Jay Critchley: Performance Artist, Activist

JAY CRITCHLEY’s visual, conceptual and performance work and environmental activism have traversed the globe, showing and/or performing in Argentina, Japan, England, Holland, Germany, Columbia and the United States.  He was featured in the LOGO channel’s “Ptown Diaries”, and interviewed by BBC/UK. His solo exhibition at Freight + Volume Gallery in Chelsea, New York City received exciting reviews from the New York Times, The New Yorker and the Village Voice.

A longtime Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA resident, he utilizes the town, landscape, harbor, beaches and dunes as his medium. He founded the patriotic Old Glory Condom Corporation, which won a controversial three-year legal battle for its U.S. Trademark. He produced, wrote and directed several movies and documentaries, including: Toilet Treatments, HBO Audience Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival; The Beige Motel project involved encrusting a 1955 iconic, roadside motel in sand – “an A-frame with wings” before it was demolished.

He has taught at the Museum School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and has had residencies at Harvard University, AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut and Milepost 5 in Portland, Oregon.

Significant awards include a special citation from the Boston Society of Architects for his visionary, environmental proposal, Martucket Eyeland Resort & Theme Park, and an award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum/Smithsonian Museum in NYC for his ecological response to Boston’s Big Dig − mega highway/tunnel project: Big Twig.

Critchley’s social art practice includes running the Provincetown Community Compact, which works with artists and the environment and sponsors the annual Provincetown Harbor Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla, a fundraiser for AIDS and women’s health, founded in 1988.

The videos below were recorded via Zoom, are organized by Success Factor, and run between 30 seconds and 8 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.