Moments

A story of performance art in 10 acts

How does one convey and interpret an ephemeral art form like performance? The exhibition Moments presents live acts and develops new formats which feature an active, non-museum-like representation of performance history. Its main focus is on the “heroic” period of performance from the 1960s to the 1980s. During these decades, a number of primarily female performers did much to radically redefine the genre. Artists like Marina Abramović, Graciela Carnevale, Simone Forti, Anna Halprin, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Reinhild Hoffmann, Channa Horwitz, Sanja Iveković, Adrian Piper and Yvonne Rainer re-examined, among other things, male-coded constructions of viewing and behaviour.
The invited artists have been asked to document their own historic performances in self-designed installations. A group of younger colleagues, directed by the renowned French choreographer Boris Charmatz, will produce a scenic act comprised of ten key moments of performance history, which the Israeli artist Ruti Sela and her film team will document in an artistic-cinematic piece. The resulting film will be produced during the course of the exhibition. A group of students from renowned European universities will accompany the entire process. The exhibition oscillates between medial documentation and re-interpretation, memory and first-hand experience. It hopes to tie into the current debates about the adequate representation of past performances and present alternatives to re-enactments and museum-like preservation.

Artistic directors: Boris Charmatz (FR), Sigrid Gareis, Georg Schöllhammer (AT)
Artists: Marina Abramović (USA/RS), Graciela Carnevale (AR), François Chaignaud (FR), Simone Forti (I/USA), Anna Halprin (USA), Nikolaus Hirsch, Lynn Hershman Leeson (USA), Reinhild Hoffmann, Channa Horwitz (USA), Sanja Iveković (HR), Lenio Kaklea (GR), Adrian Piper (USA/D), Johannes Porsch (AT), Yvonne Rainer (USA), Jan Ritsema (NL/F), Ruti Sela (IL), Christine De Smedt (B), Gerald Siegmund, Burkhard Stangl (AT), Meg Stuart (USA/D)

From 8 March to 29 April 2012 at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
The exhibition opens on 17 March 2012 at 4 pm.