The Frieze week kicked off in London last night, which could only mean one thing: openings galore in the area surrounding the fair’s Regent’s Park venue. There was plenty to be seen, with Paul Morrison opening at Alison Jacques, Richard Tuttle at Modern Art and Charles Avery at Pilar Corrias amongst others. However, given the author’s current predilection for all things performative, the best part of the evening was spent in the packed-out basement of the David Roberts Art Foundation watching a series of performances programmed to (loosely) accompany the space’s current exhibition of the paintings of Miriam Cahn, an artists whose own work is steeped in the performative practices of 1960s and 70s feminism.
Cally Spooner’s circular, schizophrenic and self-absorbed interior monologue, A Solo Event for Thinking (Version 4), played out with Dulcie Lewis, explored the problematic slippage between thought, word and event and the ambiguous position of the script in and as artistic production. This was followed by Karina Bisch’s ca c’est Paris! – a series of bright, carnivalesque live picture-postcards paying irreverent homage to the city. Danai Anesiadou’s first London performance, There’s no such thing as a pretty good omelette, closed the night. Riffing on Cocteau’s Le Sang d’un Poete and other surrealist classics, Anesiadou’s “omlette” mixed hand shadows, Grecian columns, closed doors and subversive props on a bizarre but captivating journey into the cinematic unconscious. But the most striking piece of the evening was Leah Capaldi’s durational performance, Give, in which various female performers spent time propped against the gallery walls, legs supported by makeshift wooden splints. Playing on the inherent “objectness” of the human body to collapse the boundary between performance and sculpture, Capaldi’s bodies “gave” or surrendered their material weight to the walls, as well as “giving” themselves as objects of aesthetic consumption, their stillness echoing the lying or sleeping postures that recur in Cahn’s paintings. Miriam Cahn exhibition continues until Dec 12th. More photos and details below.
The David Roberts Art Foundation
111 Great Titchfield Street, London
Opening Times: Tuesday - Friday 10am - 6pm, Saturdays 11am - 4pm
Related Links:
www.callyspooner.com
http://karina.bisch.free.fr
http://elisaplatteau.com/artist/danai-anesiadou/
