art blog
Archives for category: PERFORMANCE ART
THE ABSTRACT GEOMETRY OF THE BODY
‘I want to depict the most romantic idea in the most detached form’ (Oskar Schlemmer, 1915).
OSKAR SCHLEMMER (1888-1943) was a German paintor, sculptor, designer and theatre/dance choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. His most famous work is probably the ‘Triadisches Ballett’/Triadic Ballet in which the actors are transfigured from the normal to geometric shapes. The ballet became the most widely performed avant-garde artistic dance at the time. Schlemmer conceived the human body as a new artistic medium and he saw the movement of puppets and marionettes as aesthetically superior to that of humans. Schlemmer was highly influenced by Cubism - he represented bodies as architectural forms. Click here, to see a clip of the Triadic Ballet by Schlemmer.
Escape Artist: Castaway
Initially the idea for JULIE RRAP’s (b.1950) installation ‘ESCAPE ARTIST:CASTAWAY’ (2009) was based on a hybrid between the figures in Gericault’s painting Raft of the Medusa and Marilyn Monroe in her famous dress standing on the street with the wind effect. This hybrid in turn resulted in new images and affects. The result looks a bit like jump cuts in a film sequence. It deals with place in space and movement. According to Julie Rrap it’s ultimately about the desire to imagine; to imagine is to expand the world in order to inhabit the world more vividly in its virtuality. Julie Rrap has been a major figure in Australian contemporay art for more than three decades. Her work includes photography, sculpture, painting, performance, installation and video in an ongoing project concerned with representations of the body – often using her own body as the subject. She is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney, Australia.
Meltingtime
The Danish artist, KIRSTEN JUSTESEN (b.1943) first encountered the world of ice 27 years ago during a stay in Greenland. Since then, she has developed a body of work centered on her interest in the manifestation of melting time.
”Kirsten Justesen’s activities comprise a wide range of genres, from body art and performance art to sculptures and installation. Justesen was part of the avant-garde scene of the 1960s, where she became a pioneering figure within the three-dimensional modes of art that incorporate the artist’s own body as artistic material. These experiments led her in the direction of the so-called feminist art which challenged traditional value systems during the 1970s. Her later works constitute broader investigations of relationships between body, space, and language.” (Biography).
Kirsten Justesen is represented by Zone Contemporary Art in New York. Justesen graduated from the Royal Academy of fine Arts in 1975, Copenhagen.
Deconstructing the desire to be famous
I saw the performance; Venizke created by the Belgium dance theatre group Victoria/Campo at the Centro Parraga in Murcia, Spain in June 09. Although the short video above doesn’t serve it justice, it was a very intense performance, that I can highly recommend if anyone of you should ever stumble upon the group.
Venizke is co-created by director Lies Pauwels and choreographer Ben Benaouisse. The show uses music by Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse among others to explore the duality of public stars that are damaged. It deconstructs the desire to be famous and the pleasures and pitfalls it can bring.
‘Because, to quote Marilyn Monroe, “when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated”. So through these icons we can touch everybody’s confusion and fragility.’
Shapes of the future
Lucy and Bart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess (based in Amsterdam). They describe their work;
‘as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement’.
Tomorrow, in a year- a darwin electro-opera
TOMORROW, IN A YEAR- A DARWIN ELECTRO-OPERA has worldwide premiere 02.09.09 at the Royal Danish Theatre, in Copenhagen. From what I can tell from the rehearsal video above it looks & sounds like it’s going to be a very funky performance. Here is part of the description of the performance from Hotel Pro Forma’s website:
‘The world seen through the eyes of Charles Darwin forms the basis for the performance ’Tomorrow, in a year’. Theatre production company Hotel Pro Forma’s striking visuals blend with pop-duo The Knife’s ground-breaking music to create a new species of electro-opera.’…… The opera presents an image of Darwin that above all reminds us that the world is a place of remarkable similarities and amazing diversity. That over time – tomorrow, in a year or tomorrow in a million years – change is inevitable’.
