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WORK IN PROGRESS
“The only way of expression is to perform. If I put a hierarchy to art, music is at the top because it's so immaterial. After this is performance, then all other art forms.” –Marina Abramović
My current project involves scouring thrift stores across the nation looking to re-create the beloved music collection that belonged to my late brother, Domonick D'Alessandro. As a formerly accomplished singer and musician, a hole was left in my heart after his passing and discovering all of his CDs were lost. I recall fond memories listening to showtunes and singing with him in our childhood residence. There is a thrill to discovering CDs in second-hand shops that spark memories and acquiring them as cherished purchases, especially after they were discarded by their previous owners. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone. With every remembered and rediscovered CD, it’s like I’m finding a piece of my brother and my past all over again.
Upon completion of the collection, I’m going to sing as Domonick for a free public concert. I’m going to fabricate stilt shoes that make my height match my brother’s at 6’6”. I’m going to dress as him, with custom tailored pants fitting over the stilts, and perform songs as close to his male octave and range as I can technically manage. I will be collaborating with a colleague from the Tampa Opera Company for vocal training for this performance.
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TESTIMONIALS
Renee Warmack, Producer
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
"Desiree truly is a powerful woman and creative artist! I was blown away by how she executed her performance art pieces in my Art of Women events. She engages and inspires people while giving life to important messages in her work. She embodies #ClaimYourPower"
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
"Desiree is one of the most disciplined, focused and hyper-productive artists I've encountered. Her deep familiarity and comfort level with life (and art making) in installation and performance, her thirst for knowledge, dedication to research and her considerable ambition make her eminently suited to build bridges between established and emergent modes of art making."
Richard Ross, Photographer
Dick Hebdige, Media Theorist
Richard Ross, Photographer
"Desiree is a wonder. She is an unleashed force of nature. She is not for the faint of heart. Her energy is like no one I have ever encountered. Add to that her ability to internalize a most unusual personal history and present compelling work. She is a very hard act to follow."
Mark Dion, Artist
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
"Desiree D'Alessandro is an extraordinary artist dedicated to making art as a critical and intellectual procedure while exhibiting a rigor and vision of exceptional rarity."
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
"Desiree is an artist of rare talent and considerable conceptual range. Her practice is ideological, often utilizing installation and performance to engage viewers through a multiplicity of levels, accentuating the personal and visceral in a broad spectrum of Emerging Fields: new forms/alternative genres; collective public projects; and new media innovation."
Kip Fulbeck, Artist & Author
Colin Gardner, Media Theorist
Kip Fulbeck, Artist & Author
"Desiree is intelligent and driven, while seeking to push new boundaries with her art practice in ways that are engaging, captivating, and rooted in critical theory. Her work is both smart and spectacle and is very timely in this age of failing traditional boundaries, as she mixes the autobiographical, physical, and personal/created identities."