Working with masks, props, costumes and objects, Bailey Scieszka created an alternative persona, an alien clown named Old Put (pronounced /po͝ot/). The origin of Scieszka’s Old Put has had different gender identities, but is now Millennial-fluid. Scieszka and Old Put first appeared together in the video “Large Larges” (2011). They have since gone on to star in numerous “wrestling promo videos” that mimic “slams.”
Slams are a double-entendre: a performance style and wrestling maneuver using attacks and diatribes à la pseudo slam poetry, a performance style that first appeared in Chicago in 1984. To be specific, a poetry slam is an event in which poets perform before a live audience and, often, a panel of judges. Culturally, poetry slams are a break with the past image of poetry as an elitist or rigid art form. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery.
Using wrestling promos styled after slams, Old Put can explore the notion of desire in all its manifestations. The wrestling promo is a tradition before matches where the stars of the ring—often exaggerated combatants—yell their feelings to their opponents. In Scieszka’s and Old Put’s encounters, physical contact and combat is done verbally, often viscerally, detailing the everyday conflict in American political and social life.
Old Put also stars in a serialized series of original puppet dramas. Beginning at the Detroit PuppetArt Theater workshop in 2013, Old Put has performed their tales in such diverse places as the mansion stairs of Paris Internationale (a prominent art fair) and a dive bar in Zürich. Scieszka’s and Old Put’s unique talents have resulted in numerous collaborations. For example, Old Put’s costume, wig, and make up design were used by the fashion house Eckhaus Latta for a 2017 beauty editorial shot by Sharif Hamza for A Magazine. They have also collaborated with contemporary photographers Oto Gillen and Nicholas Calcott.
Scieszka and Old Put are working in a niche tradition in contemporary art developed by several key female artists: Eleanor Antin, Joan Jonas, Lynn Hershman Leeson or Rachel Rosenthal. Likewise, the protagonist performances of Jack Smith and Paul McCarthy have influenced the fantastic lives and raw emotions that Scieszka and Old Put portray in their slams. Scieszka says, “I’m proud of showing the soft side of hard core.”