Night of live performances
Published 21 June, 2009, 03:25
Modern art is not only installations, sculpture and painting. It’s much more. Now artists are not only creating their art – they interact in it, and one of the ways is through performance.
And that’s exactly what The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow offers on Saturday night. Performance is one of the most entertaining and visually impressive modern art mediums. However, despite all the new technologies, you must be there and see it with your own eyes to feel the charm of the performance.
“The night of live performances” has on display bright, talented young artists who created their programs especially for this venue.
Tajik art
Project Tajik-art appeared on the art scene not long ago – in the beginning of 2009 they became known through Live Journal, offering remakes of well-known performances of great artists for small amounts of money. The project’s participants are migrant workers from Tajikistan.
In Garage, Tajik-art will show a remake of Santiago Sierra’s performance “465 Paid People”, first shown at the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City in 1999.
This show involves 465 men standing 160 to 170 centimeters tall. The men stand still as “live sculptures”, having turned their back on the entrance to the hall for three hours. This quantity of people – 465 – was originally determined by Santiago Sierra at the rate of five persons per square meter.
The 1920s
Another performance, “1920s Of The 20th Century”, is a literary-musical production recreating the atmosphere of the so-called Silver age in Russian poetry. The performance gives viewers a chance to appear in the world of great Russian poets and writers sitting at one table, reading their poetry aloud and reciting their own works. The action takes place only several meters away from the spectators to provide a stronger impression. Poetry of such famous Russian writers as Marina Tsvetaeva, Mikhail Bulgakov, Konstantin Balmont, Sergei Yesenin and others can be heard in this production.
Art of absurdity
The performance from Sergey Pahomov is, with pleasure, characterised by the artist as “absurd” and “idiotic.” In fact, he labels his creative credo as being absurdity and idiocy. So Pahomov’s art can’t but be considered senseless, shapeless, stupid and thus it is ruthless to the spectator.
Wall-painting
The“Krugozory” project unites a team of painters from CIS countries. In live mode they will paint a 90 square meter wall. In acrylic paints using several colors, the action will involve a group of artists in special suits along with the assistance of a building painting crew of 2 or 3 persons. All participants act in the role of the improvised building brigade which is carrying out an order.
Video art from Francois Pinault’s collection is also being shown to the viewing public.
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