This series of performances includes:
A History of Performance in 20 Minutes, a lecture which brings a concise history of the representation of the body in art, portrayed live by an actor, while the curator is talking. It aims at dividing the history of performance in 10 gestures (Appearing, Receiving, Holding Back, Escaping, etc.) discussed very subjectively. Playing with the idea of theatricality, and of curating art with only one’s body and voice, the project has toured internationally.
Vox Artisti, his masters’ voices uses the format of the lecture to propose a personal statement about the relationship between the voice and the visual arts. Working with hundreds of excerpts picked up from sound archives, it creates a forced and artificial conversation between artists, like a musical partition. During the lecture, the room is entirely in the dark. The lecturer remains mute and writes his comments on a computer that is projected on a screen, while the sound excerpts are mixed live by an assistant.
Signs and Wonders, a subjective study of some major figures of modern art, as well as minimal and conceptual art, in the form of a mystical investigation. The work questions the links between forms and signs, art and Kabbalah, coincidences and symbols. The lecture is entirely illustrated through a shadowplay, made on stage by an assistant. An opportunity to measure the illusionist and magical potential of practices that we sometimes too easily pigeon-hole in the category of rationalism.,/br>
Guillaume Désanges is curator and art critic, co-founder of Work Method, a Paris-based agency for artistic projects. He organized the exhibitions “Pick-Up” at Public>, Paris 2004 and STUK, Leuven (Belgium), 2008; “Untouchable, The transparency Ideal” at Villa Arson, Nice and Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, in 2006-2007; “Jiri Kovanda Vs rest of the World” at gallery gb agency, Paris, De Appel (Asmterdam), Centre d’Art Santa Monica (Barcelona); and “Child’s Play” at Biennale Periferic, (Iasi, Rumania), and the Nam June Paik Center (Korea).
New York City, NY; NYC