Pieces of Manifesto / 2018
Words crystallize and take the physical space around them – they become text, become
textures. They turn into a programmatic object. A manifesto, by definition, concentrates
and fixates. Two artists - two manifestos merging into one voice, one dialogue, to a canon
of self-analysis, a polyphonia of statements. No text, no voice, but an installative and
interactive manifesto expanding in the space. Karen Bößer looks at the object with a
choreographic view and exercises the language of her movement on the seemingly
motionless item. At the same time the visual artist Beatrix Szörényi dedicates herself not
only to the figurative, but also to her own performance. In ‘Pieces of Manifesto’, the two
artists correlate performance, object and installation with each other in an exemplary,
experimental arrangement. They uncover the specific forms of communication,
conventions and models of their disciplines. A performative space installation, which as a
hybrid questions the conditions of the artistic creation as well as the limits of the
respective genres. Bößer and Szörényi expose the fragments of their manifestos and move
gracefully within the manifestations of their creations. ‘Pieces of Manifesto’ invites the
spectator to join them.
Each iteration of the piece presents a new recombining of the various events, in
accordance with and reflecting on the givens of each specific performance and audience
situation, and presentation context.
Credits
Art direction, choreography, performance: Karen Bößer
Art direction, mixed-media, performance: Beatrix Szörényi
Dramaturgy: Lise Brenner
Documentation: Susanne Diesner
Editing documentation: Dirk Dietrich Hennig
Project Management: Anna-Mareen Henke
Management: Béla Bisom
A production of karen boesser projects
Funded by
Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Du?sseldorf, Ministerium
für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
A co-production with FFT Düsseldorf
In cooperation with Lehmbruck Museum, Trafó
Goethe Institute Budapest
Press reviews
On stage, a non-verbal dialogue between Bößer and Szörényi slowly unfolds, in which they
examine each of the elements involved in the staging and question each other’s working
methods. In this way, the performance highlights, on the one hand, the becoming
spectator, the becoming costume, the becoming audible, the becoming body, the
becoming objects, the becoming stage, the becoming creation, and so forth. It is the
staging itself which is being exposed. On the other hand, in a curious exploration and
examination of the other’s working method, it becomes apparent that this act of showing
occurs in multiple ways and can take various shapes. This radical disclosure becomes itself
a possibly not verbal, but artistically formulated manifesto: about the agenda of the own
work, about the demand to not only make something visible, but about exposing the act of
showing itself, which in the moment in which something is being shown, usually remains
hidden.
Meike Hinnenberg - fidena.de
Many things have been written about developing new work. Bößer and Szörényi have
succeeded in creating one of the better descriptions ?
without words, and full of artistic invention.
PDF Link: Michael S. Zerban - O-Ton / online cultural magazin
Photos: Copyright by Susanne Diesner and Beatrix Szörényi, 2018
