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photo of Agnieszka Kurant's work

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photo of Nezaket Ekici's work

Published: 30 kwietnia 2012 Views: 2349 Art, Exhibitions

Theatre of Life

Life, life itself… is the absolute art!

Exhibition opening: Friday, 18th May, 7 PM
Saturday 19th May, from 12 AM to 12 PM for European Night of Museums, free entrance for intense program of performances, lectures and screenings
19th May at 6.30 PM: lecture Art Tribes by Achille Bonito Oliva

Artists: John Cage, Yoko Ono, Marina Abramović, Valie Export, Natalia LL, John Baldessari, Neša Paripović, Ulay, Marek Sobczyk, Katarzyna Kozyra, Maurizio Cattelan, David Michalek, Pierre Bismuth, Jonathan Monk, Vanessa Beecroft, João Onofre, Francesco Vezzoli, Gil Kuno, Partick Tuttofuoco, Nezaket Ekici, Pilvi Takala, Marlene Haring, Ana Prvački, Mihoko Ogaki, Malin Ståhl, Branko Milisković, Francesco Fonassi, Nicola Ruben Montini, Lerato Shadi, Maks Cieślak.

Curated by: Dobrila Denegri


 

When Yves Klein pronounced this words for the first time they were highly provocative. Not only they undermined conventional notions of art, they also anticipated all those artistic strategies which, on the turn of ‘60s to ‘70s, expanded to the highest extent  boundaries of art, seeking to merge it with all other expressive languages.


Theatre of Life
: One and Many Actions is exhibitive project dedicated to this artistic practices which looked for confluence between art, experimental music, new dance and theatre. It aim to highlight those practices that, not only blew boundaries between mentioned disciplines, but most of all challenged social conventions in search for alternative models of art and life, announcing and propelling liberating energies that shook the world in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Fluxus, performance, body art and all those tendencies that put the focus on the action and on the body (of the artist) as the subject and the object of an artwork should be a point of departure for the exhibition which aims to explore ways in which younger generations are addressing the same topics. Anarchic, freeing and even heroic gestures of the art of ‘60s and ‘70s, their’s theatricality and subversiveness still echo in the practices of the younger generations, even though the emphasis today seems to be more on repetition than on uniqueness, as well as on the re-enactment as the strategy for expressing the new.

Why redo? Why re-perform? What are the motivations that drives artists, especially those of the younger generations, to re-visit works/actions done decades ago?

This would be the one, but not the only focal point of the exhibition. Another would explore dichotomies action/inactivity; motion/stillness, presence/absence.

Silence, slowness, minimal gestures are common features recognisable in the works of younger performers, and this show would like to investigate how reduced expressive language is capable of producing intense and involving artistic statements.

Departing from some of the topical works by Yoko Ono, Valie Export, Marina Abramovic or Natalia LL, this show should be like a voyage through the multiplicity of “bodyscapes”, which might be static or in motion, live or on film.

Theatre of Life will be also a journey through challenging and provocative statements through which contemporary artists (Cattelan, Beecroft, Vezzoli, Kozyra, Montini, Haring) addressed conventions of patriarchal society, political or religious authorities, sexual freedoms as well as art-taboos. The show will be enriched by monumental work from Unicredit art collection, Partrick Tuttofuoco’s “Chinese Theatre”: an auditorium in which will be screened selection of interconnected works by John Baldessari, Joao Onofre, Jonathan Monk and Pierre Bismuth, which will function as exhibition within an exhibition.

For the evening of opening, on 18th of May, and for the whole next day, Saturday, 19th of May, exhibitive spaces of CoCA will be animated by numerous live performances which will turn the museum and exhibition in a “total performative event” which will include artists as well as the public.

Theatre of Life is a second in a series of exhibitions started in 2011 with Spaceship Earth and it will be accompanied by a catalogue with essays by the curator Dobrila Denegri, historian of art and philosophy Thomas McEvilley, art-historians and curators Cristiana Perrella and Piotr Lisowski.

Exhibition will be accompanied by series of lectures and presentations by younger artists who are taking part in the show: Gil Kuno, Nezaket Ekici, Marlene Haring, Malin Ståhl, Branko Milisković, Francesco Fonassi, Nicola Ruben Montini and on 19th of May at 6.30 pm, as a special event open to the large public, will be the lecture by one of the most famous Italian art critics, father of Transavanguardia, Achille Bonito Oliva.

 

  • photo of Marlene Haring's work
    Marlene Haring, Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Anna Prvacki's work
    Anna Prvacki, Do It Yourself Chivalry, 2009 Video still from Do It Yourself Chivalry, courtesy NA
  • photo of Lerato Shadi's work
    Lerato Shadi
  • photo of Yoko Ono
    Yoko Ono with I'll be back, 2010, installation in Studio Stefania Miscetti, photo by Marco Delogu, courtesy: the artist and Studio Stefania Miscetti
  • photo of Marlene Harring's work
    Marlene Harring, Haring Every Hair
  • photo of Marlene Haring's work
    Marlene Haring, Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Mihoko Ogaki's work
    Mihoko Ogaki, Milky Way - Breath02, material: FRP, LED with dimmer, wood size: 190.5 x 107 x 108 cm, year: 2010
  • photo of David Michalek's work
    David Michalek, Slow Dancing, 2007, video installation, color, loop, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Branko Miliskovic's work
    Branko Miliskovic The Song of a Soldier on Watch ( WW3 Lili Marlene), Brussels 2011, photo by. Dominika Sobolewska
  • photo of Malin Stahl's work
    Malin Stahl, Black up Clowns Becoming Trees
  • photo of David Michalek's work
    David Michalek, Slow Dancing, 2007, video installation, color, loop, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of David Michalek's work
    David Michalek, Slow Dancing, 2007, video installation, color, loop, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Malin Ståhl's work
    Malin Ståhl, Miss Wedding. Broadstairs. performance photo, 2009, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Marina Abramovic's work
    Marina Abramovic, Cutting the Star, 1976 / 1997, video installation, color, loop, courtesy: Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome
  • photo of Pilvi Takala's work
    Pilvi Takala, The Trainee / Working at Deloitte for a Month, 2008, video installation, c color, loop, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Patrick Tuttofuoco's work
    Patrick Tuttofuoco, Chinese Theatre, 2008, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Nicola Ruben Montini's work
    Nicola Ruben Montini, No-Time Relation, performance / photos and video, 2010, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Mihoko Ogaki's work
    Mihoko Ogaki, Milky Way - Breath 01, 2009, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Katarzyna Kozyra's work
    Katarzyna Kozyra, Castrato, 2006, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Nezaket Ekici's work
    Nezaket Ekici, Veiling and Revealing, 2009, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of David Michalek's work
    David Michalek, Portraits in Dramatic Times, 2011, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Marina Abramović & Ulay's work
    Marina Abramović & Ulay, Imponderabilia, 1977, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • exhibition view
    from left: Yoko Ono, Instructions for Paintings, 1960-1964, My mommy is beautiful, 2004-2012, Cut Piece, 1965 / 2003, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Yoko Ono's work
    Yoko Ono, My mommy is beautiful, 2004-2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of David Michalek's work
    David Michalek, Portraits in Dramatic Times, 2011, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Nesa Paripović's work
    Nesa Paripović, Tangent, 2006-2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Patrick Tuttofuoco's work
    Patrick Tuttofuoco, Chinese Theatre, 2008, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Ana Prvacki's work
    Ana Prvacki, Music Derived Painkiller with Wandering Band, 2009, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Joao Onofre's work
    Joao Onofre, Catriona Shaw Sings “Baldessari Sings LeWitt” Re-edit “Like a Virgin” Extended Version, 2003, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • photo of Francesco Fonassi's work
    Francesco Fonassi, IR, shoot for isolation, series of sonic acts | dvd video, 4'10'' | vinyl 33rpm series, 2010, courtesy: the artist
  • photo of Nezaket Ekici's work
    Nezaket Ekici, Form it able ( berlin version), performance installation 2010, presented at: Solo Exhibition Zitate, Performance at Theaterforum Kreuzberg, DNA Gallery Berlin, 3.9.-16.10.2012; Photo by Stefan Erhard
  • photo of Katarzyna Kozyra's work
    Katarzyna Kozyra, Il Castrato / Kastrat, 2006, film, z cyklu W sztuce marzenia stają się rzeczywistością, kadr z filmu, dzięki uprzejmości artystki
  • photo of Maurizio Cattelan's work
    Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled, 1996, b&w photography, courtesy: Raffaella and Stefano Sciarretta’s Collection, Nomas Foundation, Rome
  • photo of John Baldessari's work
    John Baldessari, Baldessari Sings LeWitt, 1972, video on DVD, 13 min., courtesy: Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
  • photo of Marlene Haring's work
    Marlene Haring, Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Francesco Fonassi's work
    Francesco Fonassi, Three Minutes, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Gil Kuno's work
    Gil Kuno, Ping-phony, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Gil Kuno's work
    Gil Kuno, Ping-phony, 2012, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Branko Miliskovic's work
    Branko Miliskovic, The Song of a Soldier on Watch (WW3 Lili Marlene), CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • photo of Branko Miliskovic's work
    Branko Miliskovic, The Song of a Soldier on Watch (WW3 Lili Marlene), CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Szabelski
  • performance view
    Theatre of life, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech
  • performance view
    Theatre of life, CoCA 2012, photo by Wojtek Olech

 

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