2003 | Us |
| 2006 | 1001 Beds[4] |
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ (Gott, 1994) p.150
- ^ (Patrick, 1996)
- ^ Through Thick and Thin, Sebastian Cordoba, 2007, is a documentary on US immigration laws for same-sex couples which features Miller and McCartney as one of the seven couples.
- ^ Burston, Paul (2007-06-04). Queer performance artist Tim Miller talks bed-hopping and whimsy with Time Out. Time Out. Retrieved on 2008-02-07.
[edit] References
- Gott, Ted (1994). Don't leave me this way: art in the age of AIDS. National Gallery of Australia. ISBN 0-642-13030-2.
- Merla, Patrick (1996). Boys like us: gay writers tell their coming out stories. Avon books. ISBN 0-380-97340-5.
- Miller, Tim (1997). Shirts & Skin. Alyson Publications. ISBN 1-55583-425-6.
- Miller, Tim (2002). Body blows: six performances. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-17684-3.
- Miller, Tim (2006). 1001 Beds: Performances, Essays and Travels. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299216942.
