Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana presents Dancing Studies, a series of new performances created by a group of internationally-renowned choreographers, invited by Carlos Basualdo and Caroline Bourgeois – curators of the exhibition Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies to develop a project in dialogue with the work of the American artist.
An inventory of the limitless potential of the human body in the performing space – the locus and the subject of action that highlights the stubborn heroism of repetition, the passion of exploring a multiplicity of motions, gestures, actions. By the late 1960s, Bruce Nauman, then a student interested in mathematics as well as in the visual arts, finds himself at the crossroads of the birth of ‘performance’ and the ability to turn every gesture, every word, every corporeal sequence into a breathing cell of sense – existential as much as it is artistic. Exhibition Contrapposto Studies, curated by Caroline Bourgeois and Carlos Basualdo, will be open at Punta della Dogana until November 27.
If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product (Bruce Nauman)
It is an exploration of over fifty years of work by the American artist, from his early homespun videos from 1968 and 1969, in then-typical out- of-focus black and white, to recent installations that make use of the latest cutting-edge video and audio technology. The exhibition may be interpreted as a synthesis of the incredible process of reproductive art from those years to the present, and as a collection of possibilities of visual and conceptual exploration it grants. While in his famous 1968 installation Walk with Contrapposto, Nauman walks, hands behind his neck, in a narrow corridor in his studio. We see him alternately from the front and from behind. In his 2015 work, inspired by the former, the artist keeps walking in the studio, again in contrapposto, though this time his figure is multiplied by seven and digitally altered. The disturbing allure of his earlier work is not there anymore, though today, technology creates an alienating monumentality in the composition of a multiplied body.
While the exhibition can be read as research work on the adaptive potential of the human body, given the limits of urban space, the intuition of the curators to pair the exhi- bition with an original performance programme – Dancing Studies – seems appropriate. From April to June, original dances by international choreographers will represent the latest trends of dance/performance art. From April 2 to 10, programme Manual Labors will offer live performances by musicians and dancers, a selection of video art, and a new piece by Forsythe. On April 22 and 23, Sonatas and Interludes by Lenio Kaklea will be staged, with the participation of pianist Orlando Bass. On May 1 to 5, Pam Tanowitz will present Dancing the Studio at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, inspired by Nauman’s Mapping the Studio.
Contrapposto Studies
Until 27 November 2022
Punta della Dogana
Dancing Studies
2 April-19 June 2022
Punta della Dogana, Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, COSMO
www.palazzograssi.it
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