Michael Portnoy

Can you fu*k to an irregular beat?

We invite you to the New York premiere of Michael Portnoy’s video work Progressive Touch (2020). Progressive Touch depicts three futuristic, absurdist love scenes in which the goal is to “improve” sex by complicating its rhythm and choreography. Sex as dance as comedy. Enacted by three real life couples, the dancers’ every explicit move is synchronized to the propulsive, unpredictable score which borrows elements from progressive rock, trap and math metal.

Originally commissioned by steirischer herbst (Graz, Austria) and co-produced with Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art (Middleburg, the Netherlands) as a three-channel installation, we will be exhibiting the work in a single-screen version which premiered in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 and subsequently traveled to over 30 film festivals internationally.

"hilarious, sexy and joyful"

—Adrian Searle, The Guardian

“a bizarre “improved" vision of sex… intensely funny”

—Garage Magazine | Vice

"...a film that is the rare combination of playful and explicit. It explores gender, power and freedom in an inclusive and humorous way as it creates a refreshing new space between art and pornography."

—Jury of Norwegian Short Film Festival

“An abyss of hedonistic commodification of intimacy played out to perfection... Exaggerated to the point of grotesque, the impressive performances rejected any erotic arousal”

—Eva Scharrer, Spike Magazine

Michael Portnoy is a New York-based artist. Coming from a background in dance and experimental comedy, his performance-based work employs a variety of media: from film and participatory installations to theater, sculpture, writing, painting, and curation. Portnoy is a self-styled "Director of Behavior", and is largely concerned with manipulating language and behavior as a tool for world-bending – satirically “improving" conventions of communication and action so as to liberate people from the structural or socially-constructed limitations of physical and emotional language. He has presented internationally in museums, art galleries, film festivals and theaters, including recently Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg, the Netherlands (2020); Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria (2019 & 2018); Akademie der Künste der Welte, Cologne, Germany (2017); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2017); Playground, Stuk, Leuven, Belgium (2016, 2014); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2016); Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2016); the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2013); The Kitchen, New York, USA (2013); Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012); 11th Baltic Triennial (co-curator), Vilnius, Lithuania (2012); and the Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan (2010). He is a visiting professor at Malmö Art Academy.