Moments
Curators: Boris Charmatz, Sigrid Gareis, Georg Schöllhammer

A History of Performance in 10 Acts

An exhibition at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art Performance as part of the performing and fine arts has many faces. Until now the connecting element conceived of performance as direct, situational, place-bound and transient. New questions emerge in connection with the present interest in re-enactment: how is the performative to be presented in the museal context? In what way is this art form to be documented?
This is the challenge taken up by the exhibition project.

“Moments. A History of Performance in 10 Acts” is an international live exhibition on the history of art performance in dance and fine art. As an exhibition ‘in progress’, the project shows and develops new formats of museal presentation of live acts.

During the eight week duration of the exhibition project a scenic act around ten central stages of dance and performance history unfolds – as witnessed by a group of experts invited to accompany and observe for the entire period – before the audience.

Among others, the artists represented in the exhibition will be Marina Abramović, Graciela Carnevale, Simone Forti, Anna Halprin, Reinhild Hoffmann, Channa Horwitz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sanja Iveković, Adrian Piper and Yvonne Rainer. The artists themselves document their historical performances in exhibition spaces. In collaboration with colleagues from art and theory (Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Nikolaus Hirsch, Lenio Kaklea, Jan Ritsema, Christine De Smedt, Gerald Siegmund, Burkhard Stangl, Meg Stuart) Boris Charmatz approaches the documented works scenically and develops on-site a live act in a laboratory situation around this central moment of performance history. The artist Ruti Sela will be documenting this artistic approach to the work of their predecessors by way of film documentaries and will produce a film in the actual exhibition context itself. A group of students at renowned European universities will be accompanying the entire process.
Directed by the group Charmatz, and in collaboration with the ZKM | Museum Communication, new performative methods and actions of the mediation of historical performance will be presented to visitors.

Extracts from the Press release of ZKM

Ruti Sela created the movie The Witness about Moments. A History of Performance in 10 Acts.

Running time: March 8–April 29, 2012

Display concept: Johannes Porsch

Production: ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art ; Musée de la danse / Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne – Direction: Boris Charmatz. Association supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles / Bretagne), the city of Rennes, the regional Council of Brittany and the General Council of Ille-et-Vilaine.
The Institut français contributes regularly to the international touring of the Musée de la danse.

Created at ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany in 2012

Cover picture: © Pietro Pellini / Moments, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Allemagne, 2012

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