Performance Art at Grace Exhibition Space March 26, 2011

Performances by: ALEXANDRA ZIERLE/PAUL CARTER, KRISTIAN AL-DRUBI
[GERMANY, ENGLAND, SERBIA]

SATURDAY, MARCH 26
8:30-12:00
$5.00 suggested donation, free beer

ALEXANDRA ZIERLE AND PAUL CARTER,

Alexandra Zierle and Paul Carters collaborative work is interdisciplinary, multi-sensory and site and context responsive spanning from live art/performance art, happenings and interventions, to sound, video and installation. Through their practice, Zierle & Carter critically examine different modes of communication and what it means to be human both as individuals and as a collective entity. Their work addresses notions of belonging, cultural identity, the dynamics within relationships, harmony through conflict and the transformation of limitations. Rooted in a fine art context their work adopts a simple yet rich visual aesthetic, which employs various approaches and guises. The work fundamentally explores societys conventions, traditions and rituals both old and new, often flipping them on their head, peeling them back, reversing orders and disrupting the norm. Zierle and Carters work sites an embodied investigation into human interactions with their immediate environment and exemplifies a profound curiosity of the unknown, the void, of embodiment, and the now. At times charged with raw unedited energy and at others, sensitive, composed and sincere, their work initiates contemplation and prompts us to reconsider the way we perceive the foundations that our society and individual realities are based upon. Their work acts as an invitation to venture into the spaces that lie in-between the external and internal, the permanent and transient, the spoken and unheard. Shifting in format, content and duration, their works have varied in length, from a series of short actions to three days durational works, a week long intensive to a three-week long residency. To date their work has explored one to one interactive performances, social sculpture, process led actions, devised work, improvisation and the making and breaking of rules, body centred works, object led works, bold/highly visible work, and sensitive/discreet actions. Exploring Site, Zierle & Carters work has occupied both gallery and public space. Non gallery sites have included busy shopping streets, a indoor city market, a library, a World War 2 bunker, a disused railway tunnel, and under stairways. Also working nomadically and to hand during the Ferdinand Zweig Scholarship in Argentina, work was created in city squares, housing estates, in Patagonian Welsh communities, the top of a volcano, at the base of a glacier, in a hot spring, and in deserts.

Zierle and Carter; www.zierlecarterliveart.com

KRISTIAN AL-DRUBI

Interview performance by Kristian Al Droubi Questions about political powerlessness of radical art practices, about confession as a media spectacle, about the imperative of pleasure in contemporary post-industrial society, about the impotence of communication, about the impossibility of subjectivization, etc. Questions based on the text by Bojana Kunst, Ph.D., drill deep into the problem core which Via Negativa has always been concerned with. Conversation with Kristian in the form of a classic interview is usually led by an invited interrogator from a local area, where the performance is held. With questions about his powerlessness in contemporary post-industrial society Kristian deals as a performer – he argues for his believes not only with his words but also with his whole body. Questions based on the text by Bojana Kunst, Ph.D. (Powerlessness of Radical Consumption, 2009), adapted by Bojan Jablanovec Answers: Kristian Al Droubi and Bojan Jablanovec Performers: Kristian Al Droubi and his guest Concept and direction: Bojan Jablanovec Producer: Špela Trošt Production: Via Negativa, 2009 Duration: 50 min

Via Negativa vntheatre.com/en/about-via-negativa/