Performa 2023 to Revisit Art History’s ‘Big Bang’
Nora Turato, Haegue Yang, Julien Creuzet, and Nikita Gale will create new commissions for this year's festival, which explores the radical contribution of conceptual art.
Nora Turato, eeeexactlyyy my point. (2021). Exhibition view: Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (17 September 2022–15 January 2023). Courtesy the artist; LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina; Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zürich. Photo: David Stjernholm.
Performa has announced the theme and four of the artists commissioned to make work for this year's celebration of performance art by visual artists, which takes place from 1 to 19 November.
'This year, we will explore the enormous legacy of conceptual art—a movement that was so radical that it can be considered art history's big bang in the way that it transformed fundamental notions of art and how it is made,' said Performa's Founding Director and Chief Curator, RoseLee Goldberg.
Nora Turato will present a new monologue inspired by therapies and self-improvement strategies such as neurofeedback, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, holotropic breathwork, and long-distance running.
The monologue will be paired with graphics in a new serif font inspired by the Industrial Age.
Turato, who trained both as a graphic designer and with a Hollywood voice coach, is interested in the ways typography and vocal delivery can subconsciously influence audiences.
In her performance, Haegue Yang will revisit Marguerite Duras' novella The Malady of Death (1982), which tells the story of a man called 'you' who pays a woman called 'her' to teach him how to love. The text has been part of Yang's practice since 2008.
Julien Creuzet connects the dots between different movements discovered on Instagram, all led by members of the African diaspora, for his first large-scale performance. Creuzet will represent France at the next Venice Biennale.
Nikita Gale's performance combines light, live sound, and atmospheric elements in a meditation on labour, visibility, and weather.
Born in Alaska and based in Los Angeles, Gale's past work includes the 2022 solo exhibition IN A DREAM YOU CLIMB THE STAIRS, in which she used bowls of water, the sound of whistles, and leads dipped in concrete to examine humans' use of dogs to extend their own sense of self.
Additional artists will be announced at a later date.
Performa will take place at spaces across New York City over three weeks. It will feature events and talks at the Performa Hub, and the return of Performa's Pavilions Without Walls programme, which this year shines a light on artistic practices from Finland. —[O]
