“MOMENTS. A History of Performance in 10 acts”

2012, March – April

I was a “witness” at the ZKM in Karlsruhe within the exihibition “MOMENTS. A History of Performance in 10 acts” curated by Sigrid Gareis, Georg Schollhammer and Boris Charmatz. The curatorial idea was to reflect upon ways to exhibit 10 women pioneer (political) performance artists’ work (Marina Abramović, Simone Forti, Sanja Iveković, Graciela Carnevale, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Yvonne Rainer, Adrian Piper etc.) by inviting the artists themselves to live in the museum, by inviting contemporary artists and theoreticians (Ian Ritsema, Boris Charmatz, Christine De Smedt, Meg Stuart, Burkhard Stang etc.) to reflect and act upon the possibilities of reenactment, by inviting a filmmaker (Ruti Sela) to documment what she considered worth docummenting (the pioneer’s works’ „relics” or the (re)enactments of the contemporary artists in the frame of an open lab and, last, but not least 10 young witnesses (artists and thoreticians) were invited to witness the whole process and also reflect on the terminology „witness” by deciding when to be contemplative and passive and when to act or react.
The main curatorial requirement has been for me to constantly consider and reconsider my positioning there. When interventions, my actions were: a proposal to all the witnesses to sleep for 1h in the exhibition space (where we would anyway somehow live 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 2 months); a 10’ performative presentation of Simone Forti’s display to the visitors in a guided tour inside the Open Lab curated by Bors Charmatz (and what I decided that must be brought to present and offered as an experience was Simone Forti’s very presence – she has been there a week ago – and voice to tell the story of her works, so I „channelled” with her in what was called Being (with) Simone Forti). For the Finissage, I presented a 30’ solo called “A Tedious Argumentation for the Overwhelming Question Do I Dare?”, where I finally positioned myself – in front of Simone Forti’s display but up in the air, on a wrong-located Wolfsburgerlighter (a vertical metallic display in contradiction to all the other straight rectangular displays) and there I spread my wings and did the impossible thing – flew like Philippe Petit between the Twin Towers and then up in the air I recited T.S. Eliot (it was about as political as I could, personally, get at the ZKM exhibition).
The exhibition/Finissage ended with a several hours “Exorcism” or techno-ritualistic practice to “finish” the exhibition we lived in for 2 months – a collective response from the witnesses.

Being (with) Simone Forti – MOMENTS guided tour

„Noooooooooooo”

I have read about her or seen pictures and videos but I first really laid my eyes on Simone Forti’s face last week at ZKM when she introduced „Face Tunes” to the press, a piece from 1967 about a performer using a slide whisle and a motor to play a drawn score formed by real human profiles thus invoking their subliminal presence.

„I’ve never let the audience know they were listening to patterns derived from faces” – she wrote in 1974 in a beautiful little book called „Handbook in motion”. „I wanted people to listen to the music. I had faith that (…) they would unconsciously sense a familiar kind of order. As form seemed to be the storage place for presence, I hoped that translating a coherent aspect of a set of faces to a corresponding form might awaken a more primitive level of (…) ghost recognition”.

Now she is telling about the faces.

„Whose faces are they?” I ask. „Dead people’s faces”, she answers adding „I wouldn’t dare disturbing my friends’ ghosts”.

„You build such expectation! Do you really feel a presence coming back into the space? Or have you ever?” I ask.

„Noooooooooooo” she whispers her hand pretending to cover the mouth and the word that came into the space.

„Then how come you perform it so often? Do you somehow believe that is is going to happen?”

„Believing is such a word” she answers. Then interruption.

What I love most about Simone Forti, besides the intoxicating surprising smile and the kind affectionate presence or the musical manner of talking is what she understood from John Cage and sensed its importance to tell it further. A simple thing. „To build a situation for a piece that will help her get what she needed”. So, due to personal reasons, a separation, she „nedeed to work with the concept of face and how it becomes subliminal in somebody’s consciousness”. And the audacity in her needs!

The fascination with faces stayed with her. While describing the Woodstock experience, being stoned together with half a million people, she writes: „We all looked into one another’s faces as previously I had looked only into the face of someone I was falling in love with. The kind of look that I’ve often wondered about, and which I associate with what psychologists call imprinting. And now we were all gazing with absolute openness (…).” (Handbook in motion).

„Believing… how can you know that there’s no reason to believe. I believe there are angels arround me that sometimes help me” says Simone Forti.

„I believe that too, but please do not tell” I add and she says „K”. Meanwhile I have changed my mind about telling.

I didn’t do drugs in ZKM but I could’t take my eyes off Simone Forti’s face and I told her.

„It’s maybe because of my age”, she said and I believe her.

(Adriana Gheorghe, witness)

 

MOMENTS: Sleeping performance

A tedious argumentation for the overwhelming question ‘Do I Dare’

Exorcism – A techno-ritualistic act by all the Witnesses and visitors in the end of the Finissage