Our friend & contributor Esinem sent this.

More info here

In spite of a youthful fascination with Futurism, Lye was less interested in the mechanical motion of the modern world than in the raw kinetics of nature.
In a 1975 essay entitled “The Art That Moves,” Lye summarized his interest in motion:

“I, myself, eventually came to look at the way things moved mainly to try to feel movement, and only feel it. This is what dancers do; but instead, I wanted to put the feeling of a figure of motion outside of myself to see what I’d got.”

above: Etienne Chambaud
Stock Figures, Figures de Réserve, Figure di riserva (studio view)
Color photograph, tracing paper and tape
70 x 95 cm, 2010
Courtesy Labor, Mexico City

THE SIRENS’ STAGE / LE STADE DES SIRENES / LO STATO DELLE SIRENE
An exhibition in three parts by Etienne Chambaud in collaboration with critic Vincent Normand.

The David Roberts Art Foundation in London, Kadist Art Foundation in Paris and Nomas Foundation in Rome are pleased to present The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene, a fragmented exhibition by Etienne Chambaud in the framework of Vincent Normand’s project Permanent Exhibition, Temporary Collections. The three translations of the exhibition, interpreted in a different language almost simultaneously at each foundation, are based on mechanisms of writing and transcription. Translation should be considered both the medium and the shared language of the whole project.

The project takes its title from the mythological sirens’ song, which invents itself in the ear of its addressee. Here The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is conceived as a group of “written objects”: absent but described, motionless but translated, unique but repeated, mute but transcribed.

The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is made up of an installation of Figures, a group of named, empty plinths (The Reef), which acts as a space from which are emitted layers of speech and text. Actors will occasionally interact with this space, reading, memorising and rehearsing fragments of script and dialogue. Sometimes The Reef will remain silent. A group of framed Instruction Pieces hung on the wall will outline a series of gestures and acts. These will change over the course of the exhibition. A writer (The Copyist), present at all times, will transcribe the evolution of the exhibition day after day. The foundations’ collections will be included through a series of photographs of their storages, in which all crates will be named (Stock Figures). A written contract, drawn up by a lawyer, will outline the conditions for the exchange and the conservation of copies of sculptures exchanged between the three foundations’ collections (The Exchange (The Horse, the Cobblestone, Above the Weather)).

The exhibition is a collection of narrative fragments, playing with accumulations and disappearances, survivals and hauntings. From inscription to oral tradition, polyphony to cacophony, The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene explores its own remains and is constructed on its own echoes, misunderstandings, partial interpretations and incomplete memories. The exhibition is conceived as a series of fossils organising their own archeology.

Opening receptions, exhibition dates and more information:

David Roberts Art Foundation, London:
opening on 18.03.2010 from 7pm / 19.03.2010 – 24.04.2010
http://www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com

Kadist Art Foundation, Paris:
opening on 02.04.2010 / 03.04.2010 – 02.05.2010
http://www.kadist.org

Nomas Foundation, Rome:
opening on 15.04.2010 / 16.04.2010 – 14.05.2010
http://www.nomasfoundation.com

This post is an extension of that one.

Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity, is a major group exhibition in which contemporary artists explore—and on occasion recreate—the condition of weightlessness on earth. The exhibition will present the work of multiple national and international artists, including three newly commissioned pieces for the exhibition. Distributed throughout the public spaces in the building the exhibition is itself un-tethered from the confines of the traditional gallery exhibition paradigm.

Arts Catalyst • Benjamin Bergmann • Denis Darzacq • Edith Dekyndt • Chris Doyle • William Forsythe • Julia Fullerton-Batten • Thom Kubli • Tomás Saraceno • Jane & Louise Wilson • Xu Zhen

Dancing on the Ceiling will bring together artworks that use the metaphor of floating or weightlessness as an expression of the relationship of the individual to social, political or personal contexts. In addition, several of the pieces relate to lightness as akin to an agility of mind, freed of entrenched perspectives.

Curated by Kathleen Forde, Curator of Time-Based Arts, the exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalog including essays by Italo Calvino as well as interviews with commissioned artists Chris Doyle and Thom Kubli.

The exhibition is also contextualized by a series of related performances, talks, films, and events; see the schedule for complete information.

Robert Longo, “Men in the Cities”, 1980s

NB: Don’t miss Aaron Schuster’s essay on levitation, love, and space sex in SB5!

During the stretching sessions of my dance courses, I often happen to broadcast Grace Jones’ Corporate Cannibal piece and while working on the elongation of specific muscles & muscle group, I ask my students to focus on the experience of fascination, which I interpret to be at the crossroads of the imaginary and the corporeal.
Rather than asking how one would have to define the ontological status of fascination, I actually wonder why fascination proves to be a paradigm “par excellence” to cover, that is to say, both nominate and legitimate, contemporary artistic experience?

Pleased to meet you, pleased to have you on my plate
your meat is sweet to me
your destiny
your fate

i’m the spark, make the world explode
i’m a man-eating machine, i’ll make the world explode
corporate cannibal…

Yesterday, we had the pleasure to attend Jean-Luc Verna’s performance at the opening of the Black Mirror exhibition, at théâtre de l’Arsenic, Lausanne.

Cross-posted on Novembre Magazine.