Margaret Dragu

© Margaret Dragu, NEW NORMAL an embodied novel: dusk 2 dark, 2019. Photo Henry Chan.

b. 1953, Canada
https://margaretdragu.com/

Margaret Dragu works in video, installation, web/analog publication & performance art. Spanning relational, durational, interventionist, and community-based practices, she has shown her work in Canada, USA and Europe. Dragu was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (Canada Council for the Arts, 2012); the designation of Éminence Grise at the 7A*11D International Festival of Performance Art (Toronto. 2012); and in 2000, she was the first artist featured in FADO Performance Art Centre’s publication series, Canadian Performance Art Legends. Margaret celebrates 50+ years as a working artist. Her favourite art-making material is still the body despite or because of her bionic status as a grateful owner of two hip replacements.

Works

Performance
Transmitting Trio A (1966) with Sara Wookey

Led by Sara Wookey, a group of dance and performance artists learn Yvonne Rainer’s seminal work, Trio A (1966). The starting point for this project is the shared conversation between dance and performance artists around the distinctions between repertoire and reenactment, in particular consideration of how these modes of archiving in live art relate to the increasing interest in presenting performance art and choreography in the museum.
Performance
Cleaning and Loving (It) by Margaret Dragu

This performance art-slash-parade is a celebration of small-scale community ritual and of International Cleaning Lady and performance artist Margaret Dragu’s long-standing love affair with cleaning and laundry.

Writing

Engagements

An Interview with Margaret Dragu

FADO archive resident Jordan King interviews Margaret Dragu about archiving, parades, the domestic, and her 2000 performance Cleaning and Loving It. This interview is one in a series of three interviews by Jordan Beley with select artists about their work at FADO and the archive.

BOOKS & OTHER EPHEMERA

Book
La Dragu: The Living Art of Margaret Dragu 

Published in 2002, this monograph includes articles by Glenn Alteen, Paul Couillard, Andy Fabo, Debbie
O’Rourke and Sarah Sheard; chronology by Brice Canyon; PLUS story & collages by Margaret Dragu.

FADO Performance Art Centre
445-401 Richmond Street West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 3A8

416.822.3219
info@performanceart.ca

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Artist Orange

Just as a performance artist uses their body as their medium, this is a fragrance composed entirely of the orange tree: fruit, leaves, bark, roots, and flowers. Artist Orange performs itself.

Top Notes

neroli, blood orange

Middle Notes

fresh orange juice, petit grain

Base Notes

orange twig, orange seed