Greek-Swiss artist and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis explores the codes that govern gesture and movement, exploring the intersections of performance, feminism, pop culture, and dance. She is a two-time winner of the Swiss Art Award, and has performed at significant institutions including the Tate and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Read MoreBachzetsis was born in Switzerland in 1974 to a Swiss mother and Greek father. Through the 1990s, she studied at the Liceo Artistico, Zurich; Accademia Teatro Dimitri, Verscio; and STUK – House for Dance, Image & Sound, Leuven. Bachzetsis completed postgraduate studies at DasArts, Amsterdam University of the Arts, in the early 2000s.
During her studies, Bachzetsis also worked as a dancer with contemporary dance companies including Sasha Waltz & Guests (Berlin) and les ballets C de la B (Ghent). These early experiences of collaboration and multiplicity of bodies and voices continue to inform Bachzetsis' performance and choreography, which she began to pursue independently from 2001.
Bachzetsis' largely collaborative practice borrows performative language from diverse sources within contemporary culture to explore how identity is expressed through the performed, staged body. She works across dance, performance, theatre, and the visual arts. Hendrik Folkerts has noted the influence of the choreographic practices of Trisha Brown, Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer on the work of Bachzetsis.
One of Bachzetsis' first independently choreographed performances, Perfect (2001), plays with the idea of 'accidental porn' in popular culture as seen in examples of 'food porn' and workout videos. Wearing high heels, blue jeans, and a white t-shirt, the artist is seen to perform a composite of standardised fitness routines and dance moves to various popular soundtracks.
The robotic repetition of gestural bodily movements transforms what might have been an alluring performance under the male gaze, to an exhausting battle with the constrictions of absurd choreography and increasingly hot studio lights.
Bachzetsis reprised the performance for Rehearsal (Ongoing) (2021) at Karma International, Zurich. Other performances by Bachzetsis exploring movement and pop music include Showing (2002) and Gold (2004).
At Tate Modern in 2014, Bachzetsis presented From A to B via C, a three-person performance that has seen further reprises and iterations for different venues since. Choreographed by Bachzetsis, the work features the artist performing with Anne Pajunen and Gabriel Schenker, each wearing lycra bodysuits. Inspired by Diego Velázquez's painting, Venus at her Mirror (1599–1600), the performers enact a rendition of the scene, with bodies moving towards and away from each other, acting as asynchronous mirror images. From A to B via C questions the idea of transference in language, and considers the performing body as an indicator of meaning.
In the Dada-inspired group performance Massacre: Variations on a Theme (2016), three female dancers carry out a 'ballet méchanique', performing to a live score for two pianos, one of which is automated. Echoing the oscillation of human and machine-made sound, the dancers switch between spasmodic gestures, animalistic movements, and the up-tempo rhythms of Northern Soul dancing. Each movement transmits sequentially from one performer to the next. Massacre explores the formation of gender and sexual identities in a mechanized, commercialised world.
Bachzetsis' later works reflect in-depth examinations of rituals around seduction, attraction, and sexual identity that take place in theatre and performance.
In the three-channel video work 2020: Obscene (2020), Bachzetsis examines the ambiguous relationship between the 'obscene', and the 'scene' that is acted and staged, through body, text, and image. With three co-performers, Bachzetsis explores theatre as a 'manipulation machine' that stages the excessive body to be consumed by the coveting gaze. Within this, she explores alienation and limitations of the performing body itself, confronting performers with their own bodily existence.
Bachzetsis has presented multiple performances at public venues, including Massacre: Variations on a Theme at MoMA, New York (2017); and PRIVATE: Wear a mask when you talk to me and Private Song at High Line, New York (2018); and Chasing a Ghost, commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago (2019).
Bachzetsis has received numerous awards, including the Migros-Kulturprozent Jubilee Award (2007); the Swiss Art Award (2011, 2016); and the Swiss Performance Prize (2012). In 2011, she was nominated for the DESTE Prize.
Alexandra Bachzetsis has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Solo exhibitions include Chasing a Ghost, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam), Luxembourg (2020); From A to B via C, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, (2014); The Stages of Staging, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); Show, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2008).
Group exhibitions include documenta 14: Learning from Athens, Athens/Kassel (2017); Elevation 1049, Lumen Foundation, Switzerland (2014); If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution (Edition II), De Appel, Amsterdam (2007); Emotion Pictures, M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (2005).
Alexandra Bachzetsis' website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found here.
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2022
