expo zéro
a performance by Boris Charmatz

  • expo zéro

    "expo zéro", Boris Charmatz at Musée de la danse, Rennes, France, 2009. Photo by Adeline Keil

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites to „expo zéro” – a staged exhibition / performance by Boris Charmatz, one of the most important choreographers, director of Musée de la danse in Rennes, France.

It is an exhibition without any artwork, but with artists, choreographers, dancers, philosophers, theorists, and curators. It includes no objects, photographs, sculptures, or material installations but instead live presence: conversations and situations featuring gestures, words, bodies and movements. Participants conceive a living exhibition on the reasons and means of making movement – from the most personal to the most political. 

There could not have been a more suitable moment for "expo zéro" in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, which is now leaving its temporary exhibition space in the Emilia Pavilion. The premises will have already been emptied from artworks and furniture. Only the performers and spectators will be filling the space. Previous editions took place at Musée de la danse in Rennes, Tate Modern in London, Berliner Festwochen/Foreign Affairs, BAK Utrecht and Performa 11 in NYC. 

The edition at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will feature Boris Charmatz, Pawel Althamer, Romain Bigé, Boris Charmatz, Julie Cunningham, Janez Janša, Boris Ondreička, Chrysa Parkinson, Emily Roysdon, Marlène Saldana, Frank Willens.

On May 5th Boris Charmatz will dance "Untitled" solo by Tino Sehgal at the Performance Hall in the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle as part of TERAZ/NOW festival organised by Fundacja Ciało Się and CCA Ujazdowski Castle.

Musée de la danse / Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne - Directed by Boris Charmatz. The association receives grants from the Ministry of Culture and Communication (Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs / Brittany), the City of Rennes, the Regional Council of Brittany and Ille-et-Vilaine General Council. www.museedeladanse.org

Curators
Magda Lipska
Joanna Warsza
and
Boris Charmatz
Martina Hochmuth

Production
Musée de la danse, Rennes
Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie

Project assistant
Mateusz Maleszkiewicz

Paweł Althamer

born in Warsaw in 1967, is a Polish sculptor and performance artist. He studied under the renowned sculptor Grzegorz Kowalski at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Since graduating in 1993, Althamer has established a body of work centered on portraits of himself as well as friends and family members depicted by haunting, life-size figures. The sculptures often contain materials that are familiar yet disturbing – such as animal intestines, hay, leather, human hair, and resin – prompting viewers to reassess their own role in art’s origination. He is known for his collaborative projects, specifically with the Nowolipie Group, a weekly sculpture workshop he has lead since 1994 for sufferers of multiple sclerosis. Throughout his career he has pursued the transformative potential of art, helping audiences reflect on their own inspiration and discover new interpretations of everyday life.

Works by Pawel Althamer were on view in many solo exhibitions worldwide, including institutions such as: New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2014); Sammlung Goetz, Munich (2012); MUSEION, Bolzano (2012); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2011); Secession, Vienna (2009); Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2007); Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris (2006); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (2004) and Kunsthalle, Basel (1997). Selected group shows include the 7th Berlin Biennale “Forget Fear” (2012); the 8th Gwangju Biennale (2010); “Les Promesses du passé” at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); “The Fifth Floor: Ideas Taking Spaces,” Tate Liverpool (2008); “After Nature”, New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2008); “Dreams and Conflicts – The Viewer’s Dictatorship” at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and documenta X, Kassel (1997). Pawel Althamer lives and works in Warsaw.

Romain Bigé

is a philosophy teacher, a contact improviser and a dance scholar based in Paris, France. An agrégé of philosophy (2013), he is currently pursuing a PhD in the École Normale supérieure on the poetics of Contact Improvisation and the concept of movement in contemporary French philosophy (bergsonism and phenomenology); in 2016, he received a Fulbright grant to continue his study of dance and philosophy in the Dance Department at Smith College, Massachussets. He is interested in the way movement practices shape sensory cartographies and give way to original modes of relating to others. Dancer and choreographer, Boris Charmatz presented from Aatt enen tionon (1996) to manger (2014) a series of highly memorable pieces. While maintaining an extensive touring schedule, he also participates in improvisational events with Saul Williams, Archie Shepp, Médéric Collignon and continues to work as a performer with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Tino Sehgal. He cosigns the books undertraining / On A Contemporary Dance with Isabelle Launay, Emails 2009-2010 with Jérôme Bel, and signs “Je suis une école”, related to the project Bocal, a nomadic and ephemeral school. Associate artist of the 2011 Festival d'Avignon, invited to MoMA (New York) in 2013, and Tate Modern (London) in 2012 and 2015, Boris Charmatz is the director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne since 2009, that he proposes to transform into a Museum of Dance of a new kind. More information is available on: www.museedeladanse.orgwww.borischarmatz.org

Julie Cunningham

was born in Liverpool and trained at the Rambert School in London. Julie has worked with Ballet der Stadt Theater Koblenz, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and the Michael Clark Company. In 2014, Juile was awarded "Outstanding Modern Performance" at the Critics Circle National Dance Awards. Julie is Merce Cunningham Trust fellow for 2016.

Janez Janša

is an author, performer and director. He studied sociology and theatre directing at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and performance theory at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His work contains a strong critical and political dimension and is focused on the relation between art and socio-political context. Since 1999, he has been the director of MASKA, institute for publishing and education, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Boris Ondreička

is a Slovak artist, author, singer and curator of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna.

Chrysa Parkinson

is a dancer living in Brussels, Berkeley and Stockholm. She has performed throughout Europe and the United States in experimental dances since 1984. Since 2010, she has toured and performed with Jonathan Burrows (Dogheart), Mette Ingvartsen (Giant City), and Rosas/Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker (En Atendant, 2010), Cesena (2011). She was a member of ZOO/Thomas Hauert (2001–2010), touring yearly premieres in Europe, South America and Asia. Since moving to Europe from New York, she has also worked with Philip Gehmacher (Walk/Talk, Kaaitheater (2011), Deborah Hay (If I Sing to You (2008), The Match (2004), Meg Stuart (Auf Den Tisch (2006), Jonathan Burrows (Schreibstück (2005), David Zambrano (Mandraking (2003) and others.Teaching and writing are part of her performance practice.

Emily Roysdon

is a New York and Stockholm-based artist and writer. Her working method is interdisciplinary and recent projects take the form of performance, photographic installations, print making, text, video, curating and collaborating. Roysdon developed the concept "ecstatic resistance" to talk about the impossible and imaginary in politics. The concept debuted with simultaneous shows at Grand Arts in Kansas City, and X Initiative in New York and the essay has been translated into Spanish, German, Czech, and Maori languages. She is editor and co-founder of the queer feminist journal and artist collective, LTTR. Her many collaborations include costume design for choreographers Levi Gonzalez, Vannesa Anspaugh and Faye Driscoll, as well as lyric writing for The Knife, and Brooklyn based JD Samson & MEN.
Recent solo projects include new commissions from Secession, Vienna; Performance Room, Tate Modern, London; PARTICIPANT, INC (NYC); If I Can't Dance, Amsterdam; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Visual Art Center, Austin; Art in General, New York; The Kitchen, New York; Konsthall C, Stockholm; and a Matrix commission from the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley. Roysdon's work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the 2010 Whitney Biennial, New York; Greater New York at MoMA PS1; The Generational, New Museum, New York; Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Power Plant, Toronto; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. In 2012 Roysdon was a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize, exhibiting in Kiev and the Venice Biennale. Roysdon's work is in the public collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and The New York Public Library's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, New York. Roysdon completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2001 and an Interdisciplinary MFA at UCLA in 2006. She is a Professor of Art at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden.

Marlène Saldana

has been working with Yves-Noël Genod, Daniel Jeanneteau, Jeanne Balibar. She works currently with Sophie Perez & Xavier Boussiron, Boris Charmatz, Théo Mercier, Christophe Honoré, Jerôme Bel.Just like Friedrich Nietzsche, she knows that we have art in order not to die of the truth, but she wonders sometimes, like Rodrigo Fresan, why to be artist when you can speak about art and named your angora cat Orson or your poodle Muddy Waters. To find an answer, she decide to start writing her own shows with Jonathan Drillet under the name United Patriotic Squadrons of Blessed Diana (The Upsbd). Since then, they presented their work in Paris, New York, Berlin, Fribourg, Gennevilliers, Lyon, Marseille, Lille. Their last creations have been seen in Paris at La Ménagerie de Verre, and the next will be presented at Le CND (spring 2017).

Frank Willens

has lived and worked in Berlin since leaving California in 2003. Since coming to Europe he has realized numerous projects with, among others, Tino Sehgal, Meg Stuart, Peter Stamer, Laurent Chétouane, as well as making his own works. He won a Best Performer Prize for the solo Bildbeschreibung by Laurent Chétouane at the Favoriten Festival in Dortmund and did a project at Schauspiel Köln. He helped develop and direct This Variation by Tino Sehgal at Documenta 13 in Kassel, and is a guest teacher for performance at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg.

See also: