As part of a suite of three public performances completed in Washington, DC last Spring, artist Wilmer Wilson IV created 3 separate skins over his body, comprised of increasing values of US postage stamps, and walked through the city to post offices, asking to be mailed. The piece was inspired by the story of Henry “Box” Brown, a 19th century American slave who escaped to freedom by mailing himself, in a box, to the free north.
On occasion of Pawel Althamer’s solo show, Museion has been literally invaded by around 70 entirely white human figures. These sculptures were created for the exhibition “Almech” at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin: the venue was converted into a workshop for the duration of the show, temporarily relocating the artist’s father’s company, Almech, which is based near Warsaw and produces plastic containers.
The staff of the Deutsche Guggenheim, a fair number of people from the art world, but above all members of the public had the opportunity to take part in this collective creative project: the Polish assistants of Pawel and his father travelled to Berlin to make plaster casts of participants’ faces, which they then mounted on metal structures. The forms of the sculptures were then modelled using plastic to coat the metal structures, like a “synthetic white flesh”.
The result of this collective creative process, open to the public, took the form of this crowd of pale sculptures: part zombies, part creatures from an unknown civilization.
A key part of Althamer’s work is indeed based on breaking down the boundaries of an institution, or at least rendering them fluid, and this occasion featured a continuation of the project “Common Task”. This project saw a group of people from Brodno and friends of Pawel’s, all dressed in gold clothing, travelling on a gold plane to Brasilia, Brussels, Oxford and Mali. On this occasion a gold bus took the Polish group to South Tyrol and then on to Munich.
The sculpture project and performance led to the publication of the catalogue Polyethylene. Common Task, published by Mousse.
-
until 26 August 2012
Janine Antoni (b. January 19, 1964 -, in Freeport, Bahamas ) is a contemporary artist whose work focuses mostly on process. She often uses her whole body of different parts of it, such as her mouth, hair, eyelashes, and brain as tools and with them performs everyday activities to create her artwork. For example, in Loving Care(1992) Antoni uses her hair as a paintbrush and Loving Care hair dye as her paint. Antoni dips her hair in a bucket of hair dye and mops the gallery floor on her hands and knees and in the process pushes the viewers out of the gallery space.
Roberto Kusterle was born in Gorizia ( Italy ) in 1948.
Since the Seventies he works within the field of the Visual Arts, devoting himself to painting and installation works. Since 1988 his interest for photograhy begins, that has become his primary way to express himself. He lives and works in Gorizia.
Manuel Vason was born in Padova Italy in 1974. Whilst studying at the University of Social Science, Padova, he decided to become a photographer and moved to Milan. In 1998 he moved to London and whilst assisting some of the most highly regarded photographers in the fashion industry he started the project ”Exposure” a publication on Live Performance Art (Black Dog Publishing, 2001). In September 2003 He graduated from Central Saint Martins in Fine Art.
Manuel Vason’ fashination for the human body found its best manifestation when associated with the notion of Performance. His work could be viewed as series of studies on the possibilities of the human body’s expression.
Inspired by a report for the press, La Chute makes the link between photojournalism and contemporary art. It stages - without special effect - in perfectly mastered compositions, dancers seized in an instant with a jump. The series constitutes a political metaphor of the situation of current youth.
Denis Darzacq
Born in 1961 in Paris. Lives in Paris.
