Saturday 9 December | Yoshinori Niwa Curates: Performance as Confrontation
A screening of four performances by:
Christian Jankowski
Pilvi Takala
Uri Tzaig
Artur Zmijewski
Christian Jankowski lives and works in Berlin. His works are almost always 'performances' - both literally and figuratively - in so far as his carefully calibrated set-ups and interactive scenarios engage occasionally unsuspecting collaborators: televangelists, fortune-tellers, border guards and professional magicians have all innocently colluded with him to become 'co-authors' of his wide-ranging work.
Pilvi Takala lives and works in Istanbul and Amsterdam. Working with social situations, rules and constructions, Takala's video works deal with the norms of the expected conduct that guides our social behavior and present questions considering our freedom of action and self-determination.
Uri Tzaig lives and works in Israel. He works with multiple media, using techniques to divert the attention of the viewer and challenge his expectations. Tzaig uses a variety of means-juxtaposing objects and images, writing texts, and even incorporating the works of other artists-to evoke sensations that are as nebulous yet inter-connected as those of our daily lives.
Artur Zmijewski lives and works in Warsaw. His works make reference to displaced individuals and societal trauma. At first glance, his images appear to be strictly documentary photographs and video, yet the artist's analytical staging becomes clearly recognizable through the selection of images during the editing process.
This presentation focused on an artistic strategy akin to Niwa’s own practice, operating via public intervention, participation and confrontation. A group of people is either assembled by the artist with specific purpose, or unassumingly breached and co-opted in relation to their own position in society. The public's unpredictable actions and responses become the medium and content of the resulting work.
'Yoshinori Niwa: That Language Sounds Like a Language' was on view at Edel Assanti from 10 November - 21 December 2017.
