Nothing Twice: Visions
Finissage of the Nothing Twice Project
Performative evening
28 March 2015, 6:00 PM
Artists: Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Mary Reid Kelley, Dafna Maimon
Curators: Maaike Gouwenberg and Joanna Zielińska
Programme:
Dafna Maimon, Epilogue – The Unbearable Presence Of Roots (2015). Performance in English with a Polish interpretation. Performers: Andrew Kerton and Dafna Maimon
Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, Priapus Agonistes (2013), 15:09 min. Film in English with Polish subtitles, with a written Polish translation handed out before the screening.
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Vision Verticale (2015), 31 min. Commissioned by the CNES Space Station, co-funded by Fondation de France through Le Consortium, Dijon. French with Polish subtitles.
Mary Reid Kelley razem z Patrickiem Kelley, Priapus Agonistes, 2013, 1509 min, klatki z filmu HD.
In the field of visual arts in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there has been a marked interest in performative activities and a movement towards narrative art. A discussion has been going on about methods of collecting performance art, which – due to its specific nature – has been poorly represented in institutional collections. The ephemeral character of performance art has been presenting an ever-greater challenge to curators thinking about an exhibition in performative terms. Artists continue to search for new formats, transferring to the stage works of art from other fields, as Alexandre Singh has done in his theatre production The Humans, or transforming an exhibition into a performance as Marina Abramović, Tino Sehgal, Mark Leckey and Mike Kelley have done.
The project Nothing Twice, realised on the occasion of the opening of the new home of Cricoteka combined the exhibition format with living art, pointing to artistic strategies that make it possible to activate objects within an exhibition space.
Nothing Twice: Visions explores the performative potential of film, installation and exhibition. During the course of one evening, we will be showing works of female artists who use performance as the means of creative expression.
Dafna Maimon transforms the installation The Unbearable Presence of Roots – that consists of a two-channel video projection and a sculpture of an oversized carrot – into a performance. One of the film characters ‘escapes’ from the film frame and the ghost of the carrot comes to live. The artist is interested in how matter and identities collide, depend upon each other, take each other’s role, and are manifested in the narrative and filmic world versus the physical, sculptural world.
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd’s film Vision Verticale was made following the theme of her exhibition in Le Consortium, Dijon, in 2014. In her film, the artist employs sculptures and installations as a stage set for the narrative. The action takes place in an astronomical observatory. The protagonists are hand puppets made using the artist’s distinctive technique involving papier-mâché, which is often used in the theatre to make masks and stage sets.
Mary Reid Kelley films her protagonists in black-and-white sets purpose made for the video recording. The characters wear idiosyncratic masks, which make them look like dolls. In her films, Kelley also uses elements of animation. The film Priapus Agonistes, as in the artist’s other works, combines different contexts and historical epochs. Patrick Kelley writes the rhyming text.
What the works presented during Nothing Twice: Visions have in common is their sophisticated artistic idiom and an innovative approach to the contemporary media at the disposal of today’s art.
Partners: Ambasada Królestwa Niderlandów, Muzeum Stedlijk w Amsterdamie, Krakowski Festiwal Teatralny Reminiscencje, British Council, Konsulat Generalny USA w Krakowie, Teatr „Bagatela” im. Tadeusza Boya-Żeleńskiego
Media Patronage: TVP Kultura, TVP Kraków, Radio Kraków, Tygodnik Powszechny, O.pl, Telewizja M, Magazyn SZUM
