REDCAT Presents Christina Catherine Martinez: AESTHETICAL RELATIONS This Month

On Nov. 11, 2022, Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), CalArts' center for contemporary arts in downtown Los Angeles, proudly presents Aesthetical Relations, an itinerant and irregular live comedy talk show experience, written and hosted by Los Angeles based writer, actor, art critic, and comedian Christina Catherine Martinez.

Incorporating musical and multimedia elements and loosely modeled on the late-night talk show format, Aesthetical Relations features Martinez's favorite comedians performing spectacular feats of entertainment, followed by a brief interview. Bits and interruptions are sprinkled throughout, and the fourth wall is broken, reassembled, and mixed into a smoothie for the audience's pleasure.

"I usually do some kind of running bit or performance in between guests," Martinez says. "Sometimes the guests are characters, sometimes they're playing themselves, and sometimes I just invite someone I've been dying to talk to. No two shows are ever the same."

"With Christina Catherine Martinez, REDCAT moves into experimenting with live comedy for the first time," said Edgar Miramontes, REDCAT's Deputy Executive Director & Curator. "She is a phenomenal performer, mixing art criticism and stand up. I'm keen to see where this takes us and Christina."

After a three year hiatus, the eleventh iteration of Aesthetical Relations makes its REDCAT debut with a custom multimedia set and a new lounge act by Martinez about the decline of Democracy. Featured comedians are yet to be announced.

"A lot of it has to come together at the last moment," Martinez explains. "Aesthetical Relations is a piece of theater that is commenting on the nature of television, but it also has lots of empty space where things can't be scripted or predicted. At the end of the day, it's a comedy show. Once the concept is down, the next step is to ask, how stupid can we make this?"

Christina Catherine Martinez is a writer, actor, art critic, and comedian in Los Angeles. Her live act has been described as "conceptually highbrow and physically slapstick" by TimeOutLA and "like Naomi Klein meets Tallulah Bankhead" by the writer Michelle Tea. She's been named a "Comic to Watch" by TimeOutLA and a "Comedian You Should Know" by Vulture/New York Magazine. She writes for Artforum, Los Angeles Times, Texte Zur Kunst, and also for television, including seasons 5 and 6 of "The ERIC ANDRE Show." She devised and acted in the short-form series "Two Pink Doors" on FX/Hulu, and completed a half-hour comedy special, "How to Bake a Cake in the Digital Age" in January 2022. She is the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and is the author of the essay collection, also named Aesthetical Relations, published by Hesse Press.

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